Political chemistry

Nandigram, especially after the March 14 police firing, has become one of the most polarising words in today’s politics. It is therefore to the Congress’s considerable credit that it has extricated itself from the bizarre coalition that had arranged itself against West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. The Congress has persuaded its state unit to accept Nayachar, an island near Haldia, as the alternative site for the chemical hub originally envisaged for Nandigram. This course correction was overdue. The forces of resistance at Nandigram — a disparate lot including Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress, leftist intellectuals, Naxalite groups and religious parties — were operating at the lowest common programme: to stall the industrial project. Indeed, to stall any industrial project. Banerjee has long abandoned her political programme to stubborn obstruction to anything the state government announces. But this was incredibly self-defeating politics for a party like the Congress with stakes in governance nationwide.

The issues of land acquisition and compensation highlighted by Nandigram are still salient and have to be addressed — not just in West Bengal. But it is smart and brave of Bhattacharjee to keep his resolve on hastening industrialisation. Nayachar does not pose those issues of rehabilitation and diversion of fertile farmland. Its proximity to the Haldia industrial belt too is an advantage. But more than the specifics, it was politically important that the momentum on the installation of the chemical hub was not lost. Left unaddressed too long, the political backlash from Nandigram could, for West Bengal at least, so easily coalesce as a consensus, a fear against big industrial projects.

It is important, therefore, that Bhattacharjee has got the Nandigram sceptics in the Left Front, like the Forward Bloc and RSP, on board for the relocation. By taking the project elsewhere, he has in effect lowered the political costs perceived by these parties. By doing so, he has also factored Mamata Banerjee’s brand of obstructionism out of the picture. She refused to attend the all-party meeting, to her own possible isolation.