I am at present doing my B.Tech. from IIT Kharagpur. After qualifying III-JEE I got a branch of my interest in IIT Kharagpur and so I joined IIT Kharagpur. I would frankly say that in the beginning I had never thought to join IIT Kharagpur mainly due to its location in a semi urban area. And the second reason of my unwillingness to join this institute was its situation in West Bengal. Most of you will wonder that I was unwilling to join the most prestigious engineering institute of our country only because it is in West Bengal. I want to make it clear this was neither due to language problem nor I have some personal problem or bad experience with people of Bengal. The main reason of this was that I and most of my friends have a thinking that Bengal, inspite of its bright past, is such a state which is going downwards. Bengal is not ready to leave some of its old and unnecessary political, social culture which in present world is not logical. Everyone who wants to bring some change in this structure, have to face a hell of lot of difficulties and in most of the cases these voices of change have been depressed. This was the feeling in us and that's why all of my friend joined other IITs. As my rank was not good enough to get desired branch in other IITs I joined IIT KGP. But thank god our campus is not like the rest of West Bengal.
Now see what happened in Singur. I think this project was in favour of the development of West Bengal. But the same Bengal phenomenon.......the same type of protests and now the NANO project is gone. The same thing has been happening for years in Bengal.
For the first time a communist government in India decided to take some decisions which could attract some industrialists. Now communists also feel that development cann't be achieved without indusrial development and in this open market sysytem we should be liberal to industrialists so that they can compete with others. They don't show because that may destruct their image of a party fighting for poors. But for the first time a communist government in India dared to show courage to take some liberal steps towards industrialisation. But this time not the communists another party took the torch and the result is same.
Anyone can say why we are so much shouting about a specific project. The right of farmers should also be protected. But see the events happened at Singur. I agree with that the right of farmers should be protected, but what has happened in Singur is not that. It's just a political fight. Unfortunately this is the case with whole India that political parties without any logic and thinking goes against a project, just by manipulating their own political profits.
The first mistake was done by government by not formulating the correct plan for land acquisition and then when project was about to complete these protests started that brought an end to it. I think it is completely farmers' right what they do with their lands. But what has happened at Singur is more than that. A whole political force has worked to make this protest to happen. This was not only the protest by farmes but it was a planned fighting between two political centres of West Bengal. As West Bengal was giving a good message to industries, this incident has destroyed all its efforts for creating a good image. The state has already a image of a STATE OF STRIKES AND BANDHS and now this incident. Any state cannot progress without industries and this should be felt by every one.
We need politicians who can think beyond their political profits. The failure of Singur project is not going to give good results to anyone, not even to the farmers. What will happen to those farmers who were not fighting and have given their lands? And also what about the lands? Will that be in same condition as before? Could this problem not be solved ealier? Will the closing of this project is going to help anyone except a political party? What will happen to investments planned by other industrialists in the state? Will they invest with same zeal as before? They may drop their plans. Will that help the state and people of West Bengal?
WHO WILL ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS?
