AROUND 40KM FROM Kolkata, and a short distance off the national highway that connects West Bengal’s capital to Delhi, lies a village once known for its green fields—Singur. The once-abundant fields are mostly fallow now. Also gone are the remains of a factory which was supposed to roll out the world’s cheapest car, the Tata Nano.
It was the protests against the Nano project that put Singur on India’s political map. More than a decade ago, around 2,000 farmers who were forced to give up fertile land started an agitation that not only led to Tata abandoning the half-built factory and shifting the project to Gujarat, but also ended the decades-old left front rule in West Bengal. It was on the back of the agitation in Singur, and a similar movement in Nandigram, that Mamata Banerjee and the Trinamool Congress rode to power in 2011.
In Singur, though, memories of that famous struggle have faded. Mahadeb Manna, a farmer who had celebrated the day Mamata was sworn in, is now disillusioned. “The leaders have let us down,” he says. “We have nowhere to go now. What shall I do with these patches of barren land?”
It is sundown and Manna, 55, is grazing his cattle on a field overrun by wild bushes and trees. The three acres he was forced to give up for the factory has been restored to him, but it is of no use. Around 1,000 acres in Singur were acquired for the project, but by the time farmers got all of it back after a long legal battle, the fields had become uncultivable. The compensation that farmers received from the state government—a few lakh rupees each—was hardly adequate. “The land could never be restored to how it was,” says Mahadeb. “I am now looking to sell it. But it is difficult to find buyers, as the land can only be used for industrial purposes now.”
Darkness falls, and Mahadeb takes leave. “I have to go back,” he says. “There are no lights on the way home.” Streetlights had come and gone with the Nano project.
As Mahadeb leaves, his friend arrives on a bicycle. Ashim Das, too, was a farmer, but his two acres are now barren. “We are no longer farmers,” he says angrily. “I am a daily-wage labourer now.” Ashim says he is ready to call “the bluff of the Trinamool” in this election. His aggression makes passers-by look at him.
This time, the battle to win the Singur assembly constituency is between Becharam Manna of the Trinamool and Rabindranath Bhattacharya of the BJP. Bhattacharya was president of the organisation that led the land movement; Manna was its convener. A former Trinamool minister, Bhattacharya had quit the party after he was denied a ticket. At 89, he is the oldest candidate in the fray.
Bhattacharya’s decision to join the BJP, however, has not gone down well with supporters. “He should have taken our permission before joining the BJP,” says Ashim. “Does he not know that the farm movement is still continuing in Singur? We still have livelihood issues, and the land here remains uncultivable.”
Like other farmers, Ashim has been receiving rations free of cost from the state government. Families in Singur have also been getting 02,000 a month, along with regular supplies of rice and wheat, as compensation for their losses. But like many others, Ashim is not happy. He knows that the Singur agitation has cost him. “Initially, the monthly allowance and free rice were good,” he says. “But then I understood: I have to get my son and daughter educated. Where would the money come from?”
To make ends meet, he became a vegetable vendor. “I sold vegetables in the local market. The money helped my son become a graduate with a diploma in computer design,” he says.
Ashim does not like Manna, who was Mamata’s minister of agriculture. He alleges that Manna helped candidates who were less qualified than others land government jobs. “Most of them were relatives of ruling-party leaders,” he says. “But my son, even though he was well-educated, failed to get any help. Time has come to teach these leaders a lesson.”
Early last year, Ashim’s son got a job at a small Kolkata-based company. He began getting a monthly salary of Rs18,000, but the pandemic suddenly ended the steady income. Ashim holds the state government responsible for his family’s plight. “During the lockdown, I was beaten up by the police,” he says. “The government that could not give us jobs attacked us.”
The land movement was indeed justified, say Ashim and Mahadeb, but they feel that the factory would have improved their lives. “At least, our sons and daughters would have had jobs,” says Mahadeb. “We were trapped and misled by politicians. They are the real culprits.”
The resentment only gets stronger as one travels deeper into the villages around Singur. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP had recorded a lead of more than 12,000 votes in the Singur assembly segment. Sanath Das, who owns a sweet shop at Bora village, says Bhattacharya, being an experienced leader, could well have sensed which way the wind was blowing.
The rift between Bhattacharya and Manna has only deepened the disillusionment in Singur. “They could not see eye to eye,” says Sanath. “They used to plot against each other.”
Bhattacharya lives in the neighbouring Haripal constituency, from where Manna had won in 2016. Manna’s wife, Karabi, is the Trinamool candidate in Haripal this time.
A retired high-school headmaster, Bhattacharya is referred to as mastermoshoi (respected teacher) by supporters. Bhattacharya calls Manna, who dropped out of school after class 10, as his “disciple” who later turned corrupt. Trinamool leaders, however, say Manna, 45, is more popular than Bhattacharya.
Manna himself denies that Bhattacharya was his political mentor. “Rabinbabu was my disciple, in fact. He is a person with a mean mentality. It is better to not talk about him. I am sure that I will win by a huge margin,” he says.
Manna says Bhattacharya won elections because of him, and that it was based on his recommendation that Mamata made him minister. “He would not have survived politically without me. In return, he gave me no respect,” he says.
Many of Manna’s erstwhile supporters now oppose him. One such person is Manoranjan Malik, who describes himself as a symbol of the Singur movement. He is the father of Tapashi Malik, a 16-year-old protester who was raped and murdered, allegedly by CPI(M) workers, in 2006. Even after 15 WWyears, says Manoranjan, justice has not been done. “In the 2018 local body polls, Manna even gave tickets to the nephew of one of the culprits who killed my daughter,” he says.
After Mamata came to power, Tapashi’s story was included in school textbooks. She also gave jobs to Manoranjan’s two sons. “I have every reason to thank didi,” he says. “One son works at Kolkata Metro and the other at the state secretariat. What more could I ask for? Still, the condition of the Trinamool here pains me.”
Manoranjan runs a shop selling imitation jewellery near Singur railway station. Despite losses, he has been keeping the shop open because Mamata had helped him set up the business. But the fact that his daughter’s killers are roaming free is tormenting him. “A lower court had convicted the two main culprits, but the High Court granted them bail,” he says. “The government did nothing after that, and I don’t know why.”
Manoranjan believes that Mamata would return to power in Bengal, but he is unsure whether the Trinamool can win Singur and Haripal. “Anybody can win these two constituencies,” he says. “Time is ripe for punishment.”