CAT prep online

Introduction
• Nandigram is a rural area in Purba Medinipur district of the Indian state of West Bengal. It is located about 70 km south-west of Kolkata, on the south bank of the Haldi River, opposite the industrial city of Haldia. The area falls under Haldia Development Authority.
• The West Bengal government recently decided that the Salim Group would set up a chemical hub at Nandigram under the SEZ policy.
• In 2007 this lead to resistance by villagers, clashes with police that left 14 villagers dead, and accusations of police brutality

What is a SEZ ?
• A Special Economic Zone (SEZ) is a geographical region that has economic laws that are more liberal than a country's typical economic laws.
• The category 'SEZ' covers a broad range of more specific zone types, including Free Trade Zones (FTZ), Export Processing Zones (EPZ), Free Zones (FZ), Industrial Estates (IE), Free Ports, Urban Enterprise Zones and others.
• Usually the goal of an SEZ structure is to increase foreign investment. One of the earliest and the most famous Special Economic Zones were founded by the government of the People's Republic of China under Deng Xiaoping in the early 1980s.
• The most successful Special Economic Zone in China, Shenzhen, has developed from a small village into a city with a population over 10 million within 20 years.
• A single SEZ can contain multiple 'specific' zones within its boundaries. The two most prominent examples of this layered approach are Subic Bay in the Philippines ,the Aqaba Special Economic Zone in Jordan.and The Navi Mumbai SEZ in India .

Why Nandigram was chosen as a SEZ ?
• Nandigram was chosen because it is next to Haldia, a major port.
• SEZ's are tax free zones, where no law of the land applies - no environmental law, no labour law, no Panchayati Raj law for local governance
• SEZ's were created in 2006 through the SEZ Act of 2005, which allowed the government to appropriate farmers land and hand it over to corporations.

Nandigram dispute
• The Nandigram SEZ controversy, which caused the Nandigram massacre, started when the West Bengal government decided that the Salim Group of Indonesia would set up a chemical hub under the SEZ policy at Nandigram, a rural area in the district of Purba Medinipur
• The villagers took over the administration of the area and all the roads to the villages were cut off.
• The administration was directed to break the Bhumi Ucched Protirodh Commitee's (BUPC resistance at Nandigram and a massive operation with at least 3,000 policemen was launched on March 14, 2007
• However, prior information of the impending action had leaked out to the BUPC who amassed a crowd of roughly 2,000 villagers at the entry points into Nandigram with women and children forming the front ranks. In the resulting mayhem, at least 14 people were killed.

Why the villagers opposed?
• The chemical hub would require the acquisition of over 14,000 acres (57 km²) of land. The special economic zone would be spread over 29 mouzas (villages) of which 27 are in Nandigram
• Probodh Panda, a CPI MP from the district has said that most of the land to be acquired is multi crop and would affect over 40,000 people.[
• Expectedly, the prospect of losing land and thereby livelihood raised the heckles of the predominantly agricultural populace
• The villagers, who had been predominantly supporters of the party in power, CPI(M), turned against it and organized a resistance movement under the banner of the newly formed Bhumi Uchhed Pratirodh Committee or BUPC (literally, Committee for the Resistance to Eviction from Land).
• defence of the project, the state government states that it was won by competing with 9 other Indian states. Being in the vicinity of Haldia Petrochemicals & IOC refinery, which, the CPI(M) claimed, had earlier led to 100,000 jobs being created through downstream projects, the party argued that this is the best place to build a hub from the point of view of supply-chain integration
• The local farmers, who repeatedly informed that the land there, is fertile enough for multi-crop farming, got furious and raised their voice against the project
• The opposition from the farmers forced the Chief Minister to inform, that the government would withdraw from the project
• Despite the Chief Minister's statement, the local, district and State administration kept stating that the Chemical Hub would take place at Nandigram itself. There were written documents signed by the concerned authorities, which confirmed this.

The events of March 14 2007
• The administration was directed to break the BUPC's resistance at Nandigram and a massive operation with at least 3,000 policemen was launched on March 14, 2007
• A group of armed and trained CPI(M) cadres wore police uniforms and joined the forces
• However, prior information of the impending action had leaked out to the BUPC who amassed a crowd of roughly 2,000 villagers at the entry points into Nandigram with women and children forming the front ranks
• In the resulting mayhem, at least 14 people were killed.
• Immediately following the March 14 carnage voluntary teams of doctors visited the Nandigram health centre, the district hospital at Tamluk and later, the SSKM hospital and compiled a comprehensive report
• Fresh violence erupted in Nandigram on 29 April caused the West Bengal Human Rights Commission to step in
• The deaths in Nandigram have led to a great deal of controversy on the left in India
• The federal police say they have recovered many bullets of a type not used by police but in widespread use in the underworld

Location shift
After the bloodshed at Nandigram, and the stiff resistance from opposition parties and Left Front partners over land acquisition, chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on 3 September expressed the government's preference for the sparsely populated island of Nayachar, 30 kilometres from Haldia, to set up the much talked-about chemical hub.

November 2007 violence
• A fresh round of violence came up in November 2007. Villagers are alleging that CPM goons are raping women daily in Nandigram
• On November 12, 2007, the National Human Rights Commission has issued a notice to the West Bengal Government directing it to submit a factual report on the conditions prevailing in Nandigram
• CPI(Maoist) also joined struggle against ruling CPM in Nandigram
• Recently, police found weapons belonging to Maoists, including explosives near Nandigram. They also noted that Andhra Maoists also infiltrated Nandigram to counter CPM goons.
• Maoists called a 48-hour Bihar and Jharkhand bandh from Monday, November 19 as an attempt for motivating people and building up a resistance" against attacks by "armed CPM" cadres in Nandigram
• Trinamool Congress, Socialist Unity Centre of India and other opposition groups also continue to struggle against Nandigram repression.

2008 violence
In May 2008, fresh violence broke out in Nandigram between supporters of the Bhumi Uchhed Pratirodh Committee, and the CPM activists. Both sides exchanged fire and hurled bombs at each other.
On 5th May, CPI(M) mob striped three woman activists of Bhumi Uchhed Pratirodh Committee when they refused to join a rally organized by CPI(M). Owing to wide political and civil protests on the incident the Government of West Bengal ordered a CID probe into the incident. CPM leaders denied the allegations, claiming that it was part of a malicious campaign.
Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunsi and a section of intellectuals including Aparna Sen from Kolkata, in separate press statements, demanded that panchayat polls, due on 11th May, in the areas falling within the jurisdiction of the Nandigram thana be deferred, for, elections might not be “peaceful and democratic”

2008 Elections
Panchayath
The electorate of Nandigram reacted strongly against the Left Front government's policy of industrialisation through farmland acquisition and its continuous terror tactics. In a major setback for the ruling CPI-M for the first time in the history of Left regime in the West Bengal the opposition wrested control of the East Midnapore Zilla Parishad by bagging 35 seats out of 53 Zilla Parishad seats in the elections that were held on 11 May 2008. In the previous panchayat polls in 2003, the Trinamul Congress had only two seats out of 51 Zilla Parishad seats. The results of the election are Trinamul Congress-35, SUCI-1, CPI(M)-14, CPI-2 and DSP-1. In all four seats of Nandigram - I and II blocks, which saw violence after protests against the government's bid for land acquisition for a chemical hub, the Trinamul candidates have won the polls by defeating the CPI-M candidates including a heavyweight leader. Sheikh Sufian, a Bhumi Uchhed Pratirodh Committee leader backed by the Trinamul, defeated his rival CPI-M candidate Mr Ashok Jana by a margin of over 13,000 votes whilst Mr Pijush Bhunia, another Trinamul leader defeated Mr Ashok Bera, a CPI-M zonal committee secretary by over 21,00 votes
Assembly
Mrs Firoza Bibi (whose son was killed in shooting by police and CPI(M) cadres on March 14, 2008) of Trinamool Congress won the Nandigram assembly by-election with a margin of 40,000 votes defeating the ruling front's candidate Paramananda Bharati