Click to play videoNandigram is like any other town in Marxist West Bengal. The red flags and the narrow, working-class streets don’t tell the town’s recent history till one comes to burnt two-storey building.
A freshly painted signage says this is the CPI-M’s office in Nandigram. The charred walls and the twisted fans remind the CPI-M workers of that time when anti-land acquisition activists mobilised by a political alliance and backed by the Trinamool Congress controlled this town and nearly all villages under its jurisdiction.
Today the red flag is back in all villages of Nandigram and this signals the end of a 11-month siege by the anti land acquisition group, Bhumi Uchched Pratirodh Committee (BUPC).
The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) maintains a tenuous peace in Nandigram but it’s stretched to its limits, as the CPI-M and the BUPC have not given up their claims here.
Lakshman Seth, CPI-M MP from Haldia, doesn’t regret the violence in Nandigram. “We have answered them in the language they used to capture this area. I will not say any anything beyond this. The Government had a plan to set up a mega chemical hub and it wanted to acquire land. What is the fault of the CPI-M? Why should you attack and kill our supporters for that? You have the right to campaign against industrialisation and we have the right to campaign for i?” says Seth, who is the chairperson of the Haldia Development Authority.
Mohammad Yasin, a member of the CPI-M’s zonal committee in Nandigram, alleges BUPC supporters had weapons and the government did not act against them.
BUPC leader Bhabani Prasad Das admits his group “simple country-made weapons” but claims they were no match to what CPI-M workers had.
The National Human Rights Commission and the Central Bureau of Investigation, at is headquarters in Delhi, are now investigating these allegations and joining the dots to figure out how the CPI-M recaptured Nandigram.
CPI-M’s Nandigram battle plan
Nandigram is surrounded on three sides by the Haldi and the Hoogly rivers and the Talpathi canal. The canal lies between Khejuri villages and Nandigram and it was the frontline between the CPI-M and the BUPC during violence.
Surrounded by water on three sides and CPI-M-controlled territory on the other, the BUPC managed to hold on to Nandigram for 11 months. The situation changes when on October 30 the CPI-M started an operation to recapture Nandigram. Police camps circling the town were wound up and CPI-M workers launched an attack on BUPC positions from three fronts.
CPI-M gunmen attacked Satengabadi on November 6 and moved up to Nandigram. On November 8 another group of CPI-M armed militia move in from Bahargunj and on November 9 they attacked from Bhangabera. Two days later, on November 11, the CPI-M was had recaptured Nandigram.
BUPC leader Swadesh Das Adhikari says his group was overawed. “Whatever we could we do we did and whatever weapons we had we used, but we did not have enough put up resistance,” says Adhikari.
The BUPC’s version of why its armed resistance failed is confirmed by the CPI-M. “I think they failed to fight because they ran short of ammunition. If they had weapons they could have continued fighting with us,” says Ashok Bera, a member of the CPI-M’s zonal committee.
Outgunned and outnumbered, a huge rally of BUPC supporters confronted the advancing CPI-M militia on November 10. “As the paddy had not been harvested, CPI-M militia came through the fields and attacked us from three directions. I saw them taking away 16 bodies in vans. I have concrete information that they molested 357 women,” alleges Adhikari.
Sheikh Akram Lilpur was at the BUPC rally on November 10 and alleges the CPI-M militia attacked people. “They were wearing a black dress and their faces were covered. I was in the procession and they started firing,” says Akram.
Asit Pradhan who was at the BUPC rally, says he and many other people were taken to Khejuri and beaten up.
Bera denies all these allegations and claims the CPI-M “liberated Nandigram without shedding blood.”
West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya has apologised for what happened in Nandigram but his party colleagues are not willing to relent. As Seth put it: “If recapturing one’s property is illegal, then is capturing it in the first place legal? My house will be captured, but I will not be allowed recapture my house.”
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