Remember Narmada

The BJP8217;s decision to join Mamata Banerjee8217;s agitation in Singur is baffling. The Trinamool Congress8217;s agitation against the Tata Motors project is, as has been noted in these columns, based on bad economics and a self-defeating politics. But the BJP8217;s move to enlist somebody as senior as its president to lend highly visible support to its regional ally is surprising for another reason. It militates against its own self-interest. Instead of roaming through the arguments for and against the Tata project in Left-ruled West Bengal, the party would find benefit in revisiting the Narmada project. Specifically, the overtly political move by Water Resources Minister Saifuddin Soz to stall raising of the height of the dam this April.

Eventually, the Supreme Court weighed in on the side of the dam project. But during those highly charged days, the BJP8217;s chief ministers 8212; with the incumbents in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan giving their Gujarat counterpart coherent support 8212; won the argument politically. The victory was evident in the Congress8217;s own Gujarat unit making a strong case for the project. The point was this: yes, development works like the Narmada dam involve the painful task of dislocating some people. But in the service of the larger public good, dislocations are inevitable, as long as proper rehabilitation is ensured.

Surely it cannot be the BJP8217;s case that its commitment to development is dispensable when obstructionist politics beckons. The party is clearly keen to keep Mamata within its NDA folds. However, it should be alert that it enters the Singur agitation not as a desperate regional party in pursuit of a cause 8212; like the Trinamool 8212; but as a national party with its own chief ministers having committed themselves to the kind of rapid development being pursued by West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. Joining this rainbow coalition of agitators is not in India8217;s or in the BJP8217;s interest.