Letter to Ratan Tata
AN OPEN LETTER TO RATAN TATA
This is one letter I thought I must write. It is not often that people like Ratan Tatas’ write open letters and that to on their perception of the developmental model of the country. Curiously though, he addresses the letter to the ‘citizens of West Bengal’ rather than the citizens of the country in general. Be that as it may, I find myself qualified to respond as I was born in Calcutta (as it then was) and later on, found a home in Gujarat (not be confused with the trajectory of Nano which followed a similar path).
The content of Ratan Tata’s open letter is ofcourse unprecedented. Never before in the history, has a leader of Capitalist world so openly supported the leader of the largest communist party of the country! We ofcourse know about the legendary friendship between Federich Engels and Karl Marx, Engels being an owner of an industrial establishment in Germany. Without the financial support of Engels, Marx could have never completed, “Das Capital”. May be, Shri Buddhadev Bhattacharya was contemplating a review of “Das Capital” to include a new thesis on the integration of agricultural capital with industrial capital by allowing the Tatas to directly plough the land at Singur?! But alas, Shri Narendra Modi has beaten him flat on this score. He went ahead and gave away the land meant for the agriculture university itself to the Tatas. Mr. Ratan Tata can now plough and also do research on agriculture now!
I do not wish to sound flippant by saying what I have said till now. I feel deeply hurt, like many other common Indians by the hypocrisy that is being practiced by the entire political establishment of the country in the name of its development. Till now, the present model of development has only resulted in severe regional disparities, led to acute differences amongst the rich and the poor, deepened the cleavage between the different religious and ethnic groups, created riots and miseries. The coming of Nano to Gujarat is not going to ameliorate any of these contradictions, on the contrary can aggravate the regional imbalance.
However, CPM can be justifiably proud of the systematic land reforms carried out by its Government for the past few decades leading to a very significant increase in its agricultural output. In recent times, West Bangal’s agricultural GDP has grown between 10 to 14%, higher than any state of India. The farmers of West Bengal are growing almost two crops per year (1.65 to be precise) far higher than the 1.35 crops in Gujarat, despite the commissioning of the Narmada project.
But this very achievement has been totally belittled by Ratan Tata in his open letter by posing the question “ …Do they want (meaning people of WB) education and jobs in the industrial and high tech sectors or does the future generation see their future prosperity achieved on a ‘stay as we are’ basis?” The“stay as we are” phraseology refers to the present level of development which WB has achieved primarily due to its good work in the agricultural sector. The anger of Ratan Tata is perhaps because these farmers, whose efforts had brought WB to the present “as we are” level had dared to challenge his perception of development.Strangely however, no protest was forthcoming from the CPM on this issue. I am not suggesting that one should rest on the laurels that havebeen achieved. There cannotalso be any quarrel with the proposition that we need education, jobs and high tech industries. However, throwing out the farmersagainst their wish from their fertile lands and implanting a factory for making cars can hardly be a mechanism for achieving “harmonious investment in the agricultural sector” which Mr. Ratan Tata himself prescribes as a requirement for development in his open letter.
We may also ask, if you had such “tremendous faith and confidence in the state government” as you claim in your open letter, why did you walk out on this Government without resolving perhaps a minor problem of just few acres of land? Admittedly, the factory had already been constructed in the dispute free 600 acres of land. The agitators as well as the Government were ready to agree to another piece of 400 acres of adjoining land for any ancillary construction. If you could come all the way to Sanand from Singur, a distance of around 2000 km, why couldn’t you agree to move just a few hundred meters at Singur and agree to accept the 400 acres of land?
Lest I am misunderstood, let me clarify that I have nothing against the concept of Nano. In fact, I think it is an engineering marvel that can become a useful product for large sections of the population provided however it is sold at the declared price. It goes without saying that the coming of Nano will benefit the state of Gujarat. But was it necessary for you to state that one “M” was good {reference to ‘Modi’} and the other “M” was bad{reference to ‘Mamta’} during the press conference along with Shri Narendra Modi? In the capitalist parlance are not all the “M”s the same in the M-C-M circuit (money-commodity-money) ever since the days of Adam Smith?
Lastly, may I ask, have you seen the thousands of giant posters of Shri Ratan Tata and Mr Narendra Modi all over Gujarat hailing the Chief Minister for bringing of Nano to Gujarat ?? Would you have enjoyed seeing these pictures in March, 2002?!
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