The Hindu Business Line : Project politics

With the completion of fencing of the land earmarked for the Tata's small-car project in West Bengal, the process of handing it over to the promoters has moved a decisive step forward. While one can expect the political protests to be sustained, it is safe to say that the State Government has sounded the all-clear for work to start on the project. The CPI(M), the leader of the Left Front Government, which had staked its prestige on the project, has too strong a hold at the grassroots level to let the agitation get out of control.

It is quite possible that the choice of the parcel of land in Singur village in Hooghly district may not have been the most judicious nor the Tata's keenness to locate the factory close to Kolkata and along the main highway not amenable to an alternative solution. Yet the controversy over the diversion of agricultural land for industrial projects is wholly spurious. All development initiatives involve some trade-off and it is no different in this case. As long as there is no evidence of mala fide, the party which has the mandate to rule must be given some flexibility in making the trade-offs that it thinks are in public interest. For instance, on the question of diversion of agricultural land for industrial purposes, the Government must be judged on its record of enlarging the area under cultivation rather than specific acts of land allocation. Public policy debates ought not to be trivialised in the garb of environmental activism where the principle of maintaining green cover often translates to opposing the cutting down of a solitary tree that might otherwise be a hindrance to traffic. In any case the Government can always be hauled up before the bar of public opinion if it has demonstrated poor judgement in making public policy choices.

The politics of street-level agitation that is the very essence of India's party-based democracy has in the past centred on such issues as price rise, language, education and job quotas, or the failure of the ruling party to protect the interests of the locals in inter-State disputes. But development issues had largely remained free of the taint of partisan party politics. It is becoming increasingly clear that political parties have come to the conclusion that even issues of development are fair game in their quest for political relevance. This is unfortunate, as the adversarial system of party politics that is at the core of our democratic functioning has led, in some cases, to the principal protagonists seeing themselves as engaged in mortal combat rather than viewing it as a healthy battle for popular support. The new area of discord is only going to make the fractious nature of political discourse more strife ridden.

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