Gujarat’s Gain and Bengal’s Loss? ‘‘Development,’ – Land Acquisition in India and the Tata Nano Project: A Comparison of Singur with Sanand

By Devparna Roy

It is necessary to understand the political economy and recent political history of West Bengal to understand the “success” of the unwilling farmers in Singur who were protesting against the Tata Nano project. It is necessary to do the same for Gujarat in order to understand why there has been no similar resistance in Sanand. Accordingly, this paper has three main objectives. The first objective is to present a nuanced comparative analysis of two subnational political regimes and associated civil societies: that of Gujarat and of West Bengal. The argument is that though the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Gujarat and the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front government in West Bengal are ideologically located at the opposite ends of the political spectrum in India, there are certain similarities in the political regimes, specifically in their definition of the model of “development” to be pursued and the means to strive for this kind of “development”, and in their means of achieving hegemony (however fragile it may be) in their respective regional civil societies. The second objective of this paper is to provide a portrait of the unwilling peasants of Singur, who were against the Tata Nano factory in West Bengal. I will also discuss why there is no such resistance (as yet!) in Sanand (Gujarat) where the factory has relocated. Singur’s unwilling peasants were able to craft an alliance with urban middle-class intellectuals, regional and national non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and opposition political parties (the most important of which was the Trinamool Congress or TMC). This alliance was successful in forcing Tata Motors out of Singur. In Sanand, the situation is different. The third objective of the paper is to analyze and critique the role of an important national non-governmental organization, the National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM), which has played a significant role in opposing so-called development projects in rural areas of Gujarat and West Bengal over the few decades. In Gujarat, the Narmada Bachao Andolan (or NBA), led by Medha Patkar, the Gandhian social activist, opposed the dam on river Narmada. NBA is one of the founding members of the NAPM. In West Bengal, NAPM and 2 Patkar have opposed the Tata Nano project. By returning to the basic political economic questions of land acquisition and land rights and by supporting the TMC, NBA/NAPM has contributed to the success of the Singur resistance (which was not the case with the Narmada struggle, due to a host of reasons). However, whether the Singur resistance is able to bring to power a political party which can address alternative models of development, i.e. alternatives to corporate-led industrialization, remains to be seen.