Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee again invited Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee for direct talks with him to discuss any issue on the deadlock concerning the Tata Motors small car project. “I am ready to discuss everything. We can’t let Tatas move out of West Bengal.” Mamta, holding an indefinite protest in Singur rejected the request and is adamantly sticking to her demand for the return of 400 acre taken from “unwilling farmers” for the Tata plant. Nothing better can be expected from a politician who says, “If other states are inviting you, please go there.… But can you leave with Tata Centre? Can you leave with Tata Indicom?” And there is an Amar Singh, an opportunist of the first order to back, “”If others are calling, please go. West Bengal will say, goodbye, ta-ta.” Perhaps Tata was better advised not to meet her.

Is it a democratic protest? Perhaps, by the definition it is. But can the politicians appreciate and answer how should the country develop itself with such so-called democratic protests? Many and me too mightn’t have agreed with the selection of location in Singur. But once the government has agreed, the work has gone so far, a tight schedule for starting the production has firmed up, the vendors, many of them pretty small ones, have invested and deployed it scarce resources to start supply and the whole lot of customers are waiting for the product, no one must have any right to carry on with such protests. It is entirely an anti-national act and terrorists’ approach against development. It just called be called a democratic protest.

Tata Motors have done a wonderful job to complete the major construction of a complicated high-tech capital-intensive manufacturing facility for large scale automobile manufacturing in a short time of less than two years against the natural disturbances such as water logging as well as human problem created by regularly organized protests near around the plant and many physical damages to obstruct the progress too. Can the people at large appreciate the mental torture of those working inside the boundary wall under the threat of the protesters? Let me tell from my experiences that under the threatening clouds of such protests and agitations, the rumours reign, people deployed get demoralized, the cost escalates, the productivity deteriorates, and creativity vanishes, problem solving becomes difficult, and the quality of work being undertaken becomes causality and doubtful. How can a country aspiring to be a powerful global economy operate under this political system? Should this be tolerated? And if yes, for how long! Should the next generation not take the stage and throw these unscrupulous politicians out in the Bay of Bengal?

Work at the Tata Motors small-car project remained affected with majority of contract workers staying away because of the siege. With hardly a month for Vijya Dasami, there is hardly any hope that Nano will get into the hands of customers?

But I am ashamed that Bengal and its people can’t find an answer for this chaos created by individualist egos and the resulting adventurous ways of creating hold up for projects. It is the same rotten system that has caused hold up for Posco, Tatas and many others in Orissa, Chhatisgarh, and Jharkhand.

I have another question. Where are the 1000 odd unwilling and affected people of Singur? Why is Mamta projecting her own demand as their wish? As reported by many, most of the farmers of Singur don’t want the project to be obstructed. But their voices are insignificant in present political system.

I still pray for a miracle to see the project starting production fast. Is it not a black spot on the country and its system that Nano, a globally recognized purely Indian innovation is to face this fate? But perhaps in India any thing can happen.

It is bad luck India.
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Ref:Full Singur Stories