NEW DELHI - Tata Motors' decision to shift the production site of its low-cost,
iconic Nano car from communist-ruled West Bengal state to Gujarat - scene of
the 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom - has caused consternation and dismay among
liberals and secular-minded people all over India.
The decision was taken personally by Ratan Tata, the company's chairman and one
of India's best-known and most well regarded industrialists. Tata Motors hit
world headlines in June when it acquired the British luxury automobile
manufacturer Jaguar Cars and Land Rover from Ford.
Six years ago, Gujarat was the scene of the worst massacre of a religious
minority in India since its independence in 1947, which
was allegedly conducted with state complicity and collusion.
Over 2,000 Muslims were burned, stabbed or hacked to death and many more raped
in an orgy of violence which spread across several cities in Gujarat. The
violence was purportedly carried out in revenge for the deaths of 59 Hindu
activists in a fire on a railway coach at Godhra in central Gujarat at the end
of February, 2002.
Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP),
justified the butchery as a natural "reaction" to the original action, which he
claimed was a planned act of "terrorism" and a Muslim conspiracy. An expert
commission appointed by the railways later found the fire was accidental.
Modi's police refused to save the lives of Muslims who begged for help. Some of
his ministers and BJP legislators also allegedly participated in the campaign
of looting, arson and physical violence against Muslims or directed the killing
and incited militant Hindu-chauvinist activists to take part in it.
Modi, who came to be characterized as India's own Slobodan Milosevic - the
former Yugoslav president - has been roundly condemned by secular and
democratically minded governments, and people all over the world. He has
repeatedly been denied a visa by the United States, most recently this year.
Many are dismayed at the Tata Group's move to Gujarat because it is reputed to
be an enlightened, liberal-minded, secular and ethical firm, not driven by
profit alone.
The main reason cited by the Tata Group for its decision to relocate the Nano
factory was a land dispute over 1,000 acres (404 hectare) needed for its plant,
which was led by opposition leader Mamata Banerjee. The decision followed a
month of violent demonstrations by activists and evicted farmers who complained
they were forced to give up their land for a pittance to make room for the
factory. (See India's
little car on crash course, Asia Times Online, August 30, 2008.)
"But that alone cannot explain the move," said Zakia Jowher, from the Bharatiya
Muslim Mahila Andolan, an organization for Muslim women campaigning against
religious-chauvinist politics, which has long been active amongst the victims
of the 2002 violence.
"The West Bengal government was extremely keen on the Nano project,''Johwer
said. ''Some alternative land acquisition formulas were proposed, which would
have marginally raised project costs, but increased the compensation to
farmers/sharecroppers. Tata Motors summarily rejected these."
Ratan Tata said Gujarat offered him incentives and concessions that were even
better than those given by West Bengal, said Jowher.
The favorable treatment given to the Tata Group by West Bengal's communist-led
government attracted criticism from its own supporters and sympathizers, like
former finance minister and eminent economist Ashok Mitra.
The car project was offered full exemption from excise duty for 10 years and
from income tax for five years, and land at virtually throwaway prices. Mitra
estimates that these concessions totaled the equivalent of US$171 million, or
roughly half the cost of the project.
Yet, while moving the factory, Ratan Tata eloquently made a distinction between
the "Bad M" (Mamata) and the "Good M" (Modi).
The Tata Group has effectively endorsed Narendra Modi's purported image as a
dynamic, no-nonsense leader, and validated what the BJP calls the "Gujarat
Model" of development. Critics regard the model as growth based on haphazard
industrial expansion, at the expense of human rights violations and
environmental destruction.
"The Tatas were probably confident that Modi's ruthlessness, repressive labor
policies, and despotically imposed 'stability' would ensure the project's
smooth implementation,'' Jowher said.
Secular activists like Jowher are upset that Tata has lent legitimacy to Modi's
brand of politics. Last year, Ratan Tata had famously told businessmen: "You're
stupid if you're not in Gujarat." Now, he has given Modi's "leadership" the
stamp of approval.
Social scientist Dilip Simeon, a senior fellow at the prestigious Nehru
Memorial Museum and Library, said: "Tata has behaved like any other businessman
- looking for low-risk investments and high profits. Within the logic of profit
maximization, it is hard to fault him. But the Tatas are meant to be ethical
and socially responsible. That's why people are shocked."
The Tata Group's admirers attach a mystical value to the Nano as a great
managerial/technological achievement, priced at just 100,000 rupees (about
US$2,000) it is destined to become a middle class "dream machine". They believe
Tata "can do no wrong".
But this premise involves three propositions: Tata pioneered Indian
industrialization by building a textile mill and India's first indigenous steel
plant; it has an unblemished labor relations and environmental record; and it
offers a model of corporate social responsibility.
Tata has established textile and steel as nationalist enterprises, and it set
up other industries. While the group's in-house innovation has stagnated, it
has expanded through aggressive acquisitions, like the $13 billion takeover of
the Anglo-Dutch steelmaker Corus in 2006.
Ever since he became the Tata chairman, Ratan Tata has tightened his family
trust's hold on group companies. Under JRD Tata, holding company Tata Sons
owned just 3% of their equity. Now, it holds a controlling share.
But the Tata Group's labor record is far from glorious, according to Simeon,
who has documented it in his book, The Politics of Labor under Late Colonialism.
In the 1920s and 1930s, "The Tata Steel management consciously used violence
and intimidation to break up trade unions. It also promoted religious-identity
based anti-union groups. This eventually disgusted nationalist leaders like
Subhash Chandra Bose who had earlier supported the Tatas," said Simeon.
In recent years, many Tata projects have been involved in environmental
conflicts in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Jharkhand and Orissa.
Ratan Tata has recently lobbied for Dow Chemical being allowed to escape its
responsibility for the aftermath of the Bhopal disaster, an industrial incident
which claimed as many as 8,000 lives, as the heir of Union Carbide. He wants
Dow to be freed of its legal liability to clean up the contaminated plant site,
which has poisoned water and affected 25,000 people.
Implicit in the Nano factory's move to Gujarat is an endorsement of Modi's
style of governance, and above all, sanctification of his vicious communal
politics. The decision will be interpreted as an excuse to forget the reality
of the massacre in 2002.
The victims of the carnage continue to be denied justice, live in insecurity,
and face all manner of harassment, including trumped-up charges, arbitrary
arrest and detention. Tata's endorsement of Modi is in line with a long process
of the Indian industrialist class "normalizing" Hindu communalism, and helping
erase the memory of the pogrom.
This is happening at a dangerous moment in India's evolution. Hindu-supremacist
attacks on religious minorities are rising in the states of Orissa, Karnataka,
Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. Muslims are also, according to widespread news
reports, being victimized in the name of fighting terrorism.
The Indian state has been criticized for showing little political will to stop
this and bring the culprits to book despite India's survival as a pluralist,
secular democracy hinging on this.
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