Na hoyechhe krishi, na holo shilpo... Agriculture could not happen, neither could there be any industry. An elder summed up the fate of the place thus. Indeed, the Singur story is poised between these two nots.
Singur in West Bengal’s Hooghly district is 35 kilometres from Calcutta. Economically, though, it is light years away.
As the car speeds past Bally Bridge, past Dankuni, the landscape changes rapidly. First come the car showrooms, then the dhabas, next the warehouses, logistics parks and electricity towers. But from the point we enter Singur, all that changes.
To our left is what looks like a wasteland, brown, dry and lumpy — that was where the Nano factory once stood. To our right are lush fields heavy with yellow and red sacks overflowing with produce — potatoes, as we eventually discover.
We get off at Khaserbheri where the factory sheds used to be. The ground is haggard and full of straggly weeds called bena. Some of you will know them only idiomatically — benabon-e mukta chhoriyo na. Meaning, do not squander pearls in a jungle of bena grass.
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As we keep moving, we notice a head. It appears, disappears, and then appears again. As we move still further, we see its owner — a man in a red T-shirt who seems to be digging the earth with a khurpi. It is only the second week of March and it is already very hot, feels more so in an empty field. The man in red is not at all keen to talk. It is Sanjay Pandey, a local BJP leader who later decodes what we saw him do. He said, “They dig up iron bars, remnants of the factory, and sell them as scrap.” There are practically no jobs in Singur. Some young men and women work in “vax factories”, units making costume jewellery using wax moulds.
When we stop at a patch closer to the Durgapur Expressway, we find a lone farmer. Subal Patra is growing bhindi or okra. He tells us, “I had to spend ₹1.5 lakh just to clean the land. JCB machine operators charge ₹1,000 for an hour’s work. How many of us can afford that?”
Subal inherited the land from his father. There was a time in the pre-factory era when this land was very fertile, says Subal. “My family grew paddy, jute and potatoes every year, in addition to some vegetables,” he adds.
Their land — three bighas — was acquired for the factory. And when the Tatas left Singur, the land was returned following the Supreme Court ruling in 2016. But here’s what did not happen — at the time of acquisition, the agricultural land had been registered as factory land; when it was returned, nothing was done on paper to have the status reverted. As a result, a host of legalities, including land ownership, remain unaddressed.
Subal, who had dreamed of working in the Nano factory, is now a member of the Singur Bondhya Jomi Punorbyabohar Committee (BJPC), or a committee for reuse of barren land. Dudh Kumar Dhara, who is a Trinamool worker, is also a part of the BJPC. He says, “If the land is no longer fit for cultivation, the state must usher in industry and help farmers get employment.”
Land unscarred by the factory construction remains rich, seen here are farmers harvesting potatoes; ; four-time Singur MLA Rabindranath Bhattacharya; land where once the factory stood; farmer Mahadev Das; a memorial near Gopalnagar commemorates the peasant movement
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Our visit to Singur preceded announcement of candidates for the 2026 Assembly polls. But most people seemed to have their minds made up about who not to vote for.
We were meeting Dudh Kumar at a spot close to the Singur Smriti Soudho, a memorial built where once the factory gates were. Dudh Kumar had been a member of the Singur Krishi Jomi Rokkha Committee, founded in 2006 to protest the land acquisition. He now adds, “Except for one Trinamool leader here, no one else has benefited from the movement.” Dhara wrote a jatra pala titled Bichar Chaichhe Bohnishikha, which explores the divide within the Trinamool.
We met firebrand leader of the farmers’ movement Mahadev Das at a roadside tea stall overlooking the barren land. Mahadev, who has had a falling out with the Trinamool, makes both ends meet with difficulty. All he has worth sharing is a wealth of memories from the pre-Nano days. He says, “I had 12 bighas. It yielded paddy, jute, oil seeds and vegetables. I had two tractors, two power tillers and two submersible pumps. I spent eight to nine lakh rupees setting up the pumps. I used to sell water to the owners of another 60 to 70 bighas of land. I used to rent out my power tillers and my tractors. I had a whole business set up around those bighas of land. Now what do I have? Nothing.” Mahadev had been one of those who resisted the land acquisition.
Earlier this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a massive rally in Singur. Sanjay Pandey, who is the BJP’s Singur unit leader, points to the spot where the VVIP helicopter had landed. He says, “We had to deploy several JCBs to level the ground.” At the Singur rally, the PM had raised the cry for “asli parivartan” or real change.
Rabindranath Bhattacharya knows what change can be like, how it can catch one unawares. The 93-year-old, who is a four-time MLA from Singur, is known in these parts as Mastermoshai. He was with the Trinamool till he was dropped by the party in 2021 and then joined the BJP. He speaks of how no one from the Trinamool told him to desist from contesting elections because of his advanced years. “No one extended me that courtesy.” He keeps repeating how he fought elections on a BJP ticket and lost by 25,000 votes.
When we meet Mastermoshai, he is sitting on his bed inside the mosquito net. His hair is a shock of white. He speaks clearly but slowly and mid-speech seems to get lost in his thoughts. It is he who says, “We suffered for 15 long years and for what? We didn’t fight for this concrete infested land, we didn’t float our movement for this. The PM came and left and said nothing about the land. The CM too addressed a public meeting here, but she too said nothing of the land… Na hoyechhe krishi, na holo shilpo.”