The communist chief minister of the Indian state of West Bengal now reminds me of Macbeth: A good man with blood on his hands, the blood of the people he was expected to serve. The difference is Macbeth killed his king; Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has to answer for the deaths of poor villagers who refused to give up their land for the special economic zones he wants to build. And there was no Lady Macbeth goading him on; only his grand vision of industrial development which alienated the peasants who had been the most faithful supporters of his party .
Personally, I agree West Bengal needs industrial development. Three decades of uninterrupted communist rule have left the state in an economic morass. The communists under the former chief minister Jyoti Basu did not promote industry like Bangalore or Hyderabad. They distributed land among the peasants and supported trade unionism with the result they won election after election. But jobs disappeared as industries moved elsewhere and young, educated middle-class Bengalis with professional qualifications went abroad and other parts of India to earn a living.
Bhattacharjee, who succeeded Basu, has been trying to bring back industries to West Bengal. Thanks to him, the state capital Calcutta (Kolkata) is thriving and has a growing IT industry. But he is facing the same problem as the communists in China: There is unrest in the villages where his government has been trying to acquire land for industrial development.
The problem is not confined to West Bengal. Other Indian states are also trying to build special economic zones. Historian Sumit Sarkar has called it the biggest land grab since Indian independence.
But the conflict is sharper in West Bengal because of the nature of the adversaries: Communists tend to be authoritarian, and the peasants are especially bitter because they feel betrayed by the party they had supported so long.
Reports now say at least 14 people were killed when police fired on villagers in Nandigram, more than 100 km from Calcutta. The police opened fire even though there were women and children in the crowd which pelted them with stones and home-made bombs. Bhattacharjee can’t blame the police. He made his intentions quite clear before sending the police to Nandigram, where an agitation had been going on for more than two months against plans to build a special economic zone and a mega chemical hub.
The Statesman published from Calcutta reports: "Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee (at a rally in Calcutta three days ago) …threatened that the state of affairs at Nandigram ‘won’t be tolerated any longer’. "
A senior police officer said as many 3,000 policemen were mobilised. The chief minister clearly meant business. He now says he is shocked by the deaths but the police fired in self-defence.
That may be so, but the fact remains communists can be notoriously intolerant. Plenty of communists in the villages and small towns of West Bengal have been accused of violence and intimidation.
Bhattacharjee himself is admired for his honesty and integrity. But he likes to have his own way. We saw that when he wanted the police commissioner of Calcutta elected president of the Cricket Association of Bengal. It wasn’t enough that he held power over the whole state, he wanted to decide who ran the cricket association too.
No wonder he couldn’t tolerate the agitation any longer. He had to impose his authority. After all, he is the chief minister.
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