URGENT ACTIONS

CASES

India - Singur, West Bengal – Forced eviction of 15,000 people

More than 15,000 people in Singur, district Hooghly, were evicted from their lands and livelihood resources as the Government of West Bengal has acquired their agricultural lands for the construction of "Tata Motors", a car manufacturing unit of the Indian multinational Tata corporation.

To the peasants, who owned land in Singur, were offered an only one time monetary compensation. There were no provisions of economic rehabilitation to the 15,000 peasants whose livelihoods were directly affected, neither were there any compensation offered to those agricultural labourers, sharecroppers and others who depend on these lands indirectly and were deprived of their livelihoods due to land acquisition. Peasant women are more severely affected as in most cases lands are not recorded in their names and they would not get the compensations themselves. Thus, they lost their access to food producing resources i.e. land and are exposed to hunger and starvation.

Since 2006, fences have been put up around 997 acres of land with the use of police force. Following a period of increased violence by the armed police against the farmers, the brutality escalated in December 2006, when the police beat up several villagers, set their homes on fire and arrested several people. On December 18 an activist girl was reportedly raped and murdered inside the fenced area. Till date, this case has remained unresolved.

At present, the construction work is on progress in the acquired area in Singur. No new job creation is reported there in the Tata plant or around. On the contrary, in 2007 two agricultural labourers from two different families, who had lost their livelihoods after land alienation in Singur, died from starvation.

In the first week of January 2008 Tata – with a lot of publicity - has launched its new type of car in the Indian market, manufactured in Pune in Western India. The same type of car is supposed to be manufactured in Singur.

The struggle in Singur is still continuing, as neither the West Bengal government nor the Tata company has changed their position, resistance movement is very active. Some of the villagers have refused to accept the compensation because they do not want to give away their land. Several cases, challenging the unconstitutional land acquisition process as well as the inadequate compensation package for the victims are still pending at the High Court.

By acquiring the agricultural lands of the farmers without taking effective steps to ensure the peasants’ right to feed themselves in a sustained manner, India and the state of West Bengal violate the human right to food as enshrined in ICESCR and the right to live in dignity as described under Article 21 and 39 of the Indian constitution.