It is funny to see how politicians change their fundamental political beliefs to get political mileage.
In 1970-80, the Community Party of India and their allies ruled the state of West Bengal with a strong leftist policy. Strikes were a common scene and industrialists were considered to be aliens and leeches! This was enough to result in an exodus of industrial houses and businesses from the state.Â
In 1991, Indian National Congress brought opened up Indian market to the world. The signal was clear. It was the end of license raj and begining of a new era of rapid industrialization for India.
This all looks so “normal”.
However the Singur issue (the small car factory of TATA Motors) shows something totally different! It looks like there are no guiding philosophy for these political parties. It keeps changing with the situation. Shall we call it “opportunity based principles”?
They have swapped their stands. they have swapped their idealogies.
We can see the ruling Communist Party of India working hard to get investments and industries to the state for overall economic growth. It is a welcome change. It seems (and if I remember, also quoted by our Chief Minister – Mr. Buddhadeb Bhattacharya) that they are inspired by China, which has successfully embraced industrialization and has taken the middle path between communisim and capitalism, which seems to be working quite nicely.
However the opposition party – Trinamool Congress is stands against it! The same guys who stood for economic growth and reforms just fifteen years back. And see at the way they are putting up the protest – four forced strikes in one month. This is crazy. I fail to understand how will these strikes support their cause.
To me, it would have been more sensible that they should have demanded more transparency in the process and make sure that everyone gets proper compensation for their land that has been taken up for the factory. They should have negotiated about a solid rehabiliation program.
But what we saw was a sheer misuse of power and trust. The residents of Singur were misguided, the issue was given a sensitive turn and unreasonable demands were put up.
It seems that the issue was simply hyped up and used for political mileage. It is unfortunate that most political parties (in fact all of them) today equates “opposition party” as “a party which should oppose each and everything that the ruling party does”. I really hope this definition changes soon to turn India into a powerful democracy.
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It is really difficult to fathom the benefits of disrupting normal life for people and stopping those who want to live gracefully by working.
I want to strike and not work on a particular day – great. I have the rights to do so. But by what stretch of imagination do these ‘strikers’ feel that they are successful by not allowing others to work – I don’t get to understand.
As someone who provides services to clients abroad, I find it really embarrassing and nearly impossible to explain that we carry out work strikes like this.