Tamluk: The Land That Gave Nandigram its Politics Is Still Its Biggest Poll Issue

Nandigram (Bengal): The Tamluk Lok Sabha seat is steeped in history. Once the historical Tamralipta, it was the home of freedom fighters like Matangini Hazra and then the hub of Bengal’s industrial output, housing cities like Haldia. Later, it played host to the protests against land acquisition which led to the Left Front government’s downfall in the state.

Ahead of the Lok Sabha election, the seat which will go to polls on May 25, is in the news for the death of a worker of the Bharatiya Janata Party who belonged to a Scheduled Caste. Rathibala Arhi was killed on May 22. Her son, also a BJP leader, sustained injuries. BJP has led massive protests.

Shuttered factories

Haldia, a centre for employment for the whole country at a point, is now sputtering. Mitsubishi has left. Haldia Petrochemicals
is not what it used to be. Rohit Ferro Tech has suspended work, ending employment for 18,000 people. “The Trinamool Congress’s suspension of the government’s electricity discount led to the closure,” claims Debashish Maity, a worker who lost his job at that factory in 2015.

The Russian Ural truck makers have wrapped up business. A factory to make rail coaches is shut. Haldia is a picture of closed doors.

At Chandipur, which abuts Haldia, Chandrakanta Maity collects tin and plastic scraps to make a living. A decade ago, Maity had been a permanent employee – a processing unit in-charge – at the JBL oil refinery. Maity claims that despite being highly specialised, he did not get a job after the factory closed down because the TMC workers’ unions were loathe to absorb him.

Many have suffered his fate and been reduced to daily wage jobs, he says.

But it is a factory that led to Nandigram’s fame in national politics. In 2007, opposition to the Left Front government’s plan to set up a Special Economic Zone in the area led to police firing on villagers and 14 of them dying. Back then, Mamata Banerjee, in the opposition, had claimed that the state police had been culpable. In the meantime, Banerjee came to power and lost her trusted local lieutenant Suvendu Adhikari to the BJP. Ahead of the 2021 assembly polls, Banerjee had said at a rally that the violence then had all been “father and son’s doing” – referring to Adhikari and his father, MP Sisir, who was also a TMC veteran.

Also read: At Nandigram, Site of Historic Land Movement, a Battle to See Who the ‘Real’ Brahmin Is

Banerjee has repeated this claim in her campaigns this time as well. Adhikari has, in turn, asked what the “mother and son” were doing. He was referring to Banerjee’s nephew Abhishek, who is the Diamond Harbour MP and TMC’s general secretary.

Fomenting in the Adhikaris’ home ground of Nandigram is a degree of anger over how the land that led to a revolution with far-reaching political impact is now no longer used for agriculture but for fisheries.

Fishy politics

Abdul Hossain leads this reporter to the mouth of the Haldi river, at Bhangabera village, and says that till Naraghat, which is 14 kilometres away, there are only fisheries. Across 17 village panchayats, there is very little farming other than of fish.

Locals say this started from 2008. Syed Hossain, who is also engaged in a fishery, says that TMC leaders may have started this practice but many farmers switched to it upon noting the money to be made from it. “Even those who didn’t warm up to the idea found their land destroyed by the salt water seeping into it from the fisheries,” he said.

Diseases plague shrimp fisheries, and smaller players lose out because they are unable to afford treatment for fish. Government officials refused to divulge details on how much farmland in Nandigram has been converted to fisheries.

Nayachar, a river island on the Hooghly, is made of over 5,000 hectares. Fisherfolk from the South 24 Parganas lived there. Locals say the area has been “occupied” since 2009 by TMC leader Sheikh Sufiyan. The Left Front government’s proposed petrochemical hub was supposed to have been set up there. “It is dry even in the monsoon. It also had excellent solar connectivity. We would charge our phones with solar power,” says Safil Ahmed, a fisherman.

But now, the island is going to be turned into a giant fishery. The TMC government has asked fisherfolk to register for land online. They have, in turn, moved court, which ordered a stay on the tendering process. This incident, among others, have led to massive infighting within the TMC ranks and led to fisherfolk struggling to look for a source of livelihood.

“We really hoped for a flourishing fishery, but it seems like all avenues are clogged now. We cannot help but think that a factory here would have suited us better,” says Nandigram TMC leader Tapan Maity.

Sheikh Sufiyan, meanwhile, tells The Wire that businesses involve risk. “We cannot mix politics with fisheries,” he says.

Jobs

The number of migrants leaving the area for work is increasing, locals say. One Ajay Bera, who had a small business and was part of the protests, says that a middleman culture has developed which makes it impossible to run a business here.

Land and jobs rule the roost for election campaigns, as a result.

Bera and his friend, Subhas Maity, say the fight is triangular. “The TMC candidate if from a poor home. The CPI(M) candidate is a young lawyer. Both have become close to us. But the former judge who used to take on corruption is an unknown person to us,” Maity says.

Former Calcutta high court judge Abhijit Gangopadhyay is the BJP’s – and Suvendu Adhikari’s – chosen man in Tamluk. Gangopadhyay’s judgements had been integral in unveiling the teacher recruitment scam in Bengal. But in Tamluk he is typecast as an outsider.

In the campaign trail, Gangopadhyay’s misogynist remarks against Mamata Banerjee have led to complaints against him. The Election Commission has rapped him. Gangopadhyay has focused largely on TMC’s corruption in his speeches.

For locals, Gangopadhyay is a respectable figure, but the sense is, as one Subir Guchhait of Haldia put it, “Politics is not for him.”

The TMC’s candidate, Debangshu Bhattacharya, and CPI(M)’s Sayan Banerjee have put up spirited campaigns. Both have highlighted the necessity to move away from the violent past of the area.

Bhattacharya tells The Wire that Mamata Banerjee’s trust in the Adhikaris led to the land imbroglio. “We know what they are doing. We will request farmers to keep in touch because Didi’s government will not abandon them,” he says.

So what happens to the land that gave Nandigram its politics?

Sayan Banerjee says that the CPI(M) will fight for the people who live off the land. “There is a railway station in Nandigram but no rail lines. This is almost satire,” he says.

This is the first election in Tamluk where the powerful Adhikaris will not fight for TMC. Last time, Suvendu’s brother Dibyendu Adhikari had won from Tamluk and become MP with 50.08% votes. BJP got 36.94%. The Left, just 9.41%.

Suvendu Adhikari’s charge with BJP now is wider, but in the Tamluk race he is a constant factor.

Translated from the Bengali original by Soumashree Sarkar.