Those who ask for petty politics are condemned to getting it. There is thus no surprise that the land acquired in Singur for setting up an industrial unit has only become a playground for Bengal’s politicians. The latest episode in the Singur saga continues the same trend. The proposal for a railway coach factory on the land in Singur, therefore, is seen not as an economic opportunity but as a political ploy. The railway board’s response to the offer raises old debates about the land acquisition but offers no hope of a coach factory coming up there. The board cannot be unaware of the fact that there is no line of demarcation between ‘undisputed’ and ‘disputed’ land in Singur. Nor can it be ignorant of the fact that there is no legal provision to return the ‘disputed’ plots of land to their former owners. The board’s response is thus a thinly veiled rejection of the state’s offer. The moral of the story is simple — whether it is for a Tata small car or a railway coach factory, the road ahead is blocked by politics. But the charade must go on with both political camps claiming to have the best deal for a new Bengal.

However, future chroniclers of Bengal may see in Singur a symbol of how politics ruined the state. They may see the feud between the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Trinamul Congress only as a footnote to a larger story of failure. The big picture that Singur continues to unfold is that of politicians sacrificing the state’s future to their small games. It is not simply a question of stalling industrialization or opposing the acquisition of farmland for setting up industries. The big failure is their inability to grasp the basics of modern economic development. The politicians are sworn to their votebanks and farmers outnumber any other social constituency. Farmers in Singur and elsewhere in India have their grievances over land acquisition. But economic development is all about reducing the farmers’ age-old dependence on land and offering them opportunities in industries and in other sectors. If its politicians are proving to be enemies of West Bengal’s promise, they are also a threat to democracy. The atmosphere of bitter political confrontation makes discussion, let alone consensus, almost impossible. But then, this is not the first time that the state’s economy has fallen prey to its politics.