"Opponents of the project say the Left Front is using repressive means to acquire land and has resorted to brutal police methods to prevent and punish popular protests. The Front's leaders accuse the protestors of being in hand-in-glove with business houses hostile to the Tatas."
"Argues Bhaduri: "The Left, especially the CPM, seems to be buying into the neo-liberal logic, which allows the market to be organised and its rules set not by socially accountable institutions like elected governments, but by corporations.""
NEW DELHI (IPS) - India's mainstream Left parties, led by the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM), are getting into an ugly confrontation with civil society groups and classes that are part of their own core constituency in the state of West Bengal, which they have ruled for three long decades.
On one side of the divide stand the Left Front and the Tatas, one of India's largest business groups, which plans to manufacture small cars costing Rs 100,000 or 2,200 US dollars each at Singur. They are strongly backed by Indian and multinational corporations, for whom the Singur project is a litmus test of the West Bengal government's commitment to promoting private business.
Arrayed on the other side are an assortment of political parties from the Left to the Right, and a broad spectrum of social activists, including the legendary anti-Narmada dam movement leader, Medha Patkar. The parties include the Far Left CPI (ML) and the Socialist Unity Centre of India, as well as the conservative Trinamool Congress which opposes the Left Front.
Opponents of the project say the Left Front is using repressive means to acquire land and has resorted to brutal police methods to prevent and punish popular protests. The Front's leaders accuse the protestors of being in hand-in-glove with business houses hostile to the Tatas.
Full story: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=35748
[Please see related stories "Communist Gov't Evicts Farmers for Industries" Sujoy Dhar at http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=34673 and "Special Economic Zones, Path to Massive Land Grab" by Praful Bidwai at http://www.ipsnews.net/print.asp?idnews=34732 - eds.]
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