The Singur Nano Movement

Introduction
• Tata Nano Singur Movement refers to the controversy generated by
the Rs. 1 lakh Nano plant at Singur in Hooghly district of West
Bengal.

• Singur gained international media attention since Tata Motors

started constructing a factory to manufacture their 2500 car.

• The then state govt. facilitated the controversy by using an old rule to
conduct an eminent domain takeover of 997.11 acres (4.02 sq. km.) of
farmland to have Tata build its factory.

• The rule is meant for public improvement projects and the WB govt.
wanted Tata to build in its state. Displaced farmers and land-rights
people became opponents.
 Context
• Singur is a town in Hooghly District, West Bengal, India.

• This place gained international attention after Tata Motors proposed

the idea of setting a factory to manufacture the world’s cheapest car-
The Tata Nano.

• The land taken up was a fertile alluvial one. 83% of the land was
irrigated and the crop density was 220%.

• The six mouzas whose land fell under the Tata project site are
Gopalnagar, Beraberi, Bajemelia, Khaserbheri, Singherberi and
Joymollarberi.

• In the face of continued opposition, the Tata shifted the project from
Singur to Gujarat in October 2008.
Background of Struggle
• The government expropriated land for
the factory using the 1894 Land
Acquisition Act.

• Of over 13,000 people held claims on the

land acquired for the Nano, about 2,250
refused to accept the government's
compensation. • Her demand could not be met without
losing the project.
• The lost acres proved equally fertile
grounds for a political fight.
• That would have added to the cost of
production, jeopardizing the “one-lakh”
• The cause was quickly seized by the price tag, that had made the Nano.
main opposition in West Bengal, led by
Mamata Banerjee.
• The disputed holdings were scattered
throughout the site; thus, the govt. cannot
• Miss Banerjee wanted the government
give the aggrieved farmers land that was
to return 400 acres to those who
expropriated from someone else.
refused compensation.
 Leadership Aspects
• Major political support by Mamata
Banerjee and Socialist Unity Centre of
India.
• Her “Save Farmland” (Jomi Banchao)
movement had received widespread
support from civil rights and human rights
groups, legal bodies, social activists like
Medha Patkar and Anuradha Talwar,
Booker prize-winning author Arundhati
Roy and Magsaysay and Jnanpith award-
winning author Mahasweta Devi.

• Several Kolkata based intellectuals and artists like Aparna Sen, Kaushik
Sen, Shaonli Mitra, Subhaprasanna, Ruchit Shah.
• The Nobel laureate Amartya Sen supported the idea of factory but he
however opposed forcible acquisition of land.
 Ideology
• Many of the landed gentry, some of them absentee, who own bigger portions of land,
depend on ‘kishans’ (i.e, hired labors, bargadars etc.) for cultivation of their lands.
• The Left Front (LF) government is banking on these people in the process of land
acquisition, persons who are known to be traditional supporters of the anti-LF
parties.
• On the other hand, the poorer sections of the peasantry, who constitute the main
support base for the LF in the state, are in the forefront of the movement.
• The polysemic nature of social movements needs to be explored more thoroughly
with reference to the plurality of experiences, ideologies and interests they contain
and articulate.
 Chronology of events - 1

Oct 2008
Ratan Tata
Jan 2007 announces
Tata start pullout citing
construction of prolonged
plant agitation
Dec 4, 2006
Mamata starts
May 18, 2006 May 25, 2006 hunger strike
Tata Motors Singur farmers that goes on
announces Nano start agitation for 26 days
plant in West
Bengal
 Chronology of events - 2

Aug 31, 2016

SC sets aside
June 2012 land
HC holds Singur acquisition,
Act directs land be
June 2011 ‘Unconstitutional; given back to
State moves SC farmers
Tatas move
June 2011 Calcutta HC;
May 2011
Singur Land SC restrains
Mamata Act passed;
becomes CM, state from
decides to take govt. starts disturbing land
back land returning land
to the farmers
• The Peasant’s • The
Narrative Activist’s
perspectiv
e
1. The 2. The
Ultimate Advocacy
Sufferers group

3. The 4. The
movement movement
against led by
whom whom
• The Leftist • The TMC
Narrative Narrative
Impacts of the Movement
 On October 3rd, 2008, Tata Motors pulled
the plug on manufacturing the Nano out
of Bengal, leaving behind rubble of
dashed hopes.
 267 stories of broken dream are there,
who were selected by Tata Motors for
training and permanent jobs.
 It resulted in displacement of mass
peasantry to the cities to search for  The huge lands remain unproductive
earning their breads and they marked as and fallow till now.
urban beggars, unskilled laborers and odd  Food security has become another
city workers. area of concern.
 A greater acquisition of agricultural
land had a negative impact on food
production and created a greater
imbalance in the food security
situation of the state.
 Success or failure – the ground reality
 WB govt. is yet to develop any comprehensive
resettlement and rehabilitation policy for the
thousands of displaced farming families.

 The Trinamool government has already returned

400 acres of farmland to the “unwilling” farmers
around whom the agitation against the LF
government was organized by their party.
 Critical questions (Way forward)..
A lot of questions should be considered 10 years after the
Singur Tata Nano Controversy:
1. Are the farmers really cultivating the land which was
virtually transformed into non- agricultural wasteland
after the takeover?
2. What happened to those farmers who were subsisting on
the absentee landowners’ land within the 400 acres?
3. What about the recorded and unrecorded sharecroppers
who were cultivating 2-3 crops in a season in the area
that was supposed to be returned by the order of the
apex court?
4. Are the farmers cultivating the land now ?
5. What has been the impact of the Singur Project o the
livelihood of the villagers/farmers?
6. How has the whole Singur episode changed the political
thinking of the villagers over the years?
 Title Objectives Comment/s
1. Have we learnt To understand: The TMC government’s
from Singur? A •The ground realities of enthusiasm to generate capital
industrialization in a state that and employment, either through
Retrospect - was not only predominated legal means or by the play of
Abhijit Guha by landless agricultural workers, market forces, seemed to be
(2017) small
mere populist political rhetoric
landowning peasants and
sharecroppers, for contesting election battles in
but was committed to land West Bengal.
reforms and the panchayati raj
system too.
•The main reason of attention.
2. What made the To examine: • Acquisition of agricultural
“Unwilling” • The real reason for the protests lands in Singur destroyed the
farmers unwilling? in Singur led by many “unwilling livelihood of rural people.
• Most of the unwilling farmers
Buddhadeb Ghosh farmers”
• The real impact on the livelihood had lost very small quantity of
2012 of the people land, due to acquisition.
• Reasons for not agreeing to • The Tata exit was a great
part with their land. setback for the Left Front
government, but it did not
necessarily mean victory for
the protest movement.
 References
• Arnab, Ganguly and Uttam, Dutta. 2012. Art of Masking Singur Dissent: Disgruntled
Farmers asked to keep off, ,TheTelegraph, ,Calcutta, p.7,Dec 1.
• Banerjee, P. (2006). Land Acquisition and Peasant Resistance at Singur. Economic
and Political Weekly. pp. 4718-4720.
• Guha, A. (2017), Have We Learnt from Singur? A Retrospect. Economic and Political
Weekly. pp. 18-22.
• Mohanty, M. (2007). Singur and the Political Economy of Structural Change.
Working Paper Series, IIM Calcutta.
• Nielsen, K. B. (2009). Four Narratives of a Social Movement in West Bengal. South
Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, Routledge. pp. 448-468.
• Peasants, Land and Revolt in Sungur - The Scenario. Chapter 2. pp. 35-77.
• Pradeep, Chakraborty. 2012. Report on Singur Land Issues on Bengali News Paper
AaiSamoy, The Times of India Publishers,Kolkata, Dec p.7,Dec,17.
• Singur Movement: The full story - The struggle of Ma, Mati, Manush. (2013). Singur
Timeline compiled by Asis Kumar Das.
• Wahi, N., Bhatia, A., Gandhi, D., Jain, S., Shukla, P., and Chauhan, U. Land
Acquisition in India: A Review of Supreme Court Cases from 1950 to 2016, Centre
for Policy Research, New Delhi, 2017.
Thank you..
For your kind attention.