In an even more barbaric rerun of March 2007, the CPI(M) has let loose a reign of terror in Nandigram. As on the earlier occasion, the latest aggression was planned at highest levels and executed in two phases. First, in early November hordes of hoodlums armed with rifles and automatic weapons and backed by the administration recaptured the areas which had broken free from the rulers’ rowdyism. The next step was taken on 10 November. On that fateful day some 20,000 men, women and children took out two processions to go back to their own villages, their own homes and hearths. They were visibly unarmed and peaceful, not even carrying many flags which could double up as sticks. And yet they became targets of sniper fire. Some died on the spot, many more fatally wounded, while many of those who ran for their lives were caught by the assailants. The latter also went on a rampage looting and torching huts, raping women and beating up men.
During the entire course of “Operation Nandigrab” and the follow-up dose of vindictive terror, three smart measures were taken. The police was kept absolutely immobilised to give the marauders a free hand. The killer squads were instructed to mop up bodies of the victims – dead or fatally wounded – so the number of confirmed casualties remained on the lower side. Third, mediapersons were not allowed into the action zone to prevent live telecast of terror as during earlier episodes of aggression on Nandigram and Singur. The actual extent of violence thus remained grossly underreported.
The renewed killing spree in Nandigram unmistakably demonstrates the CPI(M)’s absolute contempt for the great explosion of popular protest against violence in Singur and Nandigram. The party also refused to learn from the public outcry against the rationing scam and the Rizwanur case. Or from the serious reverses suffered by its students’ wing in JNU, which owed a lot to the bloodbath in Nandigram. On the contrary, it shamelessly requisitioned para-military forces from the Centre to enforce peace in Nandigram, thus owning up its lack of will and capacity to solve the problem politically.
To what extent the CRPF will bring peace back to battered Nandigram is anybody’s guess; more important are the political implications of this move. At this moment the fresh arrival of central forces betokens only a deeper understanding between a cooperating Centre and a friendly Left Front, where the former agrees to extend full cooperation in subjugating Nandigram and the latter flashes the green signal for the government to proceed towards talks in the IAEA. This is the most reprehensible part of the CPI(M) move – trading Nandigram for backtracking on opposition to the nuclear deal. However, one cannot forget how in the past such dependence on the central forces to contain popular movements had backfired on Left-led governments earlier in West Bengal and Tripura.
As the LF government resorts to more and more repressive measures – it even lathicharged and arrested artists and intellectuals protesting against the latest round of bloodbath – the camp of left and democratic opposition is getting wider and stronger. Recent rounds of protests by leading artists, literary personalities and intellectuals were joined by many who had hesitated to cross the rubicon earlier in the year. The massacre was timed to coincide with the Diwali festival and on 10 November an international film festival also opened in Kolkata. The latter naturally provided the occasion for noted film personalities to raise their voice and this gave a further boost to the already strong protest by civil society. In another important development, the three junior partners of the LF publicly condemned the recent bloodletting in Nandigram and blamed it exclusively on the Big Brother. Public demand for resignation of the hated Chief Minister is also growing again. A very successful Bengal bandh has already been organised and a mahamichhil (huge procession) of citizens is scheduled for 14 November.
West Bengal is up in arms against an increasingly arrogant CPI(M) leadership; what is now urgently needed is a new platform of broad left unity sans CPI(M) to lead the resurgent mass movements and preempt a rightist backlash. The CPI(ML) which has always been in the forefront of the political movement against the opportunist Left will extend all support to any such move towards an alternative platform of Left Unity in West Bengal.
CPI(ML)’s Initiatives on Nandigram in West Bengal
Apprehending an impending massacre at Nandigram, a party delegation team of our party submitted a memorandum to the SP and DM of East Midnapore on 6 November. On 7 November, held a Protest Demonstration at Writers’ Building – in which 27 comrades were arrested.
On 10 November CPI(ML) held a protest march from Subodh Mullick Square to Esplanade. The march, led by Party General Secretary Comrade Dipankar Bhattacharya, and WB State Secretary Comrade Kartick Pal, blocked the road at Esplanade, where Comrade Dipankar and Kartick Pal addressed the gathering. The blockade continued for an hour, and after that the activists went to express solidarity and support to the nearby spot where Medha Patkar was holding her fast. Addressing the gathering at that spot, Comrade Dipankar Bhattacharya gave a call to observe Bengal Bandh on 12 November. The same evening at 7.30 pm, 10 students were arrested from near the Nandan complex – for no reason at all. These students included four AISA activists as well as a senior research scholar and former student of JNU. The arrested students were eventually released past midnight.
Renowned intellectuals, film artists, poets, writers, like Aparna Sen and Rituparna Ghosh boycotted the Kolkata Film Festival and organized a protest march. Students of AISA as well as activists of the Gana Sanskritik Parishad including Manas Ghosh, a lecturer at the Jadavpur University Film Studies Department and also a delegate to the film festival, also participated in that march. When the march reached near Nandan, the venue of the Film Festival and the cultural hub of the city, police lathicharged and arrested them. This unprecedented high handedness of the administration was condemned and protested widely, and the entire civil society expressed their anger in strongest terms. Artists and students, including activists of AISA gathered at the gates of Lal Bazaar Police Station and protested for four hours until the detained people were released.
Barring the left front partners, all the political parties in West Bengal gave a call for Bangla Bandh on 12 November. Our party cadres organized rallies at many places – including Jadavpur and Behala in Kolkata. In Nadia, CPI(M) goons attacked our procession and one of our women comrades, Comrade Apu, suffered a serious head injury and is still in hospital. WB witnessed an unprecedented Bandh having strong public support.
On November 13, the platform of student organizations – the Chhatra Chhatri Sanhati Mancha held a torchlight procession from the Jadavpur University campus to Gole Park at 6 pm. En route they blockaded the road for some time at Madhusudan Mancha – one of the venues of the Film Festival. AISA participated in this protest action.
The entire state continues to fight in protest. The intellectuals have decided to hold a massive rally on 14th Nov and invited all to participate sans political leanings. Activists of our party and mass organisations will participate in that rally.
Protest Against the Assault on Cultural Figures in West Bengal
In protest against the severe assault on the cultural figures, filmmakers, writers and artists who protested on the Nandigram issue, Jan Sanskriti Manch took the initiative of mobilizing writers, artists and cultural activists to sign a statement of protest addressed to the President of India. Signatories to this protest statement include Prof. Manager Pande (President JSM); Viren Dangwal (Poet); Ravikiran Jain, President PUCL U.P.; Prof Lal Bahadur Verma, historian and editor of Itihasbodh; Prof. Anita Gopesh, Botany Deptt. Allahabad University; Prof Rajendra Kr, Critic and State President Jan Sanskriti Manch UP; Ajay Singh, senior journalist and ex General Secretary JSM; Dr. Brijbihari, General Secretary PUHR UP; Pranay Krishna, General Secretary JSM; Yash Malviya (poet); Anshu Malviya (poet); Suryanarayan Singh, Assistant Prof. Hindi Deptt AU; Vivek Kumar Tiwari, Asst Prof, Physics Deptt, AU; Manoj Mishra, sub editor, Amar Ujala, Allahabad; and Manoj Kr. Singh, President, PUHR, UP.
Protest in Delhi against Events in Nandigram
Students, academicians, journalists, lawyers, artists and other intellectuals came together in Delhi’s Connaught Place area on 12 November 2007, in a protest called by Forum for Democratic Initiatives, to protest against the attack by the CPI(M) in Nandigram.
The protest held outside the Bengal Government’s office in New Delhi, called for an immediate end to the forcible take-over of people’s land in Nandigram and ending the terror unleashed on the people of Nandigram in the “recapture” of land by antisocial elements and CPI(M) cadres under police patronage. Demands were made for immediately opening the Nandigram area to media, journalists and fact-finding teams, a high level-impartial inquiry into the events in Nandigram and fixing responsibility on the culprits behind the killings and criminal assaults, suspension of the DM and SP of the area while the inquiry is being conducted and framing of murder charges against the police men, anti socials and CPI(M) cadre named by the people during the inquiry.
Professors Arun Kumar, Sumit Sarkar, Amit Bhaduri, Manoranjan Mohanty, Uma Chakravarti, Shubendhu Ghosh, Journalists Sumit Chakravarty, Praful Bidwai, Harsh Sethi, Political Scientist Yogendra Yadav, film maker Sanjay Kak, artist Ashok Bhaumik, Supreme Court lawyer Prashant Bhushan, scores of well-known democratic and social activists, Jansanskriti Manch activists and teachers from Delhi University and Jamia Millia Islamia, AISA National Gen Secy. Ravi Rai , JNUSU President Sandeep Singh and office bearers Shefalika and Mobeen and AISA members from the three universities in Delhi, demanded that the West Bengal Chief Minister, Buddhadev Bhattacharya, must tender a resignation. They stated that the Chief Minister should take moral responsibility for nearly 11 months of terror faced by people in Nandigram, as a result of his government’s policies of land acquisition for Special Economic Zones and other multinational hubs.
The meeting was conducted by Forum for Democratic Initiatives, Convenor, Radhika Menon and a memorandum was submitted to the Resident Commissioner.
Democratic Voices on Nandigram
West Bengal Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi: Large numbers of armed persons from outside the district have, it is undeniable, forced themselves onto villages in Nandigram Block I and II for territorial assertion. Thousands of villagers have consequently been intimidated into leaving their homes… several huts are ablaze. Large numbers of villagers have taken refuge in the local high school in Nandigram, bereft of food and personal security…. the manner in which the “recapture” of Nandigram villages is being attempted is totally unlawful and unacceptable.
I find it equally unacceptable that while Nandigram has been ingressed with ease by armed people on the one hand, political and non-political persons trying to reach it have been violently obstructed. Some of them were bearing relief articles for the homeless. The treatment meted to Smt Medha Patkar and other associates for hers last evening was against all norms of civilized political behaviour…. Let me conclude by saying: Enough is enough. Peace and security should be restored, without any delay, from where they have been evicted from Nandigram.
CPI(M)’s Own Ally, Kshiti Goswami, RSP leader and Minister in the WB Government, expressing a desire to resign, “This is definitely an expedition of killing, plunder and destruction…. We have been deceived by the CPM. One thing is being said, another thing is being done.”
Bijoy Chowdhury, an award-winning photojournalist, who managed to evade the CPI(M) blockades to enter Nandigram gave this eyewitness account: “The situation is grave and the CPI-M is plundering village after village. You have to see to believe it. There are bullets flying everywhere and blood is splattered all over the place. Police are mute spectators….The CPI-M is saying that the Maoists are entrenched in Nandigram. But where are they? It is all CPI-M men mounting an onslaught on their rivals.”
Noted filmmakers
Aparna Sen: “The Left Front may be running the state government, but the state belongs to us…. ‘this bloodied slaughterhouse is not my country’….For our democratic rights, we must fight.”
CPI(M)’s Voices of Terror and Misinformation
Dum Dum Dawai
They (the opposition at Nandigram) should be given the ‘Dum Dum dawai’ treatment (a sound thrashing – this was a phrase in popular use against hoarders during the food movement of 1966; now turned against the people by CPI(M)) – CPI(M) MP and Politburo member Brinda Karat at an AIDWA Rally in Dum Dum, Kolkata on November 4.
CM’s Open Defence of Terror
“What I am simply saying is that they (the Bhumi Ucched supporters) were paid back in their own coin.” – West Bengal CM Buddhadeb Bhattacharya
‘Paying back in the same coin’ – can this be the voice of a head of a state? Does it not sound uncomfortably like a certain other CM who defended genocide through Newton’s Law?
Myth of Maoists
Prakash Karat and Buddhadeb alike have claimed a ‘Trinamool-Maoist’ link up in Nandigram – and have justified the CPI(M) siege as necessary to making Nandigram ‘terror-free’, claiming a Maoists attempt to turn Nandigram into a ‘liberated zone’. Sections of the media have lapped up this theory. Is it true? Not according to the State’s own Home Secretary Prasad Ranjan Roy who has declared that the West Bengal government has no information about the Maoists infiltration into Nandigram.
Asked about this by the press, Buddhadeb was unfazed – he replied that there had indeed been Maoists there – but he does not know where they have gotten to now!
CPI(M)’s Efforts for ‘Peace’
In an editorial, the Hindu has defended the CPI(M) claiming that since the WB Government had long back withdrawn all attempts to acquire land for an SEZ chemical Hub, and had in fact done all it could to restore peace – the only raison d’etre of a ‘Campaign against Land grab’ was a politically motivated attempt by the Opposition to foment violence.
The truth?
For the past 11 months, CPI(M) cadre have launched an unrelenting campaign of terror against the people of Nandigram who dared to defy and defeat its plans for the SEZ for Salem. Even after the Khammam firing, elder statesman Jyoti Basu declared that firing was justified at Nandigram though not at Khammam. And Benoy Konar, CPI(M) CCM, declared that “The CPI(M) is not at all ashamed of the Nandigram incident and the question of giving compensation to families of those killed in police firing on 14 March or taking action against police officials doesn’t arise… At the best we can offer some pity.” (Statesman July 31)
When the firing was never regretted but rather defended; when the minimum question of compensation for the victims was not even entertained but derisively dismissed; when the question of acting against police officials guilty for March 14 never arose – how can it be believed that the WB Government wanted ‘peace’? Could the people of Nandigram believe that those who encircled and besieged and brutalized them would let them live in peace and would leave their land alone? With seniormost leaders prescribing doses of ‘dum dum dawai’, could they believe they would escape retaliation?
CPI(ML) Memo to The President
(sent on 7 November)
Hon’ble Shrimati Pratibha Patil
President of India
Rashtrapati Bhawan
New Delhi
Sub: Seeking urgent intervention to restore peace in Nandigram
Dear Madam,
I am writing this to express our grave concern over the ongoing developments in Nandigram in East Medinipur district of West Bengal. You must be aware that instead of trying to restore a sense of public confidence in the people of Nandigram, the administration has been kept willfully paralysed in the area and armed miscreants backed by the CPI(M) have been given a free hand to terrorise the people who had resisted the bid to set up an SEZ in Nandigram. Not less than fifteen people are feared to have been killed over the last few days while thousands of people have had to flee their homes and villages. The statement made by the Home Secretary of the State clearly indicates that the local CPI(M) has triggered the present round of violence.
We had submitted a memorandum to the DM and SP of East Medinipur district on 6 November demanding immediate arrest of armed miscreants backed by the CPI(M) who are responsible for attacking the people. We also demanded action against CPI(M) leaders and people’s representatives who are systematically whipping up tension by issuing provocative statements. A most recent example has been CPI(M) Rajya Sabha MP Brinda Karat’s public speech advocating “Dumdum Dawai” (direct physical action) to silence the voice of dissent in Nandigram.
The district and state administration however turned a deaf ear to our plea for effective administrative intervention in the interest of peace and justice and the people of Nandigram have been subjected to a state-sponsored campaign of planned and systematic assault and intimidation. Leaders and activists trying to visit the area are also being attacked and stopped by the armed goons with the active patronage of the ruling party while the administration remains a mute spectator.
We would therefore seek immediate intervention on your part to stop this campaign of violence and restore peace and order in the area. Exemplary action must be initiated against the culprits and the state government too must be censured for its utter dereliction of responsibility. Nandigram has been bleeding since January 2007 and despite powerful protests by the civil society in West Bengal and in the entire country, the state government and the ruling party continue to ridicule the voice of peace and justice. Yesterday’s official announcement of payment of Rs.200,000 as compensation to the victims of the March 14 massacre even as the killers and attackers were going on scot-free with their violent campaign could only be seen as a cynical move by a government that has no concern for the lives of innocent citizens and wants to complete its duty only by making belated token announcements of compensation.
We would request you to pay a personal visit to the area and initiate urgent and appropriate measures to restore peace and order in Nandigram and bring all the guilty to justice.
Yours truly,
(Dipankar Bhattacharya)
General Secretary, CPI(ML)
(Kartik Pal)
Secretary, CPI(ML) West Bengal State Committee
