Now that the Supreme Court has reined in the runaway spirit that was getting the better of good sense, we can sit for a minute and look at the situation as it is.
Okay, during the Red Regime the Government had wrenched away forcibly, fertile land from farmers and peasants. And given these plots away for a song to the mighty industrial emperor. The actual snatching and grabbing of fertile lands that had fed hundreds of families for generations back had come about through bloodbath and near genocide caused by the red goon army unleashed on unarmed simple peasnt folk. There was no end to their savagery, particularly as they had been helped alongside by the state machinery and personnel. Having grabbed the land away from the peasants, who were thus violently thrown out of their own property in this brutal fashion, the Red Government gave it all away for a song to the Industrial tycoon for him to build his car factory.
We all know what happened afterwards. The industrialisation that was to be didn't happen. The Tycoon had to turn away from W Bengal and head westwards. Whatever little construction and structures the tycoon had put up stayed as they were. The land lay without coming to anybody's use.
Then came the General Election and the rout that followed. The Red dragon, after an seemingly endless regime of 34 years, was totally vanquished and fled with its tail between its legs.
All this is history. Having reduced the earlier rulers to a rubble, the new brave leader of the present Government has undertaken this Herculean task of retrieving a semblance of governance from the rule of anarchy that has been dominating the scene for so long. The new leader has not a moment to spare in her headlong rush to get going and get things done.
One of the most striking and admirable items in her agenda is to return the lost land to the farmers. In her headlong rush, perhaps she has gone overboard in certain areas that need to be re-assessed and remedial steps taken. In reclaiming the land that has already been transferred to the Tatas, the aforementioned tycoon, she has had a bill passed and acted overnight and taken practically forceful repossession of transferred land from the Tatas. Here she needed to tread gently. Tatas were not going to run away with the land. The heavens wouldn't have fallen had she given them a reasonable time to hand over possession of the transferred land back to the Government.
I wonder who was advising her. There's no doubt she has the best brains in every field surrounding her and advising her. But sometimes when there are too many cooks in a kitchen, and everyone a master chef, it's not difficult to imagine how edible the broth might be.
And so it happened. She went in with her guns blazing. But there is something in the world of law known as "due process". If you show undue haste in acting, then this concept of "due process " gets jeopardised. And a court of law is always there to correct the infraction. The Tatas had no other option but to go to the apex court to get a stay of the actual handing over of the land to the farmers, even before it had been properly adjudicated by the High Court as to whether or not the Act, hurriedly enacted by the State of W Bengal, was constitutinal or not. If it is finally decided that the Act itself is bad, then all action taken under it must be declared null and void and status quo ante be restored. The land would go back to the Tatas and zilch to the farmers.
None of us want that to happen. We all want the farmers to get back their land from which they had been so brutally evicted. If in her haste that most admirable of her agendas gets lost in lealities and an endless bout of litigation and counter litigation, an endlesss process which can go on to perpetuity, nothing would be more tragic.
There's a saying that goes "angels fear to tread where fools rush in". Our new leader has emerged as a saviour and an angel to the lost state of W Bengal. We had all lost our hopes of revival of W Bengal. She has given us new hope and new aspirations. We all want her to win, every which way. That is why she must be cautious and remember the saying that angels fear to tread...
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