High - Voltage Revolt

Just 30km from Kolkata, a dozen villages have been "liberated" from government rule. Villagers are up in arms against a national power project, saying they were bullied into giving up their land. Mamata Banerjee, once the saviour of farmers, is now the villain. The state government, however, says the villagers are being guided by Maoists. THE WEEK reports from the region.

- Rabi Banerjee

The day starts late in these villages. Breakfast is infrequent; lunch is deferred to about 4pm. Dinner is often had at mid-night. “We are at the crossroads of life and death,” says Mirjan Hasan, his voice hoarse. “Should we think of food at this juncture?”

For the past 15 months, about a dozen villages have been up in arms against a power grid project in the western part of Bhangar block, in West Bengal. These villages, in the South 24 Parganas district, are about 30km from Kolkata.

It all started in 2013, when the state government acquired 14 acres for the project (spread over four villages), under the Power Grid Corporation of India, to set up a 4,000kV power grid substation. The substation would transmit power to vast areas in the district, to the Sundarbans, and also to parts of Bihar.

Interestingly, the state government had acquired the land a day before Parliament passed the new land acquisition bill in 2013. The protesters have criticised Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for using a “draconian” law—the Land Acquisition Act of 1894—to get the land. This is the same leader who had, for years, led a huge movement against land acquisition in Singur and Nandigram. That movement had helped her become chief minister.

Once work on the substation commenced, the villagers said they were not told about the project. They said they were bullied into giving up their land. “At the gunpoint of [Trinamool Congress leader] Arabul Islam and his men, the villagers were all forced to hand over their land to the government,” says Mosharaf Hossain, a villager. “He issued an ultimatum that if anybody did not give their land, they would be severely punished.”