About a week has passed since the latest incident at Nandigram, the government is still seen fumbling at the rapid turn of events. There have been protests, some symbolic like the intellectuals resigning from their coveted posts, others violent like those taking to streets to damage public property. Even proceedings at the assembly/parliament are being stalled daily.
The question that is now uppermost in many people’s mind is what now? This is a million-dollar question because the situation today is vastly different from what it has ever been in past 3 decades or more. Let there be no doubt that had this ‘defiance’ on part of Nadigram’s people occurred during any of their previous tenures, the ruling party would have crushed it without much of a murmur. Keshpur is a testimony of that.
Today, as the state is on the verge of industrial takeoff, every sound of dissonance is getting snowballed into major conflict. In a way, it’s the morass the ruling party has created by scaring away all forms of development in the name of struggle against the so-called privileged that is responsible for the present situation. The misdeeds of yesteryears are now striking back.
There is a strange dichotomy in Bengal today. On one hand, its fertile lands, nearness to ports, strategic geographical location, some good educational institutes, availability of ‘skilled’ manpower, and most importantly the newly reformed investor-friendly outlook of powers-that-be are driving in investors in droves.
On the other, violent protests are raging everywhere whenever there is a talk of land acquisition. The principal opposition party, despite all its breast-beating and concern for land-losers, singularly lacks any alternative plan for development. It doesn’t have any, not because no economist worth his/her salt dons its ranks, but because there just isn’t any.
Bengal has to prosper through industrialization, that too on farmlands only. This is a natural progress of any economy, whether one likes it or not. Just as computers couldn’t be barred from every sphere of our life despite the left’s vehement protests in early 80s, similarly big industries must happen to Bengal if only because that is how the economy of a state or a nation develops.
But when? Will it be another decade or so before the reality dawns on us? Or, will it be in coming years? Everything depends on how the ruling party conducts itself. That its landslide victory in last assembly elections is a proof of people’s vote for rapid industrialization is already proved as a misnomer. The onus is therefore squarely on it to win people’s hearts and minds by explaining that industrialization is and will be the only answer to improve the quality of their lives.
If that takes time, let that be. We have already lost precious decades to do what we should have done long back, so that hordes of talents wouldn’t have left the state for better avenues elsewhere, so that there wouldn’t have been any hunger, illiteracy, lack of proper health facilities, unemployment and struggle for mere survival.
If you ask me, I’d suggest the government should proceed like we used to answer our exam scripts. Answer those first, which you know you can write well, tackling the difficult ones later. Similarly, the government must first proceed wherever the going is relatively smooth, for example expanding the Asansol-Durgapur belt, letting Jindals and Tata Motors to come up with their facilities fast.
Once those happen, and everyone sees how big industries can improve lifestyle of common people, the path to more industrialization will become smoother. It doesn’t matter what some armchair opinion givers feel about it, what is of paramount importance is the improvement of Bengal’s rickety economy in the long run.
Again it doesn’t matter who in the power does it – the present government or the unlikely possibility of an opposition government. As Deng Xiao Ping once famously said, it doesn’t matter whether the cat is black or white as long as it catches mouse.
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