In his first remark after taking charge as the Industries Minister of West Bengal in the newly formed BJP government, Tapas Roy has said his priority would be to convince the Tatas to invest in Bengal.
The remark is significant because it comes 18 years after an agitation led by Mamata Banerjee forced the Tatas to abandon their Nano project in Bengal’s Singur. The Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress reaped political dividends from the movements against land acquisition in Singur and Nandigram and came to power in Bengal in 2011. Fifteen years on, they have been voted out and lack of industrialisation in Bengal has been one of the BJP’s key political planks this poll season.
Bengal’s new Industries Minister Tapas Roy
And now, a month after the BJP came to power and hours after he got his new charge, the Bengal minister has set the tone of the state government’s stand on industrialisation. “Bringing in big industries is the priority for the government. We have to do what is needed towards this. Industry and businesses have left Bengal during the former government’s tenure. Industry will usher in more job creation in Bengal,” Roy told The Indian Express.
“Our priority is to bring back the Tatas. Look what happened to Singur. If needed, I will personally go and hold a meeting (with them). We will try and convince them to return to Bengal,” he added.Roy has earlier been with the Congress and Trinamool Congress and was also a minister in the Mamata Banerjee government. He joined the BJP in 2024.
Ratan Tata had inked a pact with Bengal’s Left government for a Nano plant
The Tata project
Shortly after its victory in the 2006 Assembly election, the Left Front government announced that Tata Motors would set up a unit in Singur to manufacture Nano – then showcased as a Rs 1 lakh car – and nearly 1,000 acres of land were earmarked for this.
The acquisition of land sparked protests by some organisations, but the state government persisted and the Tatas started building the plant. In late 2006, Mamata Banerjee started a campaign against the then Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government to “save fertile farmland”. She started a 26-day fast, drawing support from different sections of society.
Months later, in March 2007, a series of events about 150 km from Singur would seal the fate of the Nano plant. On March 14, 2007, a protest against land acquisition in Nandigram, where a chemical hub was to come up, turned violent and 14 people died in police action. The violence gave momentum to Mamata Banerjee’s movement against land acquisition and tilted the narrative against the Left Front government.
In 2008, the Tatas finally pulled the plug on the Nano project in Singur. Narendra Modi, then the Gujarat Chief Minister, did not miss the opportunity and invited the conglomerate to set up its plant in Sanand. The next year, the first Tata Nano rolled out of the Gujarat plant. And three years after the Tata exit, the Trinamool Congress scored a thumping win in the 2011 Bengal polls, ending the three-decade rule of the Communists and the Singur-Nandigram war cry played a key role in this victory.
Critics of Trinamool Congress have said that the exit of Tatas had an enduring negative impact on Bengal’s image, and industries stayed away.
Voices from Singur
Less than two months ago, The Indian Express visited Singur and found local residents speaking of the lack of job opportunities in the region.
Just beside what would have been the Nano plant, 70-year-old Sheikh Md Ali linked his son’s migration to Uttarakhand, where he works as a gold artisan, to what unfolded 18 years ago.
“I have seen it all. How the Nano factory was proposed and slowly built here. How shops and other businesses began to grow around it. My son trained here and worked as an apprentice for Rs 4,500 a month. Then the agitation started and everything stopped,” said Ali, who willingly gave his land for the plant and received compensation from the then state government.
In 2016, the Supreme Court termed the acquisition process illegal and the land was returned, but large tracts remain uncultivable. The Mamata Banerjee government provided Rs 2,000 and 16 kg of rice to 3,611 families classified as unwilling farmers.
In this election, unemployment in Bengal and the resulting economic migration were the key talking points. And this was evident in Singur. “Will Rs 2,000 and 16 kg of rice secure a family’s future in Singur? How long will my son have to work in other states like most youths here?” Ali asked. “Look at the land. It neither gave jobs nor can it be cultivated.”
Saikat Dhara (25) runs a fertiliser shop in Singur. A trained farmer, he is the grandson of Dudhkumar Dhara, a prominent face of the anti-land acquisition movement. “We lost 5.5 bighas of land inside the project area. After getting it back following the Supreme Court order, we could cultivate only 2.5 bighas. It is difficult and costly to make the land cultivable again because of concrete and iron debris,” he said, adding that people now want both industry and agriculture. “Without industrialisation, financial conditions will not improve. Let’s see what happens after the election,” he said.
