Rajarhat beyond Kolkata: The Dystopia of Urban Imagination [1 ed.] 0415844355, 9780415844352

Table of contents :
Contents
List of Plates
List of Maps and Tables
List of Abbreviations
Preface
Acknowledgements
1. Where is Rajarhat?
2. Destruction of a World
3. Losers and Gainers
4. Urban Legends of Consent
5. Logistics and Nightmares
6. New Town, New Labour
7. The Global and National Histories of Rajarhat
8. Politics of the Multitude
9. Concluding Reflections
Glossary
Bibliography
About the Authors
Index

Citation preview

Beyond Kolkata

Cities and the Urban Imperative Series Editor: Sujata Patel, Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Hyderabad This series introduces a holistic approach to studying cities, the urban experience, and its imaginations. It assesses what is distinctive of the urban phenomenon in India, as also delineates the characteristic uniqueness of particular cities as they embrace change and create ways of experiencing modernities. Taking an interdisciplinary route, the series evaluates the many facets of urbanisation and city formation, and explores the challenges faced in relation to regional, national and global processes. The books in this series present the changing trends in macro and micro urban processes; the nature of demographic patterns of migration and natural growth therein; spatial reorganisation and segregation in urban areas; uneven economic development of manufacturing and services in cities; unequal access to power in the context of formal citizenship; increasing everyday violence and declining organised protest; breakdown of urban family life in juxtaposition with the reconstitution of community. They will trace how new forms of socialities are replacing old forms of trust and solidarity, and how these are being institutionalised in distinct and diverse ways within South Asia.

Also in this Series Growing up in the Knowledge Society: Living the IT Dream in Bangalore Nicholas Nisbett ISBN 978-0-415-55146-5 Governing India’s Metropolises: Case Studies of Four Cities Editors: Joël Ruet and Stephanie Tawa Lama-Rewal ISBN 978-0-415-55148-9 India’s Middle Class: New Forms of Urban Leisure, Consumption and Prosperity Christiane Brosius ISBN 978-0-415-54453-5 Urban Navigations: Politics, Space and the City in South Asia Editors: Jonathan Shapiro Anjaria and Colin McFarlane ISBN 978-0-415-61760-4 Participolis: Consent and Contention in Neoliberal Urban Governance Editors: Karen Coelho, Lalitha Kamath and M. Vijayabaskar ISBN 978-0-415-81193-4 Dharavi: From Mega-Slum to Urban Paradigm Marie-Caroline Saglio-Yatzimirsky ISBN 978-0-415-81252-8

Beyond Kolkata Rajarhat and the Dystopia of Urban Imagination

Ishita Dey Ranabir Samaddar Suhit K. Sen

ROUTLEDGE

Routledge Taylor & Francis Group

LONDON NEW YORK NEW DELHI

First published 2013 in India by Routledge 912 Tolstoy House, 15–17 Tolstoy Marg, Connaught Place, New Delhi 110 001 Simultaneously published in the UK by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

© 2013 Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-0-415-84435-2

Who built Thebes of the seven gates? In the books you will find the names of kings. Did the kings haul up the lumps of rock? And Babylon, many times demolished Who raised it up so many times? In what houses of gold-glittering Lima did the builders live? Where, the evening that the Wall of China was finished Did the masons go? Great Rome Is full of triumphal arches. Who erected them? […] Every page a victory Who cooked the feast for the victors? Every ten years a great man. Who paid the bill? So many reports So many questions. (Bertolt Brecht, ‘Questions from a Worker Who Reads’, 1976) The city appears to you as a whole where no desire is lost and of which you are a part, and since it enjoys everything you do not enjoy, you can do nothing but inhabit this desire and be content. Such is the power, sometimes called malignant, sometimes benign, that Anastasia, the treacherous city possesses; if for eight hours a day you work as a cutter of agate, onyx, chrysoprase, your labour, which gives form to desire, takes from desire its form, and you believe you are enjoying Anastasia wholly when you are only its slave. (Marco Polo reporting on a city to Kublai Khan, ‘Cities and Desire 2’, 1997)

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Contents List of Plates List of Maps and Tables List of Abbreviations Preface Acknowledgements 1. Where is Rajarhat?

ix xi xiii xv xvii 1

2. Destruction of a World

25

3. Losers and Gainers

79

4. Urban Legends of Consent

110

5. Logistics and Nightmares

135

6. New Town, New Labour

160

7. The Global and National Histories of Rajarhat

183

8. Politics of the Multitude

209

9. Concluding Reflections

234

Glossary Bibliography About the Authors Index

244 246 259 260

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List of Plates Between pages 134 and 135

Old Kolkata Victoria Memorial Hall in Kolkata A heritage building: The Town Hall An old cinema hall: The New Empire

IT and Infrastructural Revolution: New Town Offices housing IBM and other IT firms in New Town The proposed financial hub built by Shrachi The HIDCO palace Inadequate infrastructure: A rare power plant High-rise buildings and shopping malls A water body being filled up for the purpose of construction A road under construction A bridge under construction Waste-handling

Notice for New Life Assurance of good living by the promoters: A New Town hoarding A new hotel with hoarding of a realtor

In Transition Stretches of desolate land A service village

x  List of Plates

Tea-stall and other makeshift shops High-rise apartments under construction High-rise apartments Shanty dwellers under a bamboo grove A newly constructed road

Politics A Trinamool Congress meeting against corrupt practices of HIDCO A Communist Party of India (Marxist) office Trinamool leader Kakali Ghosh Dastidar in a rally A Trinamool Congress rally against HIDCO in progress A poster demanding that HIDCO bosses repay the people of Rajarhat an amount of 2 lakh crore Mamata Banerjee addressing a meeting in Rajarhat Nilotpal Dutta, leader of Rajarhat Jomi Bachao Committee

New Town, New Life Land acquired for Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre Red flags and a road indicator towards the NBCC Ltd. buildings Signboard for a new school New temple in New Town The old ways: A temple in New Town Posters of new jatra plays

All photographs courtesy of Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group.

List of Maps and Tables Maps 1.1 1.2 1.3

Mauzas under Rajarhat Panchayat Samiti Location of Rajarhat Location of Baguihati

4 10 12

3.1

Fringe Areas under BRADA

87

4.1

Wetlands of East Kolkata

111

8.1 8.2

Rajarhat Assembly Constituency Erstwhile bheris of New Town

210 216

Tables 6.1 6.2 6.3

7.1 7.2

List of Nine Notified SEZ Approvals Exports through Functional SEZs in West Bengal Training and Employment Opportunity of Local People as part of Rehabilitation Programme by the Government Disaggregation of Total Incremental Urban Population into Components Number of Towns and Percentage of Urban Population in Different Size Categories

170 171

181 199 201

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List of Abbreviations ADB AITUC ASSOCHAM BIPPL BPO BRADA BNL CAG CPI (M) CREDAI DFID DHDR DOE EIA EPA EPZ FDI FICCI FFDA FTZ GE KMA HIDCO HMSI HUDCO HDCC JNNURM IBM

Asian Development Bank All India Trade Union Congress Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry in India Bloom Industrial Plastics Pvt. Ltd. Business Process Outsourcing Bhangar Rajarhat Area Development Authority Brookhaven National Laboratory Comptroller and Auditor General Communist Party of India (Marxist) Confederation of Real Estate Developers Association of India Department of International Development of the United Kingdom District Human Development Report Department of Energy Environment Impact Assessment Environment Protection Act Export Processing Zone Foreign Direct Investment Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry Fish Farmers’ Development Agency Free Trade Zone General Electronics Kolkata Metropolitan Area West Bengal Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India Housing and Urban Development Corporation Howrah Democratic Citizens’ Committee Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission International Business Machine

xiv  List of Abbreviations

IT ITeS IIT ISI IFCI IDA KMDA LAC MJBS MLA NPS PAPs PAFs PIL RJBC RKJJJR RHS RSP SEZ STP TMC TCMPC TCS UAW UCO ULCRA UNESCO UTI WB WEBEL ZEST

Information Technology Information Technology-enabled Services Indian Institute of Technology Indian Statistical Institute Industrial Financial Corporation of India International Development Association Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority Land Acquisition Collector Mahishbathan Jivikachyuta Bekar Samiti Member of the Legislative Assembly Nabadiganta Pariseba Samiti Project-affected persons Project-affected families Public Interest Litigation Rajarhat Jomi Bachao Committee Rajarhat Krishi Jomi Jiban Jibika Raksha Committee Rural Household Survey Revolutionary Socialist Party Special Economic Zone Software Technology Park Trinamool Congress Trammel Crow Meghraj Property Consultants Tata Consultancy Services United Auto Workers United Commercial Urban Land Ceiling Regulation Act United Nations Educational Social and Cultural Organisation Unit Trust of India World Bank West Bengal Electronics Industry Development Corporation Limited Zero-energy satellite town

Preface T

he New Town at Rajarhat no longer looks as barren and bald as described in the first chapter of this book. In the past year, while writing this book, several things have happened, some of which are recorded here. Some new buildings have come up, mainly residential. Commercial buildings are still few in number. There has been a change of government in between. The new government tries to fill the landscape with promises of museums, galleries, convention centres, and ecoparks. The number of buses has increased, as has the number of cars plying between the airport and the city of Kolkata. The Tata super-speciality hospital has come up in this period. Also, there appear to be some feeble attempts to save one or two water bodies left after the plunder. The Bhangar-Rajarhat Area Development Authority or BRADA has been dissolved. However, land sharks still roam the area, murders take place once dusk falls, syndicates quarrel over money, and one political party replaces another in leading or lending support to gangs of marauders. Mercifully, the exuberant voices of architects and planners have died down. Instead, there is now a sombre realisation among seasoned administrators, newly appointed to salvage Rajarhat, that the odds against recovery are high. In this book most references to the state government are to the past Left Front government. When the current Trinamool Congressled government is referred to, it is mentioned specifically. Some sections of the book convey traces of the pre-election atmosphere in West Bengal, when the opposition complaints became louder than ever and newspaper correspondents covered Rajarhat to a greater degree than to which they had done for over a decade. Gautam Deb and Rabin Mondal, referred to several times in this book, had been, respectively, the Left Front minister in charge of the West Bengal Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation (HIDCO), the institution that bears responsibility for the New Town, and the local MLA belonging to the CPI (M). Changes take place every other day. We could incorporate some of the new information, others we had to leave out. None of the

xvi  Preface

new events and happenings alter our arguments here. If anything, they confirm them. When on various occasions in the past one year we had presented our findings and arguments, strange questions were asked of us. Why did not Rajarhat become as famous as Singur or Nandigram? Or, did Rajarhat not represent a different way of managing transition? Implicit in these questions was the belief that the authors (us) were too partisan to admit that Rajarhat indeed represented a different possibility at a certain point of time. You cannot quarrel with beliefs of armchair social scientists. Our study recounts what happened. Also, it is a bit like asking why the Moscow uprising of 1905 could not be the Petrograd uprising of 1917. We realised two things in the course of our work. First, the broader ramifications of neo-liberal economic development have spread deep into society and a time has come when these can be seen most clearly from the outside — in this case, agriculture, the lot of the peasantry, subsidiary occupations, and of course labour. Radical-minded economists have erred in trying to concentrate on the inside of the economy and have forgotten the elementary rule of dialectics — the contradiction between the inside and the outside. It is with this perspective that this work brings back into discussion the issue of primitive accumulation and the return of the land question. Second, space has come back in a big way in neo-liberal social restructuring, but perhaps not in the way some think of a seamless space of new technology and information, but in the way it develops enclaves and ghettos within the space of production, in the way the labour process is redesigned, and the way the world is turned into a space of transit. Rajarhat is a space in transit. This work, therefore, carries that mark. It is a work in transit. This is possibly the most significant trait of postcolonial times. Readers will find, on finishing this book, that the chronicle we have written here is one of postcolonial capitalism.

Acknowledgements We are grateful to Nilotpal Dutta in many ways. Discussions with him made several aspects of the Rajarhat New Town project clearer. He also shared ungrudgingly, the court papers relating to the environmental case in which he was involved and to which readers will find reference in the following pages. We are likewise grateful to Pratip Nag, one of the main organisers of Rajarhat Krishi Jomi Bachao Committee, who expended his valuable time and expertise during our visits to New Town and the villages in Rajarhat. We remain thankful to our colleagues in the transit labour research group, in particular to Brett Neilson and Ned Rossiter. They encouraged us to develop the idea of producing a study of a space in transit as an integral part of studying transit labour. This study was conducted as part of the transit labour platform. We are also grateful to all those who participated in the several rounds of discussions the Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group organised in 2011. We gained particularly from the discussions held during the transit labour platform held in Kolkata in the first week of September 2011. Sandro Mezzadra was always available during the discussions to point out the deeper implications of what we were arguing. To Geetisha Dasgupta, Ishita Dey, Giorgio Grappi, and Saikat Maitra, thank you for the photographs; and to Rajat Kanti Sur for some of the documents cited here. Finally, our thanks go to Atig Ghosh, who read the manuscript several times and helped it acquire an organised character. It was not easy to give a coherent shape to this collective exercise where the authors not only speak to readers but to each other. As a result there were numerous revisions in the manuscript. To the Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group we can only remain beholden for its constant encouragement to its members to think in new ways.

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1 Where is Rajarhat? How Does One Locate a Place: A New Town?

I

n India, for various reasons, two types of urban imagination have held sway. Imaginations of Mumbai and Kolkata have alternatively become models of the city. Kolkata, the city of culture, intellectuals, renaissance, theatre, poets, old Victorian buildings, the river, missionaries, labouring coolies from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, and faraway corners of Bengal, and a place where discussion never stops, the adda, the permanent workshop of ideas. And Mumbai is the place of massive mills, hardworking, no-nonsense people, the sultry impact of the sea, the civilised wealth of the Parsis, film studios, contacts with the Urdu literati mediated by films, labour mobility, and big money, big wealth, and big commerce. Obviously, none of these profiles is pure. Both cities are much more complicated as real places. Yet, as imagined places of ideal cities, modern India has grown up with these two ideas of urbanity. This is so partly because both cities have escaped the past, by past we mean here the middle ages, and have very little royal heritage or traces of feudal power to boast of. Cleansed of the past, grown up as centres of colonial modernity, these are the dream cities of a republican India. They are cosmopolitan, democratic places of an imagined equality — equal as wage worker or the supposed equal access for citizens to the cultural virtues of life. No other city in India till date can boast of this status. No other city in India has produced citizens in the way these two cities have. Yet, in the last two decades, these two models have got sullied. Mumbai’s mills are gone, its cosmopolitanism and working-class character wrecked by a strident Hindu, upper-caste, local Marathi identity, the flaunting of wealth by a new buccaneering bourgeoisie, the globalised film industry of Bollywood that no longer cares for the city, and a large new middle class working in new offices while

2  Beyond Kolkata

the new underclass has no scope to contribute to the city. Kolkata has changed more. It wants to become Delhi. It must catch up with the flash and glitz found elsewhere. It too must have its hi-tech township, the new inner city if you like, and must embody a new mode of circulation of money, information, human resources, and power. It does not think that its old organic character is worth retaining. If discarding the old organic character is the necessary sacrifice to make in order to develop, let that be. If road space increases while the space for human interaction decreases, that price Kolkata must pay. Likewise, parallel journals have lost their edge, parallel theatre has lost audience, the river line earlier dotted with old storehouses has changed, and the remaining tramcars carry only distant memories of a city criss-crossed with tramlines and streetcars. Old urban resources have wasted away in a state of neglect. In the midst of this change of guard, something new is happening. As a product of this developmental imagination, Rajarhat is coming up beyond Kolkata. Where is Rajarhat? If you enter the city from the airport side, after a few kilometres, near Kaikhali, you take the left turn, and then you traverse the newly laid road that cuts through miles and miles of wasteland, here and there marked with a shiny mall or a few glass buildings, high-rises built by new developers and signboards announcing the coming up of an office, or an e-firm, or a conference centre — all that Kolkata apparently did not have. This is a notified area, named after the deceased, venerable leader of Bengal — Jyoti Basu Nagar.1 After you have covered about 15 km in this way, you will bypass Salt Lake and reach the artery that will reconnect you with Kolkata. Possibly, you will be relieved for you have not seen in the 30 minutes or so you were travelling in a car or speeding bus ferrying you from the airport to the city any pond, any water body, any village, any school, any farmer, any farming land, any herd of cattle. All these are gone. Land has been taken over to meet the deficits of Kolkata. But from the city side that is from the west, Rajarhat is beyond Kolkata, with few bus connections, with only one road leading to it. But as a person of Kolkata you have no reason to go beyond unless you are a Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) employee, or an employee in a mall, or a construction 1 The new government changed the name after coming to power in May 2011.

Where is Rajarhat?  3

worker (in that case, of course you stay there), or have relatives who have bought houses there (possibly flouting the law because if you already have a house in the city you cannot possess a house in the notified area). When night falls, then of course there is nothing for you. Only syndicates dealing with money, land, building material, waste disposal businesses, and firearms, are the denizens of the new city at night, the city beyond Kolkata. Rajarhat, described by L. S. S. O’Malley in the District Gazetteer of 24 Parganas as a land with vast water bodies and marked by salty marshes and the river Bidyadhari straddling between the sea and the city (O’Malley 1882), had 55 mauzas under it; 25 of them were notified for acquisition by the West Bengal Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation2 in 1998 under the Land Acquisition Act of 1894 (Article 1, clause 4) and West Bengal Land (Requisition and Acquisition Act, 1948) amounting to 3,070 ha of arable land.3 In the process, HIDCO destroyed 1.5 million trees and plants and deprived 131,000 people of their livelihoods.4 Some of the important and prosperous centres of cultivation, grain trade and settlements acquired are: Tarulia, Salua, Hatiara, Atghara, Kaikhali, Tegharia, Mahishgote, Mahishbathan, Ghuni, Baliguri, Jatragachhi, Patharghata, Muhammadpur, and Jagadishpur. Of the 55 mauzas, 15 constituted a municipality; the rest of the 40 mauzas were governed by six panchayats (Map 1.1). Going by the 2001 census, the Rajarhat panchayat area had a population of 145,381; the Rajarhat–Gopalpur municipality a population of 271,811. 2 Popularly known as HIDCO, the ‘WBHIDCO was set up as a Government Company under the Companies Act, 1956, on 26 April 1999, and has completed its ninth year in existence in April 2008. WBHIDCO is a Government Company. The State Government is making investment in the company in the form of equity share. The State Government has share worth Rs 14.75 crore in this company’ Economic Review (2009–10). 3 Different documents cite different figures; some HIDCO documents say 3,070 ha, some court documents 3,075 ha, a CAG report says 3,085 ha. 4 Figures of trees destroyed cited from the court papers of the Rajarhat Jomi Bachao Committee (hereafter RJBC), which fought a case in the Calcutta High Court; appeal dismissed subsequently by Judge Pinaki Ghosh, Division Bench. Figures from the court papers were published by RJBC in its pamphlet, Rajarhate Jami Dakatir Itihas (RJBC 2010). Also, see Dutta (2000: 58–76)and Ghosh (2008) on the environmental situation in the state, particularly Chapters 3 and 4 on land, soil and water resources.

Source: Rajarhat Jomi Bachao Committee, n.d. Note: Map not to scale. All maps in this volume are facsimile reproductions of maps prepared by specific organisations, and do not necessarily conform to cartographic standards. These have been included for purposes of basic representation and documentation.

Map 1.1: Mauzas under Rajarhat Panchayat Samiti

Where is Rajarhat?  5

With the total population of Rajarhat being 417,192, the density of population in the village and municipal area per square kilometre is respectively 1,994 and 7,773 (GoWB 2007b: 6, Table 2.2). The voter strength is 235,000. The Rajarhat panchayat area has one panchayat samiti, six gram sabhas and 99 gram sansads. The total number of mauzas is 39, ‘inhabited’ villages 38 and number of households 61,893. The total number of households in the Rajarhat–Gopalpur municipality is 59,225 (ibid.: 3, Table 1.4). The total population had shown a massive increase in the area — in 1991 it was 286,056; in 2001 it became 417,192 (ibid., Tables 2.4 a and b). And one more significant set of demographics: Muslims and Dalits constitute two substantial groups within this population, combining into a huge majority. In the panchayat area, out of a total population of 145,381, Muslims number 60,108 and Dalits 52,233. In the municipal area, out of a total population of 271,811, Muslims number 39,916 and Dalits 50,634 (ibid., figures from Tables 2.9 and 2.10 a). To get a clearer idea of the place, we go a little further with this statistical profile. According to the District Human Development Report (North 24 Parganas), published in 2010 but based mostly on the 2001 census, the literacy rate of Rajarhat is 74.83 per cent — fifth-ranked among the blocks in the district. However, with a relatively high literacy rate, it has a relatively low work participation rate: 30.33 per cent — 17 in the ranking of blocks. Of the male population, 52.4 per cent works outside the home (rank 19); of the female population, 7.02 per cent (rank 21). Compare this with another block, this time in the riverine Sunderbans, Hingalganj, which has a work participation rate of 39.70 per cent — 57.22 per cent for males and 21.25 per cent for females. In all three aspects of work participation, Hingalganj ranks number one in the district. Hingalganj ranks 11 in literacy rate, however (GoWB 2010, Tables 2.2.5 and 2.3.1). We may speculate as to whether this combination of high literacy rate and low work participation in Rajarhat had anything to do with the specific way in which opposition to land acquisition developed there, its persistence, and yet as to why it did not develop into a Singur-type situation.5 But we can 5 We are referring here to direct peasant resistance against land acquisition in Singur from 2007 onwards; on the dynamics of resistance in Singur, see Samaddar (2009).

6  Beyond Kolkata

also speculate about the ways in which work opportunities available there supported the non-working population and now stands destroyed by land acquisition. In 2001, cultivators formed 10.59 per cent of the workforce, agricultural labourers 15.20, household industry workers 5.33, and other workers 68.88 per cent (GoWB 2010, Table 2.3.2). In the municipal area of Rajarhat–Gopalpur, about 89.55 per cent houses had electricity connections; 72 per cent of houses had drinking water facilities, 60 per cent had houses on own lands, 84.31 per cent of the population was literate, and only 9.13 per cent of the municipal population lived in slums. Even in the slums, the literacy rate was found to be 70.99 per cent (ibid., Table 3.3.8). The percentage of below-poverty-line (BPL) population of the Rajarhat–Gopalpur municipal population was 15.51 (ibid., Table 3.3.10). In the villages, the census and other surveys found Rajarhat a comparatively developed area not only in literacy rate, but also on other indices. According to the same report, 92.11 per cent of villages had electricity connections, 100 per cent had approach roads, 94.74 per cent had primary schools, 44.74 per cent had maternity and child welfare centres, and 100 per cent villages had clean drinking water (ibid., Table 2.4.1). Clearly, this was on the whole a self-reliant ‘developed’ area — unlike the villages in the back of beyond, say in the Sunderbans, where you worked or perished, or municipalities like Titagarh, where 78.96 per cent of the population lived in slums and which ranked 19 among the municipalities in the North 24 Parganas district in work participation rate (ibid., Table 3.3.9). Therefore, some argue that the plan of a new town has dealt a death blow to the society and economy of Rajarhat. A substantial part of the area being part of the wetlands of east Kolkata, it was dependent on agriculture and fishing. According to an environmental report, about 17,000 people depended for their employment on recycling waste and recovery systems through fish cultivation and vegetable growing in the wetlands (Chattopadhyay 2000: xiii–xxiii). The same report notes the continuous conversion of agricultural land to non-agricultural use in the preceding two decades. This led to a decline in the average size of marginal landholdings, middle-scale fisheries becoming unprofitable due to soaring prices of land, declining flow of sewage-laden water to the fisheries, poor storage facilities for fishermen and agriculturalists, and near absence of institutional credit to farmers and fishermen.

Where is Rajarhat?  7

The report also thought that constructing a new town was not an answer to the problems of the area. What was needed were steps such as clearing of existing canals through dredging, a sewagetreatment tax, keeping canal banks free of settlements, and declaring the wetlands a no-development zone. The report found the poverty situation in the wetlands below the national average, and thus the consumption pattern in Rajarhat highly skewed in favour of food consumption (as much as 70 per cent of the total consumption expenditure on food, while health care expenditure 0.9 per cent) (Chattopadhyay 2000: 32). On the basis of samples (two mauzas, Ghuni and Jatragachhi, and 68 households surveyed), it found, as already mentioned, continuous conversion for the last two decades of agricultural land to non-agricultural use; the figure of consequent occupation shift was 47 per cent (ibid.: 42). In comparison to other wetland areas, in Rajarhat it found a larger share of the population dependant on non-agricultural activities. Its Table 5.5 showed that of the 68 households sampled and surveyed, 20 were owner-cultivator households, two were sharecropper households, 11 agricultural labourers, none owner-fishermen, none share fishermen, two bheri labourers, one in trade related to pisciculture, none in trade related to agriculture, and 32 were classified as others (ibid.: 51).6 The report did not elaborate who these others, the largest chunk in the occupational profile, were rickshaw-pullers, cart-drivers, loaders, bus conductors, helpers, people thriving on the commons, who else? In what way were they related to the local economy? In short, the report describes an area with a fragile environment and extremely low-cost subsistence economy, by logic providing highly subsidised inputs to the metropolis of Kolkata, like fresh air, low-cost fish and vegetables. Therefore, the report tells us of a sizeable number of people holding the opinion that with the new a town coming up, the waste-recycling system would break down, 6

The report gives us an average land size in Rajarhat of 0.48 ha; average fishery holding of 0.9 ha; average productivity of paddy at 66 quintal per ha; average productivity of fish at 19.82 quintal per ha; average annual gross return from a 0.40 ha farm on cauliflower (75 growing days) at Rs 6,300, on radish Rs 1,200 (30 growing days), on B gourd (60 growing days) Rs 1,500, pumpkin (30 growing days) Rs 3,150, and plants (30 growing days) Rs 3,000 (Chattopadhyay 2000: 52–53, Tables 5.75.12).

8  Beyond Kolkata

waterlogging in suburbs would increase, economic rehabilitation of those dispossessed and deprived of livelihoods would become difficult, social unrest would grow, biodiversity would be lost, and the city would be deprived of fish, vegetables and other agricultural products. The challenge was as the report put it: The New Town agenda was in line with what had been going on the past two decades all along the east of the city (both north and south); vast amount of wetland had been captured, filled in, and handed over to land dealers and promoters. New Town would aggravate the situation massively. Will the compensatory measures be able to compensate for the loss? Was this the way to break the poverty cycle? Would this not ruin the situation further? Who would gain and who would lose? This account is a commentary on that possible transformation — an account of postcolonial capitalism, of the return of primitive accumulation, of the way space plays a critical role in transformation, and the receding of the colonial city in the history of accumulation with the accompanying emergence of the New Town. In short, Rajarhat is a saga of space, capital and people in the vortex of globalised time. The plan to remove any buffer between the sea and the metropolis and the villages and the metropolis and eat away the entire wetlands on the east was originally drawn up in 1963. The villages had protested at that time.7 It was also pointed out by scientists that Rajarhat was in the centre of the East Calcutta Wetlands and it would not be prudent to set up a township there. By one description there were 60 water farms and 53 kinds of fishing fauna including cultivated and wild fish in the wetlands of Rajarhat.8 Several small farmers had property rights over these wetlands.9 Equally significant in this context is another set of figures that should remind us 7 RJBC’s archive contains a protest memorandum drawn up by the Gopalpur-Arjunpur Anchal Panchayat on 7 September 1972. The memorandum was signed by the then gram pradhan (village head) Rabin Mondal, who is now Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) and spearheads the acquisition drive. 8 For the list of bheris, see Chaudhuri (1998: 37). 9 For a detailed list of wetlands in this area, see Nandi et al. (1993). For a list of aquatic resources, see Mukherjee (n.d.: 430–31). See also on this the detailed report by Kundu et al. (2008: 868–81). For a list of birds, see Mukherjee and Chatterjee (1999).

Where is Rajarhat?  9

what was described in the previous paragraphs. In the Rajarhat– Gopalpur municipality, the total number of workers in 2001 was 94,001; of them the number of main workers was 88,458, the number of marginal workers 5,542. Cultivators were 580 in number and agricultural wage labour 326, and household industry workers 1,583 (the rest are thus other workers, main and marginal both). In the Rajarhat panchayat area, the corresponding figures were main workers 38,362, marginal workers 5,556, cultivators 4,261, agricultural labourers 7,217, and household industry workers 2,519 (GoWB 2007b: 17, Table 2.7). Yet, typically, with all these, Rajarhat is like many other parts of the district of North 24 Parganas, 68.46 per cent of its total land is cultivable (GoWB 2008, Table 6.2; GoI 2009). But these are God’s numbers now caught at the centre of controversy over land acquisition in Rajarhat. Later, we shall read meanings into these figures in particular. Rajarhat is not connected with Kolkata in any sense; it is connected with Sector V of the Salt Lake area, while being connected on another side with another notified area, the empire of the Bhangar Rajarhat Area Development Authority (BRADA).10 Flanked by North 24 Parganas, the estuary region of Bhangar and Haroa in South 24 Parganas, and Basanti (Map 1.2 a & b), its real trade (daily, petty and small) connection in terms of men, cash, vegetable market, etc., is with Baguihati, a dirty, unkempt bazaar, bus stop and terminus, banking centre, eating place, with cycle-rickshaws, narrow lanes, hordes of day labourers waiting to be hired, and various kinds of sundry stalls — all rolled into one (Map 1.2). The farmers, fishermen, vegetable growers and sellers, boatmen, and agricultural labour now robbed of livelihoods all roam around these marginal places, if they are not already serving the newcomers of Rajarhat with domestic labour, transportation, vegetable supply or serving tea and sundry snacks. But those who work in the New Town (as Jyoti Basu Nagar is usually called), in those malls, e-firms, hotels, other companies, or live in those high-rises, have few reasons to visit Kolkata or these dirty marginal places. This new inner city, supposed to produce urban wealth today, is at once exterior to the city proper. It looks like a wasteland, combining virtual production 10 On 22 May 2011, the new state government declared that Sector V would become part of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation area for the purpose of traffic management by the police.

Map 1.2: Location of Rajarhat

Source: New Town at Rajarhat, Project Report, Task Force, New Town, Housing Department, Government of West Bengal, 1995. Note: Map not to scale.

Where is Rajarhat?  11

with a new type of consumption, symbolised by the mall, the City Centre of the North, or the giant building material depot. We shall discuss the details of these later. At present, we have to note this much, namely, that interior to the late twentieth century and early twenty-first century mode of wealth production and, therefore, exterior to traditional wealth patterns of a city, Rajarhat represents simultaneously the virtuality of capital and reality of the primitive mode of accumulation — a utopia to financiers and speculators and a dystopia for the urban imagination.

Who is Excited about New Town? Architects are excited over Rajarhat New Town, like long idle military commanders getting excited over the prospect of waging a war, or an idle doctor finding finally a patient, or a manufacturer of weapons finally getting the chance to display his/her weaponry. So, the plan begins with designing sectors and action areas. They are then busy in designing placements of traffic intersections, bus stands, new transport system, new markets, new malls, and remember all in their greenest form. Also remember that in this context Rajarhat, as the planners say, will soon become, with the help of US technology, the first zero-energy town in the country. Read the following short report: Rajarhat is set to become India’s first near-zero energy satellite town (ZEST). The US department of energy (DOE) and the renowned Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) have been working on the issue for [a] long time. The BNL and DOE have initiated a special project that involves turning Indian and Chinese cities into energy-efficient hubs. A team led by Vatsal Bhatt, research engineer and energy policy analyst, BNL, was in the city on July 23 to launch the project, which will be replicated in townships across India. Rajarhat is expected to house around one million people in the near future. According to BNL, cities are responsible for nearly 75% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. Katie Bolcar of the DOE explained the concepts of a near zero energy community and the importance of creating ZESTs at a meeting of the Union urban development ministry in New Delhi on May 31. Debashis Sen, principal secretary, state urban development department, attended the meeting. Bolcar told the participants that BNL wished to work with

Source: Rajarhat Jomi Bachao Committee, n.d. Note: Map not to scale.

Map 1.3: Location of Baguihati

Where is Rajarhat?  13 a satellite town to showcase the concept and set up a model of a zeroenergy town in India. Rajarhat was picked as a pilot project. By the time Rajarhat turns into a ZEC, its energy demand will be reduced by 40% to 50%. A Hidco official said, “Rajarhat will still take a few years to take its complete shape. If the ZEC project happens, the satellite township will require very little energy from the grid.”11

Realtors follow architects’ dreams; at times it is the other way round. Therefore, even though there are very few essential infrastructural facilities in the area (and we cannot expect architects becoming excited over the presence or absence of those facilities, which they will leave happily to town planners and municipal engineers),12 schools in New Town and BRADA areas must have more space, more designed buildings and more amenities. Since the cost of developing land is relatively high in a new town, schools become business. These schools (for instance, Delhi Public School) must be ‘ideal’ schools with huge open spaces, different playgrounds and halls, community grounds, etc., with, of course, different priorities for different types of schools — nursery, primary and higher secondary. There will be ‘educational zones’, with additional space for peak office hours and parking facilities (Roy 2007). There will be designated places for vocational and training institutes. There will be ‘hardly any scope of a university’ there, as the architect declares, the ‘traditional concept of university/college in a bigger land is hardly viable without government subsidy’. But with other kinds of ‘skill-oriented units’, urban areas will become ‘engines of the development of rural hinterlands’. Effective planning on a regional scale 11 http://content.magicbricks.com/rajarhat-to-be-first-zero-energy-town, 28 July 2010 (accessed on 31 December 2011). 12 Take the case of the waste-treatment facility; its absence was one of the main causes of the complaint by those who argued against the project. This was subsequently mentioned in the Writ Petition (no. 7516(W) filed in 1999 in the Calcutta High Court on the ground that the programme of the new township was environmentally harmful, since among other things there was an absence of any waste-treatment facility, though the Department of Environment had enjoined upon the Department of Housing the task before any project work would begin properly (Letter from the Department of Environment, no En / 1776/ AW–8/99, dated 12 November 1999).

14  Beyond Kolkata

will provide ‘appropriate preference and promotion of industries and commercial activities’. Generation of jobs will attract people from the rural surroundings for livelihood. In Kolkata, an architect declared: Several New Townships are being developed. This is creating a major development impetus in the region. Namely New Town, Rajarhat, has already started its development. This will create enormous employment opportunities, which obviously would be a benefit for the rural surroundings and villages. The change of the livelihood from the primary sector to the secondary and tertiary sectors is getting very fast. In the near future the profile of the Kolkata Metropolitan Area obviously will change due to the development of those New Towns. The economic activities will be well decentralized if the development goes as per intention (Roy 2005).

If this was not enough, the architect declared: The development of New Town will have a direct influence in the economy in surrounding approx 60 sq km of village area. The participation in the jobs in the New Town mainly in the unskilled jobs will increase the economic standards of the people and accordingly the purchasing power will be increased. This will attract new development potentials on the village area. Initiatives are also been taken to develop the connectivity of the neighbouring villages as a scheme under neighbourhood development. This will make the village more viable alternative for investors (Ibid.).

And then he concluded: There are immense potentials for the growth of the vast rural hinterlands as these are situated very near to KMA/New Townships or having near distances with regional road network for the New Townships. But there are also possibilities of unintended developments affecting the environmental sustainability in future. So the big issue is to control, manage those developments by proper planning legislation though not developed by the authority. In the near future the urban form of KMA is going to change rapidly and accordingly this will act a catalytic role in the urbanization of the region as well as West Bengal (Ibid.).

The urban architect has to also think of the faster circulation of men, money, services, and commodities. So, HIDCO is now acquiring

Where is Rajarhat?  15

‘smart buses’. One newspaper report declared with ecstasy, ‘Smart buses hit New Town Road’, and then went on to say: The poor public transport in New Town has received a boost with 20 buses hitting the road and more set to roll out. The West Bengal Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation (Hidco) has bought buses under the JNNURM scheme and started operating them in the Rajarhat township. “Twenty buses rolled out two weeks ago and we are in the process of acquiring 10 air-conditioned buses that will hit the road soon,” Housing minister and Hidco chairman Gautam Deb told *Metro*. The buses, originating from various points in New Town, ply to southern destinations, such as Garia and Jadavpur, as well as Howrah, Park Circus and Esplanade. Earlier, there were only around 10 bus routes through New Town. Public transport has long been on the long list of amenities the township lacks, forcing many house-owners to rent accommodation elsewhere. The near-absence of public transport has also prompted many people who have bought flats in the township to defer moving in. Local transport operators have shunned the township, citing nonviability. Residents as well as those who frequent New Town for work say it’s difficult to get a taxi even during daytime. “Hardly any operator is interested in the township as very few people have moved in. Recently, Volvo has put New Town on its map but more public transport options are required,” said a transport department official. “The new buses will partly fill the gap,” said an official of Hidco, the implementing agency of New Town. Prodyut Biswas, the managing director of Hidco, said the agency had plans to connect New Town with various locations — such as the airport, Park Circus, Ultadanga, Howrah and the central business district — and also the southern extremes of the city (Jawed 2010).13

13

See also the report of Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA) deliberating on how to redesign Kolkata to make it suitable for commerce and trade with the East, that is, Burma, Thailand, Indonesia, etc.: Break the Mould and Make Kolkata Futuristic: Planners, The Times of India, Kolkata, 3 February 2011, http://articles.timesofindia. indiatimes.com/2011-02-03/kolkata/28364813_1_kmda-vivekbharadwaj-kolkata-metropolitan-development-authority (accessed on 8 November 2012).

16  Beyond Kolkata

So, is Rajarhat then the private game of capital, its own business to shape the world in its contemporary image, while the public character of the city becomes irrelevant in the history of urban imagination today? In any case, the dismemberment of the public into private segments had started some time back as a governmental technique to deal with robust, tumultuous, unruly cities. New Delhi, Chandigarh, Bokaro, Chittaranjan, Vishakhapatnam, and different industrial townships and company towns, all were dismembered into sectors and colonies. In Kolkata, too, this started happening for some years, with a kind of internal haemorrhage of the urban being. Rajarhat is beyond Kolkata, Kolkata’s public and unruliness, and proves the superfluous nature of old patterns of urban imagination or for that matter mobilisation. But Rajarhat as a form of new town has a long genealogy. We may ask, is this difference between Kolkata and Rajarhat, their opposition, a structural one? Will Rajarhat be what Kolkata is not? Or is it only a matter of urban style? At one level, a matter of difference in the style of leading an urban life, at another level it is a structural divide that pertains to the formal totality named the city. It is a matter of deciding whether this totality has only to do with episodes of capital or of the citizens also, and if the concept of the city can be dissolved into the absolute heterogeneity of the new developmental imagination to an extent where the very concept of the city can be emptied of all historical content. If we follow Henri Lefebvre’s philosophy of space, we must note the dialectical and historical evolution of the space called the city, and its disintegration into a heterogeneous series of spaces, each against the other, each irrelevant to the other, and all in their totality representing graphically the historic and narrative logic of capital. Where will the public space, so essential for public action, go in face of this transformation of space? Given the overwhelming importance that public space has in conventional progressive narratives (which also explains the intense dislike the Maoist movement evokes among members of the conventional urban Left that thrives on a homogenised public space), for radical propositions the stake for coming to terms with the consequences of the new urban spaces is great. We can still perhaps consider Rajarhat a part of Kolkata and not beyond Kolkata. But in that case we must be ready to integrate the structural opposition between the utopia of a city and the dystopia of a wasteland within a narrative and explanatory framework that must go beyond a binary opposition. We have already said that

Where is Rajarhat?  17

Rajarhat suggests the unity of the most virtual form of capital accumulation and the primitive form. Eviction, threat, coercion, murder, gun running, and the presence of bands of coolies from Murshidabad and Malda — these combine with shiny glass buildings, e-firms in the Special Economic Zone (SEZ), a new health care facility built by the Tatas, new banks, and the gradual spread of ATM centres. This combination suggests the breakdown of an integrated circuit of money, power and capital into various segmented circuits that is already happening; it will be worth looking into the ways in which these local circuits of power feed into a bigger grid of capital. But merely stating this is not enough, the statement represents a problem or some problems. Let us mention here three problems. Problem number one: If by the wild play of the architects, planners and moneybags, a space is destroyed and a new space comes up, how should we apprehend that change and its long-term consequences? What will be the analytic strategy to detect the falsehoods? If we, as we are now trying to do, rely on grasping the immediate we shall be able to identify characters and events, hoping that since nothing in this world is innocent of methodological, theoretical and ideological implications, we shall be able to throw light on the longterm consequences and the deep game of characters. This means we are not studying the product (the new city), but the production, the process, the practice, with all the hazards of contemporariness. Yet devouring a space, consuming a space in the form of writing, is like keeping a journal or a diary, a record of events of how some vanish from a space and how some other becomes the central character of a space, how the space will throw light on some and how it will hide others. Problem number two: If the opposition between public and private, primitive and virtual, representation and void, city and periphery breaks down, what will be the new forms of collective action? After all, these binary oppositions had genuine social and historical context. Will they die? Or will the contexts survive? In any case, what will be the new public space, which was till now essential for public mobilisations and public actions? In Singur, the protest movement had inspiration from the city. But the form of collective action evolved locally. Thus, continuous attempts to sabotage and destroy the fence that cordoned off the acquired land for Tata Motors, the year-long villagers’ mobilisation to dislodge and chase away the police and the security arrangement, the local efforts in

18  Beyond Kolkata

small groups to sneak into the protected area, and all other efforts culminated in the classic roadblock that finally made Ratan Tata furious and forced him to withdraw the venture. In Nandigram, again inspiration and advice came from Kolkata, but the origin and forms of resistance were even more local, such as cutting off roads, local patrol to prevent the pro-land acquisition party from entering the villages, observing no cooking days and symbolic fasts, immobilising and then isolating the centre of local administration with continuous visits, deputations, and dialogues, etc. In Lalgarh, while urban activists went to visit areas of resistance, the forms were even more authentic and carried the marks of local circumstances and local networks. Given the changing relation between the city and the outlying areas, will the peripheries, now transformed into local circuits, still send emissaries to the old central places of public space to get directions and advice about mobilisations and representative modes and actions? Judging by the way things continue to happen, the old form continues. However, we must also note the new assemblies that have shifted to the ‘periphery’ — the massive demonstration in Salt Lake in front of the HIDCO office,14 or the public hearing in Rajarhat on land evictions, or the sit-ins before the HIDCO camp office in Rajarhat. Likewise, subaltern mobilisations in settlements in the notified area still continue undeterred by force and coercion, such as in several villages in Patharghata panchayat. Clearly, this is a transient phase and the periphery may strike back at the centre with new contentious forms of action. Problem number three: What will be the authentic nature of the private in this new public society? The private pleasures that shape our consumption patterns, encourage new commodification, and new ways of arranging the space? What if they cannot be separated 14 The massive demonstration took place on 9 December 2010. It was organised by the Rajarhat Krishi Jami Jiban Jibika Raksha Committee (RKJJJR); the public grievance of the evicted farmers was organised on 12 December 2010 near the Rajarhat Chowrasta, and it was organised by RJBC. The former platform is backed by the Trinamool Congress, the latter though non-partisan is supported by some radical Left activists. See the report, HIDCO Office Gherao Today, Statesman News Service, The Statesman, 9 and 10 December 2010, http://www.thestatesman.net/ index.php?option=com_content&view=article&show=archive&id=3513 77&catid=72&year=2010&month=12&day=9&Itemid=66 (accessed on 8 November 2012).

Where is Rajarhat?  19

as independent elements in the designed place called Rajarhat15 and the model it develops, where consumption will take place alongside production. Possibly, there will be no authentic private, but new centres of public assemblage for ‘private’ consumption and pleasure. As the attack on Vedic Village showed, assaults on these private–public spaces may be sudden, ‘terrorist-like’, or at least these spaces will be objects of hate. This is unlike the old days when citizens dreamt of equally sharing the pleasures of privacy, or at least privately dreamt of sharing the urbanity of life, say sitting in a cinema hall, named Mitra or Talkie Show House in north Kolkata. Once again, the impact on politics and sociology of citizenship will be serious. The ideological implications of these ‘mixed’ places which can no more be represented will be no less so. In short, Rajarhat beyond Kolkata disrupts the earlier pattern of the mutually constitutive relationship between the space of accumulation of capital and the urbanity of democratic citizenship. In the immediate exclusion of one from the other, we may witness a new kind of realism in politics, possibly not desirable to our urban tastes. The spatial programme of the New Town and by implication of the evolving new entity called Kolkata-New Town will demand new specifications about public action, now unhinged from the conventional structural antithesis between industry and agriculture, city core and periphery, production and consumption, and capital and citizenship. It will take time to fill the empty fields of Rajarhat (a huge area of about 3,100 ha of land) in a planned way with houses, roads, streets, schools, people, office units, ‘green’ industries, shops and malls, water pipes, lanes, power and cable lines, etc., for much will depend on developers, land sharks, estate owners, software giants like Wipro, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), etc., and the general state of the economy. The government stands penniless. HIDCO has hardly any capital. All it has is the land looted from the local villagers, and now it has to sell them to private players to make the dream of public–private partnership successful. With no integral infrastructure of urban services in Rajarhat, the empty fields there (since 1998) represent in this scenario the death of agriculture with its subsidiary activities as a substantive occupation in West Bengal, its murder by capital, the savage commodification of 15 Recall the incident of the Vedic village, the luxury resort for health recuperation, built on the seized land of the farmers, which the farmers later ransacked, and of which we shall speak in detail in Chapter 8.

20  Beyond Kolkata

land, and the resurgence of private property in the city. For example, private roads, private power-generation equipment, private pleasure houses, private sources of drinking water, private schools, private villas, private housing estates with private guards, and, the most private of all, private production units in the SEZs in RajarhatSector V of Salt Lake — what will be the politics of anti-capital in this new spatial system of capital? One thing is sure: When about 15 years ago Paul Virilio wrote Open Sky and commented that politics will change with the impact of speed on politics, he was ignoring the classical factor of space as being one of the chief determinants of politics (Virilio 1997). Or, to be more accurate, he should have taken into consideration the return of the primitive modes of accumulation that reorganise the continuum of place and time in the making of capital and citizenship. Rajarhat is the big lesson, the big correction to Virilio. Similarly, many had said in Bengal that the coercive forms of power were becoming redundant in democracy under Left Front rule and now public negotiations between different social segments would modify the extent of legality in order to expand the area of claims and rights, and that Rajarhat was an example of a non-coercive form of power. Again, that interpretation, containing some measure of truth, ignored the return of the primitive mode that would make virtual accumulation of capital possible, and in general ignored the re-ordering of space of capital and anti-capitalist politics.

Poetics or the Politics of Space? In this re-ordering of space called Kolkata-New Town, we can note the emergence of a crucial ‘third’. If you look at the relationship from the locative point called Kolkata, you will notice that there is Sector V of Salt Lake, the ideal for Rajarhat. For, Sector V is an institutional area with SEZs, other new information, processing and publishing companies, housing estates of police and paramilitary forces, and entertainment parks and places, yet connected to Salt Lake and Sukantanagar (an old settlement), and an area depending on Salt Lake for its urbanity. On the other hand, New Town in time may become by itself the ‘the third’, inserted between Bhangar — the greater estuary region — and Kolkata. The emergence of the ‘third’ as the middle is already happening, with consequences for the politics of space. Overcoming the debate of the ‘right city’ (Kolkata) and the ‘wrong city’ (New Town and Kolkata-New Town), the emergence

Where is Rajarhat?  21

of the third may occasion the appearance of the multitude in politics. As a model of mobilisation, the old politics of citizenship may give over to the new politics of the multitude, because Rajarhat will produce the multitude out of disaffected peasants, out-of-wage rural labour, new employees in Rajarhat16 including care and service workers, and the disgruntled daily assemblage at Baguihati and other marginal places. But this will take time. Along with the factor of class relations, situations will be significant as facilitators of the multitude. We have to admit that all these were already happening in Kolkata; Rajarhat now brings these out in the open. Rajarhat’s relation to the city as an idea is thus an object of reflection by those who are affected and devoured by it.17 The dispossessed in Rajarhat cannot look to Rajarhat or approach it with desire, but they cannot leave it either. They must wonder as to what this is as a space representing the idea of a city. There is no civility in New Town, that is, no civil society, but there is on the other hand the suppressed air of violence that stems from the violent origin of the town and the existence of SEZs both in Rajarhat and Sector V of Salt Lake.18 In this philosophy of relation, time will be objectified 16 Unionisation of the BPO and other IT firm employees is a hotly debatable theme among labour studies specialists. For various views and experiences, see Stevens and Mosco (2010). This article is a good summary of various writings on the theme. We are grateful to Brett Neilson for drawing our attention to the article. 17 Obviously, we attempt to indicate a picture of the postcolonial city today, different from the one marked by longing and belonging. For such a view, see, for instance, Ashraf and Puri (2010). 18 We know of incidents that tell us of the association of violence with the existence of SEZs. See, for instance, the report from Chennai, ‘Negligence Causes Death of Worker at Nokia Telecom SEZ’, Sriperumbadur, Tamil Nadu, human rights-movement: 3137, 2 November 2010. The report is on the death of a worker called Ambika under a loader and unloader machine in the ENO final assembly section. While Ambika was working on the machine, the conveyor belt became stuck and the sensor stopped functioning. In the previous four to six months, of the 25 such assembly line machines (new machines/models), eight machines had regularly got stuck about 20 times per shift due to malfunctioning sensors. The problem was repeatedly being brought to the notice of the technicians and the line managers by the workers. Usually, when the machine would get stuck in this manner while in operation, the workers would pull the conveyor belt themselves by sticking their head inside the machine (under the

22  Beyond Kolkata

both as memory and as a real thing. There was once a place that was not a wasteland, and there is nothing in the present real place which one can desire to enjoy — both these images will guide politics for some time and influence the actions of the multitude. Intersubjective relations will be unimportant here. The place will keep on designing existence and politics. Here by place we mean place as the figure of memory, place as symbolic of relations, and place as representing void. Only by being a condition in this way will the initial cleavage of the subjective and the objective that has plagued urban studies for long dissolve. The regression in the idealisation of the city will find its dialectical completion in a new subjectivity. We must, therefore, in the context of Rajarhat, seriously study the appearance of the multitude, both as an image of mobilisation and as an image of time, and along with this appearance the radical exclusion that occasions it. Where then is Rajarhat? The Rajarhat we speak of here is at once a real place — a block, a municipality, a new town in the process of emergence, a scenario of destroyed farmlands. It is also a trapped land, a ghost for urban planners, a dream for many more such planners, and a collective name of an ensemble of places.19 metal box). So, when Ambika’s machine did the same, she stuck her head under the metal box to pull the magazine rack; unfortunately the belt became unstuck and the sensor started functioning resulting in the metal box automatically coming down to load the panels. Ambika’s neck (spinal column) was crushed under the metal box. Fifteen minutes after Ambika was taken out of the machine and taken to the hospital, the technicians rectified all the faulty sensors, cleaned the blood from Ambika’s machine and the line managers ordered the workers to resume work. When the workers refused, too distraught and agitated after the accident, the line managers told them that the company will incur loss of lakhs of rupees and they will have to face the consequences. The workers refused to work after the gruesome death. Despite their complaints, the problem had not been rectified. Due to production pressure, the workers were risking their lives and regularly suffered injuries, which was common knowledge among the technicians and line managers. Due to the high production pressure, the workers worked like machines on these assembly lines. Ambika was the daughter of an agricultural labourer; she had one younger sister and a brother who studies at a local polytechnic. She was the only secure breadwinner of her family. See http://sanhati.com/articles/2928/. 19 The acquired mauzas in Rajarhat are: 1-Tarulia J.L. No. 15, 5-Hatiara J.L. No. 14, 6-Aatghora J.L. No. 10, 7-Kaikhali J.L. No. 5, 8-Teghoria

Where is Rajarhat?  23

This background tells us not to ignore the likely consequences of the intolerable condition of being trapped in a nowhere place. We have instances of townships that have been deserted; people have left cities like rats jumping from a sinking ship. With a downturn in the economy, coupled with weak public intervention in urban development in terms of providing infrastructure, the dream of public–private partnerships may go awry in Rajarhat. Clearly, there are signs to that effect. This will only heighten the contradiction in urban imagination mentioned earlier. The old idea of the necropolis resurrected by Lewis Mumford may get yet another version in Rajarhat (Mumford 1961).20 Therefore, while we have already suggested that Rajarhat may embody nothing, it may tell us what a disembodied condition is, and, thus, the impossibility of attaching a J.L. No. 9, 9-Noparah J.L. No. 11, 10-Doshdron J.L. No. 4, 11-Raigachi J.L. No. 12, 12-Mahishgote J.L. No. 20, 13-Sulunguri J.L. No. 22, 14-Mahishbathan J.L. No. 18, 15-Rekjuani J.L. No. 13, 16-Ghurni J.L. No. 23, 17-Baliguri J.L. No. 34, 18-Thakdari J.L. No. 19, 19-Chowk Pachulia J.L. No. 33, 20-Jatragachi J.L. No. 24, and 21-Kadampur J.L. No. 25. Rajarhat mauzas under BRADA are: (1) Bhatinda, land area 85.5 ha; (2) Basina, land area 132.05 ha; (3) Khamar, land area 63.73 ha; (4) Chhoto Chandpur, land area 94.5 ha; (5) Jamalpur, land area 181.63 ha; (6) Umrahaati, land area 85.5 ha; (7) Shikharpur, land area 231.53 ha; (8) Kolaberia, land area 63.1 ha; (9) Bishnupur, land area 384.11 ha; (10) Kalikapur, land area 141.45 ha; (11) Kashinathpur, land area 161.31 ha; (12) Gangaberia, land area 168.45 ha; (13) Nayabad, land area 173.75 ha; (14) Hudarait, land area 219.41 ha; and (15) Jamagachi, land area 57.65 ha. The mauzas belonging to Bhangar in North 24 Parganas are: (1) Tarachadia, land areas 75.32 ha; (2) South Khayerpur, land area 52.35 ha; (3) Aabu, land area 62.07 ha; (4) Pith Pukuria, land area 491.34 ha; (5) Jirangachhi, land area 171.53 ha; (6) Bamunia, land area 802.3 ha; (7) Chaltaberia, land area 160.56 ha; and (8) Chowkmaricha, land area 125.35 ha. 20 Mumford argued further in works like Technics and Civilisation (1934) that there were two competing forms of technics — democratic bio-technic forms and the authoritarian mono-technic forms. The former technics were said to be strongly compatible with an organic form of life while the latter were said to be allied to a mechanical power complex. Mumford in this way characterised the authoritarian technical form as being a technic of death. The connection between death and technics was a key theme in Mumford’s philosophy of technology. See also Swer (2003).

24  Beyond Kolkata

voice to the disembodied. This is not an astonishing condition. We can find such a condition sometimes in the state of the migrants or victims of great disasters. That is, Rajarhat can be a disaster, whose victims will have no voice. There will be no frame to attach to, no body to lend voice to. In this near fictive condition, the condition of void, the multitude emerges, brushing the edge of urban protest hitherto framed in the shape of the memory of an urban Kolkata. In this simultaneous offering and retracting of a new urban imagination, multitude is the only form of political subjectivity that stands a chance of making a mark, which means making the best out of the series of relations in Rajarhat: to repeat, virtuality and reality, capital and citizenship, agriculture and industry, time and place, city and countryside, image and body, presence and void, and desire and determination. These binaries can be collapsed into a paradox of surface and depth. Rajarhat is a surface that is made of miles of wasteland, destroyed topsoil of earth. This surface is made of filled-in ponds, other water bodies, pilfered and acquired land that was previously tilled, vegetable gardens and farms, wetlands, and small villages and hamlets. But Rajarhat is also the depth of several relations. Our argument is that in this age of globalisation, only the multitude can solve the riddle of these relations. Because, we must remember, multitude is at once a matter of class and mass, an organic composition and a front, and a unity of various popular segments. Being both at the same time, it embodies in its actions the capacity to negotiate the paradoxes of anti-capitalist politics today. In contrast with the sentimental image of space evoked by the philosopher Gaston Bachelard in the phrase and account the poetics of space, we must situate the politics of space, which will mould several subjectivities in a particular way (Bachelard 1967). This particular way is variational, as opposed to the constitutive way of the city. To appreciate this point, we must defer the discussion of the multitude to the last chapter of this book. We must examine the perspective of space from various angles: perspectives of ruins and destruction, of investment, of immaterial labour, of linkages, of fragmented labour, and all other issues that will influence life in Rajarhat for a long time to come.

2 Destruction of a World An Old Story with New Angles

T

he chronicle of the destruction of Rajarhat is also one of a bizarre urbanity that unmade the place. Since the mid-1990s, when the project was first conceptualised, there has been a massive displacement and loss of livelihoods in Rajarhat without any substantial reintegration of the displaced people into the new economy of the new township area, despite the state government’s assurances that provisions would be made for such integration by way of skill development and the like.1 This flies in the face of policy enunciated by the central government in a document authored under its aegis, in which it was enjoined that the 160-odd new urban settlements to be created in various categories throughout the country should try to integrate within them the settlement patterns that had existed earlier (GoI 1989: 46–47, Chapter 4). By this token, however, there is nothing startlingly new about the Rajarhat story. Forcible land acquisition, displacement and the failure of the state to rehabilitate the uprooted have been central to India’s development story since the early years after Independence. There are interesting angles to the story, however, which make Rajarhat worth studying. Remarkably, from the beginning, Rajarhat was mooted not primarily as an industrial hub designed to lift the economy and generate jobs. On the contrary, it was conceptualised and sold to the public principally as a residential urban centre, where people across the social spectrum — in bureaucratic language, high1 Jyoti Basu Nagar–Kichhu Tathya, Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation (HIDCO), 14 December 2010, p. 24 (henceforth cited as HIDCO document). Extract from Report of the Committee set up by the Department of Housing, Government of West Bengal, to examine all the related issues regarding resettlement and rehabilitation of project affected people, particularly of persons who lost their dwelling houses in connection with the New Town project.

26  Beyond Kolkata

middle- and low-income groups — would live, so that the pressure of habitation in Calcutta could be eased. To this end, all provisions were to be made independently in the New Town, or Jyoti Basu Nagar, that were appropriate to an urban centre. These included drainage, drinking water, solid-waste disposal and the like. The New Town authorities would also have to contribute appropriately to bolstering the transport infrastructure, which would be necessary given that a large number of people, it was imagined, would be commuting between Calcutta and the new urban centre, which, it had been repeatedly stressed, was not to be a satellite town, but an independent entity.2 The final population estimate for the New Town was a million residents, with a floating population of 550,000 (FICCI 2006).3 Implicit in the design of the Rajarhat project, then, was the admission that it would be difficult to compensate for displacement of people and the loss of livelihoods. We shall return to this point to argue it in detail, even though there were provisions from the beginning for the setting up of ‘green’ industries and commercial centres in the town. The predominantly residential character of the emerging township meant in one sense that the access to habitations and to resources and livelihoods had been foreclosed in order to provide habitation to another group of people from other locations. It is in this context that the Rajarhat chronicle throws up a welter of questions: What kinds of labour forms have been destroyed in Rajarhat and to what extent? What new forms of labour can we see or are we seeing as replacements? Who are the participants in the context of these reconfigurations in forms of labour? Who, then, are losing 2 Joint Secretary, Government of Bengal, Department of Environment, to Special Secretary, Department of Housing, Government of Bengal, 10 November 1999 in respect of the grant of environment clearance for 622 ha of land for the New Town in Rajarhat; Joint Secretary, Government of Bengal, Department of Environment, to Special Secretary, Department of Housing, Government of Bengal, 30 January 2003, in respect of the grant of environment clearance for 1,713 ha of land for the New Town; Joint Secretary, Government of Bengal, Department of Environment, to Special Secretary, Department of Housing, Government of Bengal, 20 March, in respect of the grant of environment clearance for 740 ha of land for the New Town; and the HIDCO document, p. 4. 3 Reproduced in HIDCO documents, p. 25.

Destruction of a World  27

or have already lost out? And who are benefiting? The answers to these questions and an examination of the contrarian claims of the government and its critics will bring us somewhat nearer to approximations about forms of inclusion and exclusion in Rajarhat.4 For this, we revisit the profile of Rajarhat that we have already examined in the first chapter from a different angle.

Rajarhat and New Town: A Profile There are some computational problems with regard to Rajarhat’s population over time. The parts of the Barasat subdivision of North 24 Parganas district earmarked for acquisition, to make way for the new town, fell mainly under the jurisdiction of the Rajarhat panchayat as we have already indicated. The total number of households in this area was 61,893. The total population was 145,381 (GoWB 2007a: 3 and 6). These are data from the 2001 census, quoted in the District Statistical Handbooks of 2003 and 2004. The District Human Development Report published in 2010, however, gives a slightly lower figure of 138,652. The population density of the block was 1,902. Before we compare these figures with those of the earlier period, we also need to take note of the fact that the Rajarhat panchayat area had the third highest density of population in the rural areas of the district (GoWB 2010: 20). The corresponding figures from the 1991 census were 54,523 and 286,056 4

It must be noted, however, that land acquisition in the Rajarhat area to build a residential township was part of a larger state drive to build similar enclaves as well as hotels, IT parks, convention centres and the like all along the eastern edge of the city from north to south. Two big townships have been built in Baishnabghata-Patuli in the south spread over 600 acres and East Calcutta Township over 1,650 acres, also in the south, along with smaller residential enclaves and other development projects. These have resulted in major land-use changes, with wetlands and agricultural land being obliterated, as well as massive displacement and loss of livelihoods. According to one estimate, the east Calcutta wetlands were spread over 20,000 acres in 1945. This fell to 10,000-odd acres in the 1980s as a result of previous developmental projects, pre-eminently Salt Lake City or Bidhannagar. It has also been estimated that while pisciculture had been carried out in large ponds known as bheris over 18,000 acres in 1945, this fell to 11,480 acres in 1972. In the mid-2000s this had fallen to 6,500 acres. See Dasgupta (2004: 19–21) and Mukherjee (2002: 140–47).

28  Beyond Kolkata

(GoWB 1999–2000: 10 and 22). The point to note here is the inverse relationship between number of households and population. According to the 1991 figures, Rajarhat block had an area of 102.97 sq km. This would include the area under the panchayat and municipality (created in 1994 just before the New Town project was launched) (ibid.: 22). Going by the 2001 figures, the total for the municipality and panchayat area was 107.87 sq km (GoWB 2007a: 6). But these figures do not mean much by themselves because only 25 mauzas out of the 39 in the panchayat area of Rajarhat block were notified for acquisition (including the municipal area, the entire block had 55 mauzas as mentioned).5 We know that the government intended to acquire 3,075 ha of land, or thereabouts, for the New Town. The process of notification is over, but not all the land has actually been acquired for a number of reasons, including resistance in the area. Nor has all the land that has been acquired been disposed of. Thus, 17 years after the new township was conceptualised as a hi-tech zone, a drive through the area presents a bizarre landscape of ultramodern residential blocks, hi-tech office blocks, malls, hotels, an international bus terminus and the like, set amidst acres of open land, some still being forcibly and ‘illegally’ cultivated.6 5

These are Raigachi, Rekjuani, Noapara, Hatiara, Sulanguri, Chandiberia, Ghuni, Kadampukuria, Tarulia, Mahishgote, Mahishbathan, Thakdari, Jatragachhi, Chakpachuria, Baliguri, Koachpukur, Jatbhim, Patharghata, Chhapna, Akanda Keshari, Hatisala, Gopalpur, Bhagabanpur, and Chandakantalberia. 6 In May 2011, the 34-year-old government run by the Left Front came to an end, when the opposition alliance of the Trinamool Congress and the Congress party came to power after getting a massive mandate. The new government announced on 25 June 2011, that 1,567 acres (over 640 ha) of land in Rajarhat notified for acquisition but not actually acquired would not be acquired. Thus the area covered by the new township will now be under 2,500 acres. The new chief minister, Mamata Banerjee, further announced that she would decide what she would do with about 1,400 acres (over 550 ha) of land currently in the possession of the state government, though she has not suggested that it will be returned to the landowners. The man who had been entrusted with the execution of the new township, Gautam Deb, the housing minister in the Left Front government, claimed after the announcement was made that this about face would spell disaster for the new township because it would mean that crucial public utilities — a power plant, a waste-disposal facility and roads — would not be able to be accommodated. Whatever the truth of this claim, it does sound a

Destruction of a World  29

What we are trying to do here is to get a sense of the block and point to the computational problem referred to earlier. The problem lies in trying to ascertain the total population of the 25 mauzas (or parts thereof, or the 3,075-odd ha), who had been or were to be affected if things went according to the state government’s plan. We have already noted a fall in the population of the Rajarhat panchayat area as a whole. If we extrapolate, we could well presume a population decline in the acquired area. Matters will be clearer once the 2011 census data kick in, but the basic problem of reckoning the population figures for the New Town area will not have been solved. In fact, there will be further complications because the traffic in and out of the New Town will have grown heavier. For the moment, with small numbers moving in, it is clear that the population has fallen. A FICCI-commissioned report estimated the New Town population in 2006 at one million residential and 550,000 floating, as mentioned earlier (FICCI 2006: 4).

Urban Utopia Was this then going to be a case of rural dystopia and urban utopia? As we have said, the Government of West Bengal had decided to set up the New Town in the early 1990s. In May 1993, the department of housing set up a technical committee mandated to prepare a preliminary report on the New Town, while the housing directorate prepared a preliminary base map in August that year. Later that year, the Calcutta (now Kolkata) Metropolitan Development Authority was asked to prepare a concept plan, which it did in May 1994. The same month, the housing department set up a task force comprising technical officers of relevant departments and other experts, which felt that the plan needed to be revised and modified. The Department of Architecture and Town Planning, Bengal Engineering little disingenuous given the fact that in 15 years the government that conceptualised the project has failed to provide amenities like power, water, drainage, etc., to the few residents who have moved into the township. However, soon after this announcement, HIDCO issued notices for the acquisition of land in the Rajarhat New Town area for the construction of a road. A newspaper report said that a thousand people would face eviction if the acquisition went through. It said that when officials went to the relevant areas to serve the notices, people poured out of their homes in protest and pledged that they would neither accept the notice nor attend public hearings (The Statesman [Kolkata], 30 June 2011).

30  Beyond Kolkata

College (now the Bengal Engineering and Science University) and the director of Delhi’s School of Planning and Architecture were consulted. With their inputs a revised plan was prepared on the basis of which Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur prepared a further plan on the basis of which the first project report was prepared.7 It is worth going into it in some detail, because the report itself was comprehensive and, we may add, surprisingly utopian. After some preliminary remarks, the report got down to the basics, including its land-use proposals, according to which the new town would be an ‘environment-friendly’ city with large areas of open green land, water bodies, parks and so on. It would primarily be a residential town and, therefore, the principal use of developed land would be for residential purposes along with ancillary services and community facilities. Provision was made for ‘clean industries’ and a new business district to supplement Calcutta’s central business district and other commercial zones would be given due importance. At this point of time, the plan was for 2,750 ha and the allocation of space was as follows: open spaces 1,310 ha (47.6 per cent); residential areas (including internal access roads and local open spaces) 840 ha (30.5 per cent); industries 200 ha (7.3 per cent); commercial areas, including the new business district, 150 ha (5.5 per cent); regional, cultural, educational and health facilities 30 ha (1.1 per cent); and major roads and other transportation facilities, consisting of various kinds of railway lines and transport terminals 220 ha (8 per cent) (GoWB 1995: 11–18, including sketches and maps). Before going into the details of the urban plan, it is necessary to note that this land-use plan changed significantly over the years. The Master Land Use Plan of 1999 made the following allocation over 3,075 ha: large open spaces 860 ha (28 per cent); residential areas 1,555 ha (50.6 per cent); industrial areas 200 ha (6.75 per cent); commercial areas 140 ha (4.6 per cent); educational and cultural institutional areas 20 ha (0.7 per cent); and transportation facilities 300 ha (9.8 per cent). A revised land-use plan changed the goalposts yet again, this time over 3,779 ha. Large open spaces got 903 ha (24 per cent); residential areas got 1,466 ha (38 per cent); industrial areas were allocated 212 ha (6 per cent); commercial 7

Reproduced in HIDCO document.

Destruction of a World  31

areas got 369 ha (10 per cent); educational and cultural institutions were allocated 306 ha (8 per cent); transport networks were given 408 ha (11 per cent); and provision was made for the first time for Information Technology (IT) hubs at 135 ha (4 per cent) (FICCI 2006: 26).8 In other words, the provision for large open spaces went down drastically from almost half to just about a quarter of the area; the space for residential and related use went up from 30 per cent to 38 per cent; industries retained more or less the same area allocated; the allocation for commercial spaces almost doubled from 5.5 per cent to 10 per cent; institutional areas first saw a drastic cut in allocation but finally retained an 8 per cent share; transport networks retained an 11 per cent share; and IT, not part of the original design, got a 4 per cent allocation. So, the environmentfriendly part took a bit of a beating, while the housing rationale was strengthened. The rest of the land-use plan remained more or less intact. We can now go into the original project report. The report stressed that exclusive zoning patterns would not be followed. On the contrary, mixed-use patterns would be encouraged to create neighbourhoods in which sections in different income brackets would co-exist. Each neighbourhood would have amenities like parks, schools, shopping areas, health facilities, including both general and specialised hospitals, post and telegraph offices, police stations, and cultural and community centres with libraries, gyms and auditoriums. Access to mass transportation facilities would be ensured. In terms of infrastructure, the prospective residents were promised an efficient drainage system, a captive water supply system, adequate power supply, a hygienic sanitation system, an effective solid waste management system, a piped gas grid, and a telephone exchange. A network of bicycle tracks and pedestrian paths would network the neighbourhood’s residential clusters and facilities. The town would be dotted with ‘service villages’ for the ‘service population’, whatever that may mean. These villages are, from our point of view, important because it can be presumed that it was thought that some of the displaced people would turn service providers. The service villages would be low-rise and high-density, the dwelling units 8

Reproduced in HIDCO document.

32  Beyond Kolkata

affordable for low-income groups, capable of incremental development, functionally and aesthetically integrated with the environs, with ‘adequate provision for basic facilities and services’. In the original plan, the list of features that would find a place in the 47.6 per cent reserved for open spaces was, revealingly, as follows (in the order presented in the report): golf course; rowing and swimming facilities; picnic spot and outdoor recreational areas; parks and planned open spaces; dairy and poultry farms; pisciculture; urban agriculture, horticulture and forestry; and ecological parks, etc. These would be accompanied by ‘scenic linear parks’ and walking trails along the Bagjola Canal (one of the two canals that run west to east and drain most of north Calcutta and parts of North 24 Parganas) (GoWB 1995: 11–18, including sketches and map). This was the original plan for the New Town. We have indicated the changes in the land-use plan. We shall later address the issue of what is happening now in the New Town area of Rajarhat, keeping in mind the original plan for an eco-friendly urban hub. We need, however, to reiterate one salient fact: that Rajarhat was not originally meant to be an industrial or commercial hub; it was meant to be primarily a residential settlement with some land being allocated for industry, IT being a late afterthought. This was the ultra-modern imagination that the Left Front government and all those associated with the conceptualisation of the New Town brought to bear on the Rajarhat project. In context, there was a great deal about this that was inestimably bizarre, if not outright surreal. A look at the state of affairs about a decade and a half later brings out the unreality of this imaginary urban space. A report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), Government of India, for the financial year 2008–9, presented a scathing indictment of the project. It began by pointing out that the West Bengal Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation (HIDCO) had formulated no ‘strategic plan’ to achieve its objectives and instead ‘went for implementing the project in four action areas’.9 HIDCO’s project reports of October 1999/August 2003, it went on to say, had, however, indicated the scheduled dates of completion 9

Audit Report (Commercial) for the year ended 31 March 2009, the Comptroller and Auditor General, Government of India, http://www.cag. gov.in/html/cag_reports/wb/rep_2009/coml_chap2.pdf (henceforth CAG Report 2009–9), p. 27 (accessed on 20 July 2011).

Destruction of a World  33

of Action Area I and Action Area II by 2003–4 and 2006–7, but no dates were set for Action Area III and Action Area IV. Subsequently, the report observed the project area was increased and the deadline for its development was set for 2014–15, but no revised action area-wise time schedule was fixed. The absence of a strategic plan resulted in delays in ‘creation of infrastructure, lack of synchronisation between development and allotment of land, [and] frequent changes in break-even cost and selling prices of plots’.10 Given the detailed original plan, it is worth going into some of the points the CAG report gives in some detail. Roads: The report points out that according to a 1999 project report 210 km of roads had to be laid for the New Town, but it had not specified a schedule for completion in each action area. As against the physical requirement of 43.624 lane kms of internal roads to be constructed by 2000–03 for Action Area-I, only 28.36 kms (65 per cent) road was completed by 2009 after a slippage of time for six years. While construction for Action Area-I commenced in November 2002, the same for Action Area-II was taken up in 2007-08 . . . Till March 2009, against the projected 210 kms of internal roads for all action areas, only 31 per cent (65.64 kms) was completed.11

Drainage: The CAG report also points out that work on the drainage network was also far behind schedule. In Action Area I, this work was supposed to be completed by 2003–4, but 98 per cent of it was completed by 2007, with major progress being made only between 2004 and 2007, after the deadline for completion was over. In Action Area II, till March 2009, 28 to 95 per cent of the sewerage system and 38 to 83 per cent of the work had been completed in different pockets; the figures for Action Area III were 22.76 and 3.02 per cent (by June 2009).12 Water: Against HIDCO’s own estimates of the demand for water its infrastructure development was, once again, pathetic — till March 2009, only 20 per cent of the work had been completed. The break-up was as follows: seven out of 10 overhead water tanks constructed in Action Area I; 14 out of 36 tube wells sunk; and 99,136 m of water lines laid against the 103,000 m required. 10

Ibid.: 27. Ibid.: 28. 12 Ibid. 11

34  Beyond Kolkata

The situation was worse in Action Area II, with progress being between 4 to 8 per cent by March 2009.13 Power: The progress on this front was likewise poor. Till June 2009, 4,707 connections had been given to low- and mediumvoltage consumers against a target of 4,905 and 22 high-voltage connections had been completed against a target of 53. Moreover, while it had been estimated that 21 substations would have to be commissioned, by June 2009, only two had actually been commissioned while construction had begun on three.14 Temporary arrangements had to be made — the absence of ‘strategic planning’ was once again palpable. Thus, instead of a hi-tech township what we had in mid-2009, and still have today, is an urban shambles. It is a shabby reality that mocks a surreal imagination. We have more to say about this later. We shall now turn to the question of how the government sought to bring into being what is often referred to as a hi-tech township in Rajarhat. Central to this story is the narrative of land acquisition and displacement.

Acquisition and Displacement As we know by now, between 1995 and 2006 the New Town’s proposed size grew from 2,750 ha to 3,075 ha (revised to 3,779 ha) (FICCI 2006: 26).15 It is important to remember that only a part of the land notified under acquisition legislation has actually been acquired. A visit to Rajarhat will confront the traveller with vast stretches of open land; some of which is still being cultivated. Exact numbers are not available for the obvious reason that such cultivation is done forcibly and is not ‘legal’. Clearly, however, some displacement has happened with agricultural land being taken over, though, by and large, homesteads have not. Let us begin by presenting the government’s case for land acquisition and the setting up of the New Town in Rajarhat. HIDCO, headed by the Left Front’s minister for housing, Gautam Deb, was given charge of executing the New Town project. HIDCO released a document in 2010, which defended the way the government had 13

Ibid.: 28–29. Ibid.: 29. 15 Reproduced in HIDCO document. 14

Destruction of a World  35

been going about actualising the project. We briefly summarise its arguments before examining them in greater detail. The state government began with two related arguments. First, a township in the vicinity of Calcutta was necessary not just to ease the pressure on the city but on the Kolkata Metropolitan Area on the whole. It cited a central government policy statement which recommended that 160 new towns/townships had to be created.16 The second, related argument made was that land transfers had been taking place on the margins of Calcutta, including the Rajarhat area, and this would lead to an unplanned urban sprawl. This argument was made forcefully in an affidavit submitted to the Calcutta High Court by a joint secretary in the department of housing. His tour de force in obfuscation deserves extensive reproduction: The New Township Project was conceived by the State Government with a view to preventing unplanned growth in and around the said areas [Rajarhat] which is near Calcutta and more particularly Salt Lake, City. From a survey on various data in the office of the District Additional Sub-Registrar, Bidhannagar it was found that sales/transfers of land of various sizes from 1 and 2 cottahs and above were being effected for the last few years and if such sales/transfers were allowed, the entire area would have turned into a vast jungle of concrete by the unwholesome activities of the Promoters and developers acting solely with greed and profiteering motive caring little for ecology and environment pollution problem, and the agony of unplanned Township would cause prejudice to the interest, health and safety of the public in various ways. Hence, a New Township Project at Rajarhat was essentially required to be adopted by the state Government.17

We shall have occasion to revert to these extravagant claims. A planned, eco-friendly township would, apart from its positive benefits, and, indeed, indispensability in the larger scheme of things, prevent this and pre-empt the threat to the East Calcutta Wetlands, a notified Ramsar site. The second range of arguments were obviously in response to the criticism increasingly mounted against the government in relation to forced acquisition, loss of livelihoods, 16

HIDCO document, pp. 2&4. Affidavit-in-opposition filed by Kamal Kr. Pal, Joint Secretary, Department of Housing, Government of West Bengal, in the High Court of Calcutta (W.P. No. 21583(w) of 1999), pp. 5–6. 17

36  Beyond Kolkata

ecological devastation and so on. The government denied, first, that any force had been used at all and that the people of Rajarhat had willingly parted with their lands. Second, it claimed large parts of the area were low-lying land not conducive to agriculture; the parts that could be cultivated, it said, were low-yielding. Finally, it denied that any ecological degradation would take place because the area was not part of the wetlands. It also claimed that though some water bodies would be filled up, more would be created, actually in excess of what there was in the first place.18 There is evidence that a land market was indeed being created in the area, with land sharks beginning to buy up land at market prices in the area, as even detractors of the state government of that time and the New Town project admit (Datta 2010a: 6). For what it is worth, however, and this is not crucial to the main argument in our analysis, it is likely that the market in land started taking off only when the prospect of the New Town became imminent. In any case, other interventions were possible. As for protecting the wetlands and its ecology, this could have been done without having to construct a township in the area, which would without much doubt have serious consequences not just for the wetlands themselves and the livelihoods they supported but for the ecology and urban facilities of a number of subdivisions of the district of North 24 Parganas. We address this point when we discuss the issue of ecology. The government claimed, in defence of the project, that agriculture did not constitute a very important source of sustenance in the area proposed, and now partially developed, for the New Town. Let us examine this claim. The District Statistical Handbook of 2007 provides figures for occupational distribution for the Rajarhat panchayat area from the 2001 census. Cultivators are enumerated at 4,261 and agricultural labourers at 7,217 — a total of 11,488 people, thus, directly subsisting on agriculture after the process of acquisition had begun in 1996. This amounted to 24.13 per cent of the total working population, which, as mentioned earlier, was 43,918. Quite obviously, the total number of people subsisting on agriculture would be in multiples, including mainly dependent families of the workers. Another 2,519 people are counted as household industrial workers. It would be unimaginable that none of 18

HIDCO document, pp. 25–27, 29.

Destruction of a World  37

the industrial activities these workers were involved with would be completely unrelated to agriculture. Nevertheless, there is no point in hazarding guesses about numbers or percentages. Then there are a huge number of people who are described residually as ‘Other Workers’. They number 29,921 and form 68.13 per cent of the population (GoWB 2007a: 17). At the turn of the century, indeed even now, with some effort on the part of West Bengal’s Left Front government, including making some provisions for river-lifting irrigation and shallow pumps, the area was predominantly agricultural (Datta 2010a: 6). Again, there is no point in trying to guess the numbers but, clearly, many in this residual category must have been engaged in occupations directly or indirectly connected to the rural, agricultural economy. A number of people spread through these three categories have lost their livelihoods because of the New Town project. Activists estimate the number at 131,000 (ibid.: 7). A study has estimated this number at over 100,000 (Chattopadhyay and Majumdar 2002: 185). Another estimate compiled from newspaper reports and rights protection organisations gives the following numbers (as of September 2002): 6,170 marginal farmers; 2,105 small farmers; 4,605 landless labourers; 4,000 fisherfolk; and 2,000 (other) families (Dasgupta 2004: 27). According to the 2001 census figures, Rajarhat had 43,918 workers, which was 31.18 per cent of the population, which, as noted earlier, was 145,381. Of these, 4,261 were cultivators, defined by the census as either people who actually cultivated or those who had some supervisory role in cultivation; 7,217 people were agricultural labourers; 2,519 were engaged in household industry; and by far the largest segment was classed as ‘other’ workers (GoWB 2007a: 17). We shall have occasion in the course of this chapter to revert especially to this omnibus category. The census further categorised the working population into two categories: main and marginal. In the first category, defined as those who had worked for six months or more in the reference period, that is, while enumeration was proceeding, were 38,362 people; in the latter category, defined as those who had not, were 5,556 people (ibid.: 17). A clearer picture emerges from other sources. We shall revisit some statistics cited earlier to make a different kind of point. The human development report provides some interesting details about livelihood patterns and work participation rates. Rajarhat had a work participation rate — that is, percentage of workers to total

38  Beyond Kolkata

population — of 30.33, which was the lowest in the district, going by the 2001 census. The average for the rural parts of the district was 33.65. Unsurprisingly, Rajarhat had a high percentage of main workers — those who had worked for six months or more in the reference period, that is, while enumeration was on — to the total working population, 86.99. Amdanga block had the highest percentage at 87.14. This seems to indicate that while fewer people worked in Rajarhat, they worked more regularly, perhaps as the sole breadwinner in the household. Further, this seems to indicate that the return for labour in Rajarhat was on the high side (GoWB 2010: 25). As far as occupational distribution in North 24 Parganas district as a whole was concerned, the census gives the following figures: cultivators 23.28 per cent; agricultural labourers 26.20 per cent; household industry workers 5.17 per cent; and other workers 45.35 per cent. The corresponding figures for Rajarhat were 10.59, 15.20, 5.33, and 68.88 per cent (ibid.: 27). What is important to note here is that at the turn of the century, after land acquisition had begun in Rajarhat, at least 31 per cent of the population was engaged in agriculture or activities directly related to it. Of the rest of the population, many people must have been engaged in activities related to fishing or pisciculture. In fact, the report mentions fishing as one of the important non-agricultural activities, citing one village in which all workers were engaged in fishing (ibid: 28). Again, many others must have been engaged in activities related to these primary activities — trading, vending and transporting produce, for instance. This data is from the 2001 census. The District Human Resources Development Report, however, also drew on a Rural Household Survey (RHS) conducted by the Panchayat and Rural Development Department in 2007 and a baseline survey conducted in 2008 by the team that put the report together, which provide greater information on livelihood profiles. The RHS survey reveals that in Rajarhat block those living on ‘daily/agricultural/other physical labour’ and ‘agriculture and provides own labour’ constituted around 56 per cent of the population. ‘Self-employed rural artisan/hawker, those who do not employ others’ constituted just under 9 per cent of the population; those engaged in ‘labour-oriented regular job in the unorganized sector’ constituted just over 14 per cent; and ‘others, viz., job in the organized sector, medical practitioner, and advocate’ constituted

Destruction of a World  39

just under 21 per cent. The corresponding district-wide figures were (rounded off) 72 per cent, 6 per cent, 8 per cent, and 14 per cent (ibid.: 64). The 2008 survey provided further details. Of the 20 villages surveyed in the category of ‘other rural areas’ in which Rajarhat is included (the other two categories are the ‘Sunderbans’ and ‘border areas’) the spread of livelihoods in percentage terms across villages was as follows: agriculture (own farm activities) 20; horticulture 11; floriculture 7; dairy 7; animal husbandry 13; salaried employment 18; artisan 9; petty business, trade 19; fisheries 12; and casual labour (farm and non-farm) 19. The survey further documented the percentage of households deriving income from various sources in these villages. It found: 34.2 per cent were farmers/cultivators/ sharecroppers; 10 per cent engaged in animal husbandry; 25.6 per cent were agricultural labourers; 27.8 per cent skilled wage labourers; 27.4 per cent semi-skilled or unskilled labourers; 11.6 per cent were salaried employees (private sector and government); 11.8 per cent were owners of trading/retail businesses; 2.2 were engaged in fishing; 0.6 in collecting non-timber forest produce; 7.8 per cent were artisans; and 0.6 per cent owned small-scale manufacturing units (ibid.: 65). It is quite clear from the findings of the two surveys, as we have been trying to reiterate, that the rural economy consisting of not just agriculture, but related activities such as fishing, animal husbandry, dairying and other operations related to these, was robust and provided the principal means of livelihood to a majority of the people. One study has estimated, however, that in Rajarhat 47 per cent of people have shifted from fishing and agriculture to informal service sector occupations (Chattopadhyay and Majumdar 2002: 180). We shall, however, return to this profile of the Rajarhat panchayat, part of which, as we have seen, has been either notified for acquisition for the new town or has already been acquired. For the moment, keeping this profile in mind, we turn to the substantive story.

Fat of the Land Let us now discuss ‘unyielding’ claims. The government had claimed that the land was of a low-yield variety. An Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) carried out by a Kolkata-based firm of architects, while estimating the agricultural situation in the area, acknowledged that it was double-cropped as far as paddy was concerned,

40  Beyond Kolkata

with vegetables being grown in some of the mauzas, usually in the winter. The two paddy crops, boro and aman, yielded, it was estimated, 729 kg/acre and 441 kg/acre. This was estimated to be less than the average yield in the state, which was 1,210 kg/acre for boro and 777 kg/acre for aman.19 The total yield was estimated at 3.8 million kg for boro (cropped area 5,189 acres) and 2.4 million kg for aman (cropped area 5,368 acres). The value of the produce in terms of net return per acre was pegged at Rs 642 for boro and Rs 388 for aman.20 The EIA report, or at least the extract provided by HIDCO’s document, provided no estimates for vegetable yields. The paddy yield rates have been contested both by activists and local cultivators. The district statistical handbooks do not provide any figures for the yield in the Rajarhat area, but do estimate the paddy yield for North 24 Parganas at 2,615 kg/ha for 2002–3; 2,623 kg for 2003–4; 2,589 kg for 2004–5 and 2005–6; and 2,611 kg for 2006–7. One acre is 0.404 ha. Arithmetically, thus, the yield for the entire district per acre works out to 1,059 kg per acre, across the three crops grown generally in West Bengal, including aus, apart from boro and aman. These figures can’t be averaged out. But intuitively it appears that the average yield in the entire district is not less than the state average, perhaps it is slightly higher (GoWB 2007a: 60). Local people and activists have a different set of figures. Their estimates are, in fact, far higher. One estimate is that the boro yield in the mauzas of Patharghata, Baliguri, Rekjuani, Chakpachuria, and Raigachi was 27 maunds/bighas; the aman yield was pegged at 8–10 maunds (Datta 2010a: 7). The latter measure is variable countrywide. But we can try to make some rough estimates. At, 3 bighas to the acre (the variation in Bengal is usually 2.5–3 bighas, but in this area three seems to be the measure), this puts the yield at 3,240 kg/acre for boro and, calculating for aman at 8 maunds/ bighas, at 960 kg/acre. These estimates are in the former case about four times that provided in the EIA report and about double in the latter. There are no estimates for either the vegetable yield or the output, but it is commonly known that a considerable amount of 19

Extract from EIA report by Ghosh, Bose and Associates (2000), reprinted in HIDCO document, quoting Economic Review for 1997–98. Figures pertain to the years 1994–95, 1995–96, 1996–97, p. 21. 20 Ibid.: 21–22.

Destruction of a World  41

fruits and vegetables were grown, mostly, but not exclusively, in winter. Another document of uncertain provenance also provides some estimates about paddy yields in Patharghata mauza. After identifying a tract of land measuring 915 acres (305 bighas, dag no. 1-827 in the revenue records) it gives the following profile: land irrigated by shallow tube well 588 bighas, irrigated by river-lift system 150 bighas, ponds 23 bighas, bheris 34 bighas, mango groves 36 bighas, homesteads 57 bighas, and bamboo groves 27 bighas. It then goes on to give details about the yield: aman cultivation over 719 bighas at 5 quintals (500 kg) per bigha totalling 3,595 quintals; and boro cultivation over 150 bighas at 10 quintals totalling 1,500 quintals. Land cultivated with the help of irrigation by shallow tube well amounted to 168 bighas, and yielded 2,520 kg at 15 quintal/bigha. There are additional details we shall get to in a bit. But let us first do some arithmetic. At 500 kg/bigha of land, the aman cultivators’ yield was 1,500 kg/acre and at 10 quintals per bigha for boro it was 3,000 kg/acre. In the irrigated land it was 4,500 kg/acre.21 This is considerably more than the EIA figures of 441 and 729 kg/acre, but considerably less than the figures provided by the activists, other than in the case of the irrigated land, which is of a piece. Another set of figures are available from a report prepared by the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI). This study of four police station areas in the North 24 Parganas district estimates the productivity of paddy in the Rajarhat area at 55 quintals/ha. Arithmetically, this works out to roughly 2,500 kg/acre, considerably more, averaged out against the various harvests, than the EIA report allows for (Chattopadhyay 2000: 53). Paddy production for the East Calcutta Wetlands over 2,666 ha was pegged at 1.28 lakh quintals. This works out to an average yield of 1,920 kg/acre (ibid.: 50). The report also provides figures for expenditure and profitability in the East Calcutta Wetlands as a whole. A 1 ha farm, it claims, yields a net return of Rs 7,306 from paddy, meaning about Rs 2,922 per acre (ibid.: 54). The EIA’s figures are Rs 642 for the boro crop and Rs 388 for the aman crop in the Rajarhat area.22 This is just the paddy story.

21 22

Undated, handwritten note, personally acquired. EIA report in HIDCO document, p. 22.

42  Beyond Kolkata

The undated document cited earlier records cultivation of mustard on 152 bighas yielding 20,500 kg, and of til on 142 bighas yielding 22,000 kg. As for horticulture, flowers were cultivated over 79 bighas, with the following revenue: gyanda (52 bighas) Rs 561,600 in winter and Rs 603,200 in summer; and rajanigandha (27 bighas) Rs 807,900. Then there were the vegetable crops: potato over 48 bighas yielded 2,604 quintals; cauliflower over 22 bighas yielded Rs 385,000; green pea over 14 bighas gave 126 quintals; onion over 10 bighas fetched Rs 100,000; beetroot, carrot, radish, and spinach over 27 bighas fetched Rs 189,000; okra over 19 bighas fetched Rs 216,600; and jute over 30 bighas yielded 150 quintals.23 The ISI report also supplies some figures on vegetable production. The rele-vant figures are an output of 690,000 quintals over 300 acres. This works out to a yield of 76,667 kg per acre (Chattopadhyay 2000: 50). As for profitability, for parts of the East Calcutta Wetlands surveyed by the ISI, it was found to be Rs 55,000 for a 1 ha farm, that is, over Rs 22,000 per acre (ibid.: 54). The undated document referred to earlier also provides some demographic details. Of a population of 3,500, 2,000 were counted as earners. Of them, 50 were in employment; 250 were in business; agricultural labourers numbered 1,500; and there were 400 other labourers. Among 287 cultivators, 10 were listed as ‘big’ peasants (15–20 bighas), 27 as middle peasants (8–14 bighas), 100 as marginal peasants (2–7 bighas), and 150 as sharecroppers (˜`Ê̜ÜiÀÃʈ˜ÊÃiVœ˜`Ê«…>Ãi UÊn‡>VÀiÊ«ÀœiVÌÊVœ“«ÀˆÃˆ˜}ÊxÊ̜ÜiÀÃʜvʳ£™Ê>˜`ʳÓÎÊyœœÀà UÊœV>Ìi`ʈ˜Ê,>>À…>Ì]Ê£äʓˆ˜ÕÌiÃÊvÀœ“ʈ˜ÌiÀ˜>̈œ˜>Ê>ˆÀ«œÀÌ UÊÇʓˆ˜ÕÌiÃÊ`ÀˆÛiÊvÀœ“Ê ˆÌÞÊ i˜ÌÀiÊÊ>˜`Ê Ê/Ê*>ÀŽ UÊi>ÌÕÀiÃÊVÕL…œÕÃiÊ܈̅Ê}ޓÊ>˜`ÊÃ܈““ˆ˜}Ê«œœ 3 Rajarhat Complaint, The Telegraph, 15 November 2010, http://www. telegraphindia.com/1101116/jsp/bengal/story_13182679.jsp (accessed on 12 December 2010).

84  Beyond Kolkata Project Profile Strategically located at New Town, Rajarhat — one of the fastest growing planned towns that promises to be India’s next major IT hub UÊ/…iÊۈȜ˜ÊvœÀÊ̅iÊ«ÀœiVÌʈÃÊ̜ÊVÀi>ÌiÊÕÝÕÀÞÊœÕȘ}ʈ˜Ê,>>À…>Ì UÊ/…iÊVœ“«iÝÊVœÛiÀÃÊxÊ̜ÜiÀÃ]ʜvÊ̅iÃiÊÎÊ̜ÜiÀÃÊ>ÀiÊ>“œÃÌÊ܏`ʜÕÌ UÊ>՘V…ˆ˜}ÊÓʘiÜÊ̜ÜiÀÃÊ܈̅ˆ˜Ê̅iÊ `i˜Ê œÕÀÌÊVœ“«iÝʎ˜œÜ˜Ê>ÃÊ Eden Court – Primo UÊÊ/…iʘiÜÊ̜ÜiÀÃÊܜՏ`ÊLiÊwÀÃÌʜvʈÌÃʎˆ˜`ʈ˜Ê,>>À…>Ì]Ê܈̅ʫÀi“ˆÕ“Ê specifications and amenities. UÊÊ/…iÊ Vœ“«iÝÊ …>ÃÊ Lii˜Ê `iÈ}˜i`Ê LÞÊ ÜœÀ`Ê Ài˜œÜ˜i`Ê
ÀV…ˆÌiVÌÃÊ pÊ Callison, USA UÊ*ÀiÊ iÀ̈wi`ÊÀii˜Ê Ո`ˆ˜} Key Distance UʘÌiÀ˜>̈œ˜>Ê>ˆÀ«œÀÌÊpÊ£äʓˆ˜ÕÌià UÊ-iV̜ÀÊ6]Ê->ÌÊ>ŽiÊpÊ£xʓˆ˜ÕÌià Features & Amenities UÊ
iÃ̅ïV>ÞÊ`iÈ}˜i`Ê`œÕLiʅiˆ}…ÌÊ}À>˜`Êi˜ÌÀ>˜ViʏœLLÞ UÊ-ŽÞÊ>À`i˜Êˆ˜ÊLœÌ…Ê̅iÊ̜ÜiÀÃÊ>ÌÊ£Ç̅ʏiÛi UÊ>݈“Õ“Ê-œÕ̅É-œÕÌ…Ê >ÃÌÊv>Vˆ˜}Ê>«>À̓i˜Ìà UÊ
ˆÀÊVœ˜`ˆÌˆœ˜ˆ˜}ʈ˜ÊˆÛˆ˜}Ê>˜`Ê`ˆ˜ˆ˜}Ê>Ài>à UʘÌi}À>Ìi`ÊÃiVÕÀˆÌÞÊÃÞÃÌi“ UÊ-Ì>Ìi‡œv‡Ì…i‡>ÀÌÊVÕL…œÕÃiÊëÀi>`ʜÛiÀÊ£ä]äääÊõÊvÌ]ʅ>ۈ˜} Swimming pool and kid’s pool Fully equipped modern gymnasium Community hall Table Tennis room & Indoor games room Steam, Sauna & Jacuzzi UÊ i>ṎvՏÊ}Àii˜Ê>˜`ÃV>«i`Ê}>À`i˜ÃÊ܈̅ÊÌÀ>vwVÊvÀiiÊV…ˆ`Ài˜½ÃÊ«>ÞÊ>Ài> UÊ
“«iÊVœÛiÀi`Ê>˜`ʜ«i˜Ê«>ÀŽˆ˜}Êë>Vi UÊ,iÌ>ˆÊVŽÕ« CONTACT: SANJJOG PROPERTIES BUILDING RELATIONSHIP MOBILE NO: 9830046111 OR MAIL US: [email protected] Website: www.sanjjog.com 4

In this way, privatisation plays a crucial role in order to breach the close link between old values and a liberal welfare rule and forges a new kind of alignment between political rationalities and govern4 http://kolkata.quikr.com/Tata-Eden-Primo-The-Best-Investmentat-CBD-New-Town-Rajarhat-W0QQAdIdZ67097672 (accessed on 29 January 2011).

Losers and Gainers  85

mental technologies to regulate the labour market and at a broader level the turbulent phenomenon of urban subjectivity. With the linked presence of new consumption and virtual production sites, a new lifestyle emerges to shape a new urban self that stands at the intersection of social aspirations and private desires for selfadvancement. The small episodes of dispossession and appearance of new consumption centres are, therefore, enormously significant from the viewpoint of understanding the neo-liberal charter of re-shaping life. In this absurd milieu of public–private partnership, there is no sign that villages and mauzas tucked into the hidden corners of Rajarhat and New Town, in particular, will change. The glassy high-rise buildings and the buildings belonging to the SEZs there (at present few, but the government expects many more will come up at a fast pace) will showcase private wealth, while the low quality of public infrastructure will show the poverty of public authority. Walter Benjamin had once noted in his writings on Paris that each public revolt and outcry had brought in new architectural wonders. He had cited the coincidence of the Haussman-led redesigning of Paris and the barricades, the ubiquity of the vagabond and the arcades of the city. He, moreover, thought that with these landmarks, with collectors’ items abounding in the city, the city represented the ‘collective conscious’. These edifices represented, he maintained, the ‘utopia of a classless society’, places where everyone could walk around carrying memories of a primal past that had left ‘deposits in a thousand configurations of life, from enduring edifices to passing fashions’ (Leslie 2007).5 Will Rajarhat carry, as did Kolkata, these historical associations of a city with popular life and popular protest — now in the form of memory and now in the form of an architectural wonder? It is unlikely because by and large the age of dialectical fairy tales is over. In Kolkata, landmarks like Victoria Memorial Hall6 or Town 5

From Benjamin (1999–2003: 4–15). The Victoria Memorial was built to commemorate the peak of the British Empire in India. Conceived by Lord Curzon, it represents the architectural climax of Kolkata city. Lord Curzon, the then viceroy, specified its classical style but the actual plan of Victoria Memorial was laid down by the well-known architect, Sir William Emerson. The Victoria Memorial blends the best of British and Mughal architecture. The Victoria Memorial Hall was built with white Makrana marble. The Prince of 6

86  Beyond Kolkata

Hall7 had these popular associations. The national revolutionary movement and hunger ushered in Victoria Memorial Hall, while Town Hall carries an even earlier association of the utopia of a vigorous public sphere from where intellectuals like Tagore would address the city and the nation. None of these is going to happen in Rajarhat. There will be no immobilised images in New Town from which one can retrieve what had preceded them, gone into their formation and disappeared in them only to become visible now in the image. Rajarhat would be a place marked by ‘dialectic at a standstill’ (Benjamin 2007).8 The maximum of commodity fetishism will operate there. Yet we must also not ignore that the signs Wales laid the foundation stone of Victoria Memorial in 1906 and it was inaugurated in 1921 in memory of Queen Victoria. The Victoria Memorial is 338 by 228 feet, with a height of 184 feet. 7 The Town Hall was constructed in the year 1811 by Colonel John Garstin. The cost of the construction was raised through a public lottery. The construction began on 1 December 1807. The Hall, designed in the Palladian style, was constructed to complement the Government House. At present, the Town Hall houses a municipal court and a government foodrationing department. For several decades, the building was not properly maintained and it was neglected during the post-Independence period. There was indifference and neglect towards this architectural heritage. Yet, in the midst of such disarray one could still get a whiff of nostalgia from the grand stairway, with its empty marble pedestals, wrought iron lamp brackets, decorative stucco, and the remnants of chandeliers. The Town Hall has now got back some of its erstwhile glory as the state government has taken measures towards its renovation and restoration. It has also been marked as a national heritage building. The 50th and 70th birth anniversaries of Poet Rabindranath Tagore were organised at Town Hall in his presence. During the 1980s, the demand for restoration of the building was raised by some eminent citizens. The restoration work began in the early 1990s. A museum on the city’s history, Kolkata Museum, now occupies the ground floor of the building. The first floor hall is now used for cultural functions, seminars, exhibitions, and lectures. Nobel Laureates Rabindranath Tagore, Amartya Sen, Nadine Gordimer, and many other delivered lectures here. Jagadish Chandra Bose showed the public his famous experiment on wireless communication at Town Hall in 1898. Today, Town Hall is once again becoming a vibrant central hall of the city. 8 ‘Ambiguity is the appearance of dialectic in images, the law of dialectics at a standstill. This standstill is utopia and the dialectical image, therefore dream image. Such an image is afforded by the commodity per se as fetish’; see Benjamin (2006: 41).

Losers and Gainers  87

of changes in the social organisation of production had started taking place earlier. Mutinies on College Street brought in decentralised academic campuses, radical theatre activities in north Kolkata brought in plastic shows in the Academy of Fine Arts, and wetlands were filled in to create today’s book fair and industrial fairgrounds. The old city centre, place of repeated popular mobilisations and the emblem of a utopia to be frequented by poor and rich alike had to be gradually diminished, dissolved and destroyed. The historical awakening of the city in India, of which Kolkata more than any other place in the country reminded us, is over. Kolkata had to be ‘de-subjectified’. The capitalist development of productive forces now requires other types of social organisations (see Map 3.1). Map 3.1: Fringe Areas under BRADA

Source: HIDCO Report, Jyoti Basu Nagar — Kichhu Tathya, 2010. Note: Map not to scale.

88  Beyond Kolkata

Rajarhat–New Town took the cue from Salt Lake. The ministerin-charge, Gautam Deb, once said in the course of an interview that Sector V of Salt Lake had already provided 100,000 jobs. Yet it was just a ‘dormitory town’, where only one wing had been institutionally utilised. People from Salt Lake were commuting daily to Kolkata and returning to Salt Lake to sleep at night. This is, of course, only half true. People commute from Salt Lake to all parts, to Howrah in a large measure, and by train in all directions. Sector III of Salt Lake has several government offices where hundreds of people from Kolkata and other nearby areas arrive daily. The minister said that the objective of New Town would be to be self-sufficient in all respects — cafes open all night, reading halls, promenades, malls, hospitals, offices, banking centres, insurance companies, etc. — where people from Kolkata, in fact, would come to enjoy the facilities. It would give at least 300,000 more jobs with office space for about a million people in the process of construction. ‘New Town cannot have a steel plant or any such polluting factory. Nobody constructs such factory in a city, which can have bio-tech and info-tech units only.’ As Mr Deb said, this was ‘the city of the future’.9 He was a little more specific in a fact sheet prepared by his officers. It claimed 18,628 jobs had been created till then in the IT sector alone, though the fact sheet included banking, insurance, etc., as part of the sector.10 He also claimed that 150 million mandays had been created by the New Town project. According to the then housing minister and HIDCO boss, Gautam Deb, in the resultant wasteland (which Rajarhat now is), therefore, will come up, besides the existing SEZs, all those facilities that would make the town self-sufficient. In addition, there will be 9

Gautam Deb on Mahua TV Channel, 20 February 2011. HIDCO Report, Jyoti Basu Nagar: Kichhu Tathya, 14 December 2010, p. 32 (henceforth HIDCO report), gives us the staff-strength in firms in New Town as follows: Capgemini 1,500; TCS 3,000; IBM 400; IBM (D) 1,950; HCL Technology 1,024; Janepact 1,650; IBM Global 2,950; IBM (I) 1,750; Vodafone 400; HDFC Bank 275; McInlay Bharat 1,024; Bengal Ambuja Housing Development Limited 307; Bajaj Alliance General Insurance Company 119; Bajaj Alliance Life Insurance Company 257; Limitex Infotech Limited 107; Indus Tower 130; Pushpak Dilcon 130; and three more firms. 10

Losers and Gainers  89

a provident fund scheme for the unorganised labourers in the land losers’ cooperatives.11 Indeed, the Tatas have come up with a new cancer hospital, Columbia Asia, with a heart speciality care centre, a nursing school for people from other countries, the elite Delhi Public School (DPS) is there, and new insurance companies. A new financial hub is expected soon, with the promise of being massive in magnitude. One report said: Kolkata: Bengal may be on the boil, but that is hardly a deterrent for big business. This is the signal coming in from the financial hub project at Rajarhat New Town. Expected to rake in investments to the tune of 16,000 crore, project work is picking up speed despite the cloud of bloodshed and political uncertainty hanging over the state. Within three months of Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee’s laying the foundation stone of the project, the Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation (Hidco) has decided to hand over plots to five nationalised banking and financial institutions that had submitted applications expressing an interest in setting up offices at the hub. More companies have also come forward with similar requests. The five banking institutions that will get plots are the State Bank of India, UCO Bank, United Bank of India, UTI Mutual Fund, and Industrial Financial Corporation of India (IFCI). “These five financial institutions will be getting plots in the hub. The confirmation came through after the formal process in which their applications were received and replying sent to them. A few more financial institutions have also shown interest in setting up their offices in the hub. Their applications will be considered,” said a Hidco official. The 300-acre hub will have headquarters of several banking and financial institutions, stock exchanges and insurance companies along with integrated IT, hospitality and educational complexes. There will be houses for the staff of the institutions that have offices in the hub. Hidco officials estimate that the hub will create more than 2 lakh jobs. It will be the country’s second financial hub after Mumbai’s Bandra Kurla and will go a long way in pushing Kolkata as a big-budget investment destination. The state finance department is the nodal agency for setting up the hub while Hidco will put in place the infrastructure. “The hub will be the gateway to the South-East and will help further the Look East policy,” said Hidco managing director Saurabh Das. The authorities 11

Ibid.: 33.

90  Beyond Kolkata are expecting financial exchanges with South-East Asian countries like Singapore, Myanmar, and Thailand. The hub will have the advantage of having Kolkata airport and the Sector V and New Town IT hubs close to it. The hub will also be wellconnected as the Metro will be extended to Rajarhat. Hidco authorities will now have to ensure that proper civic infrastructure is put in place (Chakraborti 2011).

The process of monetisation has not, however, been straightforward and simple. This becomes clear if one inspects closely the way land prices in New Town and the Bhangar-Rajarhat area under the now dissolved Bhangar Rajarhar Area Development Authority (BRADA) have shot up astronomically. Wherever land was notified, land prices shot up; subsequently, land sharks of infamous reputation offered farmers arbitrary prices for land they wanted to take over. BRADA and HIDCO both connived at the musclemen’s game. Higher prices pushed out small farmers, who would now lose their lands in any case, and, therefore, would settle for the price being offered (Map 3.1). In New Town, while the standard rate on offer from HIDCO was Rs 8,000–12,000 per cottah in the early days, HIDCO sold the same at anywhere between Rs 500,000–3,000,000 per cottah. In the BRADA area, there was greater freedom for looters. Delhi Public School has a huge amount of land, beyond what a normal school requires. The infamous recreational resort, Vedic Village, the target of the fury of villagers in the past (discussed later), had taken away forcibly some land from the villagers. Other resorts like Olive Garden, owned and developed by land sharks and people with close political connections, will also come up soon.12 In some cases the price offered was around Rs 400,000–600,000 per cottah. BRADA took a cut, government revenue increased, but this did not result in any development of infrastructure in the locality. After some time, the farmers were left with no option other than to sell 12 On the illegal ways in which landownership was mutated with connivance of political entrepreneurs, local toughs, and big business to establish the resort, Olive Garden, see the report by Datta (2011a); on details of the collaboration by local political bosses belonging to both ruling and opposition parties in robbing peasants of land, see another report by Datta (2011b).

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their lands and eventually leave the place or take up sundry jobs. While de-peasantisation proceeded in this way, party leaders, local gentry and managers of various types gained phenomenally. Before the banks arrived, in a way, the ground had been prepared for the cash/loan/mortgage/credit/investment game. Rajarhat was expected to become modern in this way for the twenty-first century. These financial, medical, educational, aesthetic, recreational, and other units reflect the dual process of monetisation (breaching the wall of welfare) and a new kind of medicalisation of life (to borrow the celebrated term of Foucault). Therapeutic activities, from operating theatres to reading halls and laundry rooms must now translate into cash, and, more importantly, must now be visible in the sense of attaining a representational status of the new norms and relations which the town and its inhabitants must embody. The upcoming new medical-cultural-production network carries the signature of the neo-liberal programme of governing life. This is where Rajarhat is beyond Kolkata. Because, roughly speaking, if Kolkata represented a social citizenry with powers and obligations deriving from membership of a collective body, for Rajarhat the subject was to be less such a social citizen and more a product of public loot and largesse, the energetic pursuit of personal fulfilment, and a continuous determination of the factors which would help to achieve this fulfilment. Once again we have to remember that planning of space played and still plays an important part in the emergence of Rajarhat as a place for the consumption-oriented, medicalised new subject. The old public space of railway stations, parks and street corners (where, if you remember, crowds still throng, battle cries are still raised, listeners still listen, though with decreasing concentration, vendors still vend, and public exhibitions, leaflets, and manifestos still manage to grab some public attraction) will be transformed here into libraries, multiplexes (INOX theatres), shopping malls, and if Gautam Deb’s dream comes true, flower kiosks and book galleries as well.

The Persistent Land Question This is the reason why HIDCO could not remain satisfied with the original idea of 600-odd ha of land for the new township. The dream was of a new township with all aspects of this new life, for which HIDCO needed a certain minimum space. So it was not like

92  Beyond Kolkata

the old days when jute mills had their workers’ quarters, which sufficed, and the city remained a city; or, government offices had their staff quarters again in the city, but neither the jute mills nor the government departments had any further obligations to meet. Now, the minimum requirement must include space to accommodate and house all those aspects of the neo-liberal way of leading life, stretching from sites of virtual production to new patterns of consumption and gated life. Hence, HIDCO required not 600 ha but more than 3,000 ha of land (and more if we include in this the adjacent Rajarhat–Gopalpur notified area). Hence, there was this need to lie. The design for new life must be protected from the destructive gaze of a volatile subject. The HIDCO boss, therefore, could give only the names of 529 villagers of six mauzas who had willingly parted with their land, while HIDCO in its earlier submission to the high court had spoken of 3,075 ha of land in 25 mauzas for acquisition and thus for necessary environmental clearance. The court had granted permission to acquire 622 ha of land on receipt of necessary environmental clearance. Who are these 529 villagers? They belong to the area cleared by the high court (Datta 2010b). They are the willing farmers who allowed acquisition and accepted the given amount of compensation with ‘gratitude’. It was in this way, marked by a mix of truth and deceit that land acquisition took place towards creating the New Town of Rajarhat. Again, in the same way of vouching halftruths, HIDCO had sworn by affidavit that it was not destroying any agricultural land or filling in any water body, because there was no such area under the acquisition scheme. The land to be acquired was dry and non-arable. Yet, the Bagjola basin had 2,095 ha under it and the famous Dhupir beel as part of it. The surplus water of the beel during monsoon flowed into the Bagjola canal through four bypasses. Elsewhere, the government had earlier installed four riverlift irrigation mechanisms and seven deep tube wells to facilitate farming. Where did these arable lands and water bodies go? Why did the government require Rs 2.41 billion to fill in low-lying land (with 5 feet of earth) in order to prepare the land for construction unless there were water bodies and low-lying land? Also, the housing department secretary had appealed for acquisition of 3,075 ha of land by swearing that there was no village under five panchayat areas, and that this was empty land. Yet, the housing department (and HIDCO under it) had repeatedly written to several departments

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like those of fishing, environment, etc., to allow the former to fill ponds and tanks for the purpose of construction.13 Newspaper reports mention names such as Gitarani or Ganesh in whose names compensation money (from Andhra Bank, Salt Lake branch) was issued by the HIDCO finance section and deposited in the district treasury. But these names were not to be found in the list of 529 willing farmers and villagers.14 A newspaper report also told of “HIDCO (being) accused of illegally filling 33 water bodies”. The report said: About 33 water bodies in the Ramsar-protected East Kolkata Wetlands were filled illegally for the construction of the Newtown-Rajarhat Township. A letter (Hidco/planning 13/99) dated 19 November, 1999, written by the erstwhile managing director of Hidco, West Bengal, Mr Sanjay Mitra, to the secretary of the fisheries department, sought permission for relaxation of the provision of Inland Fisheries Act, 1984 and West Bengal Inland Fisheries (Amendment) Act, 1993 for filling up of water bodies for the implementation of the New Town Calcutta Project. Permission to fill 33 water bodies was sought. “When I joined the department as deputy director, I started a survey in Rajarhat area. The area had a very unique ecosystem with 53 species of fish that bred there naturally. I had prepared the project report and Hidco was not given the permission to fill even one water body there,” said Ms Madhumita Mukherjee, director of state fisheries department. The state housing minister, Mr Gautam Deb, had claimed that the project area doesn’t fall in the limits of East Kolkata Wetland. However, according to the Geological Society of India, geographical coordinates

13

In case of one such communication and internal correspondence the Assistant Director of Fisheries, North 24 Parganas, wrote back in response to a query from the Deputy Director of Fisheries that it will be unwise and risky to destabilise Rajarhat as the ‘vast wetlands abound with thousands of tanks, . . . jheels, bils . . . wamps, dead river beds, low lying area, doba etc’, the water body is divided by canals, etc. and a large number of local farmers have possession of the wetland for agriculture and aquaculture, memo no. 774 of 26 August 1999, in response to memo no. 122 of 17 August 1999. 14 Inconsistencies in Gautam Deb’s Facts on Rajarhat, Report on various HIDCO affidavits and press statements in Dainik Statesman, 17 December 2010.

94  Beyond Kolkata for East Kolkata Wetland is 22 degree 40 minutes North/22 degree 25 minutes North (latitude) and 88 degree 22 minutes East/88 degrees 35 minutes East (longitude). According to the project report of a technical committee constituted by the state housing department in May 1994, the coordinates of the Newtown Township is 22 degrees 38 minutes North/22 degree 34 minutes North (latitude) and 88 degree 26 minutes East/88 degree 30 minutes East (longitude). This means that the project area falls within the perimeters of East Kolkata Wetland. Ms Mukherjee said: “Wetland doesn’t mean only water bodies. It is the whole ecology and the biodiversity that is needed to be taken into consideration. It takes 30 years for a new water body to develop the ecology.” It should be noted that the state department of environment had instructed the housing department through a letter dated 10 November, 1999 that necessary clearance should be taken from the fisheries department for filling up of any water body exceeding five cottahs. The 33 water bodies that were filled by the Hidco without permission from the fisheries department ranged from 6.05 cottahs to 114.95 cottahs. Contrary to what Ms Mukherjee said, Mr Deb, in a press conference, had said that the Wetland was on the verge of destruction and that the fisheries department and the East Kolkata Wetland Management Authorities had requested the minister to revive the area (Basu 2011b).

HIDCO disregarded the norms set in 2002 by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests, which in a partial amendment to its notification issued on 27 January 1994 notified that new townships would need special clearance for discharging effluents, domestic sewage, industrial wastes, biomedical wastes, municipal solid wastes, and also for quantum of water to be received, quantum of water to be treated, etc. In this case there were no such clearances received. The ministry had issued this notification in the form of an extraordinary gazette on the basis of the orders of the Madras High Court and the Supreme Court in response to writ petitions (C 725 of 1994 in Supreme Court and C 33493 in the High Court).15 In fact, in the application of the housing department to the West Bengal Pollution Control Board, Sanjay Mitra, Special Secretary, wrote that there was no case of waste recycling, he filled in the 15

Issued by R. Chandramohan, Joint Secretary, 7 July 2004, No Z–11011/1/2002-IA-I; the seriousness of the matter can be gauged from the fact that the notification of 1994 had to be modified 11 times with the rising frenzy of construction and development of new towns.

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column as ‘not applicable’ and left all columns empty. He just declared that the EIA had been enclosed.16 The same Sanjay Mitra in fact wrote to the fisheries department for permission of relaxation of the provisions of the Inland Fisheries Act of 1984 and the subsequent Amendment Act of 1993 in the interest of building the New Town. He informed the latter that since the government had decided to set up the New Town on an area with ‘some water bodies’, which he said was of approximately 796–97 cottahs, HIDCO should now be given the go ahead to fill them in.17 He, of course, did not specify how much HIDCO wanted to fill in, or the source of his information and its accuracy, since there were conflicting claims made by local people regarding quantity, measure and number of water bodies. Indeed, this was one of the main arguments in defence of the Rajarhat Jomi Bachao Committee in its writ petition to the Calcutta High Court. The environment department had been asked for clearance of the entire 3,075 ha of land on the basis of a ‘rapid assessment’; it replied finally following an outcry that clearance had been given to only 622 ha of land. However, even this did not deter HIDCO from pressing ahead with the acquisition and construction of New Town.18 Clearly, 1997–2000 were the busy years with regard to planning New Town and also the clearing of the administrative cobwebs and subduing popular resistance. In one of the most scandalous instances, a district government official — an additional district magistrate and district land and land reforms officer — had to write to the joint secretary of the housing department to the effect that the housing board had sought mutation of 94 acres of land in the mauzas of Thakdari and Mahishbathan in the New Town area in favour of 11 fictitious companies, all of which had appointed surprisingly ‘one Arun Maheswari’ to deal with all matters relating to mutation or conversion. The official found on inspection that there were no such 16 Application form no. 02686, West Bengal Pollution Control Board, signed by Sanjay Mitra, Special Secretary, Housing Board, New Secretariat Building, 18 May 1999. 17 Letter from HIDCO dated 19 November 1999 to the Fisheries Department, docketed in the Fisheries Department, Memo no 2785-Fish/TIII/2735/99. 18 Writ Petition no. 7516(W) of 1999 filed in the High Court, p. 3.

96  Beyond Kolkata

companies, in his language they were ‘fictitious’. The land was still in possession of ‘ryots cultivating the land’. The letter also noted ‘considerable pressure on the department’ for the completion of the said mutation process.19 Who is this Arun Maheswari? He is the husband of the influential CPI (M) member and an ex-Member of Parliament, Sarla Maheswari. And remember all this was going on, including the destruction of the wetlands, while the fisheries department was planning for a ‘Wetland Wonderland Museum’ to spread the message of preservation of wetlands and their economic significance including employment opportunities.20 Symptomatic of the dispossession in Rajarhat was what preceded Rajarhat in the form of the construction of the South City Mall. There were reports of intimidation and coercion to evict a workers’ colony to make place for the Mall. One contemporary report tells of a video documentary describing the violent process: Shambhu Singh may have died but a city filmmaker has made a documentary on him hoping that the battle waged by the former employee of Usha Engineering Works against the South City Mall would continue. Ranu Ghosh’s 58-minute documentary portrays a common man’s struggle to survive against the forces of the state. The documentary is named Quarter Number 4/11 after the quarter from which Shambhu was evicted after the factory land was sold to the consortium developing the high-rise South City complex in the early 90s. More than 7,000 employees of the factory were thrown out and their quarters demolished. Shambhu had refused to move out of his quarters and was fighting a lone battle against the eviction. Sambhu Singh was the appellant for cases in the High Court against the South City Mall. He was run over by a vehicle on NH-34 near Madhyamgram, on 13 January night. The members of civil society, who were with him in his fight, suspect foul play. The vehicle that mowed him down could not be traced. Ranu Ghosh said she had rushed to the place where Shambhu’s body was found. “The road was V-shaped which means vehicles would have to slow down there. However, the body was in such a shape that

19 Letter from Subrata Gupta, ADM North 24 Parganas, to me. C.D. Bandopadhyay, Joint Secretary, Housing Department, West Bengal Government, 13 June 1997, memo no — 18/MCC/1424/1(4)/LRLR(H)/97. 20 Letter from the Directorate of Fisheries, Lindsay Street, to the Principal Secretary, Department of Fisheries, Government of West Bengal, 11 May 1999, No FTR 103.

Losers and Gainers  97 it was apparent somebody had intentionally hit him,” she pointed out. An attack on him in 2006 was led by the erstwhile officer-in-charge of Jadavpur police station. A local goon named Shahjahan had also kidnapped him, said Ranu. The documentary gives account of an attack on his family on 24 December 2008 when the security guards of South City, on instructions of the security in-charge, had tied the hands and feet of his mother and son and threw them out on the streets, said Ranu. She said he was also the eyewitness to the filling of water-body on the premises on which tower no 3 and part of tower no 4 of the South City were constructed. She has his interviews and testimonies recorded. “Shambhu was last threatened two of months [sic] ago by the security in-charge of the mall. With his death many of the cases against the South City have become untenable,” alleged Mr Partha Sarathi Roy, an activist who had been working with Shambhu. “The case was moving in his favour and when I last met Shambhu he told me he might get his job back,” said Ranu Ghosh. The documentary is set to be released next year (Basu 2011c).

In the last chapter we shall discuss in detail the role of embedded violence in the process of making a new city. For now, even if we keep aside the issue of violence, the inconsistencies and contradictions in various government notifications mentioned earlier and discussed in detail in the previous chapter show that escaping the turbulence of Kolkata and building a multipurpose city of the twenty-first century is less a grand design of bourgeois architects and town planners and more a result of the capitalist law of commensurate social organisation of production.

Urban Governance and Neo-liberal Techniques As mentioned earlier, the initial attempts at emptying Kolkata of its productive relevance started some time back, almost at the same time when the search for scope of eastward expansion of the city began. With this came the grand idea of building an altogether new township combining ‘green production’, new consumption and new living. The government gradually had to find its way through a measure of decrees, litigation, lies, coercion, and violence. The Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), the School of Planning and Architecture (SPA), Urban Management Centre, and the Administrative

98  Beyond Kolkata

Training Institute were mobilised. Town planners were deployed. Other government departments were arm-twisted. Hence, New Town is also a story of many an inconsistency and lie. According to the government, the Indian population was increasing and that the union government in a note of 1997 had advised the setting up of 100 new cities. It suppressed the fact that Kolkata’s population had more or less stabilised and was not growing menacingly and that the city had registered a growth rate of 4.1 per cent, the lowest among the million-plus cities in the country. In 1995, the government said that it had prohibited the sale or mortgage of the notified area belonging to 25 mauzas. Yet, in 1996, it again said that by a governor’s decree it was forbidding the sale, lease or mortgage of 2,750 ha of land that belonged to 21 mauzas. It had to thus feel its way, find out the efficacy and impact of its combined method of lies, coercion, deployment of party personnel, public relations and media campaign, and then proceed towards land acquisition to the extent it did. Different versions of the nature of the land and of the land-use patterns were given over time. The reports from experts were used and abused.21 All of this was necessary as HIDCO had to ‘explain’, convince the public, and thwart the agitation building up in Rajarhat in the wake of the anti-land acquisition protest at Singur and Nandigram in addition to the further decline of the government’s legitimacy after the rebellion began in Lalgarh. So, when HIDCO said that discontent and agitation in Rajarhat over land acquisition had come late in the day and was instigated, and that the farmers earlier had willingly given away land, it spoke in bad faith. Because the acquisition was gradual, done on the basis of efficacy of method, the farmers initially had no idea of the huge nature of the enterprise undertaken by the government on neo-liberal advice from captains of Indian industry in changing land, life, lifestyle, and production mode altogether in this area. The best instance of such a gradual strategy was the acquisition of land opposite the City Centre across the six-lane highway in New Town as late as in 2003, where HIDCO wanted to resettle a group of outsiders and sell off the rest of the land after acquiring land from the local adjoining village. In this case, as in many others, strong-arm techniques was combined with persuasion. 21 Report on various HIDCO affidavits and press statements in Dainik Statesman, 17 December 2010.

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Such a strategy called for change in the land-use character and pattern of the areas outlying the Kolkata metropolis. It also needed a connection with the IT hub in Sector V of Salt Lake and rapid communication and transportation system to the airport. I indicated earlier the other governmental strategy complementing the spatial strategy, namely, how to neutralise mass politics against neo-liberal economics. The public relations drive was therefore important. The strategy was also to pose the matter of acquisition and opposition as a matter of disputation between the party of order and the party of protest, hence a private parliamentary game; the peasants had nothing to do with this. Therefore, the HIDCO boss and housing minister, Gautam Deb, repeatedly invited the then opposition leader, Mamata Banerjee for discussions, and displayed his frustration and anger when the latter refused his offer, taking to the streets instead. Yet, he never asked the farmers and rural labour of Rajarhat to meet him and discuss matters or offered to attend a public grievance programme organised by mass organisations. In this desperate attempt to confine politics to chamber confabulations, we present here a bizarre scenario on which any comment is unnecessary: West Bengal housing minister Gautam Deb’s press conference in Kolkata on 16 November was an unusual one. Besides him, there was another prominent personality present at the conference room — none other than his current bete noire Mamata Banerjee. Only, her presence was virtual. Deb, who is trying to project the new township at Rajarhat as an ideal place to work and stay for people associated with the information technology industry, demonstrated that he meant business by turning his press meet into a hi-tech show. Earlier, in a public outburst against the railway minister, he had resented the fact that “she doesn’t even have the courtesy to accept invitations.” So, he found an easier way to ensure her presence. While he was speaking to the media, his arch-rival was there on a large plasma screen hung on the wall beside him. And she was not silent either. She was moving, gesturing and throwing challenges and charges at Deb one after another. The clips were from her rally at Rajarhat held

100  Beyond Kolkata on 13 November. Pausing the picture after listening to each point attentively and letting the journalists listen clearly too, Deb then sought to demolish it.22

Meanwhile, HIDCO hoped that like the financial hub, the SEZs would come up in this sanitised and therefore notified area — INFOSYS, Enfield Infrastructure Limited, Orion IT Parts Private Limited, Unitech-Hi Tech Structure Limited, DLF Limited, Bengal Shapoorji Developers’ Private Limited, TCS Limited, and various units under the umbrellas of these developers.23 In this logistical scenario, for the most part, there would not be any direct relation between the owners and the labourers. Hiring, sub-hiring and contracting labour at various levels would occupy logistical management of production in New Town. What will be the nature of the informal sector here? Or will the line between the two be very thin? How will the institutionalisation of informalities circulating below be achieved with the help of regulations from above? As research on Falta SEZ has shown, much of how a regime of extralegal disciplines continuous with formal regulations will be instituted here will depend on popular politics, which includes unionisation, neighbourhood politics and party politics.24 In short, Rajarhat presents a case of an evolution of urban governmentality — a new way of modelling life, also new attempts to counter the opposition to the design. But in this sense, and this is what we try to argue, namely, that if Rajarhat is a problem-solving case, it also problematises the business of government. It poses new obligations for a ruler in terms of the problems the rulers seek to address. The problematisation of Kolkata has a long history, in which politicians, intellectuals, administrators, demographers, public health specialists, philanthropists, the intelligence community, financial 22

Report by Nilanjan Dutta, Current News, 17 November 2010, http:// currentnews.in/2010/11/29/mamata%e2%80%99s-industry-surfacesover-land/ (last accessed on 29 January 2011). The rest of the dispatch is equally revealing of the game. 23 For details of new SEZs approved in the eastern region and the status of their implementation, see West Bengal as on 31 October 2009, http:// fsez.nic.in/listofnewsez.pdf (accessed on 5 January 2011). 24 On Falta SEZ, see Dey (2011); on a nationwide policy of regulating the new informal sector, including vending, see Bandyopadhyay (2009).

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experts and business barons, and counter-insurgency experts participated. All of these tribes wanted to save Kolkata from the dangers of depopulation, pauperism, violence, urban unrest, industrial militancy, failures of productivity, and failure in international competitiveness — all those grave defects that were bound to be identified with the difficulties and failures of government. Yet the problematisation of Kolkata is a relatively known story. After all, we all know the countless studies of factory closures and lockouts, and the fate of ‘sunset’ industries, reported, above all, in the annual labour survey reports of the government, urban poverty surveys and the long list of governmental techniques based on a targeted approach to solve the problems that Kolkata has represented. It began with the setting up by the colonial administration in 1911 of the Calcutta Improvement Trust, which efficiently implemented many urban improvement projects, though it neglected the slums and other working-class areas. It was followed by the establishment of the Calcutta Metropolitan Development Authority in 1970, with international aid for the stabilisation of the urban poor. Then came various plans, significant among which were the Plan for Metropolitan Development (1990–2015) and the Calcutta Mega City Programme (1994), to be implemented jointly by the union government, state government and private finance. The effort now was to renew urban infrastructure, build new townships, construct arterial roads to facilitate fast transport and communication. Thus, finally, came Vision 2005 with a mandate to concentrate on improving mass contact areas such as railway stations and junctions, public facilities and utilities, bastis, water supply and sanitation, garbage clearance, clearing of canals, etc.25 All these were aided, besides the government, by the World Bank (WB), International Development Association (IDA), Asian Development Bank (ADB), Department of International Development of the United Kingdom (DFID), and others, like Japanese institutions. While stabilising Kolkata’s condition and improving it, Vision 2005 envisioned the setting up of adjoining and satellite towns to ‘ease the burden’ on Kolkata. Kolkata therefore had to expand particularly in these global times.26 25

For a good summary of this history, see Dasgupta (2004). The HIDCO fact sheet, Jyoti Basu Nagar: Kichhu Tathya (pp. 2–5), begins by presenting unplanned urbanisation as an impending disaster and cites a central government directive of constructing new towns, each at a 26

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What is less known is the problematisation of an outlying ‘backward’ area like Rajarhat-Bhangar, which was solved by setting up BRADA. The technique of setting up a development authority to facilitate crass commercialisation of land was brought in. This became the underside of the HIDCO story. To ‘develop’ Rajarhat New Town, the government had to develop Rajarhat-Bhangar. The role of the development authority was to promote the sale of land. That was how Bhangar would develop; meanwhile roads, potable water, public hospitals, public health, and other provisions could wait. The way reports have arrived, they suggest a new problem, and a question, namely: Would the government be rescued by Rajarhat? Will Rajarhat not pose a new set of even more severe problems for the task of governing? Following are two such reports: Unable to acquire land on its own, the government of West Bengal has asked real estate developers building residential and commercial complexes in Rajarhat township, on the outskirts of Kolkata, and other adjoining areas to buy land for it so that it can build the civic infrastructure. Because it is unable to build roads and other civic amenities in Rajarhat — a 28 sq. km township, which was to be home to some one million people — the state government recently stopped giving possession of some 4,500 plots spread over 22 sq. km. Possession would be given only after “infrastructure development work is completed”, said West Bengal Housing Infrastructure Development Corp. Ltd — an arm of the state government, which is developing the Rajarhat township — in a notice few months ago. “Partnership with private players is the only way to avoid political controversy over land acquisition,” said Rabin Mondal, chairman of Bhangar Rajarhat Area Development Authority (BRADA) — a civic cost of an average Rs 200,000 million, and to be built on public–private partnership. The dossier reproduces a letter (dated 27 March 1997) from the Secretary of Ministry of Urban Affairs and Employment to the Chief Secretary, Government of West Bengal, suggesting new townships whose development scheme would ‘consist of — private sector, private individuals, specially landowners in the New Towns, public sector companies, institutional funding agencies, bilateral and multilateral funding agencies’ and suggested ‘public–private joint ventures’. The fact sheet (mimeo, 14 December 2010) was prepared to counter the charges brought forward by the opposition leader, Mamata Bandopadhyay, and presented to her. Hereafter the dossier is referred to as ‘Kichu Tathya’, also referred to as HIDCO document.

Losers and Gainers  103 body, which has administrative control of Rajarhat and adjoining areas. When, 10 years ago, the state government acquired some 3,000 ha of land for the Rajarhat township, it faced almost no resistance, but things have changed over the past couple of years as the Trinamool Congress — the state’s main opposition party — led farmers’ protests against forcible land acquisition for industrial projects in Singur and Nandigram. In Singur, the state government had leased 900 acres of land to Tata Motors Ltd and its component suppliers for building a small car factory. A little over a year ago, Tata Motors pulled the plug on the project and moved its small-car factory to Sanand in Gujarat because of the protests. The state government had planned to set up a chemical hub in Nandigram, but was forced to abandon the proposal after protests led to sustained violence in the area that left dozens dead. Since the Singur and Nandigram debacles, West Bengal has been experimenting with various models of partnership with private real estate developers for land acquisition. In early 2008, the state’s information technology (IT) department entered into a partnership with two firms for jointly building an IT township on the eastern fringes of Kolkata, under which the state was to receive 600 acres of land for free in return for developing civic infrastructure for the township. The partnership was to serve as a template, but it came to light in August that at least one of the two firms was forcibly seizing land from farmers. This prompted the state government to scrap the IT township where companies such as Infosys Technologies Ltd and Wipro Ltd had already been allotted 90 acres each. But the partnership with real estate developers in Rajarhat and adjoining areas seems to be doing well. Some 50 private companies have agreed to buy land for BRADA, according to Mandal, and around 11 of them have already managed to secure “sizeable tracts of land”, paying farmers the market price at the least. It is “almost compulsory” for all real estate developers to acquire land for BRADA to build roads and civic amenities, according to a person who did not want to be named. “Unless you acquire land for BRADA, it wouldn’t sanction your construction plan,” he added. “What is more, if BRADA couldn’t build the connecting roads, you wouldn’t be able to sell your property.” BRADA doesn’t have the infrastructure to acquire land, said Piyush Bhagat, director of Spring Valley Developers Pvt. Ltd — a realty firm, which has on its own acquired some 100 acres in Rajarhat and areas

104  Beyond Kolkata adjoining it over the past seven years. “We can’t do without BRADA’s support, so there is no alternative — we have to give some land for free for BRADA to build roads,” he added. Spring Valley is giving 5 acres for expansion of the main arterial road that runs through the township. For most private players, acquiring land wasn’t difficult, according to Sandip Jain, head of finance at Canopy Project Pvt. Ltd — a firm planning a 180-acre residential complex. “We completed the acquisition in three years,” said Jain. “It wasn’t difficult because we agreed to accommodate landowners’ reasonable demands.” The key to peaceful acquisition is willingness to pay a small premium over the market price, according to Bhagat. “We faced some resistance at times, but no political resistance at all, and we could overcome whatever little resistance we faced by paying say 5–10% more than the ruling market price,” he said.27

The second report is even more revealing of the new problems for the government in redesigning society along neo-liberal lines: The tall, swanky buildings in Rajarhat hide a dark side, one that is noticed only when locals snap and go on the rampage, or a life is lost. A few days ago, 79-year-old farmer Prankrishna Mandal hanged himself after being duped of all of his land by some touts. He was made to sign some documents in English, a language he did not know. When he realized he had been lured into selling away two plots, totalling 18 cottahs, in Baliguri for a meagre Rs 2 lakh, his heart broke. It was an indication that even after the Vedic Village scam, the government has done nothing to save poor villagers from falling prey to land sharks in the fringe areas of Rajarhat, which falls under the Bhangar-Rajarhat Development Authority (Brada). Unscrupulous promoters are grabbing land with the help of local touts, and Brada can do nothing about it. Land prices in the Brada jurisdiction have soared in recent years. A cottah that sold for Rs 10,000–20,000 a few years ago now goes for Rs 1–3 lakh. With New Town coming up, land price in Brada area is only going to shoot up. The state government formed Brada a few years ago with a specific purpose to formulate an exhaustive land usage plan in the periphery of Rajarhat and Bhangar, adjacent to New Town. However, the authority has no control over sale of land in the area. 27 Report by Romita Dutta, 17 December 2009, http://www.livemint. com/2009/12/17222330/Rajarhat-Project--Bengal-asks.html (accessed on 27 November 2010).

Losers and Gainers  105 It cannot acquire land on its own; it only enforces a development plan for properties that are likely to come up there. This has left the area free for unscrupulous promoters and local touts. For a cottah in the area, the touts first offer anything between Rs 10,000 and Rs 50,000 to the farmers. After buying the land, they sell it for Rs 1–2 lakh per cottah, depending on how close it is to the main road. “These touts forcibly grab land from villagers and create a power of attorney. After that, they approach realtors and try to sell them land at an exorbitant price,” said an official. “Many of them present themselves as representatives of political parties. They ask developers to pay them an advance. When developers contact Brada, they are told that they do not have any relation with these touts,” said a real estate developer. Brada officials concede that touts are on the prowl. “It is true that a land sale racket is operating in the area but how can we stop it? One has to approach Brada to take its consent for setting up any structure on the land,” said Brada chairman and local MLA Rabin Mandal. The problem is that unlike Hidco, there is no plan to set up a township at Brada area, which is why Brada cannot acquire land of its own. “Brada’s job is to scrutinize applications of individuals and private organizations who want to set up structures on Brada land and instruct the applications as to what could be set up on the land. We are framing laws and building rules for all the individuals to follow before setting up building structures in these areas,” a Brada official said (Chakraborti 2010).

If urban governance is at the heart of neo-liberal governmentality, clearly the government’s stock of knowledge and policy wisdom is too poor to turn its vision into reality. If it requires at every level some local corrupt party boss, extra-economic element in various forms, violence, coercion, and falsehood, when will it create the self-satisfied moral creature that it was invented to create? In any case, while debate may continue over the nature of neoliberal governmentality, and the point of its meeting with postcolonial governmentality, the profile of gain and loss is clear. We know who gained — all those who have moved in or will move in or will gain from others moving in. But let us review some of the facts cited in the preceding chapter and see the loss. In 1995, the total number of workers in Rajarhat was 74,561; in 2005, the figure was 137,919. As percentage to total population, the figures stood respectively as 26.53 and 33. In 1995, cultivators

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were 7,138; in 2005, the number stood at 4,821. The percentage of cultivators to total workers declined in these 10 years in percentage figures from 9.5 to 3.49, and the percentage figures in relation to total population stood respectively as 2.54 and 1.15. Agricultural labourers too declined in these 10 years from 12,281 to 7,543. The percentage-wise decline in relation to total workers was over 10 points from 16.47 to 5.46; and in relation to population the figure declined from 4.37 to 1.78. Workers involved in household industry increased 1,461 to 4,102 — in relation to total workers the figure increased from 1.96 to 2.97. ‘Other workers’ increased from 53,679 to 121,453 — the figure in relation to total workers shooting up from 72 per cent to 88 per cent, and in relation to total population the rise was from 19.10 to 29.1 — again a 10 point rise. The overall percentage of non-workers in relation to total population decreased — from 78.20 to 67 per cent.28 In short, dispossession continued in these 10 years, peasants and agricultural workers both have declined in relation to population and total working population, while precariously living persons have increased in number. Thus, other workers and workers doing sundry jobs increased. And overall pauperisation for a large section continued with more and more joining the mass of workers with precarious conditions. Now social scientists, apologists of the experiment, may quarrel that there is no decline, and that a large number of people have indeed shifted and taken up odd jobs and seasonal occupations, as there is more gain. Plus, they may say, people have moved out for more income or have moved in search of more income in ‘other’ jobs. But the picture of secular decline in occupational profile is clear. The migration figures do not tell us any different story.

The Comptroller and Auditor General’s Report From another set of figures we can see who lost and who gained in the New Town project. Sanjeeb Mukherjee in a recent article has examined the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) Report of 28 Figures on Rajarhat calculated on the basis of total population of Rajarhat block and Rajarhat–Gopalpur municipality, as during the 1991 census there was no municipality, which figures in the 2001 census. Figures are calculated on the basis of Tables 2.4 and 2.7 of North 24 Parganas District Census Handbooks, 1995 and 2005 (Government of West Bengal), both based on census reports of 1991 and 2001.

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2007 on the New Town project to show who were swindled and who gained. I end this chapter with some of the facts reported and analysed by him.29 In 1999, under the chairmanship of the erstwhile housing minister, Gautam Deb, HIDCO covered an area of 3,087 ha at a revised estimated cost of Rs 74,295.70 million. According to the Performance Review Report of CAG of 2007, HIDCO was entrusted with making an Outline Development Plan and a Detailed Development Plan within two to three years, but had failed to submit any plan. It did not have any comprehensive strategic plan (p. 21). CAG points out that, 708.65 ha of land was purchased from small landowners below the market price resulting in the loss of Rs 503.4 million on the part of poor peasants (p. 24f ). On the other hand, in three mauzas, 712.94 ha was acquired at rates higher than the prevailing prices by 3 to 174 per cent. Rates were thus fixed arbitrarily, bypassing the provisions of the Land Acquisition Act (p. 25). CAG further pointed out that 83 per cent of the erstwhile landowners were not identified and financial assistance was not extended to them as per the official policy on rehabilitation (p. 27). In other words, an overwhelming majority of land-losers was simply swindled and evicted. The CAG concluded, ‘Land was acquired either below prevailing rates or above market rates without any detailed justification . . . Moreover, rehabilitation and resettlement programme was dragged along without concern for the land losers’ (p. 43). In the commercial audit section of the report of 2009, CAG presents a detailed account of a large number of financial transactions in two areas that were audited — land development and sale of land. The total loss reported by CAG was Rs 7.88 billion — 11 per cent of the estimated project cost. Mukherjee asks: If all other areas were to have been audited what figures would people have got? CAG reviewed the bulk allotment of 508.79 acres of land to 55 firms and found that HIDCO sustained a revenue loss of Rs 3,717.50 million (p. 33). Bengal Unitech got underpriced land and gained Rs 496.10 million (p. 33ff.). The other companies favoured by violating the land pricing policy and tenets of financial 29

Mukherjee (2011: 710); the numbers in parentheses in the following paragraphs indicate pages of the CAG report. Also see, CAG Pulls up Housing Corporation over Rehab, Express News Service, 29 March 2011, http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/CAG-pulls-up-housingcorporation-over-rehab/289877/ (accessed on 5 May 2011).

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propriety were DLF Limited and Magus Bengal Pvt Ltd. Likewise, Bengal Ambuja was offered land at Rs 360,000 per cottah, where HIDCO had itself earlier realised Rs 766,000 in the same area (p. 35). TCS was also allotted land in violation of financial propriety leading to a loss of Rs 1,248.70 million (p. 36). Contrary to the policy of HIDCO itself, land was sold to 8,573 allottees much below the stipulated price, which resulted in a loss of Rs 1,794.70 million (p. 41). Why were some belonging to weaker sections or low-income groups favoured? According to HIDCO’s land pricing policy, a lower price was to be charged for weaker/lower income groups, break-even price for middle-income groups (MIGs) and higher market price for higher income groups (HIGs). The CAG report shows that HIDCO fixed the selling price at 150 to 200 per cent of the break-even cost for HIG and 68 to 125 per cent of the break-even cost for lowerincome group (LIG) and MIG for plots allotted up to December 2003. The report says, ‘Thus, HIG group was extended more relief by Rs 41.48 crores than the LIG and MIG group, thereby frustrating the objective of cross-subsidization policy’ (p. 41). Thus in the executive summary of the audit report of 2009, CAG commented: ‘The Company deviated from its own allotment policy’ (p. 23). There was also evidence of gross wrongdoing in the allotment under two special quotas belonging to the HIDCO chairman. Under the chairman’s quota, it received 3,630 applications till 31 March 2009 and allotted 292 plots. Out of these the CAG scrutinised the records of 172 allottees and found that six allottees did not even submit their applications, while 90 did not mention the category under which they were eligible. Further 167 out of 172 allottees did not submit the requisite supporting documents under which they claimed to get allotment under the chairman’s discretionary quota. On the other hand, 95 applicants were not considered though they had submitted their applications along with the requisite documents. Most importantly, no reasons were recorded for such anomalies in allotment (p. 43). Mukherjee commented in his analysis: ‘Thus what appears in simple terms is that the chairman arbitrarily allotted plots from his quota as if the land was his private property and he was distributing gifts to people he loved or favoured’ (Mukherjee 2011: 9). The second type of the chairman’s arbitrary distribution was called special quota and 300 plots were made available. The CAG strongly observed that HIDCO neither

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framed any guidelines and procedures for allotment nor did it issue any public notice for distribution of plots as is mandatory for any public property. The beneficiaries included 72 government officers and again no reason or supporting documents existed for such distribution. More shocking was the fact that two directors of HIDCO recommended their own names for allotment under the special quota ‘indicating lack of transparency and objectivity in the allotment process’ (p. 44). Several newspapers have reported that the minister’s wife and his SUV driver were also allotted plots from these special quotas when the minister’s wife already has a house in Kolkata. It was also reported that one HIDCO director who was allotted a plot soon transferred it and made a hefty profit. This brings, in the words of Mukherjee, [t]he final charge, which is not merely the actual losses calculated by CAG but the presumptive loss entailed by HIDCO based, on the, market value of these plots and the preferential prices offered to the favoured few. A loss, in all would be staggering and would find the Minister concerned in the company of the former telecom minister.

Mukherjee then concluded his analysis with the following words worth quoting: The CAG confined its audit to two areas, development of land and sale/ allotment of land. The report shows that New Town was projected over 3087 hectares at a revised estimated cost of Rs 7429.57 crores. Till March 2009, 1224.89 hectares was ready and in 935.55 hectares work was under progress and if one presumes that 50% of it was complete then about 55% of land development should have been in order. Accordingly, 55% of the project cost or Rs 4086.26 crores had been spent. The total amount of wastages, in terms of avoidable cost, inadmissible payments, lost revenue opportunity may be estimated as Rs 988.23 crores as the CAG report shows. This amounts to 24% of the estimated project cost. It calls for a complete scrutiny of all aspects of the New Town Project.30

30

Mukherjee (2011: 9). Also see, Crores Wasted in HIDCO Flop Show, Says CAG, The Financial Express, 29 March 2011, http://www. financialexpress.com/news/crores-wasted-in-hidco-flop-show-sayscag/289854/1 (accessed on 5 May 2011).

4 Urban Legends of Consent Neo-liberal Governmentality

B

efore we continue with the Rajarhat story and understand its significance as a space beyond Kolkata, we should pause and take stock of the theoretical issues at stake here, indicated in the first chapter and in the concluding lines of the second chapter. Rajarhat beyond Kolkata represents the function of the developmental and rational need to bring together the national and the global in the making of a neo-liberal city. In the first place, we have to remember that in order to create New Town-Rajarhat beyond Kolkata the government had to change the property regime there. Earlier, the vast wetlands were either owned by middle and small farmers or held in common (we are speaking here of the period after the limited land reforms), or in some cases owned by the government. The traditional benefit of Rajarhat to the Kolkata metropolis was not just that it supplied the latter fish and vegetables, but more importantly it produced for the latter what can be only called ‘public goods’. Rajarhat was a chief source of income to thousands of small farmers who would otherwise have thronged Kolkata for bread and shelter; it was supplying protein; it was useful in sewage and waste treatment; it was a buffer zone during heavy rain and flood; it was of critical help in groundwater recharge and discharge and thus helped irrigation; it provided a variety of flora and fauna; it was a barrier against sea intrusion; and, finally, through maintaining open space it provided oxygen and recreational facilities to the population living on the fringes of the city. The vast wetlands (Map 4.1) were governed through a variety of acts such as the Private Fisheries Protection Act (1889), Indian Fisheries Act (1897), West Bengal Inland Fisheries Act (1984), Bengal Tank Improvement Act and West Bengal Tank Acquisition and Irrigation Rights Act (1939), Bengal Canal Act (1864), and Town and Country Planning Act (1979). The government slowly did away with the small property regime in the wetlands by controlling and finally acquiring the

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entire area, so that it could then hand over the entire property to the private players in the global regime. Direct government ownership was only an intermediary phase towards marketising the entire land so that big financiers and corporate bosses could enter. The ‘public goods’ essential to the city were not appreciated because their value could not be monetised (Dutta n.d.). Added to that was complete ignorance or disdain towards improving the common property regime in order to improve Rajarhat and not destroy it, and along with it Kolkata too. In such a situation, the idea of development meant treating all past property regimes as ‘problems’ and offering Map 4.1: Wetlands of East Kolkata

Source: East Kolkata Wetlands Management Authority, www.ekwma.com (accessed on 11 May 2012). Note: Map not to scale.

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the neo-liberal solution as the most effective as well as possible one to the existing problems of mankind, in this case, the problems of the city, citizens, their lives and life cycle. In this alignment of the theme of development with a neo-liberal understanding of the city as an essentialised space of commodification, marketisation, circulation, and entrepreneurial subjectivity we are presented with several problems. In the course of the previous three chapters we pointed out four such theoretical problems. Briefly, these are: (a) The role of space and spatial design in capitalist accumulation and the relation between the old space and the new space. (b) Monetisation and medicalisation of the new life. (c) The problematic of neo-liberal urban governmentality. (d) Subject, new subjectivity, and the city as subject. First, we discuss a little more the theoretical perspective involving these four issues. As a backdrop to these questions, we must remember that if war provided the first emergence of neo-liberalism in the West, its global reach became possible in the course of the next 30 years as globalisation spread, particularly after 1989. Thus one can note the contrast in the planning of living and working spaces in the liberal-democratic and neo-liberal eras. To give one instance, in postindependent India, the government had built several new townships with populations ranging from 50,000 to 2 million. The public authority provided and developed the infrastructure, including social infrastructure and educational facilities. This changed in the 1990s, with the policy of encouraging foreign direct investment (FDI). The trend of developing ‘new’ townships emerged in this context. Routes of self-financing, mainly through private initiatives, were encouraged. The repeal of the Urban Land Ceiling Regulation Act (ULCRA) and the enactment of the Special Economic Zone Act accelerated this trend. Development of community facilities in these new towns became an issue of commercial viability instead of principally a social commitment. This change has ushered in new urban lifestyles, new planning norms, new considerations, and new life cycles. Rajarhat represents the new urban life cycle sought to be institutionalised in the country today. No less than the previous West Bengal Urban Development Minster, Asok Bhattacharya, a CPI (M) leader, himself a small-town man and innocent of the complications

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of neo-liberal politics or economics but dazzled by the wealth begotten with neo-liberal means, commented in July 2010 in the course of an interaction with the Bengal National Chamber of Commerce and Industry that the state government was setting up three more new satellite townships in Bengal — at Baruipur, New Konarpur near Asansol and the Aerotropolis at Andal. Plus, as he claimed, there was much potential for the growth of satellite townships in other places like Dankuni and Siliguri. He also said that the government had already set up quite a few satellite townships, like the ones at Baisnabghata–Patuli and West Howrah. Government funds would be crucial for New Town, which he admitted was plagued by lack of infrastructure. Entire condominiums were lying deserted because the residents would not dare move in there, given that the list of problems in this sprawling township ranged from lack of drinking water and power to poor connectivity. The government plan also included a proper hawker policy, a scheme of secondary city development and a new management strategy for ‘peri-urban areas’.1 The minister did not say that the government did not have money, and sale of land to private developers and corporate bosses did not automatically make a city. But this also indicates that the neo-liberal project of redesigning society also has to depend on the government — for the coercion needed to dispossess the small property owners, for handing over property to developers and global players, for preventing and silencing protests, and for creating consensus around the neo-liberal project. Initially, the image conveyed by the West Bengal Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation (HIDCO) was that land acquisition in Rajarhat had been a coercion-free process; that all political parties, the opposition party included, had agreed to it.2 It was also made out that New Town was an old project — a dream, and the land to be acquired was poor, of low yield, mostly lying 1 http://content.magicbricks.com/rajarhat-on-centre%e2%80%99stownship-list, 23 July 2010 (accessed on 21 January 2011). 2 There is partial truth in this claim. As chairperson of the Standing Committee on Housing and Public Works, 2001–2 and 2002–3, the opposition leader in the state legislative assembly, Saugata Ray, had endorsed the plan and the work in progress, although Mr Roy later said that he did not know at that time that coercive methods had been deployed by the government in acquiring land. See Fourth Report on Pre-Voting Budget Scrutiny of the Demands for Grants relating to the Housing Department for 2002-2003, Assembly Papers 2002.

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fallow. Also, that acquiring 3,075 ha of land and building the new town would not mean injuring the cause of agriculture, but creating about 200,000 jobs — a prospect from which the loyal villagers would also gain. The then local ruling party Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA), Rabin Mondal, a crucial figure in the entire story of transition and who had at one point of time objected to that idea, became an enthusiastic supporter of the idea. It was also pointed out by HIDCO that in the West Bengal Legislative Assembly proceedings and committee deliberations, opposition leaders had given their consent to the project. And, finally, all opposition parties too had gained from the project. Most big cats had got land or allotment of some living quarter, including allegedly members of all branches of the state. How far is this account of a coercion-free process of building a city along neo-liberal lines valid? In this case, it is true that in the early stages there was consensus among political parties. It is also true that the rate of compensation for acquired land (Rs 8,000– 12,000 per cottah) was determined through some discussion with the then opposition parties, primarily the Congress and then the Trinamool. Also, in the initial period HIDCO could sell to some extent the dream of a happy future with someone from every evicted family getting a job and a flat in the New Town. But the dream of a transition characterised by non-violence and consensus on the norms of transition was soon over. Peasants, farmers and agricultural labourers started grumbling when they saw land prices going up and their own land now being sold at even Rs 500,000 per cottah. There was further discontent when they saw that no jobs were available, no alternative housing was being provided and the only alternative for them was menial service and domestic jobs in the houses of the newcomers, and some jobs of earth-cutting, filling, masonry, and carpentry. The land was gone forever without any alternative durable means of subsistence. Gradually, resistance built up. After Singur and Nandigram, even the major opposition party of that time, and now the ruling party, started agitating for the farmers’ cause. Farmer’s suicides took place. There were clashes, violence, intimidation, deaths, and forced disappearances. Before the assembly election of 2011, the situation appeared as one of ceasefire between the government, developers and land sharks on the one hand, and the farmers on the other. Buoyed by opposition party support, farmers in many areas were still farming on

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acquired land. On the other hand, chastened by the experiences of Nandigram and Singur, the government did not want to hasten the process until the acquired land was sold to the private party, particularly with the elections round the corner. Partly, therefore, the idea of a non-coercive mode of power characterising modern governmentality is correct. The way out seems to be: Bribe everyone, co-opt all, make all the stakeholders share in the loot-and-prosper process, and showcase a big dream while keeping the directly dispossessed out. The dual strategy of inclusion and exclusion has been refined greatly to make Rajarhat possible. Yet, violence was there in the beginning, and is now again on the anvil. Typically of popular politics, farmers will take on the governmental strategy of normalisation, suddenly. Farmers are speaking out, and daily newspapers are carrying ample stories of grievance, losses and resistance against dispossession and the emerging landscape. There is now a whiff of violence in the air.3 If this is true, where do we place the issue of ‘original violence’, perpetrated to make the dream of the architect — the new city — a reality? Or, more fundamentally, where do we place the issue of original violence in the neo-liberal project today? We shall address this question in greater detail in the last two chapters. At this juncture, however, we may turn to a discussion of what the stakes are, and why we must clearly understand what Rajarhat signifies in terms of the life the present regime of production and reproduction of wealth envisions for us and therefore the life that it wants to cancel out as precondition. From the closing pages of Discipline and Punish (Foucault 1995, originally published in French in 1975), where he formulates the idea of normalisation, and from the last chapter of the first volume of History of Sexuality (Foucault 1990, first published in French in 1976), Michel Foucault leads us towards a vision of rule and existence, which will be marked less by coercive and violent forms of power, but more by other means of persuasion and normalisation, and henceforth will not be described properly as a vision of the physicality of existence and rule, or materiality of rule, or even by that strange phrase, ‘biologised mode of life, existence, and politics’, but by ‘bio-politics’. Bio-politics connects many threads of 3 We shall pick up the issue of violence and trace the history of this violence in chapter 8.

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thinking, unanswered and to some extent unanswerable formulations about politics of life. Rajarhat New Town represents a new kind of life, and the demise of an old form of life. This is because many of the associated issues make sense only in the context of the new conditions of life (primarily new spatial conditions of life, new conditions of education, urbanity, new production and consumption systems, new arrangement of the relations between public and the private, industry and agriculture, etc.), which become ‘normal’ and push the original violence into oblivion, and therefore we must see the ideological process at work. In order for capitalism to appear normal, its history had to push the founding violence — a process known by the phrase ‘primitive accumulation’ — into obscurity. Yet the question is: Does normalisation prevent the return of the original moment? If creating a new town at Rajarhat was possible due to new governmental techniques, does it mean that it needed no sovereign backing? To speak the truth, not only was that not so, these techniques called for an overall coercive umbrella: what can be best described as an overall regime of ‘rule of law’, which makes it appear as if there is a gradual evaporation of sovereignty in the context of the rise of a disciplinary society primarily working through normalisation techniques, and the emergence of an all-enveloping governmental art controlling human bodies and minds resulting in myriad centres of power — as myriad as are the bodies. In a sense, Rajarhat, with its array of actors — architects, town planners, touts, local toughs, party leaders, bad gentry of the villages, software businessmen, developers, dispossessed village farmers, political activists, ministers, party leaders, etc. — represents bio-politics in a bizarre form. But precisely because the Rajarhat experience marks the confluence of two things — persuasive techniques and the ‘great transformation’ of life — the following two pertinent points have to be taken note of today. First, Rajarhat shows the working of new governmentality, which not only uses the argument of development and greater freedom, but combines legal instruments, policy-making and physical muscle-flexing in a dispersed way in order to make the ‘great transformation’ possible. When we notice the ‘non-coercive aspects’ of power, we have to notice at the same time the overall weight of the state in ushering in the reign of finance, speculation and virtuality, a regime of policy-making and policy formulation which continuously fine-tunes the requirements of arm-twisting and persuasion.

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The calculation of the risk also plays a role in this — primarily the political risk of alienating and antagonising the dispossessed. If the risk is well calculated and accordingly palliatives are distributed, the need to apply coercion may be less. But if opposition is wide and massive, the risk has then been miscalculated. A policy regime must transform into a violent regime. It is also necessary to note, therefore, how policies are calibrated to fragment the opposition. Different categories are thus invented. Somewhere compensation may be large; somewhere small. Amenities may reach somewhere; somewhere they may not. Cash may flow in somewhere; somewhere it will remain dry. Some group will be resettled better; some will not be fortunate and will have no resettlement. We can go on. The second point is about the relation between the ideas and events related to Rajarhat and the new subjectivities. Thus, who is a dispossessed farmer? Who is an oppositionist here? Who is the new labourer and how new is his or her labour? How will these figures respond to events? What will be the nature of corporeal life, existence and life cycle today, now that ‘life itself’ has become the object of rule? Yet we must understand that even though these are real questions, they became so only after a series of over-determined events, certainly from Singur onwards. But we shall say it began much earlier. It began with the growth of opposition in urban society, in society as a whole, in the re-emergence of radicalism in West Bengal, in the anti-Narmada movement, and all those things from which Rajarhat was supposed to be insulated. Foucault’s texts, Society Must be Defended (2003b) , Security, Population, Territory (2009), or the Birth of Bio-politics (2010) allow us to conceptualise a new kind of material shell in which society moves and mutates. And he wanted to explain this in terms of power, and not political economy, not politics, not even anthropology, but power emanating from the life arrangement, the arrangement of our physical existences, our bodies. If this is true, then we must take a step forward and see how this physicality is being produced. As we study Rajarhat, we realise why we cannot remain content with the discourse of non-coercive mode of power and consequently neglect the sites of production of this physicality of our existence. Foucault, of course, makes up for this deficit in a noticeable way, by pointing out several things in Birth of Bio-politics. First, he says, neo-liberalism makes the problem of society the problem of economy.

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So, if there was Nazism in Germany, the reason was not capitalism but lack of capitalism in the sense of lack of competition and the market. Neo-liberal governmentality would make market the lynchpin of construction of the state, and inequality of the society would be the equality of all. Market as the fundamental economic mechanism could function only under a series of conditions, which had to be guaranteed by legal measures. Pure competition, therefore, neither existed naturally nor could be completely attained, but provided the justified goal for incessant and active politics. Such politics would constantly balance a limited domain of liberty and a legitimate domain of government intervention. There was no naturalism in this economic-institutional unity, called the government. Monopolisation was not the destiny of economy, but the failure of government. Conversely, the task of the government was to create the economy — the market, buyers and sellers. Rajarhat was thus less to the ruling spokesmen the solution to the problem of life, even if they wanted to view it as that; it appeared primarily as a problem of the economy. But of course the life question loomed large in economy, particularly in developmental thoughts and ideas. In short, neo-liberalism is a political rationality that tries to render the social domain economic, and links reduction in welfare services to the increasing call for personal responsibility, attainment and self-care. Neo-liberalism is a technique of power that links macro-political aims with micro-management of life. It also means the conflation in the final sense of two things — the structures of governance that are visible to a citizen and the constitution of that citizen by discourses of governmentality. In the case of Rajarhat, we also see something more, that is, how the application of coercive power and persuasive power are over-determined by new, powerful forces, which are not just legal or official. They are other entities, decidedly local in origin, such as a political party or its particular unit, the local mafia, land sharks, local MLAs, or any other local representatives — all making the desperate, almost final, bid to unite with the global power interested in one particular area. Rajarhat in that sense reflects on the given theory of governmentality and shows its operation in an age of return of primitive accumulation. Rajarhat in time has become a testimony to not only a disciplinary society, but of a politics of population management marked by neoliberal governmentality. In this sense, it marks both similarity and difference with the ‘original’ age of primitive accumulation.

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The Continuing Relevance of the Thesis of Primitive Accumulation To understand the complexity of the phenomenon, it is better to return to Marx. Marx was clear about the importance of population management in the dynamics of capitalism, even in its early stages. Marx said in Capital: The law of capitalist production that is at the bottom of the pretended “natural law of population,” reduces itself simply to this: The correlation between accumulation of capital and rate of wages is nothing else than the correlation between the unpaid labour transformed into capital, and the additional paid labour necessary for the setting in motion of this additional capital. It is therefore in no way a relation between two magnitudes, independent one of the other: on the one hand, the magnitude of the capital; on the other, the number of the labouring population; it is rather, at bottom, only the relation between the unpaid and the paid labour of the same labouring population. If the quantity of unpaid labour supplied by the working class, and accumulated by the capitalist class, increases so rapidly that its conversion into capital requires an extraordinary addition of paid labour, then wages rise, and, all other circumstances remaining equal, the unpaid labour diminishes in proportion. But as soon as this diminution touches the point at which the surplus labour that nourishes capital is no longer supplied in normal quantity, a reaction sets in: a smaller part of revenue is capitalised, accumulation lags, and the movement of rise in wages receives a check . . . It cannot be otherwise in a mode of production in which the labourer exists to satisfy the needs of self-expansion of existing values, instead of, on the contrary, material wealth existing to satisfy the needs of development on the part of the labourer. As, in religion, man is governed by the products of his own brain, so in capitalistic production, he is governed by the products of his own hand.4

We can see how Marx foresees the capitalist task of population management. In Section 34, he discusses the phenomenon of relative surplus population and its different forms. In Section 5, he discusses the nomad population, whom he describes as [a] class of people whose origin is agricultural, but whose occupation is in great part industrial. They are the light infantry of capital, thrown 4 Marx (1999), Chapter 25 (The General Law of Capitalist Accumulation), Section 5, http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch25. htm#n10 (accessed on 2 February 2011).

120  Beyond Kolkata by it, according to its needs, now to this point, now to that. When they are not on the march, they “camp”. Nomad labour is used for various operations of building and draining, brick-making, lime-burning, railway-making, &c. A flying column of pestilence, it carries into the places in whose neighbourhood it pitches its camp, small-pox, typhus, cholera, scarlet fever, &c. In undertakings that involve much capital outlay, such as railways, &c., the contractor himself generally provides his army with wooden huts and the like, thus improvising villages without any sanitary provisions, outside the control of the local boards, very profitable to the contractor, who exploits the labourers in two-fold fashion — as soldiers of industry and as tenants.5

Marx then proceeds with an analysis of the Irish population situation, and then, discussing the condition of the agricultural labourer, he makes a statement immensely significant in our context: The mere sense that they exist subject to this species . . . on the part of the landlords and their agents, has . . . given birth in the minds of the labourers to corresponding sentiments of antagonism and dissatisfaction towards those by whom they are thus led to regard themselves as being treated as . . . a proscribed race.6

Possibly of the greatest significance for our discussion is Part 8, Chapter 26, famously titled ‘The Secret of Primitive Accumulation’. He says the secret is like ‘the original sin in theology’. And then, [i]n the history of primitive accumulation, all revolutions are epochmaking that act as levers for the capital class in course of formation; but, above all, those moments when great masses of men are suddenly and forcibly torn from their means of subsistence, and hurled as free and “unattached” proletarians on the labour-market. The expropriation of the agricultural producer, of the peasant, from the soil, is the basis of the whole process. The history of this expropriation, in different countries, assumes different aspects, and runs through its various phases in different orders of succession, and at different periods.7 5 Ibid. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch25.htm#S5 (accessed on 2 February 2011). 6 Ibid., from Reports from the Poor Law Inspectors on the Wages of Agricultural Labourers in Dublin, 1870, http://www.marxists.org/archive/ marx/works/1867-c1/ch25.htm#127a (accessed on 2 February 2011). 7 http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch26.htm (accessed on 2 February 2011).

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Marx notes various phases and forms of primitive accumulation. In chapter 28 he refers to ‘bloody legislations’. He discusses taxing and budgetary techniques and the creation of the ‘home market’ for industrial capital through coercive means. This is, then, the secret — the secret behind the emergence of liberty, the free individual. We are again quoting Marx (Chapter 32): From that moment new forces and new passions spring up in the bosom of society; but the old social organization fetters them and keeps them down. It must be annihilated; it is annihilated. Its annihilation, the transformation of the individualized and scattered means of production into socially concentrated ones, of the pigmy property of the many into the huge property of the few, the expropriation of the great mass of the people from the soil, from the means of subsistence, and from the means of labour, this fearful and painful expropriation of the mass of the people forms the prelude to the history of capital. It comprises a series of forcible methods, of which we have passed in review only those that have been epoch-making as methods of the primitive accumulation of capital. The expropriation of the immediate producers was accomplished with merciless Vandalism, and under the stimulus of passions the most infamous, the most sordid, the pettiest, the most meanly odious. Self-earned private property, that is based, so to say, on the fusing together of the isolated, independent labouring individual with the conditions of his labour, is supplanted by capitalistic private property, which rests on exploitation of the nominally free labour of others, i.e., on wage labour.8

The interesting thing in all these accounts is that Marx here suddenly leaves aside his analytic cloak and puts on the cloak of a great narrator, who cites local events, local consequences, local histories, local debates, local characters, and local actors in order to summarise an age whose significance is clearly general. Territory, space, resources, human life, and the persistence of various other forms of capital other than the industrial one, such as merchant’s capital, he seems to suggest, mark the age of rapacious exploitation, unfettered by any general law, any general ethical constraint, general political authority, and general social obligation. In short, a violent process needed to bring in a rationally constituted market and a marketbased society. No general analytic of capital will establish a theory 8 Marx (1999), http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ ch32.htm (last accessed on 2 February 2011).

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of primitive accumulation; on the other hand, the authenticity of local narratives of primitive accumulation will speak back to an analytical theory of general accumulation, as if constituting the prehistory of the latter. The general law of capital must depend on its success on local change and a reconditioning of local life. Likewise, these narratives of local incidents speak back to the widespread myth that capitalism developed through a violence-free process, by negotiations, legislative confabulations, and democratic deliberations. As Marx said, ‘It appears as primitive, because it forms the pre-history of capital, and of the mode of production corresponding to capital’ (Marx 1990: 875). This account, as he said, ‘is anything but idyllic’ (ibid.: 874).9

Capital and the Transition from the Old City to the New Town The important question here is: How do we interrogate the constitution of the local here — the local that will tell us the many interconnected stories of capital? We suggest that while it is necessary to pursue the process of what David Harvey calls ‘accumulation by dispossession’, it is also important to see how this process links up with other economic, political and spatial processes forming the account of postcolonial capitalism, the capitalism of today — at once primitive and futuristic, shining and dark, liberal and coercive, and virtual and the most material. One of the ways will be to study the emergence of the new towns, privatised collectives that obliterate the distinction between the public and the private, which was essential for the progress of capitalism till the other day. The new town will re-model life in a new way and bring the local out in a new constellation of lives. This new town as a form of the local cannot be satisfactorily described as ‘city’s edge’. New Town is not 9

In this context, it is important to mention that some of the fine literature produced on the impact of globalisation on labour ignored this aspect of local dynamics in discussing the emergent forms of labour. See for example, Munck (2003), where he discusses ‘workers north’ and ‘workers south’, but does not discuss how the local — the South — plays a critical role in determining the mode of accumulation. The late writings of Castells are of similar kind. See the three volumes of The Information Age (Castells 1996–98).

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part of what was earlier called ‘greater Calcutta’; it is not the edge of another city, it is the New Town.10 It is important to recall the particular nature of dispossession in Rajarhat in this context. No global standardised discourse on poverty will be enough to understand the process. It is important to keep in mind the nature of the earlier world being destroyed. The cultivators, and let us recall all that we discussed earlier, particularly in the second chapter were not that small compared to rural agricultural labour; and yet that system had accommodated huge number of labourers in various other categories besides the three mentioned (cultivator, agricultural labour and household industry worker). Presumably, the ‘other’ category would include vendors, transport workers, labour employed in brick kiln industry, rice mills and fisheries, rickshaw- and van-pullers or drivers, loaders, small tea stall and eating place owners, maids doing household jobs, and various other petty occupations based on self-employment that defy the categorisation of ‘labour in household industry’. It is this relative prosperity and myriad small forms of work depending on this ‘prosperous’ core of the area that will be destroyed forever with the entry of virtual capitalism whose two forms would soon become evident — spiralling monetisation due to a fantastic upswing in land prices and work in ‘clean industries’, implying mainly the financial and IT centres. And again, it will be wrong to say the project of the neo-liberal new town means, in this case, a substantial withdrawal from public services. For as relevant figures indicate, in this area in any case there was no public hospital, very few primary health centres (two), only one block health centre, again only one family welfare centre each in the panchayat and municipal areas, and a low immunisation record (GoWB 2007b, Tables 3.2 and 3.2a). And thus, typical to such existence, while very few kilometres of roads were maintained by the municipality, wholesale prices remained low till 2006 (GoWB 2006, Table 21.1). This was the ‘natural’ economy, depending in many ways on Kolkata and supplying equally many services to Kolkata — the ‘state of nature’ that will now vanish into the history of the emergence 10

Compare this with Anna Greenspan’s description of the new parts of Shanghai in On the City’s Edge (2010), though here we are not completely ruling out the relevance of Greenspan’s description of Shanghai to the Kolkata–Rajarhat narrative.

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of neo-liberal economy in West Bengal. Once again, all that was equally human would now become ‘nature’ and ‘natural’, or we can say, the pre-history of our time. This, then, is the particular ‘politics of life’, which Rajarhat beyond Kolkata signifies. The Great Transformation was written by Karl Polanyi (1957) nearly 70 years ago (1944). Once more, Rajarhat will be a case of the destructive social experiment that the Left, buoyed by repeated electoral victories in West Bengal and attracted by the riches of the neo-liberal era, jumped into. And only the future will tell how disastrous that jump has turned out to be. But possibly driven by the twin trends — (a) governmental logic of ‘development’ at the expense of life, and (b) monetisation of a political organisation called the party, and resulting in specific local developments of capital — this was to happen. Freedom, equality and property could not have co-existed in an idyllic Left Front rule for long. The monetisation of land resulting in the buying up of residential plots and quarters at unbelievable prices, the programme of setting up a bank and finance hub to serve the eastern directions beyond the country, or the agenda of building a township only on the basis of information-related companies, etc., needs to be seen through (besides the lens of primitive accumulation) the lens of the dynamics of finance today. In a process accompanying primitive accumu>̈œ˜]Ê܅ˆV…ʈÃÊ>ÃœÊ>ÊŜÀÌi˜ˆ˜}ʜvÊ̅iÊ«ÀœViÃÃʜvʇ ‡³Ê̅>ÌÊ >ÀÝʅ>`Ê`iÃVÀˆLi`]ÊÜiʅ>ÛiʅiÀiʇ³]ʓœ˜iÞʈ˜Ìi˜Ãˆwi`ÊÜˆÌ…Ê the push of finance and credit capital and this without the mediation of commodity production. This is what takes place in all forms of gambling, where money becomes nothing but other than its own intensification. The finance-driven intensification of the desires that a city represents can now result only in intensification of risks in the form of derivatives, futures, hedge funds, and constant modulations depending on the trade in currency. This intensity cannot be assimilated; hence buildings may remain incomplete, as happened in Bangkok in the wake of the currency crisis in the last years of the twentieth century. Rajarhat will soon feel the heat of the logic of intensity. Intensity is a kind of ‘excess’, which is ‘un-assimilable’ (Massumi 2002: 25). It is a phenomenological excess, also an excess of money. Hence, the intensification of monetisation that Rajarhat represents cannot get integrated in the reality of Kolkata. Kolkata

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will remain an outsider to the dream projects in New Town, whose gains cannot be ploughed back into the old city. We are moving far away from the dynamics of the old Fordist, New Deal welfare state. E-commerce, distance education, cyber work, virtual markets, and the segmented structure of the settlement controlling life in New Town in a flexible way is likewise far away from the state hospitals, government buses, factories, crowded stock exchanges, and wholesale markets, all being visited by masses of bodies. We are not sure if this change of life and life-system can be adequately described in the theoretical terms of ‘bio-power’. But, clearly, there is a change, possibly along the line that Foucault had identified in the wake of the changes in the eighteenth century, namely, around issues of government, population and political economy (Foucault 2003a: 241–43). Certainly, the changes in the form of New Town show that power has also become more non-coercive and flexible and thus successful in bearing down more intensely on the people. This has made both a return of primitive accumulation under neo-liberal governmental conditions and an intensification of monetisation possible. We have to thus revise some of Foucault’s formulations on bio-politics and bio-power in the light of the postcolonial reality, which otherwise remain limited in their applicability. Perhaps, an equally significant question emerging from a study of the way in which a new town appears is: Will the discontent and struggle against ‘accumulation by dispossession’ remain distant and not provoke rumblings within the new labour there? Will the project of constructing neo-liberal subjectivity in the form of a new town remain contradiction-free and succeed? Will not the new skills learnt and developed by the dwellers of the new city, mainly the dispossessed locals and labour newly arrived for petty jobs, disturb the vision and the pattern laid out by the planners? The question is as important here in West Bengal, and specifically Kolkata, as it is with respect to, let us say, Gachibowli, the town beyond Hyderabad. Worldwide, the focus is now on the fantastic land deals made by speculators, developers, realtors, industrialists, land sharks, e-companies, investors, and political entrepreneurs. In the context of the recent political unrest in Egypt, one newspaper reported on how the focus had shifted to land deal fortunes and how Egyptian activists hoped to revive dormant corruption cases and

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graft allegations.11 Again, we must not see this as an aberration of capital. As we know, Marx, in the last chapter of the first volume of Capital suddenly raises the question of colonisation and discusses not the great theories of Adam Smith, Petty, etc., as he had been doing all along, but the theory of a certain Mr Wakefield, who had reflected on a perfect colonisation mode. Marx shows how in land colonisation self-owned property is destroyed to create private property in land, and how agricultural wages can never be equal to industrial wages. Yet, the main argument of Marx in this relatively ignored chapter is that capitalism will have to always look for new land to colonise in order to escape the wage crisis. If in this sense Rajarhat is a product of some organic crisis of capitalism and signals primitive accumulation (and this is what Marx precisely suggests by making this chapter, Chapter 33, the last section in the part on primitive accumulation), then we have new leads in our inquiry.12 The struggle between free labour on the frontier and increasing control of land by corporate interests, plus the arrival of immigrant 11 Clover and Peel (2011). The report speaks of new towns in Egypt and the land deals preceding these towns called ‘satellite cities’ outside Cairo, particularly in the North and the Red Sea coast. 12 Marx ends the book with these words: ‘the secret discovered in the new world by the Political Economy of the old world, and proclaimed on the housetops: that the capitalist mode of production and accumulation, and therefore capitalist private property, have for their fundamental condition the annihilation of self-earned private property; in other words, the expropriation of the worker’ (1990: 940). A little earlier he had written: ‘The great beauty of capitalist production consists in this — that it not only constantly reproduces the wage-worker as wage-worker, but produces always, in production to the accumulation of capital, a relative surplus-population of wage-workers. Thus the law of supply and demand of labour is kept in the right rut, the oscillation of wages is penned within limits satisfactory to capitalist exploitation, and lastly, the social dependence of the labourer on the capitalist, that indispensable requisite, is secured; an unmistakable relation of dependence, which the smug political economist, at home, in the mother-country, can transmogrify into one of free contract between buyer and seller, between equally independent owners of commodities, the owner of the commodity capital and the owner of the commodity labour. But in the colonies, this pretty fancy is torn asunder’ (ibid.: 938). Also see the discussion by David Harvey on this in A Companion to Marx’s Capital (2000: 301–4).

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labour, marks the city today. The frontier of the city is the zone of tense conflicts of our time. This is also the reason why the city in the capitalist age is considered the emblem of development. In cities we either find development or we find its absence. Kolkata has to become Shanghai or Hong Kong or, as the erstwhile opposition leader in West Bengal and now the chief minister with her limited imagination declared, Kolkata would have to become ‘London’.13 In this city-centric nature of our developmental imagination lies the neo-liberal concept of a satisfied life, a satisfaction the self craves for, desires and aspires to. But then, is not the ‘transfer’ of the problem of the city, the emblem of capitalism, to new frontiers one of the main features of what we call globalisation today? Yet, while this move from the ‘old city’ to the ‘new town’ has to be understood in the framework of globalisation, a new concept of a desirable life, and a new technological regime, which propels the trend towards designing new workplaces (not only factories, or sites, or buildings, but an entire town), what remains to be added to this framework is the drive towards immunity, ensuring the immunity of a city, of capital, or the liberal idea of life. The search for an ever new safe frontier begins thence. Not only do insurance companies thrive in such an atmosphere, and understandably New Town will house big insurance companies, massive transformations are also undertaken in order to ensure the immunity of the city as a body. The modern stress on disaster management is only one instance of ensuring this immunity of the bios — the biological-social environment in which the city will survive. Towards that, slowly, almost brick by brick, new bios are coming into existence with new norms and new immunity principles.14

Capital, Dispossession and the Myth of Consent This is the kind of theoretical foundation on which the new town as a new community is taking shape — in this instance in Rajarhat 13 On a city-centric developmental imagination and a comparison between Kolkata and Hong Kong, see Marjit (2006: 145–58); Mamata Banerjee’s statement on 24 March 2009 was headlined ‘Kolkata will be London in Trinamool Rule: Mamata’. See http://ibnlive.in.com/news/kolkata-will-be-london-in-trinamoolrule-mamata/88500-37.html (accessed on 15 February 2011). 14 On immunity and modernity, see Esposito (2008: 45–78, Chapter 2).

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near Kolkata, but in many other places in the country also. The formation of such a new community is characterised by suppression of dissent, a limited consensus on the design of new life, a high degree of alertness regarding the requirements of immunisation of new life, and a silence on the cost. Such a formation also requires a change in the art of government, caught till date between an archaic colonial style and a modern flexible, popular mode. Neo-liberal governance attempts to cut the stalemate by using its representational character in a highly executive way15 and by reducing all problems of society to economics. The story of Rajarhat is a narrative of this growth of neo-liberal governance. More than anything else, we can witness the imprint of this growth in the court affidavits submitted by the government in the case filed against it by the Rajarhat Jomi Bachao Committee. The public interest petition was on the ground of alleged environmental destruction by the government through the New Town project.16 The court papers show where the government backtracked for the sake of expediency, then grabbed more land than permitted and warranted, and the kind of executive orders on which it depended to pursue the idea of a transformed life and space. In the court papers, one document shows how the government, when challenged, de-requisitioned 10.36 acres in Mandalganti mauza to the Central Government Employees Welfare Housing as a gesture welfare measure.17 In another paper, the managing director of HIDCO, in order to fill up low-lying areas (in his words, ‘water areas’) for the implementation of the New Town project, seeks permission for relaxation of provisions of the West Bengal Inland Fisheries Act,18 which itself had a programme of setting up a wetland park and museum.19 15

This is what Saskia Sassen (2009) calls ‘ascendancy of the executive’. High Court Petition No 7516 (W) in the matter of Town and Country (Planning and Development) Act 1979. 17 Order by Joint Secretary, Housing Department, 5 September 1994. 18 The attached paper lists 33 water bodies (ranging from 6 cottahs to 105 cottahs) that HIDCO wanted to fill up, and eventually filled up. Ref: Fisheries Department, memo from the Joint Secretary of the Fisheries Department to the Director of Fisheries, No 2785-Fish/D 111/28-35/99, dated 21 December 1999. 19 From the Director of Fisheries to the Departmental Secretary, Letter dated 24 March 1999; the court papers also include one of the numerous 16

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The court papers are instructive of the contentious issues between the peasants and the government. First, the petitioners challenged, the notion of ‘public purpose’ behind the acquisition of land, saying that the government had not cared to define the nature of public purpose in this case. Second, they said that while the price of land in mauzas like Jatragachi was Rs 200,000 per cottah, the government had given the peasants Rs 6,000 per cottah, and was thus deceiving the peasants. Third, they said that the Land Acquisition Act required an ‘award’ in terms of compensation, and not an arbitrary price. Fourth, no ‘proper notification’ had been done prior to acquisition, and, finally, acquisition had been completed without any proper plan.20 We all know that plan came later, while acquisition went ahead merrily. These five reasons formed the ground on which the peasants fought in the court and lost. They demanded that the court instruct the government to provide explanatory remarks on all these five points. The government refused, saying no further explanation was necessary, and the court complied. The petition also described in detail the tardy manner in which the project had proceeded thereby depriving the villagers of any opportunity of new jobs. It also mentioned the control of records by the government which made it difficult for the peasants to verify government claims, while the government was submitting records outside the jurisdiction of the case. We also have mass petitions by peasants, mauza by mauza, submitted as court papers to the effect that the government was destroying the topsoil of cultivable land in the area.21 Likewise, there is a mass petition among the relevant papers claiming that even the minimum price for land acquired had not been given — the case is in Patharghata mauza — and the peasants produce in that paper detailed calculations of the price of their produce (in terms of inputs like use of machines for irrigation, etc., and the remunerative price they get) and what the government had statements by the then Chief Minister of West Bengal, Jyoti Basu, that ‘wetlands would never be allowed to [be] destroyed in the name of urbanization’, published as his message to a special publication of Meenbarta, the publication of the Fisheries Department, 1999. 20 Summary of the legal points raised in the Writ Petition (Appellate) no. 3879 (W) of 1999. 21 Memorandum to the Additional Directorate of Fisheries, North 24 Parganas, Barasat by 61 peasants of Baliguri mauza, signed by Ghulam Rabbani, n.d.

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given them in exchange of acquisition. The paper is astonishingly detailed; not only rice or fish but horticulture is also calculated. The court papers also show the evasive replies of the various government departments. Malay Kumar Chattopadhyay, Joint Secretary, Department of Environment, submitted to the court, that the department had taken all precautions and imposed conditions on the HIDCO while giving permission to go ahead with the project and had asked the latter to regularly submit a compliance report. But he did not produce any such report. Also, he could not say as to how the ‘few’ wetlands were permitted to be destroyed.22 It was also strange that the burden of defence fell on the Department of Environment while the Department of Housing was the main responsible party. The former had to defend the actions of the latter with inadequate explanatory means. Thus, in another affidavit, the respondent Chattopadhyay submitted that the department had suggested modifications to the original plan, that the project report had been prepared by a reputed institution like the IIT Kharagpur, that permission had been given in phases (action areas) and that the reported number of affected people (90,000) was wrong and overestimated. He also admitted that he was aware of the impact on people’s livelihood because of the project, but said that the government was aware of the issue and was seized of the matter. He was also sure that the ‘diverse activities for [the] development of New Township’ would offer scope for both ‘skilled and non-skilled’ persons with employment opportunities. Moreover, the project area would remain prominently open from all sides and the environment would thus be protected.23 In the affidavit, there is no mention of an alternative figure of displacement and its basis, no reference to possible alternative jobs, no guarantee of alternative employment, no suggestion that a project proposal made by IIT Kharagpur is also subject to scrutiny, and a glib denial that villages and farm fields are also open from all sides. The same steadfast refusal to examine the grounds of peasants’ objections is evident in yet another affidavit, this time submitted by the housing department. Specifically, the affidavit stated that since 22

Government affidavit by respondent no. 1 submitted to the court on 3 February 2000. 23 Government affidavit by respondent no. 1 submitted to the court on 17 February 2000.

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IIT Kharagpur had submitted a proposal, since the government had assured the protection of victims from the possible loss of livelihood, since the government and not private builders was acquiring land and building the New Town, the peasants, therefore, had nothing to worry about and therefore their grounds must be rejected. In fact, HIDCO in the affidavit claimed it should be credited with taking care of ‘derelict water bodies’ and warding off ‘private developers and promoters’. It further held out the promise that in the event of any future flood as a result of filling in of canals and lakes, adequate ‘pump sets’ would be deployed to clear the areas of logged water.24 The affidavit submitted by the senior law officer of the West Bengal Pollution Control Board confined itself to saying that the housing department had submitted the application for clearance as per procedure, and therefore it had nothing further to say on the matter. In that form, however, most of the crucial columns remained marked with ‘n.a.’ (not applicable). In one case, it said ‘map attached’. The court did not consider other maps showing the presence of water bodies; all this in a situation where the land-use pattern had changed in the last half century in a big way and no reliable survey was done at all in the recent past.25 Other affidavits also play with details in a similar manner. In some, government officials hedge the fact that acquisition went ahead without any plan, in others they hedge the fact that the reports were incomplete, and in some others they hedge the fact that they were unconcerned about loss of home and livelihood.26 24 Government affidavit by respondent no. 2, Tapan Kumar Majumder, Joint Secretary, Housing Department, submitted to the court on 12 August 2000; also, government affidavit by Kamal Kumar Pal, Joint Secretary, Housing Department, submitted to the court on 13 February 2000. 25 Government affidavit by Biswajit Mukherjee, Senior Law Officer, West Bengal Pollution Control Board, submitted to the court on 3 February 2000; in the rapid survey it was mentioned that tree felling should be minimum, and separate permission would have to be taken from the environment department, and that the survey report was not to be treated as permission. The department did not judge the report and its various conditions carefully, but gave permission on the basis of the fact that the report was attached with the application file. See Survey Report Summary submitted to the Housing Department, 31 August 1999, memo — 1295175/WPB-NOC/99-2000. 26 Government affidavit submitted to the court on 13 August 1999.

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These court papers show not only how with bureaucratic connivance the myth of consent was built, but also that there is something more to neo-liberal governance beyond what has been discussed up till now and to which attention now has to be drawn. We referred in the beginning of this section to the myth of consent in the making of the New Town. From the late 1990s, the political discourse of new life, of the need to reject old models and search for new styles and models, began building around the Rajarhat experiment. We have already mentioned the discourse of urban development that acted as the ‘milieu’ of the experiment. The new theory of political economy that began to be popularised at the central governmental level and the state level played an important part in adversely impacting the relations of power between the people craving for rights and claiming rights, and the rulers who were ready to suspend rights in the interests of the ‘economy’. Rajarhat was a real case where in a very real sense the economy was brought into being by a theory itself, which assumed and defined a set of characteristics, policies and processes. The ‘economy’ became something which politicians and business owners could think as governable in order to increase wealth and profit. Government of economy, Rajarhat shows, is a domain of strategies, techniques and procedures to render particular programmes operable. Rajarhat is also a pointer to heterogeneous mechanisms that are to be deployed in bringing the ‘economy’ to life. These mechanisms range from legal, architectural and professional to administrative and financial. Rajarhat meant the invocation of extreme professional power — from coining vocabulary (new town, city centre, mega city, SEZ, etc.) to building designs and architectural forms. This is how the land ‘market’ was created; financialisation went ahead with abandon and the aim was to bring in a profound transformation in the mechanisms for governing social life (Rose and Miller 2010). Of course, the political background in Rajarhat too contributed to the myth of consent. By and large, there was no great history of landlordism and anti-landlordism here. It was mainly a small peasant economy with fishing being the other main activity. As a settlement of peasants and fishermen, it had seen very little of anti-government mobilisation for roads, communications, supply of inputs for agriculture, fishing, and marketing. Political mobilisation till the 1980s hardly targeted the state, bureaucracy or government. Therefore, when the government started acquiring land from the mid-1990s

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onwards, the peasantry took time to react and respond. Politics here was more complicated than economics. For instance, when the Martin Railway service was terminated in 1957, there was no great hue and cry, notwithstanding the fact that Martin Railway was the only possible transportation medium to the inner lands in the estuary region. Peasants in places had to walk for 20 km or travel in bullock carts to take the train that connected the city to Bhangar and beyond. There was hardly any metalled road. Meanwhile, refugees came in large groups. There were bloody clashes between refugee groups and local peasants who worked as musclemen of the rich peasants and jotedars. People died in clashes, communist activists were caught up in the feud between the immigrants and the local people. Likewise, when the canals (for instance, the Bagjola canal) were dug, again in the decades of the 1950s and 1960s, there was no coordinated response. The peasants were eager that a canal should not run through their respective villages. Thus, canal alignments went against their overall interest and damaged local cultivation for good. Political activity till the 1960s basically meant campaigning in elections, holding cultural performances and at times organising students and youth for events. Left politics in Rajarhat was led not by peasants but by party leaders from the adjoining industrial area of Dum Dum. Left activity spread from the top after 1977 when the Left Front came to power, the panchayat system was introduced and the redoubtable Rabin Mondal started winning elections from 1977 onwards. Indeed, he had won in 1972 too. If this was the profile of the parliamentary Left, the radicals on the far Left had decimated themselves through internecine quarrels, skirmishes with the police and the army in the years 1967–72, or had to flee the area.27 Meanwhile, the traditional right-wing party, the Congress, lost all influence in this area as it was seen belonging to the bheri owners (owners of saltwater bodies for fishing), contractors and hoarders. There was no organised opposition to the Left’s influence and hold. In short, with no history of mass mobilisation for villagers’ demands in the recent past, peasants found themselves ill-equipped when land acquisition began. Maybe it was the middle-class domination over peasant politics that led the oppositionists of the New Town project to choose the road of litigation 27 For a summary of a reminiscent account of Left politics in Rajarhat, see Datta (2009).

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than of mass resistance; or it could also be that unlike Singur which had an oppositionist MLA defending peasant interests, Rajarhat had no nucleus of organised opposition in the beginning. In any case, whatever may have been the political situation in Rajarhat in the mid-1990s, those institutions which had so long appeared to the peasants as tools of welfare (panchayats, Block Development Offices, MLAs, party committees, etc.) now became the tools of dispossession. The rest, as they say, is history, but that history remains unfinished. Risk and risk management appeared as a factor in governance and as a major government policy in this background. In this new form of governance, the precarious condition created in Rajarhat emerged as the condition of governance also. In order to appreciate the magnitude of this transformation, we have to remember that in Rajarhat in the 20 years from 1977–97, roads had increased, schools had proliferated, farming had expanded, the market had widened, and transportation had boomed. And it was against this background that not only the government in New Delhi but a welfare-oriented state like West Bengal also became ready to welcome the politics of a risky post-globalised world. We are thus speaking here of three transformations — from old city to new city, from a robust local economy to the economy of a financialspeculative world, but equally significantly from a simple model of governance led by a legitimacy-seeking, welfare-oriented party to a government based on deployment of heterogeneous mechanisms, referred to in this chapter. In the next chapter, we shall go into the details of the logistical requirements of these transformations. We shall try to show how logistical planning overwhelmed all other considerations in the making of New Town, so much so that we can say with perhaps some qualification that logistics sits at the heart of a modern neoliberal economy.

Victoria Memorial Hall in Kolkata

Old Kolkata

A heritage building: The Town Hall

An old cinema hall: The New Empire

IT and Infrastructural Revolution: New Town

Offices housing IBM and other IT firms in New Town

The proposed financial hub built by Shrachi

The HIDCO palace

Inadequate infrastructure: A rare power plant

High-rise buildings and shopping malls

A water body being filled up for the purpose of construction

A road under construction

A bridge under construction

Waste-handling

Notice for New Life

Assurance of good living by the promoters: A New Town hoarding

A new hotel with hoarding of a realtor

In Transition

Stretches of desolate land

A service village

Tea-stall and other makeshift shops

High-rise apartments under construction

High-rise apartments

Shanty dwellers under a bamboo grove

A newly constructed road

Politics

A Trinamool Congress meeting against alleged corrupt practices of HIDCO

A Communist Party of India (Marxist) office

Trinamool leader Kakali Ghosh Dastidar in a rally

A Trinamool Congress rally against HIDCO in progress

A poster demanding that HIDCO bosses repay the people of Rajarhat an amount of 2 lakh crore, by working as day labourers for 365 days

Erstwhile opposition leader and now Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee addressing a meeting against land acquisition in Rajarhat in 2010

Nilotpal Dutta, leader of Rajarhat Jomi Bachao Committee

New Town, New Life

Land acquired for Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre

Red flags and a road indicator towards the NBCC Ltd. buildings

Signboard for a new school with English medium instruction

New temple in New Town

The old ways: A temple in New Town

Posters of new jatra plays (traditional form of theatre staged open-air) as seen on a village wall

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5 Logistics and Nightmares Dreams around Monetisation of Land in Rajarhat: A Project Report

B

efore the gold-diggers came, the messengers arrived with the information that gold was lying around in Rajarhat hither and yon. Thus, before the architects and planners were deployed, the government took the decision in 1993 to execute the great land loot. The age of liberalisation, globalisation and reforms had just begun. The Calcutta Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) in any case had been the agent of investment-centric urban developmental wisdom and policy for a long time — aided and abetted by the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADB). In any case, the gold rush madness was evident from the beginning — and let us keep in mind that the time of the beginning is important — when in place of the Urban Affairs and Urban Development Department, the housing department was given responsibility in 1993 by the West Bengal government to initiate the process of setting up a new town. A technical committee was set up, a concept plan was drawn, and on its basis a task force was constituted. The task force then managed to involve the Department of Architecture and Town Planning in the IIT Kharagpur, the Bengal Engineering College, now Bengal Engineering and Science University and the School of Planning and Architecture (SPA), Delhi. With all these inputs, a project report was drawn up. The project to set up a new town just outside the boundary of Kolkata Metropolitan Area (KMA) had four components: (a) a note on growth characteristics and spatial structure of KMA that justified the project; (b) development prospects of the new town; (c) a concept plan; and (d) the implementation strategy and action plan (GoWB 1995, Introduction). Therefore, setting up a city with its integral features and necessary components was not the main goal. There was no intrinsic virtue of the new city, hence the Urban Affairs Department

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was not the nodal agency, it was the housing development department, whose main idea would be to get houses constructed, land ‘developed’ for that purpose, and make a quick buck from the process. Therefore, the project report was clear from the beginning as to how to proceed with arguments, convenient truths, half-truths, and facile statements. Kolkata was congested. Bastis were springing up on the outskirts of the city and the margins of KMA. The river and the wetlands on two sides (west and the east) were thwarting the expansion of the city. ‘Lack of adequate shelter facilities, particularly [for] weaker sections, has affected the environment’ (GoWB 1995: 2.1.4). A new town in that context would prevent ‘unauthorised settlement likely to grow near the city of Calcutta’ and ‘check chaotic urban sprawl in the fringes’, ‘intensification of congested Calcutta city’, which is affecting ‘circulation and accessibility’ around ‘the Central Business District’. Urban expansion was causing a ‘drainage problem’. A new town with a new business district, new employment infrastructure, better social infrastructure, ‘better education and health facilities, markets, cultural and recreational centres’ would provide ‘environment-friendly settlement facilities where people may live and work in a better and more humane, social, and physical environment’ (ibid.: 2.2.1). The project report further argued that the New Rown at Rajarhat would have locative advantage, it would be close to the airport and would utilise only ‘vacant low yielding agricultural land with no fisheries and permanent wetland’ in the project area (ibid.: 2.3.1). This, of course, as we have seen, was a blatant lie. The report claimed that this was a large vacant area waiting to be utilised, thus freeing Kolkata of the restrictions put on its expansion by the eastern wetlands. The advantage of location would facilitate the establishment of a ‘new business district, with a World Trade Centre’ which would ‘serve the metropolis and the eastern region very effectively’. This ‘new industrial and economic development programme will call for Calcutta Megacity as the principal engine of growth’, acting as the ‘centre for international trade and business particularly with Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and neighbouring countries in South East Asia’ (ibid.: 2.2.5). It would house a residential population of 500,000 (this number would increase in ad hoc ways in ministerial announcements), and ‘regional level centres of community facilities’. There is no explanation provided in the project report as

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to the meaning of ‘regional’. Did it mean Kolkata region, eastern region, east-northeast region, Southeast Asia, or India? In any case, there has not been any attempt towards that as such, except initiating the usual money-making installations, such as big shopping malls, convention centres, hotels, etc. More noticeably, the development objectives are strangely phrased because of the listed seven objectives (GoWB 1995: 3.1), of which three are negative in nature. They re-emphasise the point of controlling and preventing the dark aspects of the life in Kolkata. The main objectives that are in the list are: construction of a new business district, provision of land for non-hazardous, non-polluting industries, and the establishment of regional level centres of community facilities. Amidst all these will remain beautiful, modern high-rise buildings for residential use.

Vision of Planners and Architects Then came the turn of the planners, and later of the architects in their service. They would have to look after issues of physical planning. After having harmed the drainage system of the Kolkata region beyond repair, they were now expected to look after the drainage requirements of the project area and the vicinity. Two additional tasks were assigned to them: (a) ‘effective integration of the Project Area with the surrounding with provision for further expansion’ and (b) ‘integration of the existing settlements within the Project Area with minimum dislocation and providing rehabilitation sites for inescapably affected existing settlers’ (ibid.: 3.2.1). We have already seen the significance of the Bhangar Rajarhat Development Authority (BRADA) in this monetisation game. Thus, ‘further expansion’ was to mean more commercialisation of land, more land-grabbing, more Vedic Villages and Olive Gardens, and more estate-like schools for children from affluent families. Thus, New Town was not to integrate with ‘the surrounding’, but the surrounding areas would have to integrate with the character of New Town. Likewise, existing settlements within the project area would have to change in order to integrate, and gradually, with muscle, threat and money, the final integration would be achieved. Integration would also mean that those who had lost their land or livelihood in the wake of land acquisition but lived within the project area would have to take up sundry jobs of vending, cart-pulling, domestic work, etc., to be integrated with the economy of New Town.

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The places in which they lived would become the ‘service villages’. The detailed structure and contour plan of the project area would be now decided accordingly. According to the land-use plan, as we have already seen, 47.6 per cent of the area would be earmarked for large open spaces, green areas and water bodies; 8 per cent for major roads and expressways, outer ring railway lines, etc.; a new business district and other commercial areas would take up 5.5 per cent of the land; industries 7 per cent; and residential areas 30.5 per cent (GoWB 1995: 13). Regional cultural, educational and health facilities would have 1 per cent of the space. This land-use plan, as we have seen, was to undergo multiple mutations. In the residential sector, there would be 3,000 large plots of 400 sq m, plus 100,000 dwelling units in high-rises for higher and middle-income groups, plus small plots covered by the servants’ villages, euphemistically called the service settlements (ibid.: 4.2.4). These settlements should not be tall so that they would not be seen from outside, and would be marked by ‘low rise high density settlement pattern’ (ibid.: 4.2.4). These residential sectors would have schools, banks, post offices, police stations, etc. The open space was important for a golf course, rowing facilities, parks, urban horticulture, gardens, ecological parks, etc. (ibid.: 4.5.1). There would be ‘scenic linear parks with walking trails on both sides of the Bagjola Canal’. There would be a central cultural complex — an attractive central place, of ‘the scale and quality that [embodies the] spirit of Kolkata’. There would also be a permanent exhibition complex, plus modern hospitals, polytechnics, a technology park, and shopping complexes (ibid.: 4.6.1–4.6.6). Likewise, there would be an expressway, connected with arterial roads, and then in turn sub-arterial roads, collector streets and, finally, local streets. All these would need water. However, water would not be in plenty as in Kolkata: ‘Provision will be for holding two hours demand at the ground level reservoirs and six hours (!) demand at elevated reservoirs’ (ibid.: 7.8). But from where would the money come? A detailed master plan, sector plan and design cannot bring in money. On the other hand, the logic behind the plans could encourage monetary investment and so a government company was formed: the West Bengal Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation or HIDCO. It would mastermind the investment of Rs 35 billion at current prices for land development and building of all facilities, and which would bring in additional industrial and commercial investment of Rs 100 billion;

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all of this for a population of 500,000. Marketing and promotion were part of the new town strategy. Designers, engineers, and architects were to be mobilised. An EIA would be secured and we have discussed earlier how this was done, using false declarations and half-truths about the nature of the land, flora and fauna, existing population and their settlements. We have also discussed how the land was secured finally through coercive measures, by deploying the Land Acquisition Act, using persuasion and threats by party bosses and cadre mobilisation, and of course money. The average sale price was estimated at Rs 100,000 per cottah or katha. Land was to be taken, developed and then the township constructed. The project report envisaged ‘a participatory process, where people from all walk [sic] of life will be invited to participate. The private sector will be involved in the development process in a very large way. The state and central undertakings as well as private business houses will all be called for participation’ (GoWB 1995: 15.2). This element would be crucial for the ‘future metropolitan structure of the mega city’ (ibid.: 1.5.1). Who then gets called up for participatory decision-making? As we have seen, not the dispossessed, not the local peasantry and their associations, not the local labouring people and their organisations, but private business establishments and other financial undertakings and institutions. Who would pay the initial cost of Rs 14,980 million to build this town? Again, not HIDCO, with its zero paid-up capital, but the landed villagers whose land would be sold to others at hundred times the cost and more than the value paid to the farmers. And, strangely, in an area with apparently no water bodies, HIDCO would require Rs 2.414 billion to fill the land, the second biggest item in the list of proposed expenditure, the first being the cost of land acquisition, namely, Rs 4,125 million (ibid.: 59, Annex 1). HIDCO expected to attract with this expenditure an investment of Rs 135.23 billion. This, then, was the gold rush. Incidentally, the project report said nothing on the local population, local villages or local labouring lives. Would they vanish? Would they slowly wither? Would they survive in service villages? Would they get a chance to enter those dwelling units, those clean industries, etc.? The project report is silent on all these issues. The technocrats’ conscience or interests are not involved in this question. Their enthusiasm is limited to the prospect of creating another Infinity Tower, another park, another SEZ, etc. The architect’s line

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on the concept of ‘infinity’ behind the famous architectural marvel, Infinity Towers, in Sector V of Salt Lake, the SEZ of info-tech units, reads: Infinity is a Philosophy that holds in its purview the limitless limit and the never-ending search of man to touch upon the perfection. This philosophy celebrates the eternal quest of the human soul to traverse the unknown, to seize the foreign, to win the invincible. At Infinity Infotech Park we constantly act and react, own and disown within the matrix of this belief. The path ahead is laid and designed by the maxim of Infinity.1

The ambition to expand is truly limitless; from Sector V to New Town to BRADA and beyond, it is ambition that propels the gold rush. The logistical aspect is also worth noting. In May 1993, the housing department of the West Bengal government appointed an expert committee. In May 1994, a task force was formed to draw up the plan. In 1995, IIT Kharagpur submitted a plan, and on its basis in September that year the task force drew up the project report. In 1996, IIT Kharagpur submitted the physical structure and master land-use plan. Around the same time, land acquisition started. In 1996, land purchase began. HIDCO was set up in 1999. In April 2000, an Environment Impact Assessment and Environment Management Plan was prepared. In September 1999, the government declared the area as a planning area and HIDCO as the planning authority. Thus, even before the plan and the machinery were in place, land acquisition had started. Grand ideas were the propellers — one was a Formula 1 race track in Rajarhat (mooted by IIT in the proposal) and another was the National Building Construction Corporation’s (NBCC) idea of introducing a ‘unique state of art “walk to work concept” in the township of Rajarhat’.2 By 2000 the juggernaut was ready to roll. Let us recall in this context how the project secured the clearance of the environment department. We have already indicated how it managed clearance from the West Bengal Pollution Control Board and we have also discussed the process of how the housing 1

http://www.infinityitpark.com/ (accessed on 1 January 2011). HIDCO factsheet, Jyoti Basu Nagar — Kichhu Tathya, p. 9. Henceforth HIDCO report. 2

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department sidelined the fisheries department in order to acquire the wetlands. This was symptomatic of the whole thing, to say the least. All requirements of setting up a new town were negotiated skilfully. And, departments and ministries played their roles in a game of compliance to norms and evasion. The Department of Fisheries finally gave permission (622 ha, Action Area I) subject to conditions: for example, the waste-recycling area would not be increased, only environmentally appropriate material (fly ash, etc.) could be used for filling purposes, deep water bodies (a specification repeatedly violated as evidence mounted on the measure of the depth being filled up) must not be filled up, appropriate sewerage convergence system must be planned, and appropriate watering arrangements must be made there to contain the ‘hostage’ dust created at the construction sites. Six-monthly reports of compliance were to be filed in.3 No compliance report has been filed until now. In fact, the HIDCO website does not offer any relevant information at all on any of the environmental requirements it had met. Likewise, permission was given for Action Area II (740 ha) in 2001, this time with 12 conditions.4 Finally, in 2003, environmental clearance for the third phase (Action Area III measuring 1,713 ha) was given following the recommendation of a State Level Expert Committee for Environmental Impact Assessment, even though here again, as formality, certain conditions (for example, obtaining separate clearance from the fisheries department) were mentioned.5 One can thus say with reasonable justification that while the logistical requirements for setting up a new town were put in place in the wake of the urban boom in the 1990s, technically subject to environmental clearances and certain other requirements, the 3

Permission for 622 ha of land to be used by HIDCO to set up New Town, Letter from the Department of Environment to Sanjay Mitra, Special Secretary, Department of Housing, 12 November 1999, enjoining 13 conditions to be met with (mimeo, court papers in the Writ Petition no. 7516 (W) of 1999). 4 Letter of 20 March 2001, Ref. no – ENP/AW-8/99 (PL-I) from the Department of Environment to the Special Secretary, Housing Department, Government of West Bengal (mimeo, court papers in the Writ Petition no. 7516 (W) of 1999). 5 Letter of 30 January 2003, Ref. no – ENP/AW-8/99 (Pt-III) from the Department of Environment to the Special Secretary, Housing Department, Government of West Bengal (mimeo, court papers in the writ petition).

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decade also showed ways of getting around them. In West Bengal, under the instruction of the political class, government departments acted in unison, barring a few bureaucrats. Rules and norms made a destructive project legitimate in the eyes of law and society. Earning legitimacy was one requirement that had to be accomplished first.

Give the Dog a Bad Name and Hang It We earlier indicated how in order for the New Town project to be legitimised, Kolkata had to be turned into a problem. However, this was not enough. The government literature of 1995–2000 shows how, for the same purpose of land acquisition, Rajarhat too had to be turned into a problem. Thus from here emanated these half-supported, unsupported and out-of-context claims that Rajarhat land was of low yield with no water body, and of very low price: in HIDCO’s words, ‘previous land selling prices — generally very less transaction and low value of transaction’.6 In that lowlying land, where the great water bodies for a large part of the year would be available for fishing, agriculture and vegetable production (in monsoon there would be no paddy cultivation), the EIA report emphasised that 68.36 per cent of the area was agricultural land and of this 87 per cent was unirrigated. Likewise, it emphasised comparatively low yield. It remained silent on vegetable production.7 The process of monetisation also has worked in an instructive way. Let us look at what can be called the logistics of monetisation. The government had to establish first that the entire project was environment-friendly. The environment department duly gave the permission, although for a much smaller area. The court agreed that the environment department’s order could not be challenged in court, as it was the ultimate authority to certify if a particular project was environment-friendly or not.8 The government claimed that new water bodies of 620 acres would be created, which satisfied the court. Next, the government argued that Rajarhat had only land of less utility and no water body. If land was low utility, 6

Ibid., p. 18. Ghosh Bose & Associates (2000), Para 5.5.3.2 and Para 5.12.2. 8 Calcutta High Court’s verdict on the case filed by Nilotpal Dutta and others, 5 April 2007. 7

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obviously, land prices would be low. If land prices were low, then the government rate of compensation (accused of being low) could be proved higher than the market rate. If the market rate was low, then land sharks would be justified in coaxing the farmers to cede land in return for small sums. And then the government could give land to the developers and companies at a much higher price or at concessional rates — all in the name of public good and necessity. Party bosses, local MLAs, rural touts, bad gentry, land sharks, government agencies, and private companies all would gain, and this would signify the progress of public–private partnership. Third, the acquirement process was made to look democratic by including people representing all the local pillars of power.9 Fourth, the government made enormous effort to prove how abysmally low land price was in mauza after mauza.10 In determining land acquirement prices, land resale, extent of impact of the project on local lives, in none of these was there any role of local institutionalised consultation, such as having village-wise meetings, representation of project-affected persons (PAPs), etc. The land purchase committee, which functioned like a well-oiled machine and held 43 meetings between 1995 and 2010, included persons such as the local MLA, chairpersons of the Rajarhat Panchayat Samiti, Salt Lake municipality, Rajarhat–Gopalpur municipality, and other local eminences. Clearly, the structure of representative democracy worked well in 9

HIDCO report (p. 25) boasts of the fact that VIPs such as Jyoti Basu (then chief minister), Benoy Choudhury (then land and land revenue minister), A.R. Kidwai (governor), Tanmay Mandal (subsequently local MLA) had taken part in land purchase ceremonies. It also speaks (p. 35) of the setting up of an Advisory Facilitation Committee with representatives of political parties and chairpersons of local municipal boards. The same people also became members of a Neighbourhood Development Committee and some of them again of another committee — the Keshtopur Canal Development Committee (p. 36) and a Rehabilitation and Resettlement Committee. Typical of the Left Front governing style, committees were formed by co-opting various possible discordant voices on party quota basis, and this was lauded as democratic functioning. It was well suited to a selective inclusion and a similar exclusion policy. 10 Report of the Committee set up by the Government of West Bengal to examine All Related Issues Regarding Resettlement and Rehabilitation of Project Affected People, particularly of Persons who lost Dwelling Houses in connection with the New Town project, 2002 (mimeo).

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tandem with other local pillars of power in seizing land. Finally, the government’s strategy was to highlight the fact that dwelling units had been mostly spared and therefore there was no need to worry or properly compensate. And, in the committee’s language, while on the one hand new skill training process would continue for PAPs, ‘there will be demands for thousands of man days for masons, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, brick layers, welders, grill framers, and the like for the next 20 to 30 years, of course with seasonal amplitudes’.11 The truth is that the new construction labour has come mostly from Murshidabad and Malda districts, some local carpenters have benefited, but most PAPs with no training in these crafts and no training being imparted have most often had to opt for service work of the lowest skill, like running tea shops, collecting garbage, taking watchman’s jobs, etc. On the other hand, the PAP rehabilitation and resettlement committee went to extreme lengths to prove that land prices, say in 1998, in Hatiara mauza (maximum Rs 6,700 per cottah), or Jatragachi (maximum Rs 2,245 per cottah), or Thakdari (maximum Rs 2,260 per cottah), or Chakpachuria (maximum Rs 4,650 per cottah), or Patharghata (maximum Rs 4,606 per cottah), and other mauzas were comparatively low. The success of land acquisition, particularly in the initial phase when land was taken at an incredibly low cost, the government claimed was unprecedented. It claimed to have achieved political consensus on the project and the process. It could afford to remain silent on the marginal voices of protest and the dispute over the project’s environment-friendly nature that had reached the court, where the government’s stand was upheld. All the big fish have been satisfied with land or flats. The Planning Commission sent a letter of appreciation (6 April 2000) along with a token grant of Rs 60 million. This was the new model of a city hailed by the government at Delhi. The regional consultation on urban planning and habitat policy and the action plans held in Kolkata on 23 November 2010 upheld the model of New Town as ‘viable’ and worthy of emulation. Assembly committees (2003–7) repeatedly hailed the experiment. They appreciated that some houses for the poor in Rajarhat had been constructed and that more were being built. And the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) was ecstatic. Everyone concerned was happy about how a government was 11

Ibid.: Para 4.3.

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creating and implementing a self-financing strategy to bring about a new town.12 If in the process the old peasant world was destroyed, the self-sufficient nature of the local economy was destroyed, a large number of people were added to the already existing number of unemployed persons (and in the informal sector), so be it. A new world was coming up through this ‘great transformation’. Thus, what constituted the strength of the economy of West Bengal and Kolkata was now to be sacrificed at the altar of monetisation. In the light of capitalist dynamics we can now see the logistical game described in this account. Land sale ceremonies were organised. Peasant willingness was proved by showing that the peasant had got more than the existing land price. Representative democracy was a willing machine to comply with what was basically an executive-driven process set in motion by specialists, experts, financiers, local mafia dons, committees, and policymakers. Nobody cared to remember in that moment of euphoria that by legislation a small peasant’s land cannot be sold, that land price is formally low (or depressed) as the result of a policy of protecting small landowners, and that in the West Bengal countryside land is still the insurance of the village population against bad days. Land may be sold off illegally, rented, leased out, mortgaged, but it cannot be regarded as any other marketable private property to be exchanged in the market and made exchangeable in the market on a daily basis.

The Infamous FICCI Report The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) had reason to rejoice. In its report on Rajarhat, it recognised that the government had become more ambitious with time (FICCI 2006). Thus more land than what was originally envisaged was acquired (total area increased from 3,075 ha to 3,779 ha), more people were dispossessed, more private firms were invited to establish their presence in New Town, and, in FICCI’s words, more companies had shown their willingness to settle in Rajarhat than originally anticipated. The FICCI report asked and advised the government to construct flyovers at every major intersection, and 12

HIDCO report, p. 57.

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suggested a bonanza for engineers, planners and architects. One business-friendly report thus proceeded: The FICCI report, “Challenges of Urbanisation: Role of New Town, Kolkata”, compiled by TrammellCrowMeghraj Property Consultants (TCMPC), has said the New Town at Rajarhat was undergoing a change in perception, from a middle income group (MIG) complex to one suitable for high income groups (HIG). The study recommends the building of 23 flyovers at all major 23 intersections identified, integrated with a network of underpasses, subways, and elevated carriageways for the proper development of the road connections to the New Town east of Kolkata. The study said these were needed in view of the growth potential of New Town, which demanded focusing on its transportation networks. Addressing the seminar, Abhijit Das, associate director, TCMPC, said, “The 7.5 lakh residential population in the original land-use master plan of 1991 has gone up to 10 lakh in the revised land use plan of July this year; the floating population too has gone up to 5.5 lakh from 2.5 lakh”. Other changes incorporated by the state government of West Bengal in the New Town plan include a decrease in residential use from 50.6 per cent to 38 per cent, increase in commercial land use from 4.6 per cent to 10 per cent, institutional from 0.7 per cent to 8 per cent and a provision for IT comprising 4 per cent of the 3,779 hectares comprising New Town. “Thus there was need to think of an efficient township on a long-term basis,” said Das. The government had constituted two regulatory bodies, one for New Town proper and one for its peripheral areas, to monitor the development of an urban conglomerate in the zone.13

The report in fact suggested even more extravagant measures to ensure the capitalist dream of the smoothest possible flow of money, goods, services, and human resources. The ultimate dream of a free-flowing, silky-smooth city, with no hazard, no roadblock, no haphazard element, was to be established here on earth, in Rajarhat. Thus FICCI first noted that unlike other new towns (it compared Rajarhat to the cases of Gurgaon and Chennai) Rajarhat New Town could revise upward its attainable goals because it could attract more investments once the project was on since investors 13 Rajarhat Turning into a Rich Town, Business Standard, 18 September 2006.

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could see for themselves the facilities being made available. Thus the planned space allotted for residential use could be revised downward, and commercial space and area needed for transportation revised upward (respectively from 140 ha to 360 ha and 300 ha to 408 ha) (FICCI 2006: 35–36, para 3.5, Table 3.1). It did not, however, mention the type of companies that were coming forward, nor could it say anything about job creation, local deskilling, and the almost near absence of any scope of new en-skilling of the local population. The FICCI report, prepared by Trammel Crow Meghraj Property Consultants, focused on real estate management and transportation infrastructure, assessed present conditions thereof, and recommended the steps to be taken. Some major recommendations were as follows: an efficient transportation network design; an integrated package of grade separators, such as flyovers, underpasses, subways, and elevated carriageways at all the 23 major intersections in the first phase; phasing of development of the grade separators; and the development of external links to New Town, particularly from the airport, railway stations and bus terminals (ibid.: 9). In terms of logistical requirements, the FICCI report is significant for one more reason. Apart from the usual arguments about an overburdened Kolkata, the report does not at all attempt to describe anything of Rajarhat’s past life, meaning what existed in Rajarhat prior to its destruction. For that matter, it does not make any assessment of the economic impact of that destruction. Its concern is real estate and transportation and the communication network. It therefore goes into an area-wise detailed assessment of what should be done to facilitate transportation and communication and the best ways of property management. It also notes the growth of office space in Sector V of Salt Lake (addition of 400,000 sq ft in 18 years (1987–2005) (ibid.: 35, para 4.5), but does not go into the issue of whether the addition of office space was possible there, and if an entire town was needed for that. In the comparison it makes with the IT regions in Chennai in Tamil Nadu and Gurgaon in the National Capital Region, just outside New Delhi, FICCI notes that while both are vibrant sites with production in various sectors, there is consequently an upsurge in demand for housing in nearby areas. It is in this sense that in its view New Town is an advanced concept for its purpose is not to exclusively find and provide office space or make sites available for

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an SEZ to house IT and IT-enabled services (ITeS). The idea behind New Town is to present a ‘new life’, the concept of a ‘wholesome life’ characterised by proximity of home and office and entertainment centres, fast-flowing traffic, gardened settlements, wide walkways, convention centres, art galleries, etc., all ready at hand yet tucked away into anonymity. One planner gave this incomparable description while holding aloft the dream of a new style of living: Ranjit Ghosh invites you to take part as it embarks on introduction of its maiden Township Project with concept never before executed in Rajarhat, Kolkata spread over 1750 bighas of premium land. 5-point Benefit: 1. A Sophisticated New Concept in Living — Patterned after the emerging international boutique concept popularized in cities like London, New York and San Francisco 2. A Wonderful Location — Nestled in the central yet tranquil Rajarhat location, it will be in close proximity to the progressive business & residential hubs like DLF, NRI Rosedale, WIPRO IT Park, INFOSYS, Uniworld City and other commercial, leisure, education and recreation options. It is a cross between a condominium and a house and lot because it gives its residents the luxury of being near their place of work or business and yet provides bigger living spaces and a land title in an exclusive gated community for the price of a one or two bedroom unit in condominium developments of comparable grade or house and plot developments that are hours away from the business district. 3. Grand Masterplan — A low-density development with 50% free space and situated away from main driveways & commercial belts will give residents a lush subdivision feel. As a modern-day community relevant to the market’s needs, houses with contemporary architecture and well-planned unit layouts will enhance day-to-day living. 4. Full-Scale Amenities — centered on a stylish and posh new concept in living Township will provide high tech metalled roads 50 feet wide with arterial roads 25 feet wide, modern sewerage, 24 × 7 electricity, distilled drinking water. It will also feature discreetly tucked playgrounds, jogging paths, passive parks, community halls, shopping malls, educational centres, healthcare centres in addition to its clubhouse. 5. Price — Price of the plots has been kept as such to fit all pocket sizes . . . Added together, these elements will offer a unique lifestyle, a prestigious residential address and a sound investment in the emerging Rajarhat location.14 14 http://rajarhat-gopalpore.indads.in/item/7173/ (notified on 27 January 2011; accessed on 12 February 2011).

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How much time will this dream, envisaged neither by Baudelaire nor by Walter Benjamin, take to realise? The FICCI report came out two years before the market crashed, in 2008. Prior to the crash, internet capitalism was at its apogee. Everything seemed possible provided it was IT-enabled. In the state of West Bengal, BPO-enabled growth was the mainstay of growth in the information industry. It now envisaged progress in hardware technology development and production. By 2006–7, the information industry employed nearly 60,000 people. From 1999–2006, the state witnessed a growth of 17 times in the information industry, unmatched by any other state. By 2010, it was hoped that West Bengal would become one of the top three states in the IT sector in India. Export was touching around Rs 36 billion. Global services and multinational corporations (MNCs), the minister concerned noted with satisfaction, were entering West Bengal and their interest increasing. Indian companies like Videocon, Xenith and Chirag had set up units, and they would be followed by global majors in hardware. An integrated design centre was being set up. The information industry had recorded 46 per cent growth in 2006–7. In the same year, 37 new companies had been registered.15 The budget proposal mentioned IT parks and hubs — in Salt Lake, Siliguri and Bantala — but had only one or two references to Rajarhat New Town.16 It spoke of e-governance and networking of public services, and, stressing its importance, declared that this was being given now the status of a public utility, thus very few holidays, continuous shifts of duty, women to work night hours, etc.17 Strangely, there was no reference to using IT as 15 Annual Report 2006–7, Department of Information and Technology, Government of West Bengal, see the notes by the minister and principal secretary. 16 Ibid., para 3.2, p. 35; however, except informing that New Town will allow a 10-acre plot of land for WEBEL and that there was an offer of land in New Town at a ‘highly subsidised rate’ to IT firms, it does not say anything else. So, at one level the crucial question remains: how much was the notion of a green industry-driven urbanisation there in the planning of a new town? 17 Ibid., p. 13. On the other hand, it is interesting to note that the departmental report does not have any reference to labour conditions or labour form in IT and ITeS industry. More intriguing is the fact that the Annual Report of the labour department also has nothing to say on labour in the IT and ITeS industry, except that it mentions that labour training in this

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the driver for building a new town, or using it as a motor for setting up a financial centre with an eye on the entire region of the east and north-east India and South-east Asia. FICCI of course had no interest in this, its sole concern and attention was on real estate. One may, therefore, raise the following question: Were there two outlooks prevailing among members of the political class in West Bengal? Was a particular form of capital involving all sorts of venture schemes and buccaneering modes using IT as a ploy to seize land? Or were these two possibly parts of the same way of governing, which, on the one hand, sees its mode as beneficial to all (a welfare mode), and, on the other hand, is determined to create conditions of what it terms development through select growth of production and consumption (neo-liberal mode)? Thus, one can argue that there is no substantive ground to view the Rajarhat model as a counter to Left Front’s hitherto pursued line of welfare and petty reforms. The transition from welfarism to neo-liberalism may not be that epochal and dramatic, unless social and political resistance to doing away with hard won public gains makes that transition difficult. It is an important discussion, but we have to have another occasion for it. But, at least, as of now, we can note that apart from some compensation and paltry schemes of resettlement, HIDCO did not have any insurance policy for the dispossessed; but for capital and business of course it could offer land and assure all government help. From welfarism we can see the birth of the market, subsistence and poverty. In that sense, Rajarhat New Town represents the contemporary crisis of welfare as a governmental procedure. It also demonstrates the difficulty of finding a suitable technology of operationalising welfare and, therefore, the compulsion in the long run that welfare be substituted by a new rationality of government constructed on the basis of enhancing and then gaining through the activities of private agents. This implies new calculations, technologies, new attitudes to the onerous duty of supplying services for entrepreneurial activities in the hope that the operation of a market will result in maximisation of life and quality of life. sector is highest and relates principally to emigrants. See Labour in West Bengal–2009, Report by Department of Labour, Government of West Bengal, Kolkata, 2009, p. 96.

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Incidentally, and, therefore, it should be no surprise that the FICCI report, in terms of advising on necessary urban infrastructure for Rajarhat, did not think of sanitary facilities, drinking water supply, public health provisions, etc. After 10 years of continuous destruction of old infrastructures and provisions of life, a report like this appears inevitable: KOLKATA, 31 MAY: Thousands of people living in and around Rajarhat New Town are facing an acute scarcity of water due to the indiscriminate sinking of deep tube-wells and submersible pumps that have, experts fear, resulted in a rapid fall in the ground-water table. The tube-wells in vast areas surrounding Chapna, Patharghata and Garageri in rural Rajarhat and Arjunpur, Teghoria and Rabindrapalli in urban Rajarhat have gone dry. Environmentalists and engineers have written to the state housing minister, Mr Shyamapada Mukhopadhyay, demanding setting up of an expert committee with technical members from engineering organisations and engineering colleges with field-level experience in water treatment. Experts said as Rajarhat is situated close to the arsenic-prone zone, steps should be immediately taken to supply piped water. If steps are not taken now, vast areas of New Town will cave in in the near future. Local people have demanded arrest of former housing minister Mr Gautam Deb for the faulty planning of Housing and Infrastructure Development Corporation (Hidco) that led to the acute water crisis. Engineers apprehend that if there is heavy rainfall this year there will be massive waterlogging in New Town as there is no drainage system. After failing to provide drinking water Housing and Infrastructure Development Corporation (Hidco) had sunk 45-odd deep tube-wells in action area I and II in Rajarhat New Town. Also, it allowed owners of private housing complexes and offices to sink submersible pumps to lift ground water to meet their demand. The engineers said Hidco’s proposal to lift water from the river Hooghly and carry it to the water treatment plant at New Town “is both faulty and absurd.” Engineers and water experts said raw water for drinking water supply should have a minimum 5 milligram/litre Dissolved Oxygen (DO) as per standard set-up. ISI and Bio Chemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) shall not exceed 3 milligram/ litre. DO in Kestopur canal is zero, according to the latest study conducted by the state Irrigation and Waterways department while BOD is 30 milligram/litre. This shows that the quality of water “is poor and unfit for human consumption.”

152  Beyond Kolkata Hidco set up a high-power committee in 2001–02 under the chairmanship of the then home secretary to carry out a feasibility study. The committee proposed to set up an intake jetty and raw water pumping station at Cossipur and a water treatment plant at Rajarhat. It proposed repair of Chitpore lock-gate and opening of a launch service to Rajarhat via Kestopur canal. All the projects failed to take off due to faulty planning. Senior engineers and officials of Hidco till the election results were out had echoed the minister and said piped water would be supplied in New Town soon. Now, after the election results they made a U-turn and said comprehensive planning is needed to provide drinking water in New Town.18

After all, if one takes a look at the numerous statements issued by ruling party spokespersons and government appearing between the second half of the last decade of the last century and the first half of the first decade of this century, it becomes clear that the attraction and dream of a new life patterned with new economic designs had become irresistible. New Town was an economic answer to problems of life: As if the government was ready to invent the biology of the free market, which would also mean the real subsumption of life in economy, specifically capital. What is significant from the logistical point of view is that it not only signified life-subsuming economic processes, but also invented a whole new political rationality in the form of creating new townships, new urban regions — indeed whole new spaces. The instrument of creating new life was not, as we have seen, so much law, but economic moves reinforced by political coercion. This, of course, made the route to the making of a new town clumsy. Yet to the government it was clear that the whole thing was not so much a matter of legitimacy, but efficacy. Therefore, rights and law took a back seat, and even though the government won the case against HIDCO in the Calcutta High Court, it knew that juridical critique against its steps was weak in the face of its actions, guided by the logic of the economy. Governmental actions were the natural results of political economy. Indeed, political economy was the natural result of calm and calculated thinking about wealth and development. The old city was not giving as much freedom to the economy as required for the production of wealth, 18

Water Scarcity Hits Rajarhat New Town, The Statesman, 1 June 2011.

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only a newly designed city/town could open up the space for ‘promiscuous’ and multiple circulations. The New Town as a space was to be primarily a network, and the feature of this network was that the area was not meant to be a space for citizens, but a serial order (37th street, 4th crossing, etc.) to ensure an indefinite series of circulating things (commodity, men, money, information, skill, etc.), yet amenable to statistical calculation of probabilities and related costs. It required, therefore, ensuring both hygiene and ventilation.19 In such a space, located therein if one were to be, the sense of place can be profoundly disorienting, because not only current place names speak of old realities (a common experience), but new place names to appear in future can perhaps only be in numbers (of a network), or be signatures of points in the network. In any case, with the crash of 2008, many of these hopes and promises could not be un-realised. Meanwhile, peasant protest over land acquisition in Singur and Nandigram started mounting. The Jindals were to set up a steel plant in Salbani, an area inhabited by indigenous people. There too protests broke out with an attempt on the life of the then chief minister. In Rajarhat, where the sailing had seemed smooth so far, things appeared difficult. Suddenly, old protests were recalled. Old grumblings resurfaced. The poor state of infrastructure was exposed. Buildings remained half finished. Plush green fields taken away from peasants a decade back now remained uncultivated, dry and waste. Land allotment stopped for more than a year due to near absence of urban services like water, sanitation, electricity, bus and rail services, roads and lanes, minimum medical facility, etc., and the government said that sale would be resumed once these had been provided. Architects and town planners could only do this much — they could draw sketches, write plans, conceive grand things. But beyond logistics remained the economy, plus that disturbing word, public, which indicated popular politics, sectional oppositions, votes, disgruntled farmers, and local poor. If not FICCI, surely HIDCO realised at some point of time, assuring new life and a new quality of life was not easy. But we have to keep in mind at the same time that in some sense, notwithstanding the minister’s soothing and assuring words, HIDCO was a company, not a public welfare institution. It had begun with zero paid-up capital. 19 On the nature of the relation between political economy and biopolitics in the post-Foucault world, see Terranova (2009).

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It had to acquire and trade land to gather money and do business. It had to deploy an old colonial act, the Land Acquisition Act, to do this. In doing so it was following the infamous tradition of the East India Company, proving the resilience of commercial capital. But, as we have said earlier, it was also following the tradition of company towns, of course with some difference. But the main thing to remember is that a company was in charge of bringing in a new model of life. We have not possibly advanced much from the days of John Company in the East. The East India Company had traded in cotton, silk, indigo, saltpetre, tea, and opium. HIDCO trades in land. When the East India Company created a company town, named Calcutta, it had the backing of the state, and it created a new life, markedly different from the old bazaar towns of the middle ages. HIDCO has created Jyoti Basu Nagar, it too has the backing of the state, and it wants to create a new life. The East India Company was bolstered by a British parliamentary act. HIDCO is now supported by the New Town Development Authority Act (2007, 2010). But time extracts its cost. So the logistical requirements are different from those needed by the predecessor. These requirements, mentioned in some detail in the preceding pages may prove to be a nightmare.

The Miscalculations of Logistics Logistics, as we know, began as the art and science of supplying troops with provisions for armed expeditions by ancient powers like Rome, and remained an inexact science even in the medieval period. Money or other supply issues, anticipating enemy action or communications issues, were essential items to be managed in order to enable the troops to fight. Assured of regular supply, troops could more easily survive under siege, or reduce enemy fortifications themselves without worrying about starving. Unless there was a logistical system in place, war could end in disaster. Sometimes, armies would resort to what they would call foraging (wandering afield looking for food), but what peasants usually termed plundering. Troops would have to reach fortified places in time, they would have to survive heat and cold, or they would have to deprive enemy soldiers of supply as Saladin did to Richard the Lionheart when the latter wanted to besiege Jerusalem. Pillaging by troops was a problem even, or particularly, in one’s own territory. It was

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only in the Age of Enlightenment that we saw the abandonment of foraging as an official government policy. Yet, as the Rajarhat experience shows, the science of logistics never graduated as cleanly as imagined. The construction of New Town had bad logistical planning behind it. Lands were seized and paddy fields plundered; subsequently, roads, water and electricity supply remained inadequate and erratic. Buildings came up with few willing to move in. A few companies actually stet up their offices. HIDCO encouraged formation of cooperative teams of local unemployed youth (particularly those whose families had lost land) to ensure supply of construction material. This method also was a failure. Either the returns were small, or the leaders or agents of those gangs immediately turned corrupt and cornered money. If logistics means ‘having the right thing, at the right place, at the right time’, Rajarhat was a disaster. The management of material, service, information, and capital flows through complex information and control systems was beyond the capacity of a housing department of a province and a ramshackle entity called HIDCO. One may ask, while complex management systems can help manage container or air traffic, can a city be set up in that way? Possibly, that is where the fundamental error or miscalculation. Engels in the famous tract, The Housing Question (1872), said: In reality the bourgeoisie has only one method of solving the housing question after its fashion-that is to say, of solving it in such a way that the solution continually reproduces the question anew. This method is called “Haussmann.” By the term “Haussmann” I do not mean merely the specifically Bonapartist manner of the Parisian Haussmann — breaking long, straight and broad streets through the closely-built workers’ quarters and erecting big luxurious buildings on both sides of them, the intention thereby, apart from the strategic aim of making barricade fighting more difficult, being also to . . . to turn the city into a pure luxury city. By “Haussmann” I mean the practice which has now become general of making breaches in the working class quarters of our big towns, and particularly in those which are centrally situated, quite apart from whether this is done from considerations of public health and for beautifying the town, or owing to the demand for big centrally situated business premises, or owing to traffic requirements, such as the laying down of railways, streets, etc. No matter how different the reasons may be, the result is everywhere the same: the scandalous alleys and lanes disappear to the accompaniment

156  Beyond Kolkata of lavish self-praise from the bourgeoisie on account of this tremendous success, but they appear again immediately somewhere else and often in the immediate neighborhood. In The Condition of the Working Class in England I gave a description of Manchester as it looked in 1843 and 1844. Since then the construction of railways through the centre of the town, the laying out of new streets, and the erection of great public and private buildings have broken through, laid bare and improved some of the worst districts described in my book, others have been abolished altogether, but many of them are still, apart from the fact that official sanitary inspection has since become stricter, in the same state or in an even worse state of dilapidation than they were then. On the other hand, however, thanks to the enormous extension of the town, whose population has increased since then by more than half, districts which were at that time still airy and clean are now just as excessively built upon, just as dirty and overcrowded as the most ill-famed parts of the town formerly were . . . Here is just one example . . . In Manchester the Squire’s Court is made up of seven or eight dwelling houses on the corner of Charles Street and Brook Street. Even at the lowest part of Brook Street, under the railway bridge, a pedestrian may pass daily and never dream that human beings are living under his feet in what are little more than caves. The court itself is hidden from public view and is accessible only to those who are compelled by their impoverishment to seek a shelter in its sepulchral seclusion. Even if the usually stagnant waters of the Medlock, which are shut in between locks, do not exceed their usual level, the floors of these dwellings can hardly be more than a few inches above the surface of the river. A good shower of rain is capable of driving up filthy and nauseous water through the drains and filling the rooms with pestilential gases such as every flood leaves behind it as a souvenir. . . This is a striking example of how the bourgeoisie solves the housing question in practice. The breeding places of disease, the infamous holes and cellars in which the capitalist mode of production confines our workers night after night, are not abolished; they are merely shifted elsewhere! The same economic necessity which produced them in the first place, produces them in the next place also. As long as the capitalist mode of production continues to exist, it is folly to hope for an isolated solution of the housing question or of any other social question affecting the fate of the workers. The solution lies in the abolition of the capitalist mode of production and the appropriation of all the means of life and labor by the working class itself (Engels 1872).

From this angle, there seems one more factor in the miscalculation. Economy was the other pillar in the development of logistics, if

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military necessity was the original. Modern cities developed as a logistical solution to questions of free circulation of men, money, commerce, and knowledge. Roadways, housing, buildings, urban districts, transportation, telephone lines, all were planned accordingly. In governance there was a constant tussle between the militarist way of thinking and the economic. Roughly speaking, in one the issue was one of efficiency, and in the other, efficiency-cummanaging people. Therefore, in one, time was the main worry — how quickly, how according to the compulsions of season (rain, winter, heat, etc.) supply and amount of provisions could be planned, etc. In logistical planning driven by economic considerations, people entered the scenario notwithstanding the desires of the economists and traders. Thus, people had to be taken as a factor in logistical planning. People had to be grouped, quartered, etc. Therefore, real-time results and desired results had a gap between them. It is only when modern cybernetics and high IT emerged that economic planning started resembling military planning in precision, complexity and real-time results. Planners started thinking of how to reduce the time between value production and value realisation through various institutional mechanisms. In Rajarhat we see in one sense the limits of this desired combination of the military and the economic. Yet, as David Harvey suggests, pointing to the half-deserted towns of the United States as the financial crash of 2008 approached, the great housing boom on the basis of shadowy capital suddenly ended with a whimper. Banks, mortgage agencies, other credit institutions, all started running away from the scene. A debt-financed urbanisation process was the biggest victim of the crash. In all the construction boom seen in the last two decades — from Shanghai to Sao Paulo to Mumbai — either in the form of new towns or reconstruction of parts of existing cities or planning for urban regions (the great instance being set by Robert Moses who after the Second World War showed the way how to plan in terms of ‘New York metropolitan region’) suitable urban lifestyle choices were made available ranging from shopping malls, multiplexes, fast food centres, to artisanal market places, boutique galleries, and box stores. And in all these there was a union of financiers like Goldman Sachs and property dealers and developers (Harvey 2010a: 170–83). Rajarhat was one of the latest of this trend. The surplus generated in the preceding decades was absorbed in the Rajarhat New Town

158  Beyond Kolkata

project, but only this much. Today, huge tracts of land have now been taken over by developers like Shapoorji Pallonji, and others lie vacant. Land remains vacant, buildings remain half-constructed, multi-storeyed apartments remain near empty. The great plans of HIDCO, FICCI and dreamy-eyed architects and town planners remain on paper. There is one more reason why Rajarhat proves to be a nightmare. It is partly because urban history has a tendency to move in a constellational fashion. Fragments of city as territory, city as an agglomeration of human settlements, transportation zones, zones of vocations, educational worlds, etc., are all elements of that constellation — perpetually pushing, accommodating and adjusting mutual positions to make the city. In the emerging transaction between Kolkata and New Town, which New Town one day will have to do, one can visualise the possibilities of a new assemblage and perhaps a new dialogic future. The constellational model of urban history is based on interrelations rather than linear flows (the model of the FICCI study). And in that model, even if it works partially, many of the pet dreams would have to be jettisoned. New subjectivities would have to be accommodated. Rajarhat’s political moment will arrive then. That is, of course, clearly an uncertain and open-ended future towards a new political landscape.20 This negotiation between zones of a city (which in this case will include the new towns) requires more than the human apparatus of perception. This takes place gradually by habit, under the guidance of new contacts and the development of new contact zones. In the epilogue to his now canonical 1936 essay ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’, Walter Benjamin wrote, ‘The violation of the masses forced to their knees by Fascism with its Fuhrer cult has its counterpart in the violation of an apparatus which is pressed into the production of ritual values’ (Benjamin 1999: 234). Clearly architecture has been pressed into such ritualistic exercise in the New Town, not only in Rajarhat but elsewhere also where new towns have appeared. The limited functionality of 20

Henri Lefebvre had foreseen such a possibility in his manifesto in response to the announcement of the plan for the construction of New Belgrade. He spoke of the need for the greatest possible interaction between New Belgrade and old Belgrade, and the old city centre and the dispersed locations of New Belgrade. See Bitter and Weber (2009).

Logistics and Nightmares  159

steel-and-glass architecture with different shapes of the front yard only demonstrates the limits of that end for which the apparatus was forged. Architecture no longer remains an art or an artistic medium through which one might locate a means of changing the prevailing aesthetic through modification of the human apparatus of perception. It becomes an apparatus in service of accumulation by becoming a conveyor of ritualistic value. Yet, exactly as in the past when ‘The Work of Art’ essay was written, the art world had been overrun with manifestos, all of them owing a debt to The Communist Manifesto, likewise the new architecture of Rajarhat has the possibility of being overrun by manifestos against the new town, some trying to attack its logistical grid, others suggesting dialogues among the different zones of the city, producing in the process the worst offender against the purity of the new town, namely, the multitude.

6 New Town, New Labour Zoning Practices in Urban Development

We have already tried to show how the spatial reorganisation of city spaces across India provides the backdrop for the development of New Town at Rajarhat. Also the spatial reorganisation of city spaces has to be read within the larger framework of the urbanisation programmes undertaken by the Indian state. While population management has been central to state discourse and, as the other chapters in this book narrate, the history of people living in Rajarhat before it became New Town, it is also important to look into the genealogy of zoning practices in urban development carried out by the Indian state. The first phase of zoning was introduced with industrial townships revolving around ‘basic’ industries, famously known as steel townships, like Rourkela, Durgapur, Salem, etc. In this context, we may also recall the first private steel plant and the city of Jamshedpur, founded by Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, also known as Tatanagar, a steel city in the eastern part of India.1 J. R. D. Tata said in 1923, ‘We are not putting up a row of workmen’s huts; we are building a city of culture, religion and race’.2 While the first phase of industrial townships revolved around manufacturingrelated industries to guarantee the residence of workers of these factories, the second phase of urbanisation programmes in the postreforms period has endeavoured to initiate public–private partnerships, or even private initiatives, to free ‘the market from the state’s

1

Initially, the town was named Sakchi (after one of the initially acquired villages to build Jamshedpur). In 1919, Lord Chelmsford renamed it Jamshedpur as a tribute to its founder Jamshetji Tata. 2 For details, see http://tatanagar.com/index.php/about-city/intro-duction-/ discovery.html (accessed on 2 September 2010).

New Town, New Labour  161

regulative framework in order to facilitate private investment in urban infrastructure and the empowerment of governments at the local level are central to an emerging urban strategy in India’ (Xiangming et al. 2009: 437). Xiangming et al., in their comparative study of new towns in India and China, also argue that ‘acceleration of economic growth in the past two decades is closely related to urban growth, particularly in the fringes of existing megacities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Bangalore’ (ibid.). The emergence of these city spaces is formulated within the discourse of zoning technologies of the state that go beyond creating residential quarters. The need to create exclusive spaces, the regulations governing these exclusive spaces and often the creation of exclusive spaces within already formed spaces, or, say, the very idea of self-sufficient city spaces, call for a deeper scrutiny, which moves beyond a simple spatial understanding of the place and the actors involved, to an idea of how ‘circuits of capital’ are controlled and regimented, and how they participate in these zoning strategies. Lash and Urry illustrate how Marx shows the metamorphosis of one capital (what he calls ‘circuits of capital’, money capital, productive capital and commodity capital) into another and shows how they move through space and how they work in different changing temporalities. While on the one hand, some Marxists following this argument have tried to understand the ways in which circulation takes place in ‘real, substantial geographical social spaces’, Lash and Urry take the argument forward by showing us how circuits of capital move across temporal spaces (Lash and Urry 1994). In The End of Organised Capitalism (Lash and Urry 1991), they trace the way in which circuits of capital operated across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. During the nineteenth century (era of liberal capitalism) circuits of different capitals operated at the level of locality or region; the twentieth century was marked by the movement of capital across national spaces, followed by flexibility and fragmentation, in other words, disorganised capitalism — where circulation of capital became international. The operation of circuits of different capitals and the need for a cheap ‘reserve army of labour’ led to zones of appropriation and primitive accumulation. The emerging city spaces — in this case, New Town in Rajarhat — need to be contextualised within the dynamics of this circulation. To begin with, as we have pointed out, the growth of the New Town is not premised on work at office/factory, unlike the previous

162  Beyond Kolkata

public and private-sector initiatives of industrial townships. It is also not meant for workers working in manufacturing-based industries as stringent pollution-prevention regulations militate against factories being set up in heavily populated areas. So, clean-andgreen industries, mostly ‘service-based’, come up in these new city spaces like the New Town with leisure zones created for entertainment in the shape of malls with retail outlets, food courts, multiplexes, and, of course, brand shopping. Thus, these self-sufficient city spaces are earmarked for a population that can participate in the cycle of consumption. Yet, the zoning and creation of a self-sufficient ‘city’ in the form of a new town is not all that new. The mapping and earmarking of spaces for particular processes for production actually go back to the emergence of free trade zones (FTZs) or export processing zones (EPZs) and SEZs. The history of the emergence of EPZs and SEZs globally and locally has to be understood from the vantage point of how circuits of capital are and were organised and how the strategy of zoning has produced a new kind of spatial arrangement of economies. The history of spatial arrangement of economies goes back to the Kandla EPZ in 1965 followed by the Santa Cruz EPZ in 1973. These EPZs did not enjoy fiscal and custom incentives like the later SEZs. Following the Tandon Committee Report of 1981 — which opined that FTZs would generate export if they were exempted from various controls and regulations in place — four EPZs came up at Noida (Uttar Pradesh), Falta (West Bengal), Cochin (Kerala), and Chennai (Tamil Nadu) in 1984. In 1989, another EPZ was set up in Vishakhapatnam (Shalti Research Group 2008). After liberalisation in 1991, the Export Import Policy (1997–2002) introduced a new scheme from 1 April 2000, to revamp and restructure the ‘production’ sites for export-oriented services in the form of SEZs. Since the inception of the SEZ Act, 2005, West Bengal has had three functional SEZs. The oldest SEZ was formerly an EPZ and is currently a multi-product zone. Apart from Manikanchan, which is a zone meant for gems and jewellery (Salt Lake), the remaining zones are dedicated to informational technology (IT) and are spread across Sector V in Salt Lake (WIPRO), Dalmiya and Co. Limited (Bantala) and Unitech Hi-Tech (New Town) (Economic Review 2010–11). In other words, apart from the Falta SEZ and Manikanchan, the remaining SEZs are dedicated to the IT sector

New Town, New Labour  163

which makes it convenient for them to run and function even in a projected densely populated new city. Where is the need to create such exclusive spaces of production within these new cities? In contrast with the picturesque representations of open, green land and plush swimming pools made by real-estate companies, it is significant to note that when one enters Rajarhat New Town, which is strategically located between the airport and Sector V, one sees clusters of concrete columns, separated by roads, patches of green empty land, which have been already acquired by the Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation (HIDCO), and construction sites — in other words, a city in making. A flyover connecting Sector V, Salt Lake, and New Town divides the old and new. It is almost as if New Town instantiates the story of ‘urban continuum’ — a continuum which needs to be located in the way these ‘cities are pushed to compete for a) position in the international division of labour, b) control and command functions, c) position as centres of consumption, and d) for governmental redistribution’ (Patel and Deb 2006: 15). It is this story of urban continuum that we will examine in this chapter; a story of the growth and expansion of Sector V and the growth of New Town. The proximity of New Town to Sector V acted as a catalyst, as New Town could be projected as the new IT destination. Incidentally, some IT companies have shifted their office space from Sector V to New Town. Is there a story of urban continuum beyond the shifting of IT companies and creation of ghettoised apartment blocks? What kind of urban continuum is being produced through local people’s participation in the new-city economy? Is there a new-city economy, which is being produced through construction of highrises on a mass scale, with clean, mainly service-based, industries thrown in between residential townships?

The Reconstitution of the Spatial Location of Labour For an inquiry to this end, we shall examine how this urban continuum has been projected in state discourse as population management, creation of employment opportunities, although the story of urban continuum has also produced displacement and dispossession as has been demonstrated in previous chapters. In this chapter,

164  Beyond Kolkata

we shall examine how the urban continuum is embedded in something more than mere spatial reorganisation; it is finally about controlling and regimenting circuits of capital, primarily labour. It is about segmenting the white-collar workforce from the dirt of primitive accumulation. The spatial location of the ‘labour’ force gets reconstituted through the participation of the workforce in working hours suited to the needs of the client. This need is recognised by the state IT policy; so workers here work in synchrony with UK/USA/Australia time zones. In this planned city, there is a need to keep the peripheral workforce (peripheral to the production sites in the New Town) beyond the pale of visibility, be it the intra-state construction workers, or the native villagers who have resorted to domestic service, or people involved in odd jobs, such as supplying raw materials in the construction business.3 Some have taken the risk of opening food stalls in front of offices. The story of urban continuum moves beyond the logic of management of projected population and becomes a story also of the labouring forces at work — construction workers, street food vendors and IT and ITeS workers. We are here drawing on the fieldwork conducted intermittently through 2010 to the middle of 2011 in Sector V and New Town. The ethnography of the labouring lives tells us the unreported narratives and dimensions of the strategy of capital to create such exclusive city spaces through public–private initiatives. In other words, we are trying to write here on the kind of labouring space New Town will produce. To do so, we can begin with the functioning of Sector V, Salt Lake (an IT area), without which perhaps New Town could not have existed. If readers remember the first chapter, Sector V of Salt Lake is from the city side the gateway to New Town. The proximity of New Town to Sector V has its own advantages. In some sense, the economic growth of Sector V will provide a backdrop against which we can understand the labouring space of the new towns like Rajarhat — a clear departure from industrial-township models or even residential colonies like Salt Lake. With the planning and growth of Sector V, West Bengal witnessed the first conscious 3 Makeshift tents of local syndicates are seen in almost every construction site. A syndicate is a body constitutive of ‘local’ people who supply raw materials to the construction companies.

New Town, New Labour  165

attempt to design a space marked by a shift to service-based work from manufacturing work. Considering the fact that even in the manufacturing sector supply of cheap labour is needed, we may ask: How has the zoning practices evolved to cater to a new demand — ‘outsourcing’ of jobs and, hence, the proliferation of ITeS alongside the IT sector? According to the Economic Review 2010–11, there are more than 500 IT and ITeS companies in West Bengal. More than 100,000 people are employed in the state in both the export and domestic sectors of the IT industry. ‘The total number of operational units in Software Technology Park at Kolkata has become 226. These units have a high degree of export potential and the total amount of exports from Software Technology Park units was above Rs 5000 crore in 2008–2009 registering a growth in exports by 14 per cent.’4 Currently managed by Nabadiganta Industrial Authority, the journey of Sector V began with the planning of Salt Lake. The entire area of Salt Lake was divided into five sectors of which Sector V was earmarked as an industrial area. In the 1990s, a special act — the West Bengal Government Township Act (Extension of Civil Amenities) — was introduced to check haphazard development in Salt Lake City. Salt Lake City (Bidhannagar) was brought under this act. An administrator was made responsible for rendering municipal services. In 1995, the Bidhannagar Municipality was made responsible for all the municipal services, including assessment and collection of property taxes in the five sectors. This arrangement lasted till the government felt the need to constitute an administrative body to manage the industrial township growing in Sector V. Nabadiganta Industrial Authority came into existence through a notification issued on 31 January 2006, under Section 385(a) of the West Bengal Municipal Act, 1993.5 Sector V is the IT hub of Kolkata and houses around 206 IT/ITeS companies. Other than that, there are 17 banks, 48 manufacturing companies, 17 institutions related to hospital and healthcare services, 19 telecom units and eight printing presses in an area spread over 432 acres. 4

See Introduction, Economic Review (2009–10). For details see the web portal of Nabadiganta Industrial authority, http:// www.ndita.org/egovernance/index.php?option=com_content&view= article&id=46&Itemid=60 (accessed on 7 July 2011). 5

166  Beyond Kolkata

Sector V has a residential population of about 900 and a floating population of approximately 100,000.6 West Bengal was among the first states to articulate an IT policy (formalised on 1 January 2000). This was followed by a special incentive scheme introduced in November 2001. The Government of West Bengal recognised the potential for ITeS companies and came up with a focussed ITeS policy (formalised in August 2002). In this policy, the government, in order to make the state investorfriendly, actually highlighted ‘five key enablers’ required to support the growth and expansion of the IT industry. These are: (a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

Availability of good quality talent Low cost of operations Availability of high-quality infrastructure Government support Investor facilitation

The policy further laid down the regulatory support to be extended to investors to ensure investment. First was the relaxation of labour laws. The policy document stated, ‘In IT, where human-resource inputs are highly flexible and mobile, the Government recognizes the need to simplify procedural framework under the existing labour laws’.7 This, of course, meant that all IT companies were to be declared ‘public utility services’ providers under the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947. This was almost similar to declaring SEZs ‘public utility services’ so that the workforce would not be able to participate in strikes without prior notice as stated in the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947. The policy further elaborated that the government had to declare IT companies ‘public utility services’ so that smooth functioning of export-oriented services happened round the clock. This in itself was an important step towards statebacked participation of private capital to use zoning technologies to facilitate cheap international division of labour. In order to coax investors, the only way, apart from providing infrastructure, was to ensure smooth functioning through the relaxation of labour laws. 6

See NDITA at a Glance, http://www.ndita.org/egovernance/index. php?option=com_content&view=article&id=77&Itemid=97 (accessed on 9 July 2011). 7 For details, see West Bengal IT Policy 2003, http://www.itwb.org/ download_pdf/itpolicy_2003.pdf, p. 11 (accessed on 4 July 2011).

New Town, New Labour  167

The IT policy further reinforced and amended the rules of West Bengal Shops and Commercial Establishment Act, 1963: (a) Closing an establishment and granting of a weekly holiday under Section 5(1) of the Act, provided that every individual has at least one day off every week and a compulsory day off in lieu of working on bank holidays. This would enable the IT companies to run their operations on all seven days of the week. (b) Opening and closing hours under Section 7(1) of the Act. This would enable the IT industry to run a three-shift operation. (c) Working hours’ stipulation under Section 7(2) of the Act. This will enable “flexitime” operations for its employees. (d) Enabled to engage female employees between 8 pm and 6 am, under Section 10(b) of the Act subject to (i) special arrangements being made for protection of female employees during these hours; (ii) female employees being employed jointly or in a minimum group of 10 female employees; (iii) arrangement of a separate rest room for female employees; (iv) a minimum of 50 people to be employed during these hours (including female employees).8 Like the SEZs, the government has allowed the IT companies to self-certify on the following acts: Payment of Wages Act, Minimum Wages Act, Contract Labour (Regulations & Abolition) Act, Workmen’s Compensation Act, Employees State Insurance Act, West Bengal Shops and Commercial Establishments Act, Payment of Gratuity Act, Employees Provident Fund and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, Maternity Benefits Act, and Water and Air Pollution Act. Apart from these, there are of course fiscal benefits targeted at the investors. In fact, ‘at the operational level, the Government has made it easy for the investors to set up operations through West Bengal Electronics Industry Development Corporation Limited (WEBEL), which is the single support centre for all IT investors’.9 The same report from where we have cited the previous line, also states: It is not only the off-shore demand that is driving the IT sector. There is a huge expansion in domestic demand as well. More and more Indian 8 9

Ibid. For details, see ‘Industry’ in Economic Review (2010–11: 134).

168  Beyond Kolkata Companies are outsourcing their Data Management and Customer Relationship Management. Such business process outsourcing adds to the growth of revenue in the service sector.10

It is also important to note that three sectors form an important part of the informational work: IT, ITeS and BPO.

SEZs, Call Centre Work and New Labour BPOs seemed to be the first archetypal labour form in an area like Sector V. One of our informants, SS, currently working as a consultant, started off her career in call centres in 2002 in Delhi. Having worked in GE and IBM Daksh, she narrated to us the first phase of her career. She had completed her graduation in Assam and was looking for openings in Delhi. She joined a call centre. Initially, she thought it would be a stop-gap option before she enrolled herself in into a masters programme. She recalled how they were trained in those days to adopt ‘accents’ of the clientele. She also recalled that each batch was given an alphabet and they had to come up with short names. For instance, her batch was given the alphabet T. Her name was Tanya. She was Tanya in her workplace. Mostly people preferred what she referred to as ‘Christian’ names, for example, Phoebe, Jenny, etc. In her workplace, care was taken to avoid repetition for the next 25 batches. ‘Considering the fact that the maximum average call time used to be three minutes, we had to be precise’, she added and then emphasised, ‘It was important to be patient. In this line of business you learn to listen’. She recalled how often she and her colleagues had to fake accents. Often, the callers would realise the charade. According to her, the situation has improved these days: ‘There is less pressure, now that people across the world know we are calling from India’.11 If we step back a few years (to 2003), we will recall a debate about call-centre workers following Susan Sontag’s lecture ‘The World as India’, in which she celebrated the successful participation of Indians in the world economy through call-centre work and other services, by virtue of their English-speaking skills. Following 10 11

Ibid.: 136. Interview with SS (name changed) in June 2010 and February 2011.

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the publication of this lecture in The Times Literary Supplement on 13 June 2003, Harish Trivedi called these workers ‘cyber-coolies’ which sparked a debate. Trivedi in his piece had called the callcentre workplace ‘exploitative’ and described its employees as ‘cyber coolies of our global age, working not on sugar plantations but on flickering screens, and lashed into submission through vigilant and punitive monitoring, each slip in accent or lapse in pretence meaning a cut in wages’.12 Gurcharan Das, in his article ‘Cyber Coolies or Cyber Sahibs’, critiqued Trivedi and argued that ‘“English” remains the passport for every youngster who dreams of becoming master of the universe’. He also added: Sontag is on the right track. Business process outsourcing will create enormous number of jobs in India, and the first company to employ technology to teach quality English via language labs in franchised outlets across the bazaars of India will get rich. So, who is the coolie? Not the confident young person at the call centre with her liberated attitude to English, but Harish Trivedi, whose mind remains colonised in the old linguistic categories of post-colonial, pre-reform India (Das 2003).

Since 2003, we have had studies on call-centre work. What was so new to this nature of work? What attracted the middle-class youth? In 2004, Babu P. Remesh conducted a study of 277 respondents of whom 97 per cent were in the age category of 20–30. Remesh alerts us to the new-age ‘superior designations attached with BPO work’ where ‘nomenclatures such as customer care officer, call centre executive, customer care executive, contact centre representative, customer support executive, call centre executive and so on’ are used to refer to work which might be the ‘elevated’ ways of addressing work related to computer operator/receptionist, etc. In other words, such nomenclature helps the companies attract English-speaking graduates who are going to be part of a new ‘genre of workers’, distinct from ‘the regular workers of conventional manufacturing/service sectors in terms of socio-economic and demographic attributes’ (Remesh 2004: 493). This, in a way, reinstates the concern on the shift in the nature of jobs that migrated from the first world to the third world. In the early phases of globalisation, the manufacturing jobs moved from ‘industrialized economies’ to 12 For details, see the discussion of Harish Trivedi’s piece in a critique by Gurcharan Das (2003).

170  Beyond Kolkata

‘low cost locations in the third world; now it is primarily service jobs that are migrating’ (Upadhyay and Vasavi 2008: 12). Incidentally, one can note that the number of SEZs dedicated to the IT sector is phenomenal. Across India, 355 projects have received formal SEZ approvals, and there are 234 notified SEZs in the IT/ITeS/electronic hardware/semiconductor sector.13 The Economic Review of 2009–10 and 2010–11 reported on notified SEZ approvals in West Bengal of which eight were solely for IT/ ITeS (for details see Table 6.1). Of the three functional SEZs in West Bengal, WIPRO and Manikanchan SEZs are in Sector V. Both have reported an increase in exports from 2006–10 (See Table 6.2). The WIPRO SEZ was set up for software development and ITeS at Salt Lake Electronics City in Sector V, Salt Lake, Kolkata, at an approximate cost of Rs 1.25 million during the financial year 2005–6.14 Till November 2009, 6,517 people (male: 4,508, female: 2,009) were employed in the WIPRO SEZ.15 In Manikanchan SEZ (another zone in Sector V), a zone dedicated to gem and jewellery, 1,723 people (male: 1,701; female 22) were employed in November 2009.16 Table 6.1: List of Nine Notified SEZ Approvals Name of the developer 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

M L Dalmiya and Co. Ltd. Oval Developers Pvt. Ltd. Riverbank Holdings Pvt. Ltd. Enfield Exports Limited Shapoorji Palluji and Co. Ltd. Unitech Hi-Tech Structures Ltd. Bata India Limited Tata Consultancy Services DLF Limited

Location Kolkata South 24-Parganas South 24-Parganas Burdwan Kolkata Kolkata South 24-Parganas North 24-Parganas North 24-Parganas

Sector

Area (in hectare)

IT/ITeS Electronics IT/ITeS IT/ITeS IT/ITeS IT/ITeS IT/ITeS IT/ITeS IT/ITeS

48 12.14 10 29 20 10.00 10 16.19 10.12

Source: Annual Report, 2008–9, Commerce and Industries Department, Government of West Bengal in Economic Review (2009–10: 120).17 13 See the table on SEZs, Sector-wise Distribution in the web portal on SEZs in India, Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Department of Commerce, http://www.sezindia.nic.in/writereaddata/pdf/Sector-wise% 20distribution-SEZ.pdf (accessed on 12 November 2011). 14 See Transition from EPZ to SEZ in Shalti Research Group (2008). 15 http://www.fsez.gov.in/glance.html (accessed on 12 August 2011). 16 Ibid. 17 Ibid., note 11.

New Town, New Labour  171 Table 6.2: Exports through Functional SEZs in West Bengal (in Rs million) SEZ

2006–7

2007–8

2008–9

2009–10

Falta Manikanchan WIPRO Dalmiya & Co. Unitech High

9,980 101,847.00 23,857.00 – –

10,260.00 17,750.00 3,660.00 – –

9,612.80 29,816.70 6,344.20 – –

11,725.50 39,030.00 7,399.40 62.1 1,091.30

Total

2,25,504.00

31,670.00

45,773.40

59,308.30

Source: Annual Reports 2008–9 and 2009–10, Commerce and Industries Department, Government of West Bengal in Economic Review (2009–10, 2010–11).

One report stated that the Government of West Bengal was ‘focussed on developing SEZs in the state’ with the objective of ‘promoting rapid industrial development and employment generation’. SEZs are ways of creating a business-friendly policy régime through ‘full income tax exemption’ ‘available to profit making SEZs for first five years and fifty percent exemption for the next five years and further 50% exemption on ploughed-back profits for five years thereafter’ (Economic Review 2009–10). Industrial zones are being appropriated through ‘zoning’ techno-logies so that ‘cheap labour’ (unlike the days of plantation labour) need not migrate, as the industries have shifted base to locations of cheap labour and relaxed fiscal regulations. Given that the industries which are shifting base are primarily service-based industries, states are trying to attract investment in the IT/ITeS sector. For instance, in 2009–10, the Government of West Bengal had made a budget provision of Rs 250 million for development of appropriate infrastructure to support the expanding internal IT/ITeS market (Economic Review 2010–11). Spatially, Sector V is dotted with the high-rises of the major IT players, be it Cognizant Technology Services, TCS, or other firms. For instance, one of the IT landmarks of the eastern region is Infinity Building, which was the ‘first intelligent IT-empowered workspace in the Eastern Region in 2000 . . . that combined environmental values with a futuristic design and robust engineering’. The web portal of the Infinity Group also makes the following claims: ‘The significance of the special construction and design of infrastructure built by Infinity is the architectural ingenuity with a futuristic outlook incorporating features to assist the work

172  Beyond Kolkata

performance of the IT industry’.18 In other words, new workspaces are required for the new genre of work; hence, zoning technologies are appropriated to create new spaces of work and newer policies. Like Infinity, there are notable infrastructure parks in Sector V, under the Software Technology Park Scheme (initiated in 1991 to generate 100 per cent export-oriented growth), like the STP-I Complex in the SDF Building. The nodal office of the Software Technology Park (STP-I), Kolkata, is situated in Module Nos. 517 and 518 of the fourth floor of the SDF Building. In the first phase, STP-I offered 60,000 sq ft of built-up space (48 modules) to member units to start with. The second building — STP-II with 60,000-sq ft space — has been built by WEBEL. The other two infrastructure parks are the BIPPL complex in Sector V and DLF IT Park on 100 acres of land in Rajarhat.19 Other than these, Sector V houses restaurants, food parks and multiplex. A new parallel economy of consumption for this new genre of workers has grown. The success of Sector V as a ‘hub’ gradually spilled over to New Town as well. While Sector V was designated as the ‘industrial area’ of the township Salt Lake, New Town was conceived to be a site chosen as an ‘urban continuum’. Drawing from the Kolkata (earlier Calcutta) Metropolitan Development Authority, a project report by HIDCO stated: ‘Calcutta Metropolitan Authority’s population would reach 20 million and “it is only obvious that the urban continuum around the cities of Calcutta and Howrah would continue to grow”’.20 The report further stated that keeping in mind the growing population, the city needed two business centres: one on the eastern side of Calcutta and the other in Howrah. ‘The New Town at Calcutta offers a very good location for establishing a New Business District’. This new business district would be 5 km from the central area of Salt Lake which also functions as a business centre, 10 km from the Central Business District of Calcutta and 1 km from the airport.21 18 http://www.infinityitpark.in/?page_id=13 (accessed on 12 February 2010). 19 http://www.stpi-kolkata.in/profile.htm (accessed on 13 November 2011). 20 HIDCO Report, New Town, Calcutta Project Report, 1999, HIDCO, West Bengal, p. 4. Henceforth HIDCO Report. 21 Ibid., p. 5.

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The moment one enters New Town from the Sector V side, one sees three towers standing tall with DLF imprinted on them. This is the first IT landmark in Action Area I of New Town which is closest to Sector V and is registered under the Software Technology Park Scheme. The building has been designed by the renowned architect Hafeez Contractor. Currently, IBM and Genpact (already clients of DLF Commercial in Gurgaon) have started functioning from this IT landmark of New Town with a super built-up area of 1.3 million sq ft. This complex has three independent towers and a retail complex.22 Like the Infinity Group, DLF also insists that ‘the buildings will stand out as the new generation workplace’.23 Jeremy Myerson, in ‘New Work Spaces for the New Economy’, argues that in informational economy, transformational jobs have replaced transactional ones. Despite this shift, as far as the workspace is concerned, ‘we still seem stuck in the industrial age. The workspace template of the modern office is derived from the factory floor — indeed the white-collar workplace itself is a by-product of the conveyor belt’. Myerson argues that though there has been a shift from ‘process work’ to ‘knowledge work’, there has been less innovation in design of workspaces apart from a few structural changes (Myerson 2010). This article opens up interesting issues that concern the new-age economy — the shifting patterns of work, its implications on ‘workforce’ and the need of a workspace that would generate ‘collaborative work’. We shall have occasion to discuss further this development in the following chapter. What we clearly see is that the new-age economy is pushing the boundaries of work culture and this has resulted in the reconfiguration of not only a new workforce synonymous with ‘knowledge work’ but also of the way in which the labour force is recruited. Often, potential workers in the BPO industry in India are lured by way of the ‘portrayal of “work as fun” and “workplace as yet another campus”, that is, vibrant ambience of workplace — with sweeping glass and concrete buildings, factory row of jazzy computers, the company of smart and trendy peers’ (Remesh 2004, n 21). 22

http://www.dlf.in/dlf/wcm/connect/Offices/offices/offices/projects/ ˆÌ³Ãiâó>˜`³«>ÀŽÃÉ`v³ˆÌ³«>ÀŽ¯Ó ³ŽœŽ>Ì>ɜÛiÀۈiܳ`v³ˆÌ³«>ÀŽ³ kolkata (accessed on 11 November 2011). 23 Ibid.

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In fact, SS, as a leader in her team, is trying innovative ways to get her team together through surprise gifts to appreciate teamwork. SS has migrated to Kolkata to work with Capgemini. She is a senior consultant and, at the time when we interviewed her in 2010–11, she had a work shift from 1.30 p.m. to 10.30 p.m. She is under the UK Process and handles human resource issues of Capgemini employees in UK which she calls end-to-end sourcing. She is responsible for sourcing, recruiting, on-boarding, payroll services, and mobility services. In other words, her team in Kolkata is responsible for the learning and development services of UK Capgemini. A five-member team in Kolkata manages the entire HR account of 8,200 Capgemini employees. She indicates the possibility of growth as one of the members of her team was promoted to editor of the in-house news service and news edit. While she is happy with the institutional profile, she is not happy with the services that the city of Kolkata offers to its employees. She says at times even if she completes her work she has to depend on transport services offered by the office because of the lack of adequate transport facilities from Unitech IT/ITeS SEZ after 6 p.m. She thinks rapid urbanisation has not brought about a change in work; it has created a superficial style quotient without basic amenities and the worst part is that ‘people are complacent’. Despite being housed in eastern India’s largest IT SEZ, she does not have access to basic medical facilities in and around the workplace. She points at the lack of a chemist shop in the vicinity of New Town. She also adds that while Rajarhat has two malls, the idea of going to those malls for lunch is a nightmare if one does not have private transport. None of the 20 workers we interviewed (through a randomly distributed questionnaire outside the Unitech IT SEZ which is possibly the largest SEZ in eastern India) is aware of any organisation that is unionising IT/ITeS workers despite the functional West Bengal Information Technology Association (an attempt to organise workers from IT/ITeS in West Bengal). In fact, one of the interviewees who filled in the questionnaire wrote, ‘I would hate [it] if that happens’. Only one of the 20 interviewees who filled in the questionnaire mentioned an interest in knowing about unions working with the IT workforce. While there are grievances relating to infrastructure, lack of greenery and transport facilities beyond office transport, the workers said that they really liked the bright decor of the workplace. The cubicles with jazzy computers are the biggest point

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of attraction. Some pointed out that if they wanted they could avail of a gym and steam bath at a nominal cost of Rs 1,500 per month. One may say that the trans-national nature of ‘knowledge work’ has led to ‘liquification of labour’ (Upadhyay and Vasavi 2008: 20). Carol Upadhya and A. R. Vasavi have argued that while ‘capital is globally organized, labour becomes increasingly localized’. This is particularly true in the case of the precarious work conditions that confront the new genre of work; the changing roles and constant adaptation to the needs of the international division of labour has propelled the growth and expansion of off-shoring services in contrast to the on-shoring services of the informational economy, particularly ‘body-shopping’, through which high-skilled IT workers are recruited by Silicon Valley companies. Now, companies are shifting base, as zoning technologies and availability of infrastructure in the cities-in-making, like Rajarhat New Town, need clean industries to sustain city spaces. In view of all these, is New Town then about new forms of work through new zoning practices? The answer to this question is not easy, for, Sector V and New Town are (not) the workplaces of only cyber-coolies. Narratives of the peripheral workforce of Sector V and New Town tell us of the informal work arrangements in the form of domestic work, street food-vending, etc., as vibrant livelihood opportunities. These livelihood opportunities, particularly street food-vending, have always made it to the headlines as polemics against illegal occupation of city pavements across metros, including Kolkata. These narratives, some of which we place later, tell us also how zoning practices have affected informal work arrangements and the coping strategies of the informal workers. What is interesting, and significant, is how the informal work arrangements actually produce a city of contrasts: a discontinuity in this seamless image of urban continuum.

Labour in Transit The story of the making of New Town can be viewed as a story of labour in transit — labour temporarily involved in the creation of new-generation workspaces after which the labourer has to leave. In this sense, the narrative of construction workers is not only a story of migration, but one that is embedded in the temporal process of production. The construction workers in New Town are

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mainly from Murshidabad, Bongaon and the Sunderbans. Most of them migrate to Kolkata for construction work for shorter durations (say, three months) and go back to their respective towns and villages during the time of harvest. During the time of our field visits, most of the workers were found to be from Murshidabad, ready to leave the project sites as the mango harvest season was approaching. Jahirul Sheikh (a subcontractor), 54 years old, is from Chakpachuria mauza, police station Lalgola. He has been a veteran in this field. He started working in his early 20s. He recalls accompanying people from his native town to various places for construction work. He learned to work on the job site. He joined a project site in Rajarhat on 6 January 2010 after completing work in Kolkata. There are 2,526 workers of around 25–30 years of age from his village and nearby areas who work under him. He mentions that ‘in this line of work’, workers below the age of 18 are not allowed. ‘The minimum wage a worker in this line of work receives is Rs 150 per day and the maximum is Rs 225 per day, you work in a team’ which includes Rs 50 as food allowance. Mostly, companies create provisions for makeshift shelter camps in close proximity to the project area, because work starts at around 8 a.m. on most project sites in Rajarhat. The tea break is between 10.30– 11.00 a.m. followed by a lunch break at 12 p.m. The afternoon tea break is from 3.00 to 3.30 p.m. Workers prefer to cook their dinner at the labour camps. Usually, each group is headed by a labour sardar followed by a munshi who looks after the accounts.24 Most of the workers in the construction sector are migrant labourers. Golam Mostafa is from the Uluberia police station area in Howrah district and has been working in a construction site as a carpenter along with 30–50 other workers.25 Not only are migrant workers working as construction labourers but also as street vendors. A series of shops have come up in front of the DLF building. One of the street vendors who did not want to disclose his identity said that he had paid money to some people to set up an eatery there. Shops lined on this row sell momo, dosa, biryani and even sweets. Another person, a sweetshop vendor, commutes daily from Naihati (roughly 40 km from Kolkata) to Rajarhat to sell sweets. He buys sweets from various 24 25

Interview with Jahirul Sheikh, 10 February 2011. Interview with Golam Mostafa, 20 February 2011.

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sweet shops across Naihati and commutes every day to sell them from his makeshift stall.26 He opens his stall at around 11.30 a.m. and winds up at around 6 p.m. As one reaches the Bengal Unitech building (one of the largest IT SEZs), a series of tea shops and eateries owned by the dispossessed come into view. Most of these street vendors run the risk of losing their livelihood as they have set up shops on HIDCO-acquired land. One of the tea-shop owners in that lane said most of the lands under the New Town project area were wetlands. Initially, they hired local people to fill them. ‘We were paid Rs 3,000–3,500 per month. We did it because it was a lot of money for us.’27 Another person who now runs a makeshift eatery to serve lunch for Rs 20–30 also echoed the same feeling. He added that most of the locals either work in these makeshift eateries or work as coolies. Those who have been lucky and had contacts, work as small-scale labour contractors. According to him, hardly any local resident participated in the construction work as it was a semi-skilled job. ‘We had lands and we know how to grow crops; it is difficult for us to train ourselves to work as construction workers.’28

Workforce on the Periphery of a Dream There are small hutments, each carrying the name of an acquired mauza. Cutting across Action Areas I, II and III, these hutments are symbols of local power and control over the construction industry. These hutments with signboards saying ‘Land Losers Cooperative’ are part of the 55 cooperative societies organised and registered with HIDCO. These registered societies function out of these hutments. The moment a construction company builds its office, people from these cooperatives come in to supply the requirements for construction. Across West Bengal, this sort of cooperative is known as a ‘syndicate’, through which local people are involved in the supply of raw material. It is believed that people with political connections become part of these syndicates. As one of the 26

Interview with sweet-shop vendor, 10 August 2010 and 10 February 2011; this kind of vending is common in old office neighbourhoods (Dalhousie) of Kolkata. 27 Interview with AA (requested anonymity), 4 February 2011. 28 Interview with BB (requested anonymity), 6 February 2011.

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civil engineers who has worked in various parts of West Bengal commented: In Rajarhat, the raw materials are not exorbitantly priced and in case of bad quality, we can return the raw materials. We have not been harassed. The syndicates are neatly organised and one syndicate is restricted to supplying raw material to one area.29

We have indicated earlier a point that bears reiteration. The land cooperatives were set up with the help of the government and the party and were ‘registered’. Some of them later came to be called syndicates. There was another kind of beast, however, that also came to be known as syndicates, but these had no formal recognition under law. These were groups that were set up for the same purposes by locally influential or powerful people who had in tow armies of local youth who provided irresistible muscle power. Over time the distinction between the cooperatives and the syndicates became blurred until legal, paralegal and illegal became inextricably intertwined. In other words, the accounts of labouring on the fringes of the New Town economy show the ways in which an alternative (parallel) economy has emerged alongside the three predominant malls that service Rajarhat: Axis Mall, Home Town, and City Centre II. The parallel economy is further visible in the transport system, with pool cars often ferrying passengers to the main centres of Kolkata at a rate of Rs 10–30 per passenger depending on distance. The struggles for survival in the parallel economy, which is not legally sanctioned, are multifarious as evident in the struggle of the Nabadiganta Pariseba Samity (NPS) in Sector V. Sector V is as much about the success story of the software and back office professionals, as it is the story of street vendors who are trying to eke out a living and participate in the newly changing space. In Sector V, a section of the street vendors are organised and their makeshift shops bear signboards which proclaim that they are affiliated to NPS, the registered society of street vendors in Sector V. Each shop owner has an identity card authorised by the Nabadiganta Industrial Authority. It carries the following details 29

Interview with CC (requested anonymity), 10 August 2010.

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of each shop: stall number, type of stall30 and is valid for one year. Surajit Mondal, one such shop owner, shared with us the difficulties and obstacles NPS members continue to face despite being registered. While they have been able to tackle the problem of extortion of by local goons, after the issue of ID cards they are still constantly evicted and asked to shift around. One shopkeeper, who opens his shop only during lunch time, said that the authorities should realise that they are not familiar with computers and this is their only source of livelihood. Despite being organised, they said they faced the constant peril of being evicted. Currently, they run their shops close to the State Fisheries Development Corporation’s outlet. Mondal recalls that they had made repeated appeals for vacant land.31 At one point, there were talks of mobile kiosks which would be distributed among the street vendors and they had drawn up a list of shops which were more than three years old and had been operating in Sector V; but nothing came of it. He further emphasises that when they are asked to move from one place to another they suffer a loss of Rs 20,000, which is the minimum cost for setting up a makeshift shop these days. The association has made repeated appeals for a permanent solution, even as its members continue to live in danger of constant eviction by the police. Also, a company may conjure up reasons for considering the vendors vending outsides its gates a menace or there may be an impending visit of a VIP to Sector V, and an eviction drive would start. While NPS stalls contribute to the everyday functioning of Sector V professionals, they remain a peripheral labour force. The situation is neither one of being under capitalist surveillance of the kind that exists over the coffee shops, restaurants and food courts that line every street in Sector V, nor is it under state surveillance of the kind that exists over the restaurant and kiosk run by the State Fisheries Development Corporation. In other words, the peripheral workforce is constituted by the ‘local’ villagers now dispossessed of their agrarian livelihood and forced to come up with alternative occupations. They may form syndicates and supply raw materials to construction sites while the construction lasts; open tea shops and other small shops (on already acquired land) which are constantly under the threat of eviction; or work as ‘service’ providers, primarily as domestic helps. 30 31

B: Big stall of 3’/8’; S: Small Stall of 3’/6’. Interview with Surajit Mondal on June 2010 and February 2011.

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The peripheral economy that emerges around the IT hubs and new city spaces are shot through with such a transitory nature of work. While, on the one hand, contract work arrangements within multinational corporations gain prominence, on the other, the villagers are forced to look for alternative occupations to facilitate larger development with the aid of private capital. ‘Service villages’ form the third segment of New Town’s workforce. What are these ‘service villages’? As the HIDCO report says: There will be service villages at different parts of the New Town. The service villages will provide facilities for work and living for the service. The location of the service villages will be near the existing settlements within the project area.32

In a study in 2008, on clusters of existing settlements in the New Town project area, the Central Planning Wing identified 16 clusters of existing settlements surrounded by New Town. The main concern of the latter study was to ensure planned development in all these cluster settlements which were formerly identified as service villages. The report clearly indicated that the urbanisation of these cluster settlements, which were spread across 14 mauzas, would follow a different pattern compared to the existing land-use pattern of New Town project area. In the case of New Town, HIDCO had the right to procure land, provide infrastructure and, according to its master plan, allocate land for different uses like ‘residential, business, mercantile (retail), educational, institutional etc’. However, the development of these clusters would be in the hands of ‘partly . . . the owners of the plot, and largely . . . promoters/developers who are in the process of procuring land by direct purchase or through obtaining development right.’ Hence, the study urged the development of adequate infrastructure planning required for a projected population of 175,000. This report indicated the threat that these clusters posed to the closely engineered and monitored growth of New Town. For instance, in Baliguri village, an existing settlement in the New Town project area, we met a few women who were chopping vegetables. They said, ‘In earlier days, we could have given you some vegetables but now we only have only a few brinjal (egg plant) trees left.’ There was a young girl in that group. At the time, she 32

HIDCO Report, New Town, Calcutta Project Report, 1999.

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was studying in Class IX of Bhatinda School. When we asked her what she foresaw as her future in this new town, she looked up and pointed at the high-rises; her mother worked as a domestic servant in three households in Akansha, Hiland, and her father had died in an accident while unloading land-filling material from a truck. To this her grandmother added that her mother was a brave woman. She toiled hard to earn a living. She told us that one of her sons had died while working as a painter on one of the high-rise sites. His wife was pregnant when he passed away. To which the girl added that New Town was good for people who could make money. She proudly declared, ‘One of my maternal uncles is a land dealer. He has been able to make money’.33 HIDCO claims it has been able to initiate rehabilitation programmes through various job-oriented schemes; till September 2010, a sum of nearly Rs 20 million was spent to implement several wage and self-employment schemes for the land-losers in the adjacent areas.34 Table 6.3 discusses the various schemes made available to the local people. Table 6.3: Training and Employment Opportunity of Local People as part of Rehabilitation Programme by the Government Training   

Total beneficiaries already trained in different trades No. of beneficiaries to be trained shortly No. of programmes covered

3,259 50 63

Employment Opportunity     

No. of cooperative societies organised and registered No. of land-losers involved No. of self-help groups formed No. of persons involved No. of trades involved in SHG groups

55 2835 70 881 11

Source: Economic Review (2010–11: 279).

While claims and counter-claims revolve around land acquisition in New Town, this much is true: that New Town is also a city in transit where labour forces are neatly divided into zones and there is minimal exchange between groups. With securitisation of 33

Interview with CC, DD, EE on 6 February 2011. See Education, Health, Environment and Housing in Economic Review (2010–11: 279). 34

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worksites and constant monitoring and surveillance, the workforce there has no sense of a collective community. How do we understand the divergence produced by the labouring forces of New Town when each workforce is neatly sectored in its comfort zone? What kind of labour force is New Town producing? To conclude, New Town is ‘an agglomeration of productive forces built by labour employed within a temporal process of circulation of capital’ (Harvey 1989: 229). Temporariness marks each category of labour that contributes to the making and functioning of the city. This makes such city spaces unique production sites with which the workforce engages for not more than three years in the IT sectors and not more than six months in the construction sector. These two segments subjected to short duration surveillance are again different from that formed by the street vendors who are constantly subjected to state surveillance. So, while HIDCO and Nabadiganta Industrial Authority have managed to create an organised space of development where workers, cutting across sections, participate in the creation of the mythic-idyllic image of a ‘global’ citizen through the labours of a homogeneous worker who is willing to work and produce across different time zones and the mall worker who sells durables and goods completely alien to his local surrounding, the tension and the rift between the local and global continues to operate as the new city appears to exist as an assimilation of people in transit; with local people living with the persistent anxiety of being displaced and dispossessed of their livelihoods. New labour in New Town will be largely transit labour. Therefore the question: what kind of subjectivity will the New Town produce? What will be the relation of the new urban subject with the ‘original violence’ (in the making of the new town) which we had referred to earlier? To all these and related questions we will shall return in the last chapter. We shall do so by once again working on historical material relating to Rajarhat, this time of a different type. But before that we shall for one last time look at the big frame in which Rajarhat with its zoning dynamics made its appearance in this century. We shall review briefly the global and national histories of Rajarhat.

7 The Global and National Histories of Rajarhat Global History of the New Town Through what we have discussed we can already form an idea of the larger pre-history of the new town. We have seen how Kolkata was problematised, how expansion of the city became the leitmotif in discussions of rulers, administrators, town planners, architects, and social scientists, and how this coincided with the emergence of new technologies of production and governance, and that of a class of new professionals. We have also seen how the most advanced form of capital called for primitive and brutal methods to become operational. Thus, land grab, wheeling and dealing, coercion, deployment of a type of political machinery called the party, administrative fiat, physical violence — all these became the route through which people were dispossessed. We have also briefly discussed how old special kinds of townships such as company town or industrial town had paved the way for the policy to create the ‘New Town’ — a city, yet not a city, urban space, yet a disembodied space. Finally, we also referred to the fact that the characteristically neo-liberal, self-satisfied style of life called for new life modes, one of which was to be achieved through the creation of the new town as both generic and brand form of this life. However, this relational view of the origins of the new town will not be adequate unless we devote some more time to see how the creation of a new town in Rajarhat is only in the order of things, given the way such new spaces have come up in various parts of the world, and cities in India have been in transition in the last 30 years to accommodate neo-liberal economics and style of living. In some senses, all modern (by which we mean twentieth century) stories of accomplishment and satisfaction begin with

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American narratives. The US story of Silicon Valley and Highway 101 is now well known. As the business historian Martin Kenney described it, Silicon Valley became the first ‘entrepreneurial region’ with a combination of defence spending, university connections, venture capital industry, and new law firms — without which technological advance and forming and developing trust among scientists, engineers and software personnel would not be possible.1 Silicon Valley became known as a space for new technologies and new firms, with achievements in computer networking, development of semiconductors, personal computing, and the internet. Social scientists from varied disciplines — business, geography, history, regional planning, and sociology — have examined the history, development and entrepreneurial dynamics of Silicon Valley. Its early roots were linked back to the founding of the federal telegraph in 1908. The period of post-war defence expenditure followed this and was marked with a growing relation with Stanford University, whose close relations with the defence industry and research became a critical factor in the region’s growth. Various supporting institutions played their part. Law firms facilitated formation of new companies and the evolution of venture capital industry. They also ensured labour mobility, which became crucial, and close inter-firm relationships. Thus, theories floated around Silicon Valley as an ecosystem of interacting institutions, individuals and a culture that nurtured entrepreneurship based on performance, new ideas, talent, and what is believed as most important today, namely, institutions specialising in new firm formations in order to foster technological advances. All these factors remained in the growing trend towards forming new towns as a way towards creating an entrepreneurial region. But some more factors were added in the process. Hi-tech urban spaces created a logic of their own. In the West, such spaces appeared from the late 1970s, coinciding with the transition from a Fordist economy to what came to be called a ‘knowledge-centred economy’. An entrepreneurial region would now create and call for a symbolic language, namely, that of a distinct style, global linkage, ample space, generous greenery, and high service standards of a classy consumer society. An entrepreneurial region would now include science parks that would not only have a particular spatial 1 There are a large number of business books on Silicon Valley. One of the most insightful ones is Martin Kenney (2000).

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form and content, but built on the fringe of a city would emphasise hereafter images of the future: spatial inequality, social hierarchies and a gated existence to an unparalleled degree. Hi-tech spaces now called for new townships, but not out there in the wilderness, rather on the city’s margin, to draw on its resources in the name of urban replanning, development of infrastructure, attracting urban knowledge and talent, etc. In Europe — the Netherlands, France, the United Kingdom, and Finland — these became the centre stage for the next phase of the emergence of the new town. Not everywhere was innovation to be the hallmark of such a distinct existence, but it was assumed that a Silicon Valley-like atmosphere and spatial ecology was needed for the economy of the late twentieth century. If you need a push for the economy, create a silicon valley of your own, which must now be a complete town-in-existence today. At the same time, it would be good to remember that the emergence of each such new town also coincided with the demise of an old or several old towns — in other words, the constellation of sunrise industries marking the time of the decline, and in many cases deaths, of towns featured by sunset industries. It happened in the United States, it happened in India too. The 1990s, when Rajarhat’s story of a new township began, were also the years in West Bengal when the entire manufacturing belt from Baranagar to Barrackpur saw the decline and ruination of old small towns. But these were also the years when the city became the explicit focus of international development programmes. If economies were to grow, then the city as a spatial design would lead the process, and, therefore, all developmental attention should now be on the city.2 This line of thinking also impacted on inter-place relations. As a result, new spaces were constituted — all that we have seen in Rajarhat. Newer areas became gentrified, and the process of gentrification was associated with two ideas or names or concepts, technology and knowledge. It is in this way the spatial division of labour was reconfigured. Doreen Massey tells us of the way the science park in Cambridge began.3 In this classic science park model, there was a linear argument: research must precede innovation, and invention and innovation must precede production. There was in fact a specific 2 3

On this, see Antipode (2002); see also Sassen (1991) and Massey (2005). In addition to Massey (2005), see also Massey (2008).

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regulation that no production beyond the experimental could take place on-site. In this kind of new moral geographies, association with certain ideas became crucial. Thus, although Cambridge inherently had no virtue to offer to the new space that was being created, association with a great university was considered an asset for beginning a science park. It would attract investment. But soon it was felt that science parks were not enough. It was argued that full-size cities were needed — cities, hi-tech areas profitable for real estate investment and development. UK began the policy of public–private partnership, in which the public authority, often the local municipal authority, bore the risk and hence succumbed to the pressure of private developers who would be in a hurry to fill in the space not always with developmental projects, but entertainment and other kinds of projects as well, ostensibly necessary for a new production environment. Thus, civic authorities would, on the one hand, lose out on revenues by subsidising property development and declaring all kinds of exemptions and tax holidays for these new spaces, on the other, they would be under increased pressure to develop infrastructure to pre-empt development elsewhere. In this way, knowledge and technology were inscribed in the political economy of the city in the late twentieth century. Science parks became business and a science park was created in Twente, the Netherlands, where the university again played a crucial role. Here, too, hi-tech firms were sited at a location near the University of Twente, giving rise to the myth of ‘campus, coffee, and creativity’ (Hospers and Tongeren 2007). The university wanted cost-sharing, improvement in its sports, laboratories and other facilities; in return, it offered land and talent. Thus, only research and development firms with high value addition were welcome. The local municipality, however, was anxious that this way of development would soon result in unequal spaces. The university and the firms argued that with a combined science and business park, the entire region would gain. And, with the Lisbon declaration of the European Union (March 2000), which called for the European economy to become the foremost and competitive knowledge economy in the world, the idea of business and science parks received a boost. The municipality fell in line. The university rented its office space and classroom facilities by the hour. Interaction between academics and company researchers intensified in the fields occupied by small and medium enterprises, particularly devoted

The Global and National Histories of Rajarhat  187

to nanotechnology. The group, according to one estimate, had a turnover of 3 million euros in the early part of this century (ibid.: 85). Twente became symbolic of the idea of ‘a creative city’ — a space for the rise of what Florida calls the creative class4 — although later accounts tell of the adverse impact when the internet bubble burst. Interestingly, Florida’s creative class is now not identified in terms of education, but type of jobs. Mainly two types of jobs are identified — a super-creative core of engineers, graphic designers, information and communication technology professionals, musicians, writers, and twitters; and the second type made up of professionals (technicians, financial, commercial, and legal experts) in charge of implementing the ideas of the first group. And if creativity was the new imperative in the economy, a new style of life had to be provided by cities in order to attract creative people. The Netherlands’s fairly balanced geography with large-scale agglomerates spread evenly (around the aeropolis of Schiphol in Amsterdam, the administrative capital in Hague, and the port in Rotterdam), provided fertile ground for the development of science and business parks in the country’s in-between open spaces dotted with small towns and cities.5 We have to remember that this trend towards finding out new spaces of accumulation — at times away from the city, at times hanging onto its coat-tails — had its counter-image in the process of old, celebrated cities being cleaned of industries and labour. Thus, even a historic city like Geneva would have almost no site of production, but all possible sites of consumption. In this sense, it could be regarded as the ultimate haven of runaway capital, centre of speculation, tourism, international management of politics, oil, money and commerce, and illegal labour for petty jobs, but strictly speaking no production — in the process giving the canton and the city municipal administration plenty of money (that is, rentinduced income) to cheer about. The municipal administration would keep on beautifying the city, banishing labour altogether. 4 Florida (2002) speaks of the creative class and innovative cities, and a meeting of the two. 5 For a summary of the Dutch experiment, see Wever and Stam (1998). On the research collaboration between industry, university and the government, see the experiences of an Indian scientist at the University of Twente (Bagchi 2012).

188  Beyond Kolkata

So, when we ask the crucial postcolonial question ‘Are our cities becoming bourgeois at last?’ we have to remember that the bourgeois city is also changing, effecting the final separation between work and leisure. It is at this juncture that we have the latest turn in the urban narrative. The neo-liberal idea of the city is to regain the lost union in the form of a new space that will combine ‘creative work’ with a new style of living. In any case, let us go back to the precedents of this policy of setting up a special city to promote business. The same phenomenon we had seen in the case of the Netherlands reinforced itself and even got strengthened in the French experiment in the form of spatial planning in the country through the strategies developed by the National Agency for Spatial Planning and Regional Action in France. Thus, a number of research laboratories, national industrial firms and higher educational institutions had been earlier relocated in Grenoble, Nice or Toulouse in order to correct what was perceived as a historical imbalance in France in the form of the dominance of the city of Paris and the region over other areas in the country. Thus, the government took the initiative in relocations and regional initiatives. Hi-tech activities developed amidst all these near Paris (in the south of the city) too, plus in a few other old industrial areas. It was as if new economic spaces had been superimposed on Fordist geography. One ‘technopole’ came up in the southern part of the Paris agglomeration. Brenner noted a few years back how in the wake of competition-oriented public strategies in terms of deployment of public funds, what is termed as ‘spatial Keynesianism’ went out of favour (Brenner 2004). Thus, the idea was no longer to have a city with hi-tech firms among others, but a city of hi-tech firms. The French called it the ‘scientific city’. In the south of Paris, therefore, while new firms located themselves with accompanying new ways of life, separate centres came up in Sophia-Antipolis near Nice, and Grenoble, an old industrial area. These, one should not rush to conclude, meant that three regions thus developed. But three centres developed with their specifics of accumulation, which were clearly global in dynamics and had less to do with regional development. In short, hi-tech activity (including research and innovation industries) often located themselves on the margin of the central city, either in older suburbs or in further peripheral areas with sprawling residential housing, rooftop terraces, extensive use of glass, artificially landscaped hillocks,

The Global and National Histories of Rajarhat  189

and grasslands. The suburban landscape would now be featured with industrial parks and green environment. These included telecoms, robotics, electronics, research and development activities, accounting firms, application firms, life-sciences firms (including those dealing with biotechnologies), and specialised educational institutions. Sophia-Antipolis came up 25 km outside Nice, covering an area of 4,000 ha. We can see how in Rajarhat HIDCO wanted to use the same model. Yet HIDCO missed the essential point of the French experience, namely, that all these resulted from deliberate public policies, well thought-out plans and coordination of policies on housing, regional development, innovation activities, higher education, and regional development, opening up to hitherto unconnected other areas and regions. Inviting moneybags was only one element, which seemed to have been the main component of the Rajarhat experiment. In Rajarhat, it was thought that all these could be achieved only by providing land to the moneybags. Compensation, rehabilitation, etc., were minor irritants for HIDCO to be disposed of with some amount of money and coercion by a large number of party cadres and local bosses. In some sense, of course the idea of a special place of production and living in the form of a new town as opposed and juxtaposed to the old town has longer lineage. Edinburgh has been the Scottish capital since the fifteenth century. It has two distinct areas: the Old Town, dominated by a medieval fortress, and the neoclassical New Town, whose development from the eighteenth century onwards has had far-reaching influence on European urban planning. It is argued that the juxtaposition of these two contrasting historic areas, each with many important buildings, is harmonious and is what gives the city its unique character. A UNESCO site informs us with pride of the city of Edinburgh: The remarkable juxtaposition of two clearly articulated urban planning phenomena. The contrast between the organic medieval Old Town and the planned Georgian New Town provides clarity of urban structure unrivalled in Europe. The juxtaposition of these two distinctive townscapes, each of exceptional historic and architectural interest, which are linked across the landscape divide, the “great area” of Sir Walter Scott’s Waverley Valley, by the urban viaduct, North Bridge, and by the Mound, creates the outstanding urban landscape . . . The Old Town is characterized by the survival of the little-altered medieval “fishbone” street pattern of narrow closes, winding routes, and

190  Beyond Kolkata courts leading off the spine formed by the High Street, the broadest, longest street in the Old Town, with a sense of enclosed space derived from its width, the height of the buildings lining it, and the small scale of any breaks between them. The New Town, constructed between 1767 and 1890 as a collection of seven new towns on the glacial plain to the north of the Old Town, is framed and articulated by an uncommonly high concentration of planned ensembles of . . . world-class, neo-classical buildings, associated with renowned architects, including John and Robert Adam, Sir William Chambers, and William Playfair. Contained and integrated with the townscape are gardens, designed to take full advantage of the topography, while forming an extensive system of private and public open spaces. The New Town is integrated with large green spaces. It covers a very large area, is consistent to an unrivalled degree, and survives virtually intact . . . reflecting its continuing status as the capital of Scotland since 1437, and a major centre of thought and learning in the 18th century Age of Enlightenment, with its close cultural and political links with mainland Europe . . . Work on the New Town began in 1752 with the project of the architects John Adam and James Craig, consisting of a rectangular plan with a residential function and a commercial zone in Prince’s Street. In 1789, Robert Adam planned the Old College, the University of Edinburgh, which was completed by William Playfair, and extended to an enlarged profile by Sir Rowand Anderson, in 1879. The town was subsequently expanded to the north, when in 1822 Gillespie Graham harmonized the two contrasting historic areas, each with many important buildings, to give the city its unique character.6

National History of the New Town In any case, we have to understand that what is crucial in all these instances is the importance of the ‘specific historical paths’ (Halberd 2007: 142). These historical paths are not only country-specific, but also region-specific. For example, new industrial spaces emerged in South Korea in a different way. In Malaysia, export-processing zones evolved into industrial clusters. In Haldia, this did not happen, contrary to the expectations of some observers. In Bangalore, again, the route has been different. Yet, in the mirror of globalisation all these appear similar. What we forget are the numerous 6

http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/728 (last accessed on 3 April 2011).

The Global and National Histories of Rajarhat  191

specific ways of linking up with the globe. Neither the West Bengal government nor HIDCO appeared to be aware of this reality. Even their study of the China story (of Nanjing, Guangzhou and Shanghai) seems to have been rudimentary or absent. In Delhi, the trick was to start a national capital region, which meant, at the least, investing huge amounts of money — diverted partly from other areas of national priority — in developing infrastructure, removing old ‘polluting’ industries to the outskirts, developing land, ‘checking desertification’, massive tree planting, and providing water supply, resulting in an astonishing rise in real estate prices. IT and IT-enabled firms gained as a result. Also, what began as the BPO industry gradually became the ‘knowledge process outsourcing’ industry, with locative facility, advantage and attraction. Both Gurgaon and Noida prospered. Gurgaon became the most developed satellite town of Delhi. The Haryana State Development Corporation developed the industrial and commercial areas in phases. Land provision for SEZs increased from 1,715 acres to 3,000 acres. Office space rentals increased from Rs 57 per sq ft in 1998 to Rs 75 per sq ft in 2003 and Rs 150 per sq ft in 2011.7 Workers’ agitations, however, often shut gates at SEZ complexes, and the growth of shanty settlements have been part of this process. It seems that Gurgaon was the model for the Rajarhat New Town planners. One can find many similarities in the two cases — more emphasis on SEZs, commercial property complexes, roads, malls, and less research and innovation activities and firms. The big name of DLF shines on both skies. But, as mentioned, Gurgaon also became the site of workers’ struggles against the new companies. The following narratives of strikes, lock-outs and conflicts between management and workers, all taken from the same report, will serve well to provide the flavour of class conflict in a shiny new town. The struggle in Gurgaon began in 2008 around a dispute over recognition of unions at two companies (Auto Rico and Sunbeam) 7 Figures from www.indiaproperty.com and www.99acres.com/load/ propertydescription?PROP_ID . . . from (both accessed on 15 April 2011); in fact, as one report says, Realty top contributor to Delhi’s GDP, adding Rs 1 lakh crore to Delhi’s GDP of Rs 2.58 lakh crore in 2010–11 (The Statesman, 23 May 2011).

192  Beyond Kolkata

and a three-year wage agreement at another (Honda HMSI). The disputes lasted for more than a month, between mid-September and the end of October 2009. After a Rico worker was killed, the union called a one-day strike and 80,000 to 100,000 workers joined the strike, which had an adverse impact on production sites and schedules at General Motors and Ford in the US due to lack of parts. Rico Auto Limited had started its Gurgaon branch in 1994. It is one of the largest ferrous and aluminium foundries, supplying diecast components to the automobile sector, such as auto parts for Hero Honda, Honda, Suzuki, Bajaj, Maruti Suzuki, Ford, General Motors, Nissan, Volvo, Jaguar, Tata, and Land Rover. In Gurgaon, Rico had 3,600 permanent workers and around 1,500 casual workers. The salary structure of the employees was very low. Permanent employees with two to six years’ experience were paid Rs 4,500 a month, whereas casual workers with the same experience were paid Rs 3,800–Rs 4,000 per month. The conflict involved demands for higher wages, but, expectedly, the point of tension was the demand for the registration of a trade union. Rico reacted by suspending 16 workers. The management looked for a head-on collision to settle the question of power once and for all. The suspension of 16 union representatives was a way of provoking a reaction and to get the ‘trouble-makers’ out of the plant: On 21 September 2009, about 5,000 workers were not allowed to enter the factory premises and were forced to sit outside the gate as the management said the factory was on lockout from 21 September 2009. It was an undeclared lockout, declared on the same date when the first batch of around 1,500 workers had gone to work at 6 a.m. The workers refused to listen. The police force, along with security guards and musclemen employed by the company, lathi-charged the workers. Unrest spread thereafter to other industrial units. The Honda HMSI plant was affected by the disputes at Rico and Sunbeam due to lack of parts. The Honda workers union and Honda management were in the process of negotiating a three-year wage agreement. On 10 October 2009, the management announced that production at the plant was down by more than 50 per cent and that the new line for vehicles — the third one since production began — had failed to take off. It said that the company had suffered a loss of around Rs 2,500 million. On 27 October 2009, the union and management entered into an agreement on a threeyear wage contract, including a ‘performance-reward’ scheme.

The Global and National Histories of Rajarhat  193

The global linkages in this workers’ unrest is significant, as global as the New Town model is. The United Auto Workers (UAW, a US trade union) representative is said to have said that their companies were experiencing the effects of obstacles faced by outsourced suppliers and quick resumption of production was essential for their companies’ survival. This explains the management’s urge to enter into long-term wage agreements with workers, whereby it would be able to divide the workforce (permanent workers, who represent only 20 per cent of the workforce, are mainly attached to the union and long-term contract sphere); and, second, to channel the conflict into open, legal and therefore controllable paths. We have to remember that in Gurgaon, four major assembly plants, churning out two-thirds of India’s passenger cars and two-wheelers, depend on more or less the same suppliers. Hence, the contradictory aspects of the Gurgaon model: (a) huge concentration of workers which would invariably lead to concentrated presence of workers and consequential unrest; and (b) this unrest being quickly negotiated by splitting workers into regular and contract-based ‘irregular’ and by entering into an agreement with the regular workforce.8 Meanwhile, capital is moving in from other directions as well. Just as capital moved from ‘sunset’ to ‘sunrise’ industries three decades earlier across India, capital has now started moving in from older ‘sunrise’ lands to newer lands endowed with more infrastructure and more public support. This is happening globally as well. Let us keep in mind the programme of developing the National Capital Region (NCR)9 resulting in its fabulous property market, and then read the following report on Gurgaon: NEW DELHI, 30 MAY: Bangalore may lose its crown of India’s tech Eden to Gurgaon and Noida in the national capital region which are 8

Gurgaon Workers’ Unrest, Gurgaon Workers News, November 2009, http://sanhati.com/articles/1896/ (accessed on 30 April 2011). The same report presents a list of events of three months, which gives us an idea of the combustible energy that the presence of a huge mass of workers produces, and which therefore a new town wants to avoid by housing only select industries. 9 The plan allocation for 2011 in the Union budget for the Urban Development Ministry is Rs 68,552.30 million; from this budget grants are made for the development of the NCR; besides, four states — Delhi (heart of the NCR), Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, and Rajasthan — also coordinate their urban development programmes according to the design of the NCR.

194  Beyond Kolkata steadily becoming preferred destinations for companies offering IT, ITes, BPO and other similar services in various domains such as banking, financial services, insurance, pharmaceuticals, auto, FMCG and manufacturing. The findings of a just-concluded survey undertaken by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) show that Bangalore is losing its sheen due to crumbling infrastructure, compelling many companies to head towards more convenient and industrialfriendly centres. Leading IT and ITeS vendors prefer to shift their focus from Bangalore to other cities — especially the satellite cities of Gurgaon and Noida — to generate more revenues, it said. “The growth explosion in Bangalore has pushed the city towards a serious civic crisis,” said Assocham secretary general, Mr DS Rawat. “Roads choked with vehicles, frequent power outages, erratic water supply and poor sanitation are tough problems on account of which Bangalore is losing its lustre to rapidly-developing Gurgaon and Noida,” he said. Assocham interacted with around 800 directors, CEOs, CFOs, chairmen and managing directors of Indian and multinational companies in various verticals with a choice of five cities to relocate their businesses to garner more revenues. As many as 30 per cent top-ranked officials of IT companies based out of Bangalore said they prefer to shift their business to Gurgaon. Of the remaining, 25 per cent respondents said that they would prefer to shift their base to Noida or Greater Noida which are rapidly developing software and BPO hubs. About 20 per cent said that they would prefer to shift their base to Chandigarh which offers a conducive business environment. Nearly 15 per cent of respondents said that they prefer Pune to operate from where a large number of IT companies are running their operations. The remaining 10 per cent of respondents said they will prefer to relocate their business to Hyderabad. “Gurgaon’s cosmopolitan culture, modern infrastructure, availability of skilled workforce, closeness to Delhi along with industry-friendly government policies are the factors which gives it an edge over Bangalore,” said Mr Rawat.10

Another Indian example of a new town is Gachibowli, on the outskirts of Hyderabad. C. Ramachandriah and Sheela Prasad tell us 10 IT Cos Prefer Gurgaon, Noida to Bangalore, Statesman News Service, The Statesman, 31 May 2011.

The Global and National Histories of Rajarhat  195

the story of the makeover of Hyderabad and ask: Is it the model IT city? (Ramachandriah and Prasad 2008). They argue that these new towns are post-metropolis in conception and the cyber-city is actually a new urban form. They show how a cyber-city mediates everyday urban life, how it creates more inegalitarian urban spaces, how it creates a new urban topology of power, and thus raise the question: Whose city is this? Gachibowli witnesses the third phase of a ‘cyberabad’ (cyber-city) still in the making, with new straight links from the airport, bypassing the city. Demography has changed. Those evicted in Gachibowli are now squatters there. The Hyderabad Urban Agglomeration becomes a handy concept to implement unequal policies of development with regard to different segments in the agglomeration. Similarly, master plans become another tool to divert resources to develop particular fringes now to be subsumed in a new town. As in the case of Kolkata, briefly mentioned in preceding chapters, the Hyderabad Master Plan 2020 becomes the backbone of creating and re-routing the national highways and the immense building activities and real estate development along the national highways and adjoining municipalities. Thus, the city proper and adjoining areas witnessed growth rates in population in 1991–2001, respectively of 18.7 per cent and 70.8 per cent (ibid.: 300–301). The idea was to develop high-class IT infrastructure, digital connectivity, make Andhra Pradesh a hub for developments in the new technology centre, make it the location of world class IT companies, and make it a premier IT education centre in India. Those were the years of the growth of Satyam and a chief minister being held up to the people of the state as its CEO, whose duty was to run the state like a company. The Gates couple used to visit Hyderabad regularly and shower praise on the chief minister. The Satyam bubble duly burst, the IT bubble burst partially, the chief minister’s party lost the elections; despite all these events, Gachibowli retains some credibility and strength. But hundreds gather around water taps in Gachibowli where water is supplied to only company buildings with very little provision for public water supply. There is a great loss of public space. The landownership pattern has changed. However, in exchange, the country has got another new town, as the chroniclers tell us, in three phases. The same governmental instruments were deployed to develop the new town at Bangalore, namely, master planning, mega planning, building and developing special districts, public–private

196  Beyond Kolkata

partnership, area development techniques, etc. The argument was that the rapid growth of the IT sector called for measures to counter the significant demand on land and infrastructure in the city and its periphery. Then came the idea of an IT corridor to connect the International Technology Park Limited in Mahadevpura to the Electronics City in Bommanahalli, which has now unleashed another round of partitioning and redesigning of the urban space. Bangalore had emerged primarily as a major centre of global software outsourcing services in India due to the availability of technical and scientific manpower in its public sector industries, laboratories and communication facilities. In the late 1980s, Texas Instruments had set up there the first satellite data link and a software development centre. Other companies, in course of time, took advantage of this infrastructure and developed rapidly. Companies like Infosys, TCS and Wipro developed through contracts from foreign companies to provide on-site software services. It was at this juncture that liberalisation, improvements in telecom infrastructure and global demand proved a blessing for Bangalore. The first Software Technology Park (STP) in Bangalore came up during this time. In the 1990s, Bangalore became the city of offshore ‘software factories’, domestic and international. The city now hosts a number of offshore development centres. Multinational companies are opening new development centres as well. In 2005–6, the software export earnings of the state was Rs 376 billion (about USD 8.3 billion). Against this background, when the Infosys chairman was basking in glory, he was surprised when the people of Karnataka asked him what he had done for the state. Some said, forget the state, what about the region and the place where his firm was located? Is Infosys then a technology park, or a special canton, and nothing else? (Parthasarathy 2005). Likewise, in Pune, at Hinjewadi, there is the Rajiv Gandhi Infotech Park, which is not well connected by public transport, but instead has many modern cars and private vehicles. The boost has come from the Maharashtra state policy, of giving a range of benefits to the IT industry. These benefits are both fiscal and non-fiscal, and include benefits for training human resources and exports. Access to the park is exclusive. The park is being planned and developed in different phases. It will house a wine (grape-processing) park, silver zone, gems and jewellery sector, and sectors for electronics, food processing and floriculture. Thirty per cent of the space is intended

The Global and National Histories of Rajarhat  197

for a green zone/garden spaces. Real estate projects have boomed here too. For all these reasons, the periphery of the city has become attractive. Here, too, displacement has occurred and local opposition over the emerging issues of justice has increased. The general argument is this: In the cases of earlier land acquisition, say for the sugar industry, at least there was employment for the local people, but in the IT industry there is little employment for them. Now, on the one hand, businesses enjoy all kinds of tax holidays, while, on the other, real estate prices increase for the benefit of speculators. Will local people ever gain from any of this?11 Clearly, these experiences — in Gurgaon, Bangalore, Gachibowli, Hinjewadi, and other places in India — show that in addition to the global trend there has also been a national pattern. These domestic experiences do not exactly replicate western experiences. In some sense, they represent a different and much more mixed scenario from that of the early Silicon Valley days. Gurgaon and Pune have a high concentration of workers. Gachibowli has offices and ITbased firms in large numbers. Rajarhat New Town seems to be savaged by a land price boom with just a handful of production centres. But typical of postcolonial experience, the role of politics in these economies is clear. Local municipal claims, popular protests, local circuits of money and protection, the presence of large bands of construction labour, architecture firms and construction firms as emphatically present as IT and ITeS firms — with all these the new towns of India present a hybrid scenario. Yet one thing is clear — the new enclaves of capital symbolised by firms like Google, Borealis, Microsoft, and others present a new design and style of life based on a combination of technological competence in select fields, virtual capital, political stability, quality workers, accompanied by the presence of various kinds of service workers and high quality life. This could not have been achieved by 11

On the park, see Maharashtra Industries Directory, http://www. maharashtradirectory.com/industrialresources/midc.htm (accessed on 6 May 2011); on real estate news of the park, now called a megapolis, see http://www.flickr.com/photos/ravikaran/tags/punerealestatemarketnews/ (accessed on 6 May 2011); on property rates there, see http://www. hotpuneproperties.com/puneprojects/project/Megapolis---Premium-Residential-Project-in-Rajiv-Gandhi-Infotech-park-Pune-by-PegasusProperties-Pvt-Ltd--2-BHK--2.5-BHK--3-BHK-Builder-Apartment/291966811749362388.html (accessed on 6 May 2011).

198  Beyond Kolkata

reorganising the old city. The old city had to be bypassed. The periphery now strikes back. The partition of the city into old and the new is possibly more stark in the postcolonial world, although the basic way of spatial reorganisation for the accumulation of capital today is roughly the same everywhere. In the case of Kolkata, too, the pattern of exclusion is evident (Beall 2002). In one study, Keya Dasgupta emphasises the point by examining the process of planning and the development of an urban sprawl on the eastern fringes of Kolkata (Dasgupta 2007). Indeed, the way a new town was planned for Rajarhat indicates the evolution of governmental techniques. As we mentioned in the second chapter, it was not initiated as a technology park, but as one by the housing department. Planning is essential for all such partitions and reorganisation of spaces. In all the cases we have narrated here, one can see that the agenda of physical planners goes against the logic of the old space marked by ‘integrated’ cities and outlying villages. It seeks as if to reverse the earlier territorial division and specialisation. If there is an opening up of space, there is a new closure too, whereby all existing entities have to be subordinated to the newly emerging hi-tech space. Planning in this sense does not mean, as usually thought, direct state control of economic activities, but it means guiding the latter to a predetermined goal. New towns are thus planned not by entrepreneurs, but by government bodies. The aim is: to open cities to the world economy; to synchronise the urban economy with macroeconomic reforms; to close or scale down the old manufacturing base of the city; to make the city a centre of tradable services such as health care, education, new skillformation, etc.; to make the city a service centre in the interests of finance, trade, hospitality, culture, health care, data-processing and programming, etc. The old idea of national economic development takes a back seat. The Indian urban scenario was always marked by a dualism. Cities attracted population, which in turn attracted industries and infrastructure. This attracted government investment in developing administrative centres at district and sub-division levels. Villages remained villages. Now the dualism has taken another form. Old cities remain decrepit. Big cities develop more and with time become centres of high economic and demographic growth by becoming ‘urban agglomerates’. One can see that merging of areas to produce urban agglomerates contributes most to the increase of urban population. We have to note that the pattern of migration also changes with the marked

The Global and National Histories of Rajarhat  199 Table 7.1: Disaggregation of Total Incremental Urban Population into Components Percentage distribution 1961–71 1971–81 1981–91 Total increase (a) Natural increase on base year population and on inter-census year migration (b) Population of new towns/less declassified towns (c) Increase due to expansion in urban area and merging of towns (d) Net rural–urban migration Note:

1991–2001

30.18

49.9

57.7

67.7

64.6

51.3

61.3

59.4

13.8

14.8

9.4

6.2

2.9

14.2

7.6

13.0

18.7

19.6

21.7

21.0

(a) The first component, natural increase, has been estimated by using Sample Registration System (SRS) data of birth rate and death rate for the urban population. (b) The population in new town less that of declassified towns is obtained by subtracting the increase in the population of common towns from the total increase in urban population. Importantly, the new town that emerges as part of urban agglomerations (existing in the base year) would be included in the common towns. Thus, this second component would give the population of only those new towns that are not part of the urban agglomerations. (c) The third component has been estimated as residuals in the first three decades since it is very difficult to ascertain this directly. For the 1990s, this has been obtained based on the assumption that there have been a large number of towns merging with urban agglomerations leading to areal expansion. Since the number of towns merging with the existing towns in the 1990s is 221 compared to 103 in 1980s, the third component has been taken as twice that of the 1980s, for a conservation estimate. (d) The net of rural–urban migration has been obtained from the population census in the first three decades, while in the fourth it is a residual category.

Source: Table from Kundu (2007: 36).

entry of sub-contractual, and casual and informal workers. Within big cities appear old run down spaces and new vigorous spaces of growth. All we require to imagine such a scenario is to compare, say, Titagarh with the growth of New Town at Rajarhat (Haan 2007). Analysing the census data, the same article, from which Table 7.1 was cited, also tells us that the annual exponential growth rate of Class I cities in India in 1991–2001 was 3.42 whereas that of Class VI towns was 0.80 (Kundu 2007: 39).

200  Beyond Kolkata

In Table 7.2 we again see the top-heavy structure of the growth of towns. Of the total urban population, about 69 per cent lives in Class I cities. Even 10 per cent does not live in Class II cities, and less than 1 per cent lives in Class VI cities. Plus we have to remember that some among the Class I cities are developing as urban agglomerates. Geographers had already noted the imbalances in regional and urban development in the country in the 1990s, in the wake of liberalisation. As described earlier, cities like Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, and Delhi became principal centres of investment. With the defeat of the textile workers in Mumbai in the 1980s, large areas of the city went into the hands of developers who in turn handed over the property to offices, firms, shopping malls, etc. Annapurna Shaw, in an article more than a decade ago, showed that the seven southern metropolitan cities grew annually by 4.11 per cent in terms of population, the northern five metropolitan cities grew by 4.21 per cent, the three northern cities by 5.40 per cent, and the two eastern metropolises by 1.90 per cent (Shaw 1999: 970). The number of factory workers declined drastically. In the 1980s, in Mumbai, the number of factory workers declined from 604,000 to 447,000.12 The decade was marked by the defeat of the trade union movements — be it in Mumbai or in Kolkata and its suburbs. Workers resisted gentrification, but did not succeed. Factory owners closed down factories and changed businesses. Building norms changed, land development rules were altered. The idea of the downtown also changed. Municipalities vied with each other to make their cities attractive for multinationals and big firms. The idea of the Ahmedabad–Pune corridor developed in this milieu. In none of these cases did the government look on as a mute spectator. It facilitated, encouraged, directed, and at times led the process of mutation of the city form as site of capital accumulation.

Geographies of Imbalance and the General History of Domination Geographers theorising the city have, till date, approached the subject from roughly three angles. First, the city can be judged from the angle of spatial practices. Second, a city is perceived on the basis of the mental images that it evokes. Third, the city is seen as 12

Cited by Shaw (1999: 971), from d’Monte (1998).

43 40 45 56 74 91 129 173 270 345 401

Class II

130 135 145 183 242 327 437 558 743 947 1151

Class III

391 364 370 434 498 608 719 827 1059 1167 1344

Class IV 744 707 734 800 920 1124 711 623 758 740 888

Class V 479 485 571 509 407 569 172 147 253 197 191

Class VI 26.00 27.48 29.70 31.20 38.23 44.63 51.42 57.24 60.37 65.20 68.67

Class I 11.29 10.51 10.39 11.65 11.42 9.96 11.23 10.92 11.63 10.95 9.67

Class II 15.64 16.4 15.92 16.8 16.35 15.72 16.94 16.01 14.33 13.19 12.23

Class III 20.83 19.73 18.29 18.00 15.78 13.63 12.77 10.94 9.54 7.77 6.84

Class IV 20.14 19.31 18.67 17.14 15.08 12.97 6.87 4.45 3.58 2.60 2.36

Class V

Percentage of urban population

6.10 6.57 7.03 5.21 3.14 3.09 0.77 0.44 0.50 0.29 0.23

Class VI

Source: Table from Kundu (2007: 38).

Class I: 100,000 or more; Class II: From 50,000 to 99,999; Class III: From 20,000 to 49,999; Class IV: From 10,000 to 19,999; Class V: From 5,000 to 9,999; Class IV: Below 5,000.

The towns, placed in six categories, follow demographic criteria as follows:

24 23 29 35 49 76 102 148 218 300 393

1901 1911 1921 1931 1941 1951 1961 1971 1981 1991 2001

Note:

Class I

Census Year

Number of towns

Table 7.2: Number of Towns and Percentage of Urban Population in Different Size Categories

202  Beyond Kolkata

both a space for life and for production. Even though the third way of looking at the city tries to get over the unifocal bias of the first two by positing a subject-object view, a problem remains, namely, of how to account for its variety, its links with capital formation, and the binaries that seem to characterise the city. These binaries are the result of a number of socio-spatial phenomena at play, such as: colonial-free, rich-poor, city-periphery, labour-capital, manufacturing units-services, citizens-migrants, etc. Other binaries have also emerged, such as redesigned/old, cyber-city/inner city, ITenabled/IT-disabled, green spaces/crowded, or self-governed/administered. The lived city approach at times seems empty from a political point of view because it cannot give us an insight into these binaries and the fault lines that emerge from colonising practices. The brief account presented in this chapter suggests that these spatial practices must be treated genealogically. Just as in the old colonial days, prevailing land tenure systems and contract methods were changed to colonise land and introduce changes in the land-use pattern, for instance, to compel indigo cultivation likewise, for new towns to come up, tenure systems and land-use patterns have to be changed, either by legislation or by violence. Thus, water bodies in Rajarhat were filled up, land taken away, the legal principle of inalienability of the land of the small peasants was thrown to the winds, and the agricultural status of land was changed to set up hotels and malls. The divided city is in this way the norm rather the exception. New areas will be administered by a bureaucratic authority (development board, etc.) while the old areas will be run by democratically elected municipal bodies. In this new regime of urban governance, financial riches would mark the administered (new) area, while financial constraints would mark the self-governed (old) one. The technologies we now see deployed to restructure the city were all put in place in the last three decades of the last century — from setting up development authorities, urban commissions, embarking on mega and master plans, urban renewal missions, constitutional amendments for self-government, restructuring the urban taxation system, to setting up ATM machines that seem so ubiquitous today, monetising everything in the process, and all these partitioning the city again and again.13 Land and territory have again become issues 13

On the evolution of the post-Independence urban policy in India, see GoI (1988). Amitabh Kundu argued in his critique of the commission’s

The Global and National Histories of Rajarhat  203

of contention — an indicator of the return of the colonial time (Verma 1990). As a consequence of the multiple divisions, the city is a ‘heteropolis’ with new contradictions, requiring constant micromanagement, micro-adjustment. In the industrial phase, it took a long time for the city to gain its physical balance by managing linkages of large-scale, small-scale and informal-sector industries. The classic case of such balance was the tannery industry located except for the last few years at Tangra. Owners there were mostly of Chinese origin; labourers, mostly Dalits, came from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Odisha; its products at times going to big leather consuming companies like Adidas or Bata, and at times to leather producing units in Kolkata, Agra or Chennai. Forward and backward linkages were crucial for the industry, a large population and an area to survive. Tangra-Tiljala was a part of the city. The current spatial restructuring has destroyed or severely harmed the linkages. The industry has shifted to Bantala, which has been a catastrophe. The old area of Tangra is now being slowly gentrified with exhibitions, fairgrounds, shops, residential flats, eateries, offices, giving the area more potential to ‘develop’ as the traditional Chinese tannery owners migrate in greater numbers.14 In some sense, then, we can claim that the growth of new towns is part of the general history of increasing domination of urban agglomerates over human habitation and production spaces. Also, in some senses, new towns become the fresh sites of what Charles Tilly had called contentious politics, by which we mean sites for new claims, exacerbation of old conflicts, and new claimants mingling and at times clashing with old claimants. It is not that the Indian government was unaware that the land question would return as the urban boom would overwhelm the developmental scenario. Therefore, regulations, norms, restrictions, and procedures for setting up new towns began to be put in place from the 1980s, report ‘The National Commission on Urbanisation is very eloquent about the problems of the urban poor and the inequities of the existing urban systems. However, the commission’s recommendations will have the effect of accentuating the segmentation of our cities into rich and poor localities and tilting the flow of resources further in favour of the former’ (1989: 1185–88); see also Bhagat (2011). 14 On the tanneries in Tangra, see Samaddar and Dutta (1997); on the linkages of different sectors in urban space, see Shaw (1990); also Harris (1978).

204  Beyond Kolkata

through the 1990s. These regulations became the ground on which public resistance against construction of new towns was mounted in several places. On the one hand, these regulations, norms and guidelines became the legitimating tool for urban expansion and domination, because all that the planners and architects had to do was to secure compliance to them. On the other hand, they became the ground for public campaigns and litigation in defence of life and livelihood. Thus, in the writ petition to the Calcutta High Court in 1999, the petitioners (Howrah Ganatantrik Samity and Rajarhat Jomi Bachao Committee) cited several union government regulations allegedly violated by the Government of West Bengal. For instance, the guidelines framed in 1989 stipulated that that a new town could be founded to service, as a satellite, a metropolitan city. These guidelines also stipulated that any construction must not impose any additional burden on the existing city by excessive utilisation of presently available resources of the city, such as water, transport, etc., and that natural water catchment areas must not be destroyed in the process of construction. The petitioners argued that these guidelines had been violated.15 These guidelines were framed on the basis of the ‘experiences of 160 new towns’ (GoI 1989: Chapter 4, Para 1). The guidelines noted that while earlier new towns developed mainly as residential clusters around an industry or a port, later institutions like schools, hospitals, markets were added to the features of a new town, as access to them for living became crucial for life in a new town. Later this logic of a ‘self-contained’ nature began to expand. New towns were no longer simply service or satellite towns. They became project construction colonies, mining colonies, port colonies, district administrative centres, towns near cantonments, university or technical institution towns, and towns connected with large and upcoming new industries. Hence, site and situation capabilities, impact assessment, hinterland study — all of these became critical. Likewise, the availability of natural amenities like clean water, drainage, rock structure, and natural vegetation came under governmental gaze (ibid.: Para 4.0.9). Dislocation of 15

Writ petition no. 7516 (W) of 1999 in the matter of among others Environment Protection Act 1986 and the rules framed there under and Town and Country (Planning and Development) Act and rules framed there under — Paragraphs 17–20.

The Global and National Histories of Rajarhat  205

population, availability of domestic servants, etc., were also to be considered (ibid.: Para 4.0.10 [ii]). The guidelines were thus not to prevent new towns which were coming up by dislocating a large number of people in various parts of the country, nor to maximise the output from these new settlements, but to facilitate the emergence of new towns on a wide scale. Also, the government had in mind that these new towns were emerging against the background of development — indeed, they were the signs of development — and thus the government said there was a need for these guidelines. Yet, if all this is true, and if new towns are part of this landscape of domination, it is also true that these are special as exceptional places. The question then is: Has this exceptionality, too, a history? Apart from whatever the indications of this exceptionality provided earlier, we still need to know more of the exceptionality of a particular place like the New Town as a special kind of site of capital accumulation. We can refer to a few things of interest. First, we can note the colonial character of such exceptionality. In some ways, conquest-based colonialism, concession-based colonialism, and settler colonialism — all have experimented with these kinds of havens of capital. These special places were literally ports. Think of the Hanseatic ports of Europe (thirteenth–seventeenth centuries) where Hanseatic League members would demand and ensure all kinds of freedoms from restrictions on trade, merchandise, entry and stay. Trade monopoly was the goal of the League. Hanseatic cities had their own legal system and furnished their own protection and mutual aid. Yet, they were not city-states or a confederation of city-states. Their autonomy was of a particular kind. This autonomy was not even like that of a free imperial city. They declined in the face of strong empires, like the Russian, Ottoman and Swedish empires, even though as empires weakened, the colonial practice of securing concessions was revived. Fernand Braudel described the group as a ‘power elite and a wealth elite, implying membership of a defined social and professional group’.16 After the Hanseatic age, and at times parallel to it, others also extracted concessions — the Genoese, Venetians and the Antwerp merchants, backed by their respective city powers. Giovanni Arrighi describes the role of these cities in reaching new frontiers of money and 16

Braudel (1984: 103). On this topic, also see Thompson (1969).

206  Beyond Kolkata

commerce, and remarks that these cities had to often depend on the continuous supply of basic life-sustaining commodities such as food, clothing material and metals, and the supply was ensured through all means. Arrighi refers to Braudel and says that this is how in fact the sterling pound maintained its solidity through three centuries (Arrighi 2010, chapter 3). He also notes the nature of ‘unorganised capitalism’ — in other words, the anarchic expansion of trade and commerce that led to the expansion of capital (ibid.: 1–5). But then he misses the most critical element in this expansion, the persistently reappearing phenomenon of dispossession and accumulation through which trade was ensured. Even though he speaks of the role of plunder in buttressing the British economy, the phenomenon of primitive accumulation remains, by and large, the unspoken other in his account of the rise of the city. The long twentieth century remains blind to one of its most astounding aspects — not technology, but the return of primitive accumulation in the wake of globalisation and virtual trade. The city is again today the nodal point around which the new phase of expansion has begun. In China concessions were forced from the emperor throughout the modern age. These concession areas were all like new towns or developed as special new areas. Today’s new towns are like dry ports. These inland ports or dry ports of today likewise demand autonomy of a particular kind. They demand relief not only from taxes, but also autonomy in dealing with labour. They are special — that is why they are mostly classified as SEZs — while they are not sovereign. Their fluidity creates a special kind of mobile subjectivity (think of the construction worker, the truck driver, various kinds of service providers, the blue-collar programmer and software mechanic, the BPO employee, etc.) arising in the wake of these new colonial enclaves. These new colonised subjectivities include also the dreaming or discontented educated young men and women in the software places in the SEZs (Cross 2009; Soni-Sinha 2009). The growing literature on work conditions in the BPOs speaks of the ambivalence of the employees in these places. For instance, one labour researcher says: [d]espite the fact that work in BPOs are characterised by much innovations, flexibilities, and freedom, at the core it denotes a relatively inflexible form of work organisation . . . a new class of workers with distinct

The Global and National Histories of Rajarhat  207 features and differently conceived identity . . . even (without) the basic right at work (Remesh 2008: 104).

He also notes the high attrition rate at the BPOs and other ITeS units. At times, these employees feel so ‘empowered’ that they think that there is nothing to get organised around save in coffee shops at intervals. Is it a case of a confused identity of the employee; is s/he a ‘professional’ or an exploited worker? The individualisation is inherent in the work process, so much so that collectivisation is at times an anathema given the strict work norms (ibid.: 108–122). The question arises in these places or enclaves about how mobile labour gets mobilised? In the complex inter-firm and intra-firm global production system, what then are decent work dimensions? Labour in these offshore services displays the ambivalence of the colonised in the early colonial era. But we must remember that labour in these special places also include the private guards belonging to, say, G 4 Security, guarding the offices and firms, protecting them from prying public eyes, offering, as G 4 Security says, ‘security solutions’ in these new towns. If you ask G 4 Security solutions as to the what and the where, they will reply: from anarchy, at the ‘airports, ports, industrial sites, companies and factories, private energy and other utilities, oil and gas fields, retail stores, leisure and tourism sites’ and ‘providing manned security, security consultancy, security system and technology, fleet management and asset tracking, cash solutions, centralised monitoring services, security consultancy, and security management’. G 4 Security is everywhere; all you have to do is to step into Sector V of Salt Lake. G 4 Security has 200 branches in India and has 138,000 people in employment in one country alone. It operates in six continents — 26 countries in one continent alone (Asia Pacific).17 G 4 Security guards remind us of the guards necessary to protect the special enclaves back in the old colonial days, whose logistics then too were transnationally planned and managed albeit with local offices. In any case, one may ask: Is Kolkata then reproducing its own history which began more than three centuries ago as a colonial enclave amidst marshy lands, developing as a port and a landing dock after having secured all kinds of concessions from the Mughal Empire? Is it the revenge of a modern time, when Kolkata would 17

http://www.g4s.in/en-in/ (accessed on 7 May 2011).

208  Beyond Kolkata

now be the marshy lands and the new towns (in the east and the west) would become the new concession areas hogging all the attention of trade and commerce? We have a history of sovereignty, thanks to the work of various historians. What we now need is a parallel history of the territorial exceptions and special autonomies, a sort of genealogy of the idea of a new town and the attending governmental practices. New Town has seen the strengthening of a new kind of gentry — a mix of bureaucrats, members of the political class belonging to various political parties who have gained from the dispossession of peasants, land sharks, developers, and moneybags, including members of the corporate world. This new gentry behaves in exactly the way the gentry of colonial Kolkata behaved, of whom the owl had said exactly one and a half century back: You see these well dressed and well titled pundits — the Vidyalankars, Nyayalankar Vidyabhusans, and Vidyabachaspatis — these do not lag behind; they are no less. There is no work they will not do if they receive money. The great language of Sanskrit will die in the hands of these pundits. If the peddler of a monkey-show gets money, he dresses the monkey, makes it stand atop a goat, and makes it dance to the tune and rhythm of the peddler. But these gentlemen are ready to dance as monkeys if they are given money. Even in the jails of the lifers you will not get accounts of such misdeeds as you can find from their lives.18

18

See Sinha (1398 B.S.: 152), translation by Ranabir Samaddar.

8 Politics of the Multitude Stories of Yesteryears and the Continuing Context

T

he assembly elections in West Bengal took place in six phases through the months of April–May 2011. The elections in Rajarhat were held in the third phase on 27 April 2011. Results were declared on 13 May 2011. Almost everywhere, the ruling party and the Left Front candidates were defeated. In Rajarhat, as also in RajarhatGopalpur (the New Town area), the ruling party candidates were trounced. Of particular interest was the defeat of Rabindranath Mandal (popularly known as Rabin Mondal), who was the chairman of the Bhangar Rajarhat Area Development Authority (BRADA). He had been contesting the assembly seat of Rajarhat from 1977, and except in 2001 had won every time. Except in 1991 and 1996 (48.75 per cent and 47.9 per cent), he had secured nearly or over 50 per cent of total votes cast in every election. In 1982, in the wake of the land reforms programme of the Left Front government he had secured an astounding 59.6 per cent votes. In 2001, he had lost, following peasant discontent over land acquisition. However, the opposition candidate belonging to the Trinamool Congress, Tanmoy Mandal, after winning got involved in land deals. Rabin Mondal was a known man in Rajarhat, although Tanmoy had earlier contested as the Congress candidate in 1982 and 1996. Rabin Mondal came back into the reckoning in 2006 when peasants opted for him and he won back the seat. This redoubtable party leader contested again in 2011 and lost. He could secure only 37 per cent of the votes cast (54,104 out of 145,309 votes cast) and trailed much behind the votes of the winning candidate (88,829 votes). Likewise, his party colleague, Tapas Chatterjee, lost the Rajarhat–Gopalpur seat (Map 8.1). The developmental politics with which Rabin Mondal had earlier secured votes (by setting up colleges, schools, Integrated

210  Beyond Kolkata Map 8.1: Rajarhat Assembly Constituency

Source: Rajarhat Jomi Bachao Committee, n.d. Note: Map not to scale.

Child Development Scheme [ICDS] centres, construction of roads, etc.) and which now meant steamrolling peasants and favouring party cronies and developers of ill-repute to construct the New Town had finally failed in getting popular sanction. Soon after coming to power, the new government declared on 1 June 2011 that BRADA would be dissolved. BRADA was hated by the peasants and loved by the developers. Readers will remember earlier references to BRADA in this narrative and how it had encouraged land grabbers and the entertainment sector consisting of Olive Garden, Vedic Village, etc. Overnight, land prices crashed

Politics of the Multitude  211

and speculators became uncertain of the market. A contemporary report said: KOLKATA, 1 JUNE: Land prices in vast areas surrounding Rajarhat that fall under the Bhangar Rajarhat Area Development Authority (Brada) nose-dived spectacularly today, a day after the state housing department announced its decision to abolish the agency and put on hold the allotment of land by the Housing and Infrastructure Development Corporation (Hidco) in New Town after 10 January 2010. The state government’s decisions have sent land speculators and promoters into a tizzy, many of whom have invested heavily in the area. Land speculators said a plot of land off the main road which used to cost Rs 7 lakh a cottah has come down to Rs 2.25 lakh a cottah overnight. Even in the remoter areas under Brada the price of land was anything between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 5.5 lakh till yesterday. “We are shattered as no builder will come and invest in these areas in view of yesterday’s decision. We have invested many crore of rupees. There is panic among promoters both in areas under Brada and in New Town,” said a real estate agent close to the CPI-M who had managed to pick up land cheap. Brada was set up a decade ago to develop 23 moujas (15 moujas in Rajarhat and 8 moujas in Bhangar) off Rajarhat New Town covering an area of 4,500 hectares with Mr Rabin Mondol, the CPI-M leader who was defeated by the state labour minister Mr Purnendu Basu in the 2011 Assembly election, as its chairman. Brada and Hidco were known to be fiefdoms of the former housing minister, Mr Gautam Deb, whose nominees ran the show. Under Brada, the Bhatinda area in Rajarhat covers 1,120 hectares. Bishnupur, Kalikapur, Kashinathpur and Bosira comprise 384.11 hectares, 141.45 hectares, 161.31 hectares and 132 hectares, respectively. There were plans to set up housing complexes in Bhatinda, a three-star hotel in Bishnupur and two resorts in Bosira. The promoters, many close to the former ruling party, who have heavily invested in the area said, they were “closely watching the situation”. “We hope that the new government will take up a comprehensive scheme for the development of the area,” one of them said. The decisions to dissolve Brada and put some Hidco land allotments on hold, however, have been welcomed by Rajarhat Jami Bachao Committee. Its secretary Mr Nilotpal Dutta said the farmers of Rajarhat expect that 10 per cent land of the land forcibly occupied by “promoters protected by the Marxists” would be returned to them as Miss Banerjee had promised during the poll campaign.

212  Beyond Kolkata Hidco officials, incidentally, does not have possession of hundreds of acres of land allotted by it to various individuals and organisations, thereby leaving the latter in the lurch. Ousted agriculturalists have begun cultivation on much of this land. The builders, already reeling under the lack of infrastructure promised to them by the erstwhile Left Front administration, now plan to plead with the Trinamul Congress regime to “do something about drinking water, drainage, service roads and power supply”. “We knew that the infrastructure was not ready yet we allotted flats to the owners because we had made a commitment trusting the government . . . we have no answers for those who have bought flats in our complexes,” said the head of a leading property developer on condition of anonymity (Goswami 2011a).

Meanwhile, news of secret deals started tumbling out. Reports now accessed by outsiders told of whimsical land allotments and determination of land prices. Of the 1,411 acres allotted so far, 708.81 acres had been given for housing and another 238.78 acres for IT and ITeS. The Rajarhat New Town Development Authority had allotted 128.09 acres of land to set up institutional buildings, while 31.36 acres of land had been allotted for the health sector. There were no advertisements in newspapers quoting the rates at which the land would be given. Land was allotted to different agencies at different rates. According to one report, officials said (although no written instructions were given to them) they knew the persons who were close to the minister and concessions were worked out for them while allotting plots. The government gave land at a concessional rate to the Tata Medical Centre Trust to set up a cancer hospital. They got land at Rs 165,000 per cottah in 2005, while a government institution, Chittaranjan National Cancer Hospital, had to pay Rs 250,000 per cottah for 10 acres of land, before the land offer was finalised with the Tatas. The same happened with others. TCS was given 40 acres of land at Rs 250,000 a cottah in 2007, whereas Bengal Unitech was given 48 acres of land at Rs 360,000 a cottah in 2006. The Dongfang Electric Corporation was given 5 acres of land at Rs 700,000 per cottah in 2008. The new housing minister questioned why central government agencies like RITES Ltd, Power Grid Corporation and others had not been given concessions similar to those given to private-sector players to set up museums and hotels (Goswami 2011b). Such reports would

Politics of the Multitude  213

not have come out without the new climate of transparency, or the mood to unearth scandals in the post-election atmosphere of unearthing misdeeds of the past. How was this possible? This is where the challenge of writing contemporary history lies. We have already referred to the myth of consensus over land acquisition in Rajarhat. Contrasting with the events of Singur-Nandigram, official state versions and apologetic narratives had given out the picture that Rajarhat’s land acquisition from the mid-1990s onwards had been peaceful. After all, we have to remember that New Town was ‘founded’ on 2 June 1995 in the presence of important central ministers like Pranab Mukherjee, Sheila Kaul and Ajit Panja. We have to, therefore, cover some ground by way of tracing some of the incidents of the past few decades if we are to understand how the politics of the multitude plays with, and resists, the politics of consensus. In terms of the recent political past of Rajarhat, let us recall this was, as elsewhere, contentious. Among the acquired sections of land in Rajarhat today, places like Mahishgote, Thakdari and Mahishbathan (near and in Sector V of present-day Salt Lake) were active in the pre-Independence Salt Satyagraha Movement, the Non-Cooperation Movement and the Quit India Movement. A local landlord, Lakshmikanta Pramanik, had rallied the peasants against colonial rule. There are stories in the post-Independence era, when landlordism was being abolished, of small peasants being forced to sell much of their lands to prosperous farmers and erstwhile landlords. One report says that during the tenure of S. S. Ray as chief minister of West Bengal, the local landed gentry of Rajarhat prospered even more than they had during Dr B. C. Roy’s era. Foremost among these land grabbers were Biswananda Naskar, Zameer Sarkar and Bhola Sarkar, Khagen Mandal, Lakshmikanta Pramanik and his ancestor Aswini Pramanik. In 1967, during the time when the United Front came to power, small farmers, agricultural labourers and the workers in the fish embankments began organising to protect their land and to demand better pay and related matters. Besides the few embankments now situated in present-day Bhangar of South 24 Parganas, most of the embankments were in the Mahishbathan region of undivided Rajarhat. Prominent among these fish embankments were Boro Paresh, Chhoto Paresh, Bather bheri, Diller bheri, Sardar bheri,

214  Beyond Kolkata

Patrabaad 1,2,3, Nalban, Munshir bheri, Chinta Singh, Narkeltolar bheri, Mollahr bheri, Bonghery, Daktar bheri, etc. Many people from Thakdhari, Mahishgote, Mahishbathan, Krishnapur, Nayapatti, and Khashmahal worked here. The embankment workers formed a bheri labourers’ organisation in their clash with the owners. The most prominent leader among these pioneers of peasant and fishermen’s movement in this area was the influential leftist and CPI (M) leader Rajani Mandal. This struggle was further organised and given a more militant shape by another very popular leader from the same party, Dulal Chowdhury. The struggle against the landowners intensified under the leadership of its first secretary, Sudhir Pramanik. The same report says that while before 1978 there was only one party member in Thakdhari, in that year a woman along with eight others obtained the party membership there. Surplus land from the bheri owners and jotedars was occupied and distributed among the poor and landless. Of these, 550 bighas were taken from the Mollahr bheri and the land divided among the 500 landless people. This was followed by similar actions in Chinta Singh and Patrabaad bheris where each of the landless families got 1.5 to 2 bighas of land. But by the late 1970s and early 1980s, this came to an end. Leader Dulal Chowdhury was sidelined by the party. Other leaders opted for a policy of joint ownership of the bheris. Land redistribution was stopped. Fishermen paid amounts to local toughs and party leaders in the hope of obtaining ownership rights. Old owners were ousted. Practical control and access now came to rest with gangs of party activists and anti-social elements. Revenue worth millions of rupees now passed through various informal circuits, with little of it trickling down. Protection rackets thrived in this situation. We may mention some of those fisheries (bheris) — Diller bheri (approximately 150 bighas), Narkeldangar bheri (approximately 600 bighas), and Mollahr bheri (approximately 200 bighas).1 The radical politics of peasants and fish workers gradually ended and we can sense why in an area characterised by continuing small peasant farming, relatively sufficient production 1 This part is based on A History of the Brutal Rajarhat Land Acquisition, Bengal’s New IT Hub, Sanhati, http://indianvanguard.wordpress. com/2009/09/06/a-history-of-the-brutal-rajarhat-land-acquisitionbengal%E2%80%99s-new-it-hub/ (accessed on 3 June 2011). Conversations with local people and political activists have been used as supplementary source, occasionally correcting the published material.

Politics of the Multitude  215

of fish, vegetables, rice and some other rabi crops, and existence of protection rackets, the initial resistance to land acquisition by the state was low (Map 8.2). Around 1984–85, one of names doing the rounds in Rajarhat in the matter of land deals was a land agent by the name of Kamal Gandhi and supposedly a relative of an influential party leader. Along with his relatives and friends, Kamal Gandhi started buying up land, paying a higher price than the price obtaining then. In this way he became a crucial figure in the emerging land market in Rajarhat. A substantial portion of this land, likewise, came under the ownership of Arun Maheswari, the husband of a then CPI (M) Member of Parliament (MP) Sarla Maheswari, and whose name and activities were noted in a government report.2 Proximity to the party allowed these two figures and their partners in land deals to later access various plans relating to Rajarhat New Town and related documents from the Alipur treasury. They now employed thugs and toughs to coerce inhabitants of Thakdhari and Mahishgote who were unwilling to sell their land. Murders, too, were committed around this time, of which we shall speak soon. The panchayat elections in 1993 put the final seal sealed the plan for the loot of land. Reports of the widespread use of firearms and engagement of armed gangs of toughs in the Rajarhat panchayat elections became widespread. The first thing needed was to stop listing the sharecroppers, who had now declined in number. Peasants unwilling to give up land were threatened and terrorised, occasionally murdered. Old civic institutions folded up. Thus, by the time land acquisition started, peasants had been mostly silenced, though temporarily, by strongarm tactics. One report says that in the initial phase of land acquisition about 50 peasants were murdered in different mauzas in the mid-1990s. In mauzas like Mahishbathan, one comes across the names of dead peasants — Sadhu Sardar, Arabinda Mandal, Paban Mandal, Prabodh Sardar, Kubeer Mandal, Ganesh Mandal, Arun Mandal, Kamal Patra, Kabu Mandal, Swapan Mandal, Tanu Nyay, and Shyamal and Basudeb Naskar.3 Bagdi, Namasudra and Muslim 2

Letter from Subrata Gupta, ADM North 24 Parganas, to C. D. Bandopadhyay, Joint Secretary, Housing Department, West Bengal Government, 13 June 1997, memo no–18/MCC/1424/1(4)/LRLR(H)/97. 3 Names from the report, ‘A History of the Brutal Rajarhat Land Acquisition’.

Source: New Town at Rajarhat, Project Report, Task Force, New Town, Housing Department, Government of West Bengal, 1995. Note: Map not to scale.

Map 8.2: Erstwhile bheris of New Town

Politics of the Multitude  217

peasants were killed or silenced. Land acquisition could now proceed unhindered from April to May 1999. Even after this, many peasants declined to accept the acquisition notices. Apart from the fact that land for many was the only source of earning, they objected primarily on the ground that the compensation package (for each cottah Rs 5,000–6,000 as compared to the official government registered price of Rs 40,000–50,000) was ridiculously low. The following is a report of what happened a little later, which was symbolic of the doggedness of the peasants: KOLKATA: The state ran into another land acquisition hurdle, this time in showpiece Rajarhat. Around 250 people gheraoed land officials at Derozio College in Rajarhat on Wednesday as they were about to distribute cheques to those who lost their land for a 100-acre truck terminal and Transport City. Their grouse: the government was paying a paltry Rs 39,000 per cottah when the market rate is anything between Rs 2 and 3 lakh. Tapas Chatterjee, chairman, Rajarhat-Gopalpur municipality, said, “The cheque distribution has been kept in abeyance because the farmers have not accepted the land price offered to them. The rate will now be fixed only after discussions with the land-losers.” Chatterjee said he will announce the meeting in a week’s time. A land department official said, “The farmers have logic here. Promoters are paying anything between Rs 2 lakh and Rs 3 lakh for a cottah of land in Rajarhat.” But according to the land department’s calculation, the farmers are to be paid Rs 39,000 for a cottah of sali (mono-crop) land and Rs 55,000 for a cottah of danga (more fertile) land. This rate, though, is higher than what Hidco offered farmers in Rajarhat between 1998 and 2000. The rate had then varied for different moujas — from around Rs 8,000 in remote areas, to Rs 15,000–25,000 in moujas near Salt Lake’s Sector V. The land-losers had questioned the rate at that time, but this was in the days before the Singur or Nandigram protests. Land acquisition for the Transport City has been on since last year. Notices as per the Land Acquisition Act of 1894 were served a few months back. “Trouble had been brewing for sometime but things came to a head today. But there isn’t much the government can do about the farmers’ demands. The land sale data has been collected from the subregistry offices. The valuation and the sale rate were fixed as per law.

218  Beyond Kolkata We can’t change the rates on the basis of fancy (speculative) land rates,” the official added.4

Peasant insistence on better land deals or refusal to part with land soon led to the emergence of different organisations or forums to defend land and peasants interests. Village-level forums also developed even though they could not be sustained. In mauzas such as Thakdhari and Mahishgote, villagers rendered landless or jobless by the land acquisition process formed a forum. Some members of the erstwhile opposition party and other Left Front party members occasionally helped these platforms, but they did not do so in a sustained manner. Only two responses were possible at this time — subaltern peasant resistance against loss of land and other means of living, or a more conscious stand and mobilisation against the ongoing ‘development’ model based on developers, protection rackets, party bosses, concessions to corporate houses on land deals, all of which were accompanied by the systematic dispossession of peasants. The erstwhile opposition (now ruling) political party was committed to neither the first nor the second way. It was not equipped to fight the phenomenon of a politics of development that was bound to be transformed into a politics of criminalisation. In many areas, Trinamool and Congress members got involved in land deals and corrupt practices as in fishery cooperatives. West Bengal, in any case, for long has not seen any agrarian party, and the Left as a hegemonic force had ceased to have agrarian interest as its primary interest for quite some time. In such a milieu, the opposition to land acquisition became rudderless. Also, sectional interests came in handy to disunite the local population. Quarrels and self-interest had created conflict between immigrant (refugee) populations settled in colonies adjoining the Bagjola canal and the local peasant population. In Sulunguri mauza, clashes erupted over occupation of land, with the loss of five lives. The immigrant population, basically non-peasant as an occupational category, had no interest in defending peasant attempts to get back land or resist land acquisition. A large section of leading party cadres came from the erstwhile immigrant population. On the other hand, poor peasants had been used by prosperous farmers 4 Land Row in Rajarhat, The Times of India (Kolkata edition), 26 April 2007.

Politics of the Multitude  219

and villagers. The village versus colony became a great fault line in Rajarhat. Syndicates of unemployed youth were formed by the West Bengal Housing and Infrastructure Development Corporation (HIDCO) as facilitating an apparent self-help movement. They were given seed money with which they were to procure and supply some of the construction material needed for the construction projects in New Town. These syndicates soon became extortion rackets. With little seed money and almost no return to distribute among syndicate members, syndicates turned to lumpen gangs demanding money from one and all. They were employed at times to dump earth to raise the level of the land or dig land to dump it elsewhere for which they have to threaten and beat up the peasants.

Peasant Initiatives Yet, the opposition to land acquisition from below was a problem for the rulers. The ruling party started to form neighbourhood committees to gain control and trust. The then Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA), Rabin Mondal, became the chairman of BRADA. The leaders of the two anti-land acquisition platforms were asked to meet Rabin Mondal or the then HIDCO chief, Gautam Deb, in person. In those meetings, the then officer-in-charge of the Rajarhat police station would also be present to help the party leaders to coax and cajole peasant representatives. Simultaneously, party bosses started approaching the youth from adjoining areas to explain the various ‘benefits’ of land acquisition. HIDCO’s propaganda began with this background. BRADA was made out to be one of the benefits. In order to reap the benefit of Rajarhat’s development, Bhangar too had to be developed with the construction of roads, hotels, estate-like modern schools, and pleasure houses. At times, treasury cheques were forcefully distributed among peasants who were unwilling to give up land. In 2000, a case was filed on behalf of the Rajarhat Krishijomi Raksha Committee challenging the land acquisition process, and a peasant organisation approached the court challenging the compensation process. We have already referred to the case a number of times in this account. The Rajarhat Jomi Bachao Committee, Mahishbathan Jivikachyuta Bekar Samiti and other forums were

220  Beyond Kolkata

born in this milieu. Seven peasant activists belonging to the Rajarhat Jomi Bachao Committee, Ranjit Mandal, Prahlad Naskar and seven others were jailed for trying to prevent land acquisition. Ruling party cadres visited houses in villages to prevent or prevail upon the villagers from approaching the court and persuade them to accept the acquisition notice and the compensation. Meanwhile, some environmentalists of the state too filed a case with the green bench of Calcutta High Court. On 16 June 1999, several forums along with environmentalists observed a ‘save wetlands’ day and held daylong rallies and street meetings in Rajarhat where the acquisition process was on and criticised the land acquisition process of the government.5 Peasant leader Gaur Mandal’s house in Mahishgote was attacked at night because he had taken a lead role in organising the protest rallies. Some party members defied party directions and supported the villagers in few mauzas such as Thakdhari. However, these members were few. The land of the registered sharecroppers was usually first occupied by the local toughs and anti-social elements; the other peasants gradually gave in. In some cases, even party members were not spared from this process. One knows of the names of such dispossessed party members as Vivek and Srikanta. One party member by the name of Rakhal Mandal was expelled because his elder brother had filed a case against the land acquisition process. Resistance flared up in places like Ghuni, Jatragachi, Sulunguri. In most cases, private armies were let loose upon reluctant and resistant peasant youths. In dire cases, they were brought to the police station, beaten up, tortured and then let off. Even then, in some of the formally acquired areas, peasants continued tilling and cultivating. In another case, party cadres in the service of developers attempted to fill up land for construction of roads and buildings by digging up earth in Mollar bheri. Peasants cultivating there protested. One report says that their ‘leader Kamal Patra was brutally murdered and he was hung up from a tree, while his brother and his son have been missing since then. The police passed it off as a suicide.’6 Nishikanta Mandal of Akandakeshari mauza was a CPI (M) candidate in the panchayat elections. He refused to 5

‘Save East Kolkata Wetlands, Stop Destruction of Water Bodies’, leaflet issued to observe the protest day (n.d.). 6 ‘A History of the Brutal Rajarhat Land Acquisition’.

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give up his brick kiln land. He was murdered in 2007 and the body is yet to be found (Nag 2010: 8). Many similar incidents happened. We have already referred to the suicide of Ramakrishna Mandal of Baliguri mauza earlier. Cases of forced disappearance also took place in this period. In short, the history of land acquisition in Rajarhat was marked with resistance and violence. It is true, however, that notwithstanding the contentious atmosphere and suppressed violence in the air, the ruling party could pass off the entire project of eviction of peasants and construction of the new township as peaceful, partly because there was no party to espouse the peasant cause and partly because some of the important oppositionists had been co-opted in the process of ‘development’ with grants of land and other privileges. The then Bhangar MLA Arabul Islam was an example of this process. Local Congress and Trinamool members found places in the HIDCO advisory committee. In order to suppress the charge of coercion, HIDCO published a list of ‘willing farmers’, that is, farmers voluntarily handing over land. One report rebutted the propaganda of ‘willingness and consent’ with these facts: peasants of 40 households with their family members were beaten up and driven out of No’para and Chasihipara of Thakurdari mauza; their huts were ransacked and demolished. Likewise, local toughs beat up an unwilling party member Srikanta Mandal, the branch committee secretary of Chandiberia. Around this time, land was taken away from Vivek Naskar, a member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI (M)’s local committee I in Rajarhat. Their names had featured in the list released by HIDCO (ibid.: 7). Meanwhile, we must remember that members of the dispossessed peasant and fishing households had to take up all kinds of odd jobs. They started working as maids, tea stall vendors, cycle-rickshaw pullers, loaders, or cart-pullers. The land crisis exacerbated 2006 onwards with the government growing more and more confident of getting away with land acquisition in other parts of West Bengal too. Resistance began in Singur and Nandigram. Singur already had an opposition MLA and Nandigram also chose in 2011, after the acquisition fiasco there, as its assembly representative a Trinamool Congress candidate, Firoza Bibi, mother of a victim of police firing in March 2007 and an activist of the Bhumi Uchchhed Pratirodh Committee.

222  Beyond Kolkata

She got about 70 per cent more votes than what the ruling party candidate got.7 The uproar in the entire state over Singur, Nandigram, police firing in Dinhata on agitators demanding food, and the widespread ‘ration revolt’ in the countryside brought the land question back in the political agenda. It became the eye of the storm. Rajarhat came back into the public eye. Incidents of past violence, litigation, coercion, and resistance in the villages and bheris in Rajarhat were now recalled. Continuing debate over land acquisition in Rajarhat in the public media also helped the opposition party to incorporate Rajarhat into its campaign plank. Rallies began to be held again. Mass deputations were relaunched. Public petitions were heard. Resistance against protection rackets and land mafia began again. In fact, the peasants in some mauzas continued tilling ‘their’ land, already formally acquired by the HIDCO. On the other hand, unsavoury names such as Majid Master, Ruidas Mandal, Gaffar Mollah, Tapan, Sukur Ali, and others became public — names of figures who had in the past helped rule the countryside and govern wide expanses of Bengal.8 The public anger over Vedic Village exploded on 24 August 2009. This luxury resort in the Shekharpur area of Rajarhat was burnt down by local inhabitants. The mob fury, as one report said, took ‘the lid off a sordid story that had been unfolding for well over a decade’.9 One person was killed and Vedic Village virtually turned into a battlefield on a Sunday evening following a football match. Residents of the luxury resort had to be evacuated after offices inside the premises were set ablaze. Fire engines had to be pressed into action. All that was needed for the release of mass anger was a controversial penalty verdict in the last moments of a football match between Vedic Village Reddy Enterprise and Kashipur Baghajatin Sangha (the local club). It led to a scuffle among the supporters. The supporters of Vedic Village team had pipe guns, which were used, leading to the death of a local villager, Aminul Islam, and injuries to five others. Later, the Rapid Action Force (RAF) 7 Feroza Bibi 93,022; Paramananda Bharati, the ruling party candidate, 53,473. 8 On Majid Master, see one of the early reports, Chakrabarty (2008). 9 Vedic Village: A Long History of Brutality behind the Final Destruction, http://sanhati.com/articles/1766/ (accessed on 11 June 2011, posted on 3 September 2009).

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of the West Bengal Police was deployed to control the situation. The anger of the local inhabitants against the resort, which symbolised criminal activities, vice, and above all forcible occupation of their lands by land sharks with the active backing of the government and the ruling party had finally exploded in the form of a violent outburst against Vedic Village. Illegally stored arms were later found at the resort. Vedic Village was one of the most expensive real estate destinations in and around Kolkata; a five-star spa resort and a symbol of luxury and extravagance cradled in the greenery of the northeastern fringes of the expanding city. Arms used to be stored there to terrorise peasants who were unwilling to give up their land and also for other criminal activities. It epitomised the way in which the government had promoted land-grabbing by realtors, ostensibly for industrialisation and development, but actually to build resorts and housing complexes for the rich. In fact, the government had made an out-of-court settlement with Vedic Village on 44 acres of disputed land and had sold off the land to them. The land reforms minister defended the deal and refused to take any action against the owners of the resort.10 The promoter and managing director of Vedic Village, R. K. Modi, was arrested only after the violence that followed the football match. He admitted that the case actually could reach up to 1,500 acres. He had once said that he was too busy with his various businesses and did not have time to go through each and every transaction. Newspapers reported that he, in collusion with government officials, mafia dons, and party functionaries, may have grabbed as much as 1,500 acres in Rajarhat alone, at prices at least 50 times less than the market value. Politicians and officials in charge of housing and information and technology departments were responsible, reports said, as these departments had over the years been involved in the Rajarhat bubble.11 City realtors were shocked by the mob fury at Vedic Village in Rajarhat and feared that ‘unless strong action against the mob 10

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/ministers-trade-fire-in-vedicvillage-flareup/507754/ (accessed on 13 January 2011). 11 Land Cell goes against Norms: Abdur Rezzak Mollah Under the Scanner, The Telegraph, 31 August 2009.

224  Beyond Kolkata

was taken, investor and buyer confidence would be rattled’.12 The national president of the Confederation of Real Estate Developers Association of India (CREDAI), Santosh Rungta, said it had raised basic concerns over how effective the administration was in tackling law and order problems. The usual refrain from other developers was that there was a need for more security for them and their projects in the isolated areas of Rajarhat New Town, particularly in Action Area II. ‘Other than Action Area I, the other condominium developments in New Town are isolated. Security is a big concern and a deterrent.’ That Sunday’s incident, close to the pockets of development in Action Area II, had further heightened concerns. ‘The fears are real’, realtor Pradip Kumar Chopra said. He also said: It needs to be allayed with decisive action by the administration. If people don’t feel secure to move into peripheral areas, the city’s growth will stop. The incident has made me very apprehensive about future projects in the area. If it recurs, builders will look at other cities. We cannot do business in an environment of fear.

Another well-known real estate developer of the city, Harsh Neotia, who was the first to build a major project on the city fringes and has substantial investments in New Town, said: This is the first time something of this sort has happened since the agitation in the 1970s. We have in mind developments in Raichak. Sushil Mehta has Ibiza on Diamond Harbour Road. There is Lakeland by Ram Ratan Chowdhury. Something like this has never happened before . . . The mob mentality has deep roots in our psyche, given the agitational politics in a state that has been politically active for decades.

The report quoted another realtor saying, in a more thoughtful mood, that it had also to do with unequal development that widened the gulf between the haves and the have-nots rather than bridge it. Development always begins in pockets and then spreads out. But there is need for corporate social responsibility in the sector. Every development 12 Souring of the Urban-Industrial Vision: Gated Communities Want Stronger Gates, Times of India, 27 August 2009.

Politics of the Multitude  225 needs to have a human face, whether . . . creating a better access road that helps everyone, providing drinking water and sanitation facilities, schools or hospitals.13

The last open act of peasant defiance before the 2011 elections was in the form of a public hearing of grievances organised by the Rajarhat Jomi Bachao Committee on 11 December 2010.14 The committee had been formed in 1998. The main organiser was the committee’s secretary, Nilotpal Dutta. We have already referred to some of his writings on the recent political past of Rajarhat in this chronicle.15 In the public hearing, which began with Nilotpal Dutta describing the background of the initiative of the committee, peasants dispossessed of their land gave vent to their grievances and anger. Prahlad Mandal came forward at that mass hearing to say that he had not participated in the hearing conducted by HIDCO, as everything had been arranged there beforehand and the peasants would not have the opportunity to speak their minds. He also said that in 2006 the police had beaten up a crowd of 500 plus dispossessed peasants who had demanded work. Amala, wife of Nishikanta, the victim of a forced disappearance, narrated how local toughs under the leadership of Binoy Mandal, a local CPI (M) leader, had beaten up her husband to take away 8 bighas of land. Then they invited him to Mayukh Bhavan in Salt Lake for further discussions on 27 February 2007; he never returned. Since that day Amala has not heard of or from her husband. Iman Ali Mollah, resident of Chapna mauza, described how from 1993 land registry had been stopped; later, HIDCO wanted to deliberately draw electricity lines through the villages in order to force the peasants to part with their lands on which the electricity poles would be set. HIDCO made repeated efforts to do the same. Rabin Mondal called meetings in Chapna madrasa to convince the peasants of the benefits of New Town but the peasants remained unconvinced. Ranjit Naskar, another peasant jailed earlier for ‘disturbing law and order’, spoke of the role of syndicates, mafia gangs and gang leaders like Gaur and Lewis. Peasants of Tenogram of Bhangar described how 13

Ibid. Some Facts on Rajarhat, Radical, November 2009–January 2010, pp. 10–11. 15 For a summary of a reminiscent account of Left politics in Rajarhat, see Datta (2009). 14

226  Beyond Kolkata

peasant lands were looted either to build houses or brick kilns. Arun Srimani of Ganti mauza spoke of the need to resist further plans to set up a truck and transport terminal on 300 acres of acquired land in Ganti in Rajarhat.16 All these and myriad other events — incidents of daily life in Rajarhat over the past 20 years — show that the Rajarhat issue was never settled. With promised investments not coming in, vast areas of land taking on the appearance of a deserted space and only housing estates showing their unimaginative presence, the ruins all around raised one question: Was this outcome worth all this destruction, this ruination of a huge population? But by raising this question, the ruins of Rajarhat in fact ensured that it was not still a settled issue. Thus, one should not be surprised to see that the same opposition party whose local leaders had colluded with HIDCO in dispossessing the peasants now woke up to the living nature of the conflict. Its leader (current chief minister of West Bengal) Mamata Banerjee spoke up before the elections. As one report put it: KOLKATA: After Singur and Nandigram, Mamata Banerjee’s new battleground is Rajarhat. The Trinamool chief has questioned land acquisition for setting up housing projects and commercial complexes, exorbitant prices of plots on sale without necessary infrastructure, and the price given to farmers from whom the state took land. She also has a demand — return 10 per cent of the developed land at Rajarhat to deprived farmers. Addressing a huge gathering at Rajarhat on Saturday, Mamata said her party will conduct a thorough probe into land deals. “I will see to the end of it (shady deals),” she said. Mamata has no problems with IT campuses coming up at Rajarhat, offices of NGOs, or art and drawing centres. Her objection is to mushrooming apartments and shopping malls coming up on acquired land. She had a warning for buyers, too. “Remember, there is neither water, nor electricity nor sewerage here,” she said, asking the common man to think twice before buying property at Rajarhat. Brandishing bundles of papers that she said were applications from aggrieved people from whom land had been acquired forcibly, Mamata promised the Trinamool would explore avenues to find legal redress. 16

Some Facts on Rajarhat.

Politics of the Multitude  227 She also promised a probe into the distribution of 300 acres of land under ministers’ quota without public notification. “Who are you to distribute land, is it your land?” she asked, in an apparent dig at state housing minister Gautam Deb, who has been inviting her to programmes at New Town time and again.17

There were other reports to the same effect; for instance, one item reported her padayatra (procession on foot) in Rajarhat with about 25,000 supporters: Mamata Banerjee today pledged to stop the Left Front government’s “forcible acquisition” of land from farmers in Rajarhat and threatened to take the legal route. “Nearly 25,000 acres were forcibly acquired from farmers to set up industries in Rajarhat. But tell me, how many industries have come up here?” the Trinamul Congress chief said at a rally in Rajarhat this afternoon after participating in a padayatra there. “Land was grabbed from poor farmers and given away to promoters close to the CPM,” Mamata alleged. She said she would ensure “court cases are filed to give justice” to the land-losers.18

The problem of Rajarhat thus could not be solved by the government. And, precisely because Rajarhat was not as yet a settled issue 17

New Town is the New Land Battlefield for Mamata, The Times of India (Kolkata edition), 15 December 2011. 18 Mamata Deals Rajarhat Land Punch, The Telegraph, 13 November 2010. Meanwhile, there was one more piece of public interest litigation (PIL) before the Calcutta High Court on the issue of arbitrary allotment of land by HIDCO: ‘The Calcutta High Court on Friday scheduled the hearing in a PIL on the land distributed by the West Bengal Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (HIDCO) in Rajarhat for 10 June, which means that the issue will come up in the court after the formation of the next government. The Division Bench headed by Chief Justice Jaynarayan Patel asked Ramaprasad Sarkar, the petitioner, to file additional reply on the affidavit filed by Gautam Deb, state Housing Minister also the chairman of HIDCO. It is significant to mention here that the acquisition of land by the HIDCO for the Rajarhat Township, a satellite town adjacent to the Kolkata, had become a political issue in the run-up to the assembly elections. On the other hand Calcutta High Court admitted the PIL in the September 2010, in which it was alleged that the plots were distributed under the special quota of Chairman Gautam Deb, which he could not do legally’ (The Indian Express [Kolkata edition], 7 May 2011).

228  Beyond Kolkata

when the assembly elections happened in 2011, the various myths of consensus, of informal negotiations in the construction of a ‘political society’ on the margins of law and legality, and of democracy expanding through party-sponsored social mobilisations and social consensus were challenged and broken. The presence of the multitude in the gentry-dominated politics of Bengal could no longer be denied. The multitude’s presence, contrary to the views of the gentrified intellectuals, is local, yet it has a strong networking capacity and effect. Meanwhile, in many areas the dispossessed peasants continued to cultivate acquired land that had earlier belonged to them. Only in few cases could the peasants be stopped and HIDCO take effective possession because of the threat of massive bloodshed. In other cases, syndicates of local youths kept control over the developers. Yet, in several other instances, peasants and labourers rallied behind platforms, assembled, petitioned, fought cases, or resisted summons from the police or local leaders. And yet again, in some other instances, people used party organisation(s) to neutralise the attacks. All these reflect the emerging nature of political subjectivity in Rajarhat New Town. For lack of a better word, we call this the ‘multitude’. We need not return to the writings of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri or to earlier European republican and insurgent thought to appreciate the essence of the emerging phenomenon. Indeed, the usage here differs from the use that Negri and Hardt make in the Multitude (Hardt and Negri 2005). In the formation of this new subjectivity, there is a link with old histories of urban resistance; at the same time, this is also marked by the appearance of several fault lines, primarily due to the segmented labour market described in chapter 6. It is too early to speculate on how the new trajectory of resistance will cope with the fragmented labouring subjects of New Town. But life is long and Rajarhat New Town will not vanish any time soon. Yet, what is perhaps more significant is the way resistance against the Rajarhat New Town project now appears as the common cause of a desired life. It appears as the new commons. A nondescript, largely ignored, vast area becomes the sign of the new issues of life such as environment, decent work, of people living together, communicating, exchanging goods and ideas. Who is producing this commons — this idea that the city is a commonwealth not to be occupied and annexed by a few wealthy groups and individuals?

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Clearly, an important theoretical issue is at stake here. If labour were completely integrated in the capitalist production of a new town, we would not have witnessed the opposition whose history has been recorded in some detail in this book. Labour remains in this sense outside capital, to be exact, always imperfectly, inadequately integrated with capital, so much so that the organic composition of capital as far as the Rajarhat New Town project is concerned remains unsatisfactory. Labour truly becomes variable. It also indicates new forms of politics.

The Emergence of the Multitude Recall our argument in the first chapter. We suggested that peasant resistance in the classical form may not return while the peasant cause may become the rallying point for the multitude. Dispossessed peasants, unemployed youth, irregular workers in precarious jobs in large semi-rural, semi-urban areas, shopkeepers, petty traders, experienced political activists, students, low class employees in sundry jobs in the congested areas of Hatiara, Baguihati, Kaikhali — the areas of the crowd — form the social substance of the multitude. The old-style Marxist intellectuals who have spent sleepless nights over how to reconcile ‘classes’ and ‘masses’ have to see only the process of the emergence of the multitude, in which the tension between ‘classes’ and ‘masses’ is resolved, although temporarily. The tension springs back to life in politics and society again and again and yet the dynamics continue. In this emergence, the role of networks was important. How did the news of Singur reach Nandigram? How did the peasants of Rajarhat receive the information on Singur and Nandigram? What were the roles of an opposition party and other oppositionist radical elements of society? What was the role of media? Even though the ruling party and the biggest media house in Kolkata treated Mamata Banerjee’s fast unto death in 2006 with derision and mocked her, how did it create ripple effects? In short, what were the ways in which trust increased among collectives located in different areas? Public media obviously played a role. But this explains nothing, for one has to ask: What forced the media to note the role of the multitude? This is where Rajarhat gives us a new lesson in our understanding of the politics of the multitude. It is again not enough to say that 2006–10 were the years of congealed

230  Beyond Kolkata

expression of contentions in society. Not until we know how and when events strike and force the pace, how and when events of the past come back at us, how events release their connections on which further protest and rebellious actions build, and a settled issue all of a sudden directly demonstrates that it is not yet settled. The politics of the multitude probably plays out in this event-centric way. We have shown elsewhere how the dynamics of claim-making move from the prescribed to the tolerated, and then from the tolerated to the forbidden forms, and how networking plays a critical role in building trust on which contentious collectives are built (Samaddar 2009, vol. 1). An understanding of such a claim-making process helped us see the background of the regime change in West Bengal in 2011, the decisions of the new government we referred to at the beginning of this chapter, and the reopening of the Rajarhat New Town story, thought to have been settled in favour of the corporate class. In this sense, Rajarhat remains linked to Kolkata. The emergence of the multitude is the link. This explains, as mentioned earlier, why over some tracts of New Town already formally acquired, peasants have retained possession of their land, even some of the land sold off to businessmen, promoters, builders, and developers. As referred to earlier, promises of investment dried up after the financial crash of 2008. Effective occupation of purchased land started taking time because of the market downturn or because the land was not bought as promised. Meanwhile, large tracts of land were ruined as their topsoil was destroyed and the land became non-arable. Precariously living and working — a condition of uncertainty and permanent insecurity — dispossessed peasants became part of the multitude. Today, in New Town, housing colonies and luxury apartments are there to be seen, most are unoccupied, and the promised e-hubs and financial centres are present mostly on billboards. There is no (or hardly any) government in this huge tract. The dream, nurtured by a petty bourgeois political class lured by the easy returns of the neoliberal economy, of recreating a Silicon Valley remains only in the bizarre documents of planners, architects, chambers of commerce, and development agencies. Instead of a neo-liberal life, postcolonial conditions have created precarious life. This is the background to the rise of the multitude. This is also the background to the politics of the multitude, at once nebulous and coalitional, bordering on semi-legality and illegality, characterised by anomalous waves, but

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the only certain sign of life and resistance in an age of return of primitive accumulation. The return of primitive accumulation is accompanied by a return of what can be called ubiquitous violence. Rural violence began in a new way from the end of the last century. Extortion rackets protected by the police and the political-administrative set-up flourished. New companies in West Bengal appeared whose names one had never heard of. Building promoters mushroomed. Unorganised labour grew exponentially. As the first decade of this century progressed, roving bands of youth became the masters of Bengal’s district towns and the countryside, serving and protected by various political parties. Mass rage also increased in this scenario. One report captures the situation dramatically: In Nanur, one of the more underdeveloped areas in West Bengal’s Birbhum district, people will tell you that the armed gang which killed former CPI (M) MLA Ananda Das and attacked and ransacked the CPI (M)’s zonal office were mostly outsiders. They first assembled at a nearby village Saonta, and then rode in on motorcycles. The attackers were accompanied by a Tata Sumo car carrying more gun-toting men. They had taken the help of a few local people to locate the CPI (M) offices. After fulfilling their “task”, the attackers left and probably crossed the river Ajay to Burdwan district. The ‘pattern’ is the same everywhere. Rezzak Molla, the land and land revenue minister in the Left Front government and a member of the CPI (M) state committee, is a resident of Bhangar, South 24 Parganas district. He admitted that armed people on motorcycles come to his area and terrorise the people at gunpoint. “They are mostly outsiders, and come from Minakhan, Haroa and Rajarhat areas of the neighbouring North 24 Parganas district,” said Molla. “After the Lok Sabha elections of 2009, they (attackers) started levying heavy fines on the known CPI (M) supporters. Now, they are forcing people to give in writing that they won’t support the CPI (M) anymore. Only on giving the undertaking, are the people allowed to stay in their villages. Moreover, people are being forced to take part in the political activities of the Trinamool Congress (TC), the CPI (M)’s main opposition in the state, in their respective areas. As a result, a number of people have been forced to leave the area,” the minister said. Between 1975 and 1977, during the Emergency years when the Naxal movement began consolidating in West Bengal, violence had dominated the urban life — areas in Kolkata, and in small towns of Nadia,

232  Beyond Kolkata Hooghly, Midnapore, Murshidabad, Burdwan, and North and South 24 Parganas. This time, violence has taken root in rural Bengal. A senior RSP (Revolutionist Socialist Party) leader of Birbhum district observed that earlier political parties used to pay attention to the importance of rural areas as the centre of political power. But after seeing how the CPI (M) built its support base in the rural areas and reaped huge political dividend, all these parties are now keen to take control of the rural Bengal physically. The violent turf war was born out of that and it gave rise to a demand for arms and musclemen. The motorcycle-borne armed gangs are only meeting that demand. This phenomenon — of men on motorcycles — was first witnessed at Rajarhat in 1999–2000, when the CPI (M) unleashed them on the peasants and fishermen to break the resistance against the state government’s bid for acquiring their land for the satellite city New Town, adjoining Kolkata’s Salt Lake. In Nanur, it was the RSP — a constituent of the ruling Left Front — which had called the shots in the area. But in 2000, 11 people, mostly poor farm labourers, were killed at Suchpur under the Nanur Police Station. The victims were brought in by a landlord to get control of his land after he got a favourable verdict from the Calcutta High Court. The assailants, allegedly linked to the CPI (M), refused to vacate and butchered the outsiders. The Suchpur case is still lingering in the trial court with one vital witness already murdered by unknown miscreants. According to the district-level RSP leaders, the victims were all with RSP, but were hesitant about taking up the issue with the CPI (M). The Mamata Banerjee-led TC seized this opportunity. Banerjee even claimed that the victims were her supporters. After the murder of Ananda Das, Tapan Hore, the RSP MLA from Bolpur, had told the state Assembly that a number of RSP workers had joined TC in the recent past as they could not protect themselves on the face of the CPI (M)-sponsored attack. That also explains the sudden groundswell of support for the TC. Ashis Banerjee, the TC leader in Birbhum, explains the present violence in terms of reactive moves by the ‘local people’. He claimed that the politics of violence was introduced in Nanur by the CPI (M). Now, people have started resisting this under the leadership of Mamata Banerjee.19

19 People Resist CPI (M)’s Politics of Violence in West Bengal, Rajat Roy, Business Standard, 12 July 2010.

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With this perspective, recall the helplessness of the dispossessed people of Rajarhat described in the first chapter. A situation of being trapped in a place of destruction and ruins, with a city coming up which the people of the place would not be able to call their own. We also contrasted this with the traditional sense of the city and its citizens. Will the people of Rajarhat have the capacity to speak? Will they have to now remain contented with being represented by legislators and wise men and women? What do people surviving in a necropolis do? While this question has animated some social scientists, we hope that the brief history presented here — woefully inadequate and partial as this history is, also cobbled from equally inadequate accounts — will give readers an idea as to why the presence of the multitude in our contemporary time makes those academic questions redundant.

9 Concluding Reflections A Deferred Discussion

R

ajarhat slipped into the writings of social scientists in the early part of this century as an almost unique story of a harmonious society in which property transfer, peasant dispossession, consensus among political parties about compensation and rehabilitation, and promises of a new life could proceed without much contest and tension. In this book, we have described this variously as an urban legend of consent and have argued why these myths were needed to implement policies of dispossession, accumulation, etc. Yet, it is instructive to note that the myths or legends of the ‘Rajarhat way’ of building new towns entered the writings of social scientists without any inquiry into the contentious history of the present. And, as so often happens, administrators led social scientists by their hand in internalising this myth. Sanjay Mitra, in 2002 published an article, ‘Planned Urbanisation through Public Participation: Case of the New Town, Kolkata’, in which he summarised his experiences of Rajarhat as an ‘alternative model of urbanisation and associated infrastructure provision of the state’. He said: Existing wisdom has long emphasised a diminished role of the state, and unfettered operation of the market forces in order to build a new town. But Rajarhat presented an innovative approach. The experience of building new town at Rajarhat showed that it was possible to bring together an “activist” state and market-oriented efficiency, while keeping intact the concerns of the poor, many of whom had been offered a chance to take part in the construction activities and their views had been actively solicited during the rehabilitation work (ibid.: 1048).

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Mitra’s sources for this article and the conclusions he drew are based purely on government forces. His sources include two reports of the government: a Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA) concept plan of 1994 and a Housing Department Task Force Report of 1995; a third source is the EIA report of 2000 prepared by Ghose, Bose and Associates — a document of uncertain provenance.1 The author was thus making a significant point about the possibility of achieving popular consent for dislocation, eviction, dispossession, etc., known in Bengal politics and the urbanisation literature as the Rajarhat Way (as opposed to the Nandigram path marked by violent opposition), on the basis of these three reports. Three years before he wrote the article, he had written a letter (referred to in earlier) to the fisheries department for its approval for filling up the wetlands to build the New Town. The letter created a furore and became a scandalous document. Much later, when the Rajarhat story of dispossession, contentions, arm-twisting, coercion, bribes, false promises, and news of all other unsavoury aspects of the birth of the new town started tumbling out, The Statesman had this to report: KOLKATA, 13 MARCH: About 33 water bodies in the Ramsarprotected East Kolkata Wetlands were filled illegally for the construction of the Newtown-Rajarhat Township. A letter (HIDCO/planning 13/99) dated 19 November, 1999, written by the erstwhile managing director of Hidco, West Bengal, Mr Sanjay Mitra, to the secretary of the fisheries department, sought permission for relaxation of the provision of Inland Fisheries Act, 1984 and West Bengal Inland Fisheries (Amendment) Act, 1993 for filling up of waterbodies for the implementation of the New Town Calcutta Project. Permission to fill 33 waterbodies were sought. “When I joined the department as deputy director, I started a survey in Rajarhat area. The area had a very unique ecosystem with 53 species of fish that bred there naturally. I had prepared the project report and Hidco was not given the permission to fill even one waterbody there,” said Ms Madhumita Mukherjee, director of state fisheries department. 1

Interestingly, it is almost impossible to gain access to the EIA report in full or to know how and why Ghose, Bose and Associates qualified for the job.

236  Beyond Kolkata The state housing minister, Mr Gautam Deb, had claimed that the project area doesn’t fall in the limits of East Kolkata Wetland. However, according to the Geological Society of India, geographical coordinates for East Kolkata Wetland is 22 degree 40 minutes North/22 degree 25 minutes North (latitude) and 88 degree 22 minutes East/88 degrees 35 minutes East (longitude). According to the project report of a technical committee constituted by the state housing department in May 1994, the coordinates of the Newtown Township is 22 degrees 38 minutes North/22 degree 34 minutes North (latitude) and 88 degree 26 minutes East/88 degree 30 minutes East (longitude). This means that the project area falls within the perimeters of East Kolkata Wetland. Ms Mukherjee said: “Wetland doesn’t mean only water bodies. It is the whole ecology and the biodiversity that is needed to be taken into consideration. It takes 30 years for a new waterbody to develop the ecology.” It should be noted that the state department of environment had instructed the housing department through a letter dated 10 November, 1999 that necessary clearance should be taken from the fisheries department for filling up of any water body exceeding five cottahs. The 33 water bodies that were filled by the Hidco without permission from the fisheries department ranged from 6.05 cottahs to 114.95 cottahs. Contrary to what Ms Mukherjee said, Mr Deb, in a press conference, had said that the Wetland was on the verge of destruction and that the fisheries department and the East Kolkata Wetland Management Authorities had requested the minister to revive the area (Basu 2011b).

Readers may recall here the arguments made by government officials, during the court proceedings referred to in earlier chapters. The arguments were about the most rational and welfare-oriented model of public–private partnership, whose elements were an ‘active state’, ‘market efficiency’ and the incorporation of the ‘voice of the poor’ through local parties and negotiations. This mythical model served two more purposes besides the governmental-commercial one. First, the model proved that dispossession, as in Rajarhat, could be counterbalanced with several welfare and anti-poverty measures, which would prove to be the basis of a need-based economy, or, if you like, an urban para-economy. And, thus, while land might have gone the speculators’ way in Rajarhat, people stayed put, and the need-based economy, again through the operation of governmentality, sustained people in facing up to a corporate economy and primitive accumulation, and survive and sustain

Concluding Reflections  237

themselves. Second, the model could prove that people on the margins through local negotiations in paralegal mode with various points of governmental authority could create a ‘political society’, enter democratic politics and enrich democracy in the postcolonial situation in which both civil society and the national state had failed in broadening popular participation. For this, it was essential that the group concerned invoked a community mode of unity and existence. Also, the model would prove that if political society and the governmental world could be kept separate, although in interface, rights and entitlements expanded in the long run. Crucial to both the explanations was Sanjay Mitra, other government officials and political leaders’ claims that local people had consented to the project through local interactions and negotiations, that the project was creating micro-opportunities of various forms of work, like land filling or supplying building material, in which they could now gainfully engage, and thus the new town was a positive-sum game. The Rajarhat model served the economy; it also served democracy. It had, on the whole, expelled virulent conflict from society. Sanjay Mitra’s line was picked up subsequently by two eminent social scientists in the course of the next 10 years. The late eminent economist Kalyan Sanyal, in an article jointly written with Rajesh Bhattacharya, ‘Bypassing the Squalor: New Towns, Immaterial Labour and Exclusion in Post-Colonial Urbanisation’ (2011), referred to Mitra’s article of 2002, commenting that the process of primitive accumulation in Rajarhat had been relatively free of protest and repression. However, he did say that the end result was to be the same, namely, that in the new town two aspects of economy would face each other — the accumulation economy opposed by the subsistence economy (ibid.: 46). Much of what Sanyal and Bhattacharya wrote in that article was correct and unexceptionable, namely, the facts of accumulation, the new labour at Rajarhat in the form of information labour that would take on an immaterial character and exercise hegemony over the landscape of labour there, the policy of bypassing the old city to create a new city, yet utilising the fringes of the old city to accelerate the accumulation process, etc., and the continuing monetisation of land. They noted, once more, the creation of a large informal workforce, which would negotiate with a governmentalised state to survive, serve conditions of their own reproduction, and possibly even improve — all within the paralegal mode of negotiation, transaction, and life. In this way,

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Bhattacharya and Sanyal carried forward Sanyal’s own model of a two-sector economy (in Sanyal’s language, ‘capital/non-capital’ or ‘accumulation economy/subsistence economy’), expounded at length in Sanyal’s earlier innovative work, Rethinking Capitalist Development (2007). This is not the occasion for a large-scale discussion on this important book or the concept of ‘need economy’. Our work has not been written as a polemical tract with the aim of critiquing any particular view. In fact, we have drawn insights from various writings — insights valuable for our chronicle of Rajarhat. However, in arguing that the story of Rajarhat is not just a local one, we had to delve deep into its contemporary history, and the allied happenings to bring out its global and national significance. If the readers prefer, New Town at Rajarhat can in fact be called the ‘global city’, to use a phrase from Saskia Sassen (1991), not because it acts as a nodal point of global connections, but because it symbolises or encapsulates the contradictions of the global capital today, expressed through the ruthless operation of primitive accumulation of capital alongside the most virtual forms of accumulation. Likewise, the readers can, while reading these concluding pages, look back upon Manuel Castell’s seamless formulation of ‘information city’ (Castells 1989). Both formulations, in the excitement of discovering the power of new capital during the boom time of capital, possibly neglected its dark side, brought out in all its ugliness and violence in the form of what we can describe for lack of better words as a logistical city. To this we later return. Therefore, we feel the need to note certain writings and their implications in framing an understanding of what is going on in our country today in terms of urbanisation, advance of capital and urban subjectivity. In our urban studies, we possibly deferred this discussion for quite some time and we should now have some of it by way of concluding this book. Partha Chatterjee, another social scientist, also used Sanjay Mitra’s article in constricting the theory of “political society”. In the now famous article published, ‘The Politics of the Governed’, Rajarhat became an example of how democracy worked as the politics of the governed (Chatterjee 2004: 72–73; 157, note 13). In Chatterjee’s account, the dispossessed in Rajarhat, following the trail of the inhabitants of shanties occupying railway land on both sides of the rail tracks in Dhakuria, Kolkata, and the peasants in

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Haldia, had become members of what he termed ‘political society’. They did so by forming a community of the dispossessed, sharing the same types of informal jobs, reproducing the same relations of survival and entitlement, and negotiating in a paralegal way with the governmental machinery to survive and make its presence felt. Here, again, there was no reference to the intrinsic violence of the process and the organic relation of the ‘informal’ with today’s mode of accumulation. There was, however, the same story of successful negotiations at the social level and the same absence of reference to local chieftains of accumulation like Arun Maheswari or Lakshman Seth — characters without reference to whom the story of a new town is never complete. It is not, of course, the case that local negotiations do not take place in the periphery of the city, or that there is no interface between the margins and the mainland of capital. Also, it is not the case that the margins do not have a subjective presence in the city of today. The margins, the periphery, the outside, whichever way one wishes to call this, is being constantly produced by capital. The ways of negotiating with the production process of capital are various, yet none of this produces a society of its own precisely because this outside or the periphery of capital has to survive only through interface with capital. The society of anti-capital is formed through a history of struggles against capital and its modes, howsoever disparate this encounter may be in its rebellious nature and irrespective of the fact that sociologists may or may not call it a society. In Rajarhat, the society was thus split along various lines — party, group, locality, class, occupation, nature of property, access to resources to fight against dispossession, and, finally, the resource of network. In some senses, Chatterjee is right. There was indeed some consensus among the political elite about how to dispossess the peasants. But the consensus was soon broken. The shadow of contentious politics soon came to loom over Rajarhat. Today, Rajarhat in some senses is historically a demonstrable case of primitive accumulation and partially failed popular resistance. Yet, it is also an instance from which one can learn how people, through contentious issues of life and politics, become a multitude impacting on and enveloping all sorts of institutional politics as well as nonconformist politics. It is an instance of new networking and new subjectivity — contingent, tactical, coalitional, and resistant to capital. It is predicated, and this is the lesson of the book, on the dynamics of contention built

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over issues of a reworking of space and labour in the wake of a logistical redesign of capital accumulation. Therefore, we are not talking here of the bypass or the fringe, we are discussing the logistics of the new form of capital and its accumulation and the subjectivities it produces that compel the latter to become its own adversary, the ‘gravediggers of the logistical city’. In an attempt to connect the process of primitive accumulation and governmentality, which Sanyal thought to be the core characteristic of postcolonial capitalism, he neglected the violence and the contradictions that capitalist accumulation, including primarily primitive accumulation, throws up and the political convulsions it creates. These social and political convulsions are often beyond the management skill and repertoire of the government of the day. Indeed, the Rajarhat experience shows that the subjects of accumulation are rarely satisfied with these governmental measures couched in the fashionable term ‘entitlement’ and demand measures beyond the measures of the existing reign of governmentality. This is the excess that the politics of the multitude signifies. And it is this excess that cannot be fully grasped in the two-sector model of Sanyal and Chatterjee, namely, need economy and accumulation economy or political society and civil society. Sanyal had written: Developmental governmentality is made possible by a reversal of primitive accumulation whereby a part of the capitalist surplus is transferred from the domain of capital to the need economy. Development cannot be reduced to capital: the space of development is one that is distinct from the space of capital with the former securing the legitimation of the latter by creating and renewing the need economy (2007: 254–55).

In Rajarhat, it did not happen that way. Whatever the victims retained was through a variety of struggles — from court battles to sacrificing lives. They were betrayed by most political parties and some of their leaders and cadres became part of the great land loot. Some inhabitants later managed to get few subsidiary jobs, and in the elections they voted the ruling party out of power only to be quickly disillusioned with newcomers. This made them even more determined to hold on to the gains of resistance such as tilling the land taken over by HIDCO, which dare not now actually take in its possession the land and evict the erstwhile owners. Meanwhile, the

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call for adequate compensation grows louder as the price of the land goes up through the roof. This process, we have tried to demonstrate, has been bloody and contentious. In this context, David Harvey’s idea of the ‘right to city’ (Harvey 2010b) must be appropriately modulated to inscribe in its history the struggle against the blood and dirt associated with the new cities of our time. Therefore, we cannot underestimate the internal contradictions of capitalism, more so in postcolonial countries. The programme of building a new town in Rajarhat did not create a need economy, but whatever subsistence economy existed (as we have shown in chapters 2 and 3) and it was quite robust, was destroyed by the New Town project. The wasteland of capital will soon come under another new plan, which will put some local labour in various services of the new town; some will remain flotsam and jetsam, some will work to create connections with Kolkata, and a large number of labourers will move away to new construction sites for work involving masonry, plumbing, carpentry, wiring, etc. All these, however, assume that the financial downturn will end sooner than later, and the cash flow to government coffers will continue unabated. The neo-Gramscian framework that replaces the ‘pre’ with ‘non’ as a prefix to capital does not solve the problem that afflicts passive revolution. The problem of passive revolution, simply put, is the ever-present and recurring threat and possibility of an active revolution upsetting the agenda of conservative change, with violence and anarchy on the street making the strategic programme of changing society within a framework of order and stability a fragile one. This was the nightmare suffered by Italy, Germany and France in the 1960s and 1970s, and in Greece in this century. Yet, as we end this book, we must ask our readers, why was this historical knowledge about New Town in Rajarhat (or elsewhere) either ignored or used differentially? Or, looking at this from a different angle, why could the story of Rajarhat be so seamlessly integrated with the stories of Singur and Nandigram, notwithstanding the differences between them? To address this question is to try to understand the phenomenon of a tactical generalisation of historical knowledge, how the ‘original’ knowledge is displaced from its scene of birth, how it travels, and how it becomes an instrument that may be used in political struggles — all of which happened in Bengal in recent years. Thus, when Sanyal and Chatterjee concentrated on the periphery of capital, they were right to appreciate

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certain parts of a phenomenon. However, possibly, they would have revised their framework had they written in the light of the world financial crash of 2008–9, the slowdown of the economy, massive cuts in subsidies and welfare expenditures of the government at the centre, a change in local government in power, and the advent of a bankrupt government in West Bengal with this entire five-year period marked by huge social and violent political struggles. Historical intelligibility is produced in this way; and in this case three factors produced the intelligibility we are speaking of here: a sense of profound conflict, an idea of the insoluble contradiction in a reign leading it to its inevitable decline or end, and third, the basic struggles carrying society forward and forcing changes in the mode of accumulation. Yet the understanding of peripheries up in arms would not have been enough to comprehend what Rajarhat beyond Kolkata signifies.

The Logistical City A new town is what Brett Neilson and Ned Rossiter call the ‘logistical city’ (Neilson and Rossiter 2011). The logistical city is indeed a city of peripheries. These are peripheries not of capital, but peripheries (of old majestic metropolises) to be remade now in the form of a grid of transport terminals, warehouses, IT infrastructures, financial transaction centres, and other processing venues. The interconnection of peripheries is not complete unless it is on a global scale. This is a special kind of globality in which carriers, smugglers, electronic waste disposers, IT technicians, street vendors servicing these peripheral stations, transport machines and hubs service ‘a complex network of distribution systems’ (such as roads, rail, shipping, communication networks, and not the least aviation) — ‘the otherwise mysterious abstractions of capitalist operations’. It is thus not exactly a global city, but like a global city a city of services ranging from what Sanyal pithily called ‘needs’ to managing the mobility of things by computational systems. The dirty food joint of McDonald’s in the bright science parks in the West or a street-side eatery besides the SEZ in Rajarhat are perfectly compatible with the programme of reorganising the peripheries. Yet, logistical nightmares occur, as this book shows. Circuits of labour may break down any time amidst the multiplicity of borders the new town represents. In Nandigram, the roads were dug up.

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In Rajarhat, in many places (villages), inhabitants did not allow the putting up of electricity distribution poles for high-tension overhead wires over the villages. Attempts were made to offset by partial remobilisation of peasant labour into service villages the peasant dispossession and loss of other jobs. But measures like this have been few and far between, and no one is sure about what the conditions of possibility for the logistical city and its information economy are. Meanwhile, Sector V, endowed with fibre-optic cables and a number of international and national IT firms largely undertaking beta-testing of new software or BPO work for financial, medical and insurance companies based in Europe and North America remains the connecting point. If peasants have refused to leave the land or if labour circuits have broken down owing to various reasons, there has also been the uncertainty of destiny: Since 2008, the rate of development in Rajarhat has slowed considerably due to the effects of the global financial crisis, giving the losers the time to plan the next step. ‘Partially built apartment towers stand isolated against a backdrop of now arid land dotted with surveyor’s pegs and the occasional grazing cattle.’ Many of the completed residential complexes remain empty as investment owners are located in other Indian cities or live overseas. A number of IT firms are currently operating, but their workers are often commuting from elsewhere in Kolkata, as are many owners of the makeshift teahouses and eateries frequented by IT workers. As Rossiter reminds us, ‘The logistical city does away with the biological and social rhythms of urban life so beloved by Henri Lefebvre, and instead operates by the cold sword of code that measures productivity and worth in real-time’ (Rossiter 2012). Yet, time is heterogeneous. Therefore, while the efforts to streamline Rajarhat into the homogenous time of a logistical city will continue, the unruly elements will also be present. The battle will continue.

Glossary adda aman aus beel bheri bigha biryani boro bustee chowk cottah crore doba dosa gram sabha gram sansad gyanda jheel jomi jotedar katha khal lakh maund momo mauza munshi

Leisurely conversation among a group of people Monsoon paddy crop Autumn paddy crop Large water body Water body used for pisciculture, often sewage-fed Measure of land of varying size, in Bengal usually between half and a third of an acre. A rice-based dish cooked with spices and meat Winter paddy crop Slum Street crossing A measure of land, in Bengal usually a twentieth of a bigha 10 million Water body A south Indian dish made from rice batter Assembly of residents of a village Village parliament A flower Large water body Land Rich peasant Same as cottah Canal 100,000 A measure of weight, around 40 kg A Tibetan dumpling, usually made with pork A group of villages that serves as a unit of land-revenue assessment Historically, a secretary to a landlord

Glossary  245

rabi panchayat samiti pukur rajanigandha ryot sardar til

Spring crop Second tier in India’s system rural local self-government Pond A flower Peasant Labour overseer or contractor sesame

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About the Authors Ishita Dey is a member of the Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group and a doctoral candidate in Sociology at the Delhi School of Economics. She has worked and published on issues of labour process in SEZ and food industry. She is the co-editor of Sustainability of Rights after Globalization (2011). Suhit K. Sen, for long a senior journalist, is a historian. He was a senior researcher at the Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group. He is the co-editor of a two-volume study on governance — Political Transition and Development Imperatives in India (2012) and New Subjects and New Governance in India (2012). Ranabir Samaddar is Director of Mahanirban Calcutta Research Grroup. He is currently working on the theme of postcolonial capitalism. His publications include The Materiality of Politics (2007) and Emergence of the Political Subject (2010).

Index Age of Enlightenment 155, 190 agrarian livelihood 179 Ahmedabad–Pune corridor 200 Ahmed, Ali 82 anti-land acquisition protest 98, 219 Asian Development Bank (ADB) 101, 135 Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) 194 Bachelard, Gaston 24 Baguihati 9, 11, 21, 229 Bandyopadhyay, Debabrata 67 Banerjee, Mamata 28n6, 73, 74, 82, 99, 127n13, 226, 227, 229, 232 Bengal Canal Act (1864) 110 Bengal Tank Improvement Act (1939) 110 Benjamin, Walter 85, 149, 158 Bhangar Rajarhat Area Development Authority (BRADA) 9, 13, 74, 90, 102–5, 137, 140, 209–11, 219; fringe areas under 87 Bhattacharya, Asok 112 bheri labourers’ organisation 214 Bhumi Uchchhed Pratirodh Committee 221 Bidhannagar Municipality 165 bio-politics 115–18, 125 body-shopping 175 Bollywood film industry 1 Business Process Outsourcing (BPOs) 149, 168, 169, 191, 243; attrition rate at 207; work conditions in 206 ‘Bypassing the Squalor: New Towns, Immaterial Labour and Exclusion in Post-Colonial Urbanisation’ (2011) 237 Calcutta Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) 101, 135, 172

call centre 168–75 capitalism, dynamics of 119–22 Chatterjee, Partha 238 Chattopadhyay, Malay Kumar 56, 130 Chowdhury, Benoy 67 ‘circuits of capital’ 161–62, 164 city, theoretical problems of 112 commodity capital 126, 161 Communist Party of India (Marxist) 63, 221 Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) Report 32–34, 62, 64–65, 66n69, 70–71, 106–9 concession-based colonialism 205 Confederation of Real Estate Developers Association of India (CREDAI) 224 conquest-based colonialism 205 Contract Labour (Regulations & Abolition) Act 167 cosmopolitanism 1 creative city, idea of 187 cyber-coolies 169, 175 Das, Gurcharan 169 Dutta, Nilotpal 47, 55, 58, 61, 68, 69, 225 Deb, Gautam 15, 28, 34, 79, 83, 88, 91, 93n14, 99, 107, 151, 211, 219, 227, 236 Delhi 2, 11, 16, 57, 134–35, 144, 147, 161, 168, 191, 194, 200 division of labour 163, 166, 175, 185 domination, general history of 200–208 East Calcutta Wetlands 8, 27n4, 35, 41–42, 57, 72 East India Company 154 Edinburgh 189–90 Employees Provident Fund and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 167 Employees State Insurance Act 167

Index  261 End of Organised Capitalism, The 161 Environmental Protection Act (1986) 52 Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) 39, 139, 235 Environment Impact Assessment and Environment Management Plan 140 European urban planning 189 Export Import Policy (1997–2002) 162 export-oriented services 162, 166 Export Processing Zones (EPZs) 162, 190

Indian Fisheries Act (1897) 110 Indira Awaas Yojana 81 Industrial Disputes Act (1947) 166 Information Technology (IT) 162, 164, 191, 212, 243; as ‘public utility services’ providers 166 Information Technology-enabled Services (ITeS) 164; attrition rate at 207; policies for 166; proliferation of 165 Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) 209–10

Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) report 144, 145–54 Fordist economy 184 Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) 112 Foucault, Michel 91, 115, 117, 125 Free Trade Zones (FTZs) 162

Jamshedpur 160 job-oriented schemes 181 jotedars 133, 214 Jyoti Basu Nagar 2, 9, 25, 26, 66, 154

Gachibowli 125, 194–95, 197 global city 238, 242 globalisation 24, 112, 122n9, 127, 135, 169, 190, 206 global software outsourcing services 196 Gurgaon 146–47, 173, 191–94, 197 Haryana State Development Corporation 191 heteropolis 203 Hingalganj 4 Housing Department Task Force Report (1995) 235 Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation (HIDCO) 3, 15, 32, 59, 61, 102, 113, 138–39, 163, 177, 180, 189, 219, 221, 222, 225, 226, 227, 227n18, 240 Howrah Democratic Citizens Committee see Howrah Ganatantrik Nagarik Samiti Howrah Ganatantrik Nagarik Samiti 55, 204 Hyderabad Master Plan (2020) 195 Hyderabad Urban Agglomeration 195

Kandla EPZ 162 Kidwai, A.R. 67, 143 knowledge-centred economy 184 knowledge process outsourcing 191 knowledge work 173, 175 Kolkata 1, 2, 7, 127, 154; drainage system of 137; landmarks of 85–86, 85n6, 86n7; ‘natural’ economy 123– 24; signs of changes in the social organisation 87 Kolkata Metropolitan Area (KMA) 14, 35, 48, 135–36 Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA) 29, 235 Kolkata-New Town 19–20 labour: division of 163, 166, 175, 185; in transit 175–77; unorganised 89, 231; workforce on periphery of a dream 177–82 labour market 120; regulation of 85; segmented 228 Lalgarh 18, 98 land acquisition 181, 222; benefits of 219; claim-making, dynamics of 230; ‘forcible acquisition’ of land from farmers 227; resistance to 215, 232; ‘willingness and consent’, propaganda of 221

262  Index Land Acquisition Act (1894) 3, 107, 129, 139, 154, 217 land-grabbing by realtors 137, 223 Land Losers Cooperative 89, 177 land reforms programme 209 land tenure systems 202 land-use pattern, of New Town project 98, 131, 180, 202 law of capitalist production 119 Lefebvre’s philosophy of space 16 ‘liquification of labour’ 175 logistical city 238, 240, 242–43

neo-liberalism: emergence of 112; Foucault’s views on 117–18; as a polit-ical rationality 118 neo-liberal programme of privatisation 81–83 ‘new’ townships, trend of developing 112–13 Noida 162, 191, 193–94 Non-Cooperation Movement 213

Maheswari, Sarla 96, 215 Mahishbathan Jivikachyuta Bekar Samiti 219 Mandal, Tanmay 67, 143n9 Marx, Karl 119–21, 126, 126n12 Massey, Doreen 185 Maternity Benefits Act 167 Methopara 80 Minimum Wages Act 167 Mitra, Sanjay 93–95, 234, 235, 237, 238 Mondal, Rabin 8n7, 102, 105, 114, 133, 209, 219, 225 monetisation of land 124, 237; logistics of 142–45; of Rajarhat 135–37 monetisation process 91 money capital 161 Mukherjee, Pranab 68, 89, 213 Mukherjee, Sanjeeb 106, 108–9 Mumbai 1, 89, 157, 161, 200 Myerson, Jeremy 173

Payment of Gratuity Act 167 Payment of Wages Act 167 Planned Urbanisation through Public Participation: Case of the New Town, Kolkata (2002) 234 Polanyi, Karl 124 pollution-prevention regulations 162 population, dislocation of 51, 52, 137, 204–5, 235 post-colonial capitalism 8, 75, 122, 240 primitive accumulation, theory of 8, 71–75, 116, 118, 119–22, 124–26, 161, 164, 206, 231, 236–40 Private Fisheries Protection Act (1889) 110 productive capital 161 Public Interest Litigation (PIL) 48, 55, 227n18 public–private partnerships 19, 23, 82, 85, 160, 164, 186, 195–96; welfareoriented model of 236 ‘public purpose’, notion of 129 public utility services 166

Nabadiganta Industrial Authority 165, 178, 182 Nabadiganta Pariseba Samity (NPS) 178 Nandigram 18, 71, 73–74, 98, 103, 114, 115, 153, 217, 221–22, 226, 229, 235, 241, 242 National Agency for Spatial Planning and Regional Action, France 188 National Capital Region (NCR) 147, 191, 193 national economic development 198 national history of the New Town 190– 200

off-shoring services 175 original violence, issue of 115–16, 182

Quit India Movement 213 Rajarhat–Gopalpur municipality 3, 106n28, 143, 217; below-povertyline (BPL) population 6; households in 4; number of workers 9 Rajarhat Jomi Bachao Committee 3n4, 47, 58, 71, 95, 128, 204, 211, 219, 220, 225

Index  263 Rajarhat Krishi Jami Jiban Jibika Raksha Committee (RKJJJR) 18n14 Rajarhat Krishijomi Raksha Committee 219 Rajarhat New Town 8, 10, 14; acquisition and displacement (1995–2006) 34–46; acquisition of land, issue of forcible 68–69; Action Area II 224; agricultural productivity 6–7; allocation of space, preliminary proposals 29–30; as alternative model of urbanisation 234; architects’ dream 13–15; assembly constituency 210; assembly elections 209; compensation and rehabilitation 234; Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) Report 32–34, 62, 64–65, 66n69, 70–71, 106–9; conservation, impact on 50– 51; construction of South City Mall 96–97; conversion of agricultural land to non-agricultural use 6–7; Dalit population 4; demography 3–4, 27; displacement and loss of livelihoods in 25; drainage requirements of the project area 137–42; drainage system 33; environmental hazards, issue of 53; environment clearance, matter of 54–58; erstwhile bheris of 216; Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) report 145–54; field notes 75–78; financial hub project 89–90; fisheries, impact on 44–46; fishing fauna 8; global history of 183–90; HIDCO’s land acquisition 91–97; HIDCO’s land pricing policy 64–65, 90–91, 107–8, 129; HIDCO’s project reports 32–33; HIDCO’s violations 66n69; ideas and events related to 117; land-use plan 138; literacy rate 4; as logistical city 242–43; logistics issue 154–59; loss of home and livelihood 130–31; L. S. S. O’Malley’s description 3; male–female ratio 4; malls that service 178; Master Land Use Plan (1999) 30–31, 55; mauzas under Rajarhat Panchayat Samiti 5, 22n19, 64, 81; multitude, emergence

of 229–33; Muslim population 4; national history of 190–200; nature of dispossession in 123; near-zero energy satellite town (ZEST) 11; notion of ‘public purpose’ and myth of consent 129–34; occupational distribution 42; original project report 31–32; panchayat area 3–4; power distribution 34; preliminary report on 29–31; present situation 32–33; price paid for land 69–71; problems 17–19; providing housing and employment, question of 60–63; provision for large open spaces 31, 138; public transportation 15; registered society of street vendors 178–79; resettlement and rehabilitation of affected people, issue of 59–61, 130; resistance from public 52–54; roads 33; social profile of 72–73; society and economy of 6–7, 110; spatial reorganisation 160; stories of yesteryears 209–19; urban governance and neo-liberal techniques 97–106; water bodies, impact on 46–51; water distribution 33–34; wetlands 8 Rajarhat New Town Development Authority 212 Rajiv Gandhi Infotech Park, Pune 196 Rapid Action Force (RAF) 68, 81, 222 ‘ration revolt’ 222 real estate developers 102, 103, 105, 224 recognition of trade unions, dispute over 191–92 Remesh, Babu P. 169 Rethinking Capitalist Development (2007) 238 Salt Lake City (Bidhannagar) 27, 165; sector III of 88; sector V of 9, 20, 21, 84, 88, 90, 99, 140, 147, 162–66, 168, 170–73, 175, 178, 179, 207, 213, 217, 243 Salt Satyagraha Movement 213 Santa Cruz EPZ 162 Sanyal, Kalyan 237–38, 240, 241, 242

264  Index Save Rajarhat Land Committee see Rajarhat Jomi Bachao Committee science parks 184–86, 242 scientific city 188 self-employment schemes, for the landlosers 181 self-government 64, 202 self-help movement 219 self-sufficient ‘city’, creation of 162 service villages 31, 138–39, 180, 243 settler colonialism 205 SEZ Act (2005) 112, 162 Silicon Valley 175, 184–85, 197, 230 Singur 4, 17, 71, 73–74, 98, 103, 114– 15, 117, 134, 153, 213, 217, 221, 222, 226, 229, 241 Software Technology Park (STP): Bangalore 196; Kolkata 165, 172–73 Software Technology Park Scheme (1991) 172–73 space, politics of 20–24 spatial location of labour, reconstitution of 163–68 Special Economic Zones (SEZs) 85, 88, 100, 140, 162, 167, 168–75, 206, 242; development of, in West Bengal 171; exports through 171; land provision for 191; list of nine notified SEZ approvals 170 Special Economic Zones Act 74 State Fisheries Development Corporation 179 steel townships 160 Suchpur case 232 Tandon Committee Report (1981) 162 Tata, Jamsetji Nusserwanji 160 Tata, J. R. D 160 Tata Medical Centre Trust 212 Tatanagar see Jamshedpur Town and Country Planning Act (1979) 110 trade monopoly 205 trade union: demand for registration of 192; movements 200; ‘performancereward’ scheme 192

Trinamool Congress (TMC) 18n14, 28n6, 63, 67, 71, 73, 77, 78, 103, 209, 221, 231 see Trinamul Congress Trinamul Congress (TMC) 82, 212, 227 Trivedi, Harish 169 ‘unorganised capitalism’ 206 urban agglomerates 195, 198–200, 203 urban continuum 163–64, 172, 175 urban development 53, 132; imbalances in 200; investment-centric 135; public intervention in 23; zoning practices in 160–63 urban economy, macroeconomic reforms 198 urbanisation programmes 160 Urban Land Ceiling Regulation Act (ULCRA) 112 urban population 200; in different size categories 201; disaggregation of 199; increase of 198 urban renewal missions 202 urban taxation system 202 US Department of Energy (DOE) 11 Vedic village 19, 90, 104, 137, 210, 222–23 venture capital industry 184 Virilio, Paul 20 Vision 2005 101 ‘walk to work’, concept of 140 Waste Recycling Region 49, 53, 57 Water and Air Pollution Act 167 West Bengal Electronics Industry Development Corporation Limited (WEBEL) 149n16, 167, 172 West Bengal Government Township Act 165 West Bengal Information Technology Association 174 West Bengal Inland Fisheries Act (1984) 44, 110, 128 West Bengal Inland Fisheries (Amendment) Act (1993) 44, 93, 235 West Bengal Land Requisition and Acquisition Act (1948) 3

Index  265 West Bengal Municipal Act (1993) 165 West Bengal Shops and Commercial Establishment Act (1963) 167 West Bengal Tank Acquisition and Irrigation Rights Act (1939) 110 wetlands of East Kolkata 6, 111

‘willingness and consent’, propaganda of 221 Workmen’s Compensation Act 167 zero-energy town 11 zoning practices, in urban development 160–63, 165, 175