Acknowledgements for Under Development: Singur in Delhi and Kanpur from 10.09.08 to 18.09.08

Citizens’ Initiative wishes to thank:
• Amar Kanwar: for agreeing to speak at our panel discussion in Delhi
• Amit Sengupta: for providing us with contacts in Delhi.
• Anil Chowdhury: for his help and support.
• Anuradha Talwar: for answering our queries on the NREGS and for helping us by providing contacts in Delhi.
• G Arunima: for agreeing to host our exhibition at JNU, for organising the talk at WSP and for the immense support not only this time round in Delhi but earlier as well.
• Aseem Shrivastava: for giving us his house to stay in, in Delhi, and for the various contacts he provided us with. Also, for speaking in the February 2008 conference, for putting things in perspective for the months to come and for sending us a truckload of films on development for the film festival at our event at Seagull.
• Devika Lal: for helping us organise talks in various colleges in Delhi.
• Dilip Simeon: for travelling to Kolkata and speaking at our conference in February 2008. Also, for providing contacts in Delhi.
• Manali Chakrabarti and Sounak Chakrabarty: for organising the talk at IIT-Kanpur.
• Maria Ann: for organising the talk at St. Stephen’s College
• Meher Engineer: for humour and immense support with collecting (food, clothes and medicines) for Dobandi over the months s and also for appealing for help to all on our behalf for this event in Delhi. The various events would not have been possible without him.
• Mukul Priyadarshini and Sharmila Purkayastha: for organising the talk at Miranda House.
• Naveen Kishore the miracle worker: without whose unflinching generosity not an iota of the event at Seagull would have been possible. For continuing to help us with our endeavours in Kolkata as well as providing us contacts in Delhi.
• Praful Bidwai: for agreeing to speak at our panel discussion in Delhi
• Promona Sengupta and Bedatri Datta: for organising the talk at LSR and for informing fellow students about Singur in the canteens.
• Shukla Sawant and School of Arts and Aesthetics, JNU: for providing us with the venue for the exhibition in Delhi.
• Sujoy Chakravarty: for inviting us to Delhi and organising the talk at IIT-Delhi. Also, for winning the 2nd best attendance prize for the event at Seagull.
• Tanika Sarkar: for agreeing to speak at our panel discussion in Delhi
• Vrinda Grover: for her support.
• Women’s Studies Programme, School of Social Sciences, JNU: for hosting our exhibition in Delhi, and for being patient and generous with time and help.
• A Punjabi Dilliwala who chooses to remain private but who helped us organise this public event.
• Amlan Das Gupta: for being there even before we began and for telling us exactly what he liked (regardless of our telling him what we liked) during our photo-selection procedure. Also, for providing immense support during the event at Seagull and thereby bagging the best attendance prize for the event.
• Ananda Lal: for his generous contribution to CI and for feeling touched by our work.
• Ananya Chatterjee Chakravarti: for generously funding the filming of our February seminar.
• Anchita Ghatak, Sourinee Mirdha and ACTION AID: for their steady supportive presence.
• Anuradha Kapoor and SWAYAM: for their support.
• ANYA NARI: for translating and publishing the Nandigram Interim Report in Bangla.
• Arundhati Ghosh (Bangalore): for effective and affective sisterhood from afar.
• Banojyotsna Lahiri: for being the only person in Delhi (a city where we thought we had many friends) who agreed to collect and courier to us the films from Aseem, even though she hardly knew us.
• Biplab Dey: for obsessive concern about the technicalities surrounding our photographs, and for critical comments whose usefulness we learnt only with time.
• Bodhisattva Kar: for saying ‘Silence after Auschwitz’ with despairing eyes.
• Buddha Deb and AMNESTY: for helping the event at Seagull.
• CCTV and Minakshi Chaudhuri: for making the medical camps at Dobandi possible. Almost 70 people were treated in Dobandi at this camp in April in a collaborative effort by CCTV and CI and another 70 people were treated in a follow-up camp in July.
• Debolina Dutta and OPEN SPACE: for helping the event at Seagull.
• Debalina and Aulic: for their support and advice.
• EBONG ALAP: for its almost constant support and guidance. Especially, Sarmistha Dutta Gupta, Aveek Sen, Swati Ganguly and Sudeshna Banerjee.
• ELAAN and BLANKNOISE PROJECT, fellow students groups: for their presence and for keeping the dialogue on comprehensive awareness going.
• Garga Chatterjee: for his help and support.
• Jishnu Dasgupta: for being there unconditionally when we needed him and disappearing into Oly Pub when we did not.
• Kavita Panjabi: for supporting us from the very beginning through everything, including giving us her premises for our extremely noisy meetings and for the excellent food.
• Kenneth Bo Nielsen: for the photographs that only he could have taken (for there are perhaps always things that we, as visitors, cannot get to see), for familiarising us with Singur, for sharing analyses and information that he had researched while working for his own doctoral dissertation, and for sharing his room with us whenever we needed a place to rest and sit and talk. All this, despite the mosquitoes, the heat, and the toothache.
• Niladri Chatterjee: for going to every michhil we called him for, even when we did not manage to ourselves.
• Nilanjana Deb: for her time, for marshalling volunteers whenever we needed more hands, and for her ideas. For helping to find place to store clothes and food, and for bringing little things like flowers into our lives on busy days.
• Our hosts in Singur.
• Paromita Brahmachari: for arguing with Trina almost all the time about everything.
• Paromita Chakravarti: for being there all the time and for scolding us about everything, even things we had not done.
• Prabir Niyogy: for helping us out in Singur along with Kenneth.
• Pradip Kumar Dutta, Dwaipayan Bhattacharya and Manas Ray: for their help and advice.
• Prasanta Chakravarty: for constant dialogue and debate all the way from Bangalore.
• Rajarshi Dasgupta: for advising us about the photographs and for being the only person around whom Trina is scared of.
• Sabir Ahamed and CALCUTA SAMARITANS: for speaking at our workshop on RTIs and PILs.
• Samantak Das: for being there ab ovo and for telling us things about rural Bengal which we never knew.
• Saswati Biswas: for giving us the use of her car in February and much, much else through the months.
• Shuktara Lal: for giving us our first press coverage, in Civil Society
• Subhendu Dasgupta: for his time and his talks -- albeit informal -- at Jadavpur University almost a year back now, and then being with us through all the present efforts.
• Sujato Bhadra and APDR: for speaking at our workshop on RTIs and PILs
• Sujit Kumar Mandal and Rafat Ali at JU: for giving us so much support during the Dobandi Drive.
• Sunando, Megha, Indrani and others at Seagull: for helping to organise the tripartite event in July-August 2008 and for helping us organise talks in schools.
• Supriya Chaudhuri: for appreciating our work and encouraging us in our efforts.
• SWAJAN, Arpita Ghosh and Kaushik Sen: for keeping the dialogue open.
• The faculty at JUDE: for being understanding.
• All our friends and co-students at Jadavpur University and the CSSSC, who have chipped in, in a million little ways. Those who have worked days on end to make everything from donation bins from shoe boxes to posters for seminars.
• Each person who has helped us with their time, their patience, their solidarity, their thoughts, their affection, their labour and their constant support.
• All those who have travelled with us to Singur and Nandigram. All those who have wanted to know, in most minute detail, what we saw when we came back.
• Every person who contributed to the Dobandi (Singur) Relief Drive in March.
• Our parents: for scaring, discouraging, madly loving and in the end, grudgingly supporting us. We know where you have been and what you have seen, but a kid’s gotta do what s/he’s gotta do. We know you will come around.
• Everyone we missed in this list and who should have been here.
• Above all, our deepest thanks are due to the people of Singur. They have allowed us into their villages and homes, shared with us their sorrows, apprehensions and happiness, and finally, trusted us to look at them through our lenses. This exhibition is dedicated to them.

Sincerely,

Aditya Vikram Das
Amrita Dhar
Aniruddha Dutta
Aniruddha Maitra
Arnab Banerji
Dibyajyoti Ghosh
Insiya Poonawala
Joyraj Bhattacharya
Lav Kanoi
Madhura Chakraborty
Mrinalini Ghosh
Pramita Ray
Reep Pandi Lepcha
Rohini Chaki
Rwitayan Mukherjee
Sahana Bhose
Sahana Ghosh
Saptarshi Chakraborty
Trina Nileena Banerjee
Uttaran Dasgupta

Acknowledgements for Under Development: Singur at Seagull Arts and Media Resource Centre from 27.06.08 to 2.07.08

Citizens’ Initiative wishes to thank:

1. First and foremost, Naveen Kishore the miracle worker: without whose unflinching generosity not an iota of this would have been possible.

2. Amlan Das Gupta: for being there even before we began and for telling us exactly what he liked (regardless of our telling him what we liked) during our photo-selection procedure. Also, for providing immense support during the event at Seagull and thereby bagging the best attendance prize for the event.

3. Ananda Lal: for his generous contribution to CI and for feeling touched by our work.

4. Anchita Ghatak, Sourinee Mirdha and ACTION AID: for their steady supportive presence.

5. Anuradha Kapoor and SWAYAM: for their support.

6. Ananya Chatterjee Chakravarti: for generously funding the filming of our February seminar.

7. ANYA NARI: for translating and publishing the Nandigram Interim Report in Bangla.

8. Aseem Shrivastava: for speaking in the February conference and for putting things in perspective for the months to come. And for sending us a truckload of films on development this time.

9. Banojyotsna Lahiri: for being the only person in Delhi (a city where we thought we had many friends) who agreed to collect and courier to us the films from Aseem, even though she hardly knew us.

10. Biplab Dey: for nothing short of obsessive concern about the technicalities surrounding our photographs, and for many, many critical comments whose usefulness we learnt only with time.

11. Bodhisattva Kar: for saying ‘Silence after Auschwitz’ with despairing eyes.

12. Buddha Deb and Amnesty: for helping the event at Seagull.

13. CCTV and Minakshi Chaudhuri: for making the medical camp at Dobandi possible. Almost 70 people were treated in Dobandi at this camp in April in a collaborative effort by CCTV and CI.

14. Debolina Dutta and OPEN SPACE: for helping the event at Seagull.

15. Debalina and Aulic: for their support and advice.

16. Dilip Simeon: for agreeing, just like Aseem, to travel all the way from Delhi at his own expense, just to speak to us.

17. EBONG ALAP: for its almost constant support and guidance. Especially, Sarmistha Dutta Gupta, Aveek Sen, Swati Ganguly and Sudeshna Banerjee.

18. ELAAN and BLANKNOISE PROJECT, fellow students groups: for their presence and for keeping the dialogue on comprehensive awareness going.

19. G Arunima (Delhi) and Arundhati Ghosh (Bangalore): for effective and affective sisterhood from afar.

20. Garga Chatterjee: for his help and support.

21. Jishnu Dasgupta: for being there unconditionally when we needed him and disappearing into Oly Pub when we did not.

22. Kavita Panjabi: for supporting us from the very beginning through everything, including giving us her premises for our extremely noisy meetings and for the excellent food.

23. Kenneth Bo Nielsen: for the photographs that only he could have taken (for there are perhaps always things that we, as visitors, cannot get to see), for familiarising us with Singur, for sharing analyses and information that he had researched while working for his own doctoral dissertation, and for sharing his room with us whenever we needed a place to rest and sit and talk. All this, despite the mosquitoes, the heat, and the toothache.

24. Meher Engineer: for humour and immense support with collecting (food, clothes and medicines) for Dobandi over the months.

25. Niladri Chatterjee: for going to every michhil we called him for, even when we did not manage to ourselves.

26. Nilanjana Deb: for her time, for marshalling volunteers whenever we needed more hands, and for her ideas. For helping to find place to store clothes and food, and for bringing little things like flowers into our lives on busy days.

27. Our hosts in Singur.

28. Paromita Brahmachari: for arguing with Trina almost all the time about everything.

29. Paromita Chakravarti: for being there all the time and for scolding us about everything, even things we had not done.

30. Pradip Kumar Dutta, Dwaipayan Bhattacharya and Manas Ray: for their help and advice.

31. Prasanta Chakravarty: for constant dialogue and debate all the way from Bangalore.

32. Prabir Niyogy: for helping us out in Singur along with Kenneth.

33. Rajarshi Dasgupta: for advising us about the photographs and for being the only person around whom Trina is scared of.

34. Sabir Ahamed and Calcutta Samaritans: for speaking at our workshop on RTIs and PILs

35. Samantak Das: for being there ab ovo and for telling us things about rural Bengal which we never knew.

36. Saswati Biswas: for giving us the use of her car in February and much, much else through the months.

37. Shuktara Lal: for giving us our first press coverage

38. Subhendu Dasgupta: for his time and his talks -- albeit informal -- at Jadavpur University almost a year back now, and then being with us through all the present efforts.

39. Sujato Bhadra and APDR: for speaking at our workshop on RTIs and PILs

40. Sujit Kumar Mandal and Rafat Ali at JU: for giving us so much support during the Dobandi Drive.

41. Sunando and Megha: for help and advice at the venue. Babuda and his men: for their labour.

42. Swajan, Arpita Ghosh and Kaushik Sen: for keeping the dialogue open.

43. The faculty at JUDE: for being understanding.

44. All our friends and co-students at Jadavpur University and the CSSSC, who have chipped in, in a million little ways. Those who have worked days on end to make everything from donation bins from shoe boxes to posters for seminars.

45. Each person who has helped us with their time, their patience, their solidarity, their thoughts, their affection, their labour and their constant support.

46. All those who have travelled with us to Singur and Nandigram. All those who have wanted to know, in most minute detail, what we saw when we came back.

47. Every person who contributed to the Dobandi (Singur) Relief Drive in March.

48. Our parents: for scaring, discouraging, madly loving and in the end, grudgingly supporting us. We know where you have been and what you have seen, but a kid’s gotta do what s/he’s gotta do. We know you will come around.

49. Everyone we missed in this list and who should have been here.

50. Above all, our deepest thanks are due to the people of Singur. They have allowed us into their villages and homes, shared with us their sorrows, apprehensions and happiness, and finally, trusted us to look at them through our lenses. This exhibition is dedicated to them.


Aditya Vikram Das
Amrita Dhar
Aniruddha Dutta
Aniruddha Maitra
Arnab Banerji
Dibyajyoti Ghosh
Insiya Poonawala
Joyraj Bhattacharya
Lav Kanoi
Madhura Chakraborty
Rwitayan Mukherjee
Sahana Bhose
Sahana Ghosh
Trina Nileena Banerjee
Uttaran Dasgupta

Nafaz Nafaz

Nafaz nafaz kadam kadam
Bas ek fiqr dam- badam
Gire hain hum sawaal se
Humein jawab chahiye

Jawab 'gar sawal hai
To inquilab chahiye
Inquilab zindabad
Zindabad inquilab

Jahaan avam ke khilaf sazishein ho shaan se
Jahaan pe begunah haath dho rahein ho jaan se
Jahaan pe lavs-e-aam pe ek khaufnak raaz ho
Jahaan kabutaron ka sarparast ek baaz ho

Wahaan na chup rahenge hum
Kahenge ha kahenge hum
Humara haq humara haq
Humein janab chahiye

Yakeen ankh mud kar kiya tha jinpe jaan par
Wohi humare saamne khara hai seena taan kar
Unhiki sarhadon mein qaid hain humari boliyan
Wohi humare khaal mein baras rahein hain goliyan

Tu unki jhuti baat par
Na aur aetbar kar
Ke tujhko saans-saans ka
Sahi hisaab chahiye

Gire hain hum sawaal se
Hume jawab chahiye

Tasallio ke itne saal baad apne hal par
Nigah dal soch kar soch kar sawaal kar
Kahaan gaye woh wayedein, sukhon ke khwab kya huye
Tujhe tha jinka intezaar woh jawaab kya huye

Tu unki jhuti baat par
Na aur aetbar kar
Ke tujhko saans-saans ka
Sahi hisaab chahiye

Gire hain hum sawaal se
Hume jawab chahiye

Paying Our Price for Silence by Oishik Sircar

This article was published in The Statesman a couple of weeks after the November violence in Nandigram. As the reader will find out, it was written with a lot of angst, and couldn't escape the Kantian sleight of hand -- the categorical imperative of pure reason subsumed me!

West Bengal is smoothly operating as a ‘state of exception’ – where state repression co-exists with a hogwashed support for civil liberties. The state will kill people, and also selectively allow people to protest against the killings. The repression, however, will not stop. But finally in response bhadroloks and bhadramohilas (gentlemen and gentlewomen) have risen to the occasion. November 14, 2007 has been historic – not because Kolkata saw yet another rally – but for the first time ever it saw a rally which was not organized by a political party, and yet had a turn out that overwhelmed all previous rallies by any political party. The young and the old, and other common people – office goers, housewives, shopkeepers – and intellectuals, all walked together to protest against the brutal acts of state repression that the Buddhadev government carried out in Nandigram. Prior to the rally there has been unprecedented activity on cyberspace – people mail bombing online petitions, meticulously up-to-date blogging of all events that are unfolding in West Bengal, and citizens’ statements urging people to rise in unison against the arbitrary violence carried out by the state. Post the rally several people have blacked out their profile photographs on the social network site Orkut as a mark of dissent. The born-again Bengali Protestor seems to have woken up from his/her slumber of indifference. The Bengali Protestor of contemporary times has finally arrived. Or so I would like to believe.

I am sitting far away in the comfortable confines of a Toronto apartment, getting suitably agitated with the affairs in my home state and feeling frustrated for not being able to be there with my friends and fellow Calcuttans who are organizing – finally, collectively, visibly. I do the same as several others can being so far away – mass mailing petitions to people urging them to sign, and trying to find out what can be done here. First I contact the local South Asian group asking them to circulate petitions; then I find out that there is a Bengali Film Festival happening sometime soon and decide to carry out some signature campaign there. I call up some probashi (immigrant) Bengalis here, but to my utter dismay find out that they are least interested. I see the probashi Bengali still content with organizing massive functions like the North American Bengali Conference – where they spend millions of dollars – and imagine themselves as the sole bearers of Bengali culture – without any connection to the realities back home. Which explains why Sunil Gangopadhyay, despite being openly supportive of the government’s actions in Singur and Nandigram is a regular feature at the conference, and so is Soumitra Chatterjee who walked the state sponsored rally which was organized a day after the public rally in Kolkata. I guess a heightened sense of privilege makes apathy grow on us like poisonous creepers. And it suddenly struck me that this isn’t necessarily true of the probashi ilk only – it’s true of almost all Bengalis like me – educated, English-speaking, moderately moneyed and ostensibly socially concerned.

Where were we when Gujarat 2002 happened? Where was our support for Medha Patkar when she was fasting in front of the Supreme Court demanding rehabilitation for the evicted people of the Narmada Valley? Where were we when farmers kept committing suicides in Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra? Where were our protests against the virulently casteist anti-reservationists? Where was our concern when the bar dancers of Bombay were rendered jobless? Where were we when millions were being evicted from Nangla Machi in Delhi? Did we respond when the AFSPA’s reign of terror scarred Manipur? Where is our concern for the rule of law with emergency declared in neighbouring Pakistan? Where was our support for human rights during the recent Junta crackdown on pro-democracy activists in Burma? Where were we when the Kalinganagar massacre happened in Orissa? Do we feel a need to extend solidarity to the Chengara land struggle in Kerala? In response to Nandigram protests were organized all across India – in Mumbai, Chandigargh, Bangalore, Thiruvananthapuram and not necessarily by Bengalis – but where were the Bengalis of Kolkata when all the above happened? It was only Mamata who sometimes took centrestage by perversely paralyzing the state through bandhs (strikes). The people of Kolkata behaved as if nothing was happening elsewhere, oblivious to the fact that our silence was in effect condoning the occurrence of these events, including what has been breeding in our own backyards. We did not talk about the pogrom in Gujarat when it happened, but have started comparing Modi with Buddhadev now! So much so that one of the posters at the rally cried out: “It’s West Bengal. Not Gujarat!” Evil’s caught up with us finally – is that why we need to take notice now?

This doesn’t only go for the Bengali in Kolkata, but also for the Bengali like me who is transnationally wired and is a virtual yet equal participant in this. For instance, a networked community of Bengalis across North America, Europe and India who have created a web space for themselves called ‘Sanhati-Fighting Neo-Liberalism in Bengal’, which an excellent forum for engaging discussion on economic and political issues that mar West Bengal. But Sanhati emerged only when Singur happened – as if that was when history was created. Their website powerfully declares: “We may be the last generation to be able to realistically organize. We may be the first generation to drive back the ‘development’ beast”. This claim tends to valorize their emphatic achievement as the first-of-its-kind, but at the same time does not acknowledge that there has been several before them, who are also their contemporaries, who have been fighting the beast for a long long time. It might have been more modest to make a humble declaration about being inspired by the several young people who left their education/ work to join people’s movements like the Narmada Bachao Andolan, and vowing to build on the foundations they have already laid. This attempt at claiming the first-of-its-kind status emerges out of a typical Bengali ethos: we mark the beginning and end of time – an explanation that is used to highlight the contributions of Tagore to Ray to Ganguly! A similar claim was also made in the announcement circulated to publicize the November 14 rally, where even before the event took place it was declared that it will be ‘historic’. It was like a seductive call to the indifferent Bengali to become a part of history even before it was made. I am reminded of the expression ‘kupomonduk’ (the frog in the well) – it is not the actual location of the Bengali that matters here, but the conscience of ‘blinkered-farsightedness’ that the Bengali suffers from, where ever we are.

It is necessary that I disclaim taking a position of discrediting all that has been happening. After all, I was the one to write to Sanhati asking for guidance about what could be done in Toronto. With the wonderfully archived news reports on their website I put together a press note and statement that I circulated in Canada. Sanhati does also remain my most reliable source for updates on the goings on in Nandigram. I cannot dare discredit any of these initiatives, because I sincerely believe that it is high time that the Bengali made its outrage count, the way it happened on November 14. Earlier, the collective pressure built around the Rizwanur case, and the present public outrage is what needs to be powerfully sustained. And I don’t say that in a patronizing fashion – I say that as someone who claims ownership of this outrage, at least on my own count.

We are not new to protests – but we have tended to respond to injustice only when it occurs in our backyard – that too when we fear that the fire in the backyard can bring down the house. We shouldn’t be responding to Nandigram because it is about saving the face of the ‘rational’ Bengali, but to expose our own faces as participants in perpetuating the present state of affairs in West Bengal. We hailed Buddhadev Bhattacharya’s entry as Chief Minister in November 2000 because he claimed to resurrect West Bengal and set it off on the journey towards industrialization and economic development. It took us seven years to figure out how his plot has gone awry, when right through we gave into this faulty logic of ‘progress’ that got him the votes from us. Some only feebly questioned his arbitrary land allotments in the Salt Lake Township in 2006. We kept consuming what the glitzy malls offered and traveled on the newly built flyovers, never wondering if all of these came at the human cost of evictions.

My support for the mahamichhil (the great rally) is not simply because it finally happened, but because it was when I would like to believe that the Bengali held itself accountable – for things that we now see and things that we chose not to for so long. Sitting so far away I don’t wish to romanticize the mahamichhil – I want to feel that I am part of a collective Bengali society where I can hold myself accountable for being party to the creation of this ‘state of exception’ – for realizing that I am paying a price for my silence. I cannot speak for others, but I would like to believe that the buddhijibis (intellectuals) walking the rally on November 14 also felt that they were paying their price as well.

Simple, Ain't It?

• My only concern was to get home after a hard day's work.
• I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.
• I knew someone had to take the first step and I made up my mind not to move.
• The only tired I was, was tired of giving in. (on refusing to give up her seat on the bus to a white male)
• Have you ever been hurt and the place tries to heal a bit, and you just pull the scar off of it over and over again?

Rosa Parks

Also, here .

Remembering

Some things that I like to remember. We could argue about it.

• I cannot teach you violence, as I do not myself believe in it. I can only teach you not to bow your heads before any one even at the cost of your life.

• I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.

• I want freedom for the full expression of my personality.

• It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.

• One needs to be slow to form convictions, but once formed they must be defended against the heaviest odds.

• Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.

• Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.

• You must be the change you want to see in the world.

• Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary.

'Satyagraha Leaflet No. 13,' May 3, 1919, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi