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Tata Nano Controversy

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Tata Nano Controversy
Gujarat’s Gain and Bengal’s Loss? ‘‘Development,’’ Land Acquisition in India and the Tata Nano Project: A Comparison of Singur with Sanand
By Devparna Roy
Paper presented at the International Conference on

Global Land Grabbing
6-8 April 2011
Organised by the Land Deals Politics Initiative (LDPI) in collaboration with the Journal of Peasant Studies and hosted by the Future Agricultures Consortium at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex

GUJARAT’S GAIN AND BENGAL’S LOSS?
“DEVELOPMENT,” LAND ACQUISITION IN INDIA AND THE TATA NANO PROJECT:

A COMPARISON OF SINGUR WITH SANAND (Draft of paper prepared for the international conference on land-grabbing issues, organized by the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex, UK, from 6 to 8 April, 2011) Prepared by Devparna Roy, Ph.D.

DRAFT PLEASE DO NOT CITE OR CIRCULATE!
Abstract It is necessary to understand the political economy and recent political history of West Bengal to understand the “success” of the unwilling farmers in Singur who were protesting against the Tata Nano project. It is necessary to do the same for Gujarat in order to understand why there has been no similar resistance in Sanand. Accordingly, this paper has three main objectives. The first objective is to present a nuanced comparative analysis of two subnational political regimes and associated civil societies: that of Gujarat and of West Bengal. The argument is that though the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Gujarat and the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front government in West Bengal are ideologically located at the opposite ends of the political spectrum in India, there are certain similarities in the political regimes, specifically in their definition of the model of “development” to be pursued and the means to strive for this kind of “development”, and in their means of achieving hegemony (however fragile it may be) in their respective regional civil societies. The second objective of


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