- The document discusses land acquisition in West Bengal for industrialization and compares it to Vietnam's experience with land reform, economic liberalization, and agricultural development. - It notes that while farmers are attached to their land, Bengal needs industries for jobs, and cites Vietnam as transforming from collective agriculture to market socialism while still supporting rural development and becoming a top agricultural exporter. - Vietnam introduced economic reforms in 1986 after farm collectivization failed, shifting to a market economy while maintaining state guidance and opening foreign investment, leading to rapid growth and poverty reduction without ignoring agriculture.

1. Street Fighters of Bengal plus the Vietnam Experience
The unyielding campaigners against land acquisition say that opposing land acquisition isn't necessarily
an anti business mind-set. See how our leader Mamata Banerjee generally pronounces that she desires
to view the cheery face of each the industrialists and farmers. Is it not achievable to industrialize
without acquiring farmland? Theoretically even probably the most intangible suggestions can be proved
as possible. So, industrialization with out acquiring farmland can also be doable.
But a practical trouble cannot be argued or concluded upon with theory alone. In Bengal, 24% of its total
land constitutes the urban-industrial sectors, 13% of it can be forestland. Farmland constitutes 62%,
when the fallow land is only 1%. From where will the necessary added land for new industries come? Is
it the first time that land is acquired for business and development projects in Bengal? Back in time,
when Bengal was a major industrial state in India, massive tracts of land had been acquired for
mammoth projects like Durgapur Steel Plant, Alloy Steel Plant, expansion of IISCO, DVC projects,
Farrakka hydroelectric project and so on. These acquisitions have been uncomplicated since it was
acquired from absentee landlords who owned significant amount of surplus land but weren't the actual
cultivator themselves. In 1978, the newly elected Left Front government launched Operation Barga and
undertook land reform measures. For the first time, poor peasants were offered cultivation rights
towards the land they toil. Land reform straight benefited the sharecroppers - the poorer sections of
peasantry, specifically marginal and smaller farmers. Consequently the agriculture accomplished a
outstanding progress and development which changed the rural scene of Bengal. Also rural poverty
sharply declined as wages have been enhanced significantly.

2. Right after thirty years, the rural economy has started to show indicators of stagnation. Farmlands are
constantly been fragmented resulting from division of property among generation subsequent inside the
rural households. The price of farming has also drastically improved. Hence, farming is creating lesser
remunerative price. Day by day, the numbers of landless people are escalating amongst the farming
families, individuals who have no alternative besides venturing into trades or employing themselves
elsewhere. Depending only on farmland is for that reason not a sensible concept even amongst the
farmers who're located to routinely migrate in large cities for temporary jobs in the course of off
seasons. Saying so, the reality cannot be ignored that farmers have a deep sentimental attachment with
their lands. Losing their dear land is not a minor matter for them. The campaigners against land
acquisition have cleverly employed this sentiment to score their narrow political points.
Maintaining this scenario in thoughts where Bengal badly needs industries and development for new
employment and revenue earning opportunities, voicing against any kind of land acquisition - be it
forindustry, power project or roads is in other words, a direct impediment for the prospects of your
future generation with the state.
For almost two plus a half years, the anti land acquisition groups has spearheaded protests along with a
robust propaganda war to malign the industrialization initiative on the Buddhadev Bhattacharjee led LF
government within the most obnoxious manner together with the active help of a large section of
prominent media groups. It had began in Might 2008 at Singur, climbed to its peak at Nandigram, turned
again towards Singur now and waiting to explode within the near future at Katwa, a district town of
Bengal where land acquisition procedure will commence quickly for any 1,320-MW energy plant. The
principal force in each of the protests will be the Trinamul Congress lead rainbow coalition - the People's
Secular Democratic Front and intellectuals christened by the self-proclaimed godfather of Bengali
culture, Anandabazar Patrika (ABP) as 'Sushil Samaj', a rather puny Bengali rendition of 'Civil Society'.
They're hence highlighted as the 'good guys' on the society resisting land grab policy with the WB
government, precisely the neo liberal 'Stalinist' CPIM - the 'bad guys'.
Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky in their book Manufacturing Consent have elaborately discussed
how a systemic propaganda method can 'manage' public opinion. In their path breaking study in the
American media, Herman and Chomsky have shown how the American media undertook the sacred job
of manufacturing public consent to support and legitimize the American establishment's fictitious 'fight
for democracy' crusade in truculent countries.
Equivalent in Bengal, the propaganda method is following a basic model of dividing the two participants
of your conflict in black and white. The government and its main political celebration CPIM is 'bad' plus
the protesters are 'good'. For that reason, when the government sends police to sustain law and order
of an location it is actually stated because the 'bad guys' instigating 'state terror'. When the protesters
or the 'good guys' engage themselves in rampant carnage, forcefully evicting helpless villagers that are
not supportive to them, it is actually referred to as 'spontaneous mass fury'. When a CPIM activist (an
unworthy victim based on the propaganda model) is murdered, it's referred to as 'CPM goon is killed by
the oppressed and angry villagers'. When an activist in the rainbow coalition (a worthy victim in line with
the propaganda model) is murdered, it can be known as 'a poor peasant is killed by CPM goons'. The

3. former will thus not create sustained coverage; the later will elicit a propaganda outburst. When a CPIM
leader speaks for any 'political battle', it is actually inflated as an atrocious war cry to persecute the
democratic rights of typical people today. When a singer named Kabir Suman tempts persons to kill
three CPM daily in public, it is actually taken as an emotional response towards the 'CPM atrocities' by a
socially conscious artist fighting for democratic rights.
The same activists had been seen raising a slogan Amar naam tomar naam, Nandigram Nandigram (My
name your name Nandigram Nandigram) within the streets of Kolkata on the days from the Nandigram
hullabaloo. Medha Patkar became so glad hearing it that in her quite a few media bites she referred to
this slogan as a very emotional expression by the concerned folks of Bengal in solidarity with the 'worthy
victims' of Nandigram. The 'concerned' people she was taking about had by that time marched in large
numbers by the get in touch with in the so known as Sushil Samaj within a 'historic' rally at Kolkata. It
was the identical rally which had a starry frontal section, having a quantity of renowned and
'responsible' Bengal intellectuals who had been but completely disconnected from the rear finish from
the rally which was infiltrated by lumpen Trinamul supporters with vulgar placards and slogans. This
slogan was a poor copy of the original Amar naam tomar naam, Vietnam Vietnam (My name your name
Vietnam Vietnam), a really historic slogan originated in the streets of seventies Calcutta in solidarity
together with the Vietnamese people today, fighting against the brutal American troops. It could be
concocted by one of several 'Swajan' intellectuals or radical Naxalites full of zip in Nandigram to reheat
their sodden revolutionary spirits. Vietnam's fight is extremely regarded as an incredible symbol of
determined resistance against imperialism. No one can deny this reality. The name of Vietnam arouses
higher emotion inside the hearts in the rice fed middle class Bengalis. As a result, by imitating the slogan
the protesters thought to come close towards the virtual reality from the Vietnamese heroic struggle.
A French colony from 1893, Vietnam was combined into a single territory with Cambodia and Laos by
the French colonialists and with each other recognized as Indochina. In 1925, Ho Chi Minh founded the
Indochinese Communist Party, spearheading movements against the colonial power. Throughout the
Second Planet War, when Vietnam came under Japanese possession, Ho Chi Minh established a
communist-nationalist alliance known as the Viet Minh which supported the allied forces. In August
1945 right after the Japanese defeat, Viet Minh took power in Vietnam and declared independence from
French colonial control, naming the nation Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Vietnam was the very first
country in Asia to achieve independence from colonial domination, even earlier than India. After the
war, the French attempted to force in with their colonial energy and also a new colonial war broke out.
From the initial stage, the French war was sponsored by American government through a secret fund
earmarked for Indochina. Right after the Viet Minh victory at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 the French were
forced to move out following splitting Vietnam into two components. North Vietnam became a
communist state beneath Ho Chi Minh and South Vietnam turned into a French-backed republic. The
American objective in Vietnam, as usual, was to stop a Communist regime from consolidating its energy
inside a nation of strategic interests to them. Inside the pretext of restraining communism in South-East
Asia the American military escalated its intervention against a legally constituted and reputable
government. In 1965, American army began bombing North Vietnam, and sending troops to help the
South. Under the communist leadership, the Vietnamese persons fought a heroic battle against the

4. gruesome and brutal American troops and by 1973 have been victorious in driving out the currently
despondent Americans. Following South Vietnam fell for the Viet Minh in 1975, North and South
Vietnam officially reunited below the communist celebration leadership In June 1976 and was renamed
Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
From 1975 to 1986 the new socialist government of Vietnam established a centrally planned economy
and collectivized land ownership by a collective agriculture policy. Private company was not encouraged.
From farmland to industries the state owned all the things on behalf of its folks. But in the mid-1980s,
the farm collectivization policy failed badly which turned into an economic disaster for Vietnam. The
state run enterprises have been at a loss, meals was rationed plus the country was on the brink of a
famine. 1.5 million tons of rice was imported because the country could not grow adequate rice to feed
their very own people. Yet another cause of this deep crisis was the collapse in the Soviet Union;
Vietnam's chief patron and help donor. The doctrinaire method to socialism was displaying indicators of
a total collapse.
At this juncture, in 1986 the Vietnamese Communist Party inside a historic shift announced a departure
from its policy of central preparing and collective agriculture and implemented a program of market
socialism known as Doi Moi (financial restructuring). The policy of Doi Moi consists of 3 interconnected
fundamental points: a shift from a bureaucratically centrally planned economy to a multi-sector
economy working below a market place mechanism with state management as well as a socialist
orientation; democratizing social life and constructing a legal state; implementing an open-door policy
and advertising relations amongst Vietnam and all other nations in the world. One of several key
reasons to this adjust was instigated by the child boom in Vietnam soon after 1975 which has designed
an incredibly young population with an average age of just around 25. The have to have for the
government as well as the party was to provide a safe future for these postwar baby-boomers once they
come up into their prime.
Doi Moi took its time for you to show up the effects, but more than the previous couple of years
economic liberalization has endorsed speedy, poverty-reducing growth for Vietnam. Over the past
decade the country's annual development has averaged 7.five per cent. As remarked by 'The Economist',
Vietnam has become the darling of foreign investors and multinationals. New SEZs, industrial parks,
software program parks are coming up in huge numbers there. Definitely, these are not getting
constructed on sky but on acquired agricultural land. 'The Economist' also says that, "The
accomplishment of Vietnam's economic transformation is usually measured by the falling share of
agriculture inside the country's gross domestic item. Market and solutions are indeed growing even
more quickly than farming and absorbing its surplus labour. Agriculture, forestry and fisheries now
deliver barely half of all jobs in Vietnam, compared with more than two-thirds only ten years ago. Even
so, more than 70% of your population still reside within the countryside, so a successful rural economy
will remain the key to keeping Vietnam's impressive progress on cutting poverty."
Did the Vietnam government beneath the leadership of your Vietnam Communist Party (VCP) ignore
agriculture right after adopting the liberalization policy? Absolutely not. Compared together with the
mid-1980s when the nation was around the brink of famine today it has accomplished an agricultural

5. miracle and surpassed India to develop into the world's second-largest exporter of rice immediately
after Thailand. Vietnam can also be one of several world's primary providers of farm produce currently.
"Vietnam's farmers have become vital competitors in all sorts of agricultural make, from nuts to peppers
to rubber. They are even promoting tea for the Indians. Its fishermen and foresters are also doing
effectively by feeding the world's increasing demand for seafood and timber (even though not normally
sustainably). Vietnam's exports of farm, forest and fisheries create rose by 21% final year, to $12.five
billion, and further growth is expected." Vietnam's financial progress contributed considerable
development projects in rural Vietnam. A vast electrification plan has brought power supplies to extra
than 90% of Vietnamese residences. Almost all children now visit lower secondary college and virtually
two-thirds of them continue to upper secondary level.
Bengal has numerous similarities with Vietnam. The land location of Vietnam and its population is
practically the equivalent to Bengal. Also like Bengal, most of the population of Vietnam is occupied in
agriculture. In both places the principal crop is rice. As Vietnam is self adequate in food crops, Bengal
has also emerged as the leading agricultural state of India inside the production of rice, potatoes, fruits
and vegetables. Find out more click vietnamese language