Incisive as always. Jain also has a few lessons for those who care to learn about the Hindu conception of dharma vis a vis maintaining a harmonious social order. From the Pioneer, in full.

Left caught red-handed

Sandhya Jain

Nandigram has emerged as the symbol of what a soulless state leviathan driven by an imported ideology can do to unarmed natives resisting its grand design of social deconstruction and corporate engineering. Nandigram showcases how native India combats ‘foreign’ tyranny - with blood, bones, and the raw courage of men, women, and children. Nandigram shows that people’s power can melt the barrel of the gun. At least two women have been raped, yet it is the Government that has lost honour.

For West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, it must be an unexpected lesson in the dialectics of dharma. As a saga of state-party jugalbandi to grab village land for foreign capitalists, Nandigram surpasses the betrayal at Plassey and reaffirms the hierarchy of values enshrined in ancient India’s varna vyavastha.

Varna gave order, legitimacy and rules of conduct to the aspirations of the myriad jatis comprising Hindu society. The Brahmin as spiritual preceptor and scholar expounded and upheld dharma, but it was the king who established order and made it possible for traders, agriculturists and other groups to practise their trades and flourish. These were the wealthy groups in ancient India, and their prosperity contributed to the wealth of the kingdom and the king. All were restrained by dharma; the Hindu model of state did not permit varnas to gang-up against other varnas and disrupt social harmony.

It was only in its relationship with Islamic and Christian-Western rulers that Hindu society encountered the ruler as sheer appropriator of native wealth. The impoverishment of the Indian countryside as a result of these successive colonialisms, and the accompanying perversion of the social order, is well known to historians and sociologists. The post-Independence licence-permit-quota raj saw the birth of varying shades of what is now called crony capitalism, but farmers were spared the burden of unjust taxes and some kind of land reforms were attempted in the States with different levels of sincerity and success.

Nandigram, however, is a double sin. First, the state and armed goons of the dominant ruling party unleashed a reign of terror that saw at least 14 persons shot dead (dozens missing, presumed dead and buried) and nearly 50 injured (and two confirmed rapes) in order to forcefully vacate private agricultural land for a foreign capitalist venture. Thus, instead of protecting the people and facilitating their legitimate activities, the state lent its muscle to a rich business conglomerate (Indonesia’s Salem Group).

The sheer havoc wrecked by this Kshatriya-Vaishya marriage - mercifully reined in by the prompt intervention of Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi, among others - is precisely why the Hindu social order did not permit wealth-generating classes to subordinate the state to their purposes. The Hindu state was a facilitator, not a collaborator, because Hindus do not view property as theft. Like merit, wealth, too, is earned.

Even worse, the attempt to alienate fertile multiple-crop yielding land for industrial purposes strikes at the root of Hindu reverence for land, the mother earth, and the humble farmer. Under the doctrine of debt(s), Indians owe a debt of hospitality to the entire universe, both human and non-human; they must respect and nurture the earth that nourishes them, and care for animals, elements, indeed, all creation. We have, of course, fallen far from these ideals, but that is no reason why we should wilfully acquiesce in the move to render fertile land barren.

Nandigram’s proximity to the Haldia port would benefit its proposed foreign masters by way of reduced transportation costs. That the CPI(M) should, therefore, attempt to depopulate the area is reminiscent of the worst excesses of White colonialism in Africa. There is no comparable example in Stalinist Russia, and in any case, Marxism is a Western philosophy deeply rooted in Christianity; some scholars even call it a Christian sect.

The U-turn of a section of Indian Marxists from populist anti-industry attitudes towards economic reform and globalisation is part of a larger move (directed by external forces) away from positions that gave them the high moral ground two decades ago. From being avid supporters of the cause of the environment (witnessed in the fervent support for Chipko and other movements), the Left has shied away from taking up the graver cause of global warming and its deleterious impact on the ice caps, sea levels, ozone layer, et al.

Unfortunately for the Marxists, Nandigram has caught them red-handed in the public square, doing the capitalist U-turn. It will be difficult to live down the resultant loss of face. The Muslim factor in the area can only compound their misery, and the graceless anger against Governor Gandhi attests to this sense of impotent rage. The vanity of the vanguard has been ripped, stripped and whipped.

This is divine justice. The Special Economic Zone (SEZ) is no small scandal. It is officially designated as a duty-free enclave, to be treated as foreign territory for trade operations, duties and tariff. The Indian people have had no say in the formulation of such a policy, which is creating autonomous enclaves of wealth controlled by multinational corporations. In other words, the Indian state is creating mini-states (read colonies) within India, where the writ of foreign, Indian, or mixed corporates will run. This undermines national sovereignty and territorial integrity and, as Mr S Kalyanaraman, former director, Asian Development Bank, points out, is tantamount to colonialism by invitation.

This view is vindicated by the revelation that favoured industries need not even risk their own capital for projects. At Singur, according West Bengal Industry Minister Nirupam Sen, Tata Motors will receive a loan of Rs 200 crore at the rate of one per cent interest per annum from the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation; WBIDC will raise this loan from the market! The small car project will further receive incentives on land, a soft term loan and refund of VAT for the first 10 years of a 90-year lease. The Government has already acquired 997.11 acres, of which 645.47 acres have been handed over to the company on a 90-year lease. The remaining 290 acres have been earmarked for an ancillary unit or vendor park.

Karl Marx said the state would wither away; none realised it would do so in favour of the corporate robber baron.