West Bengal’s Left Front regime suppresses protests against land seizures

Recent months have seen a growing popular agitation against the West Bengal government’s seizure of 1,000 acres, most of it prime agricultural land, near the town of Singur, which lies in Hoogly district, not far from the state capital Kolkata (Calcutta). The land is to be sold—reportedly at a bargain price—to the Indian multinational Tata Motors so that it can build a car-assembly plant.

Tata’s state-supported expropriation threatens the small farmers, sharecroppers and agricultural labourers who have hitherto worked the land with ruin.

While the Left Front claims to be offering a generous compensation package, much if not most of the compensation will go to the land’s legal owners, most of whom are absentee landlords.

None of the people whose livelihood is being pitilessly destroyed were in anyway consulted whether they wished to part with the land they till for their survival for the benefit of Tata Motors. Any compensation they receive will be in the form of cash, not land.

West Bengal’s Stalinist-led government has responded to the anti-land seizure protest campaign, which has included petitions, demonstrations, strikes, and sits-ins, with derisory propaganda and by unleashing violent state repression.

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http://wsws.org/articles/2006/dec2006/beng-d12.shtml