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        That farmers of Nandigram erected barricades to resist officials and cadres of the ruling Communist regime in West Bengal whom they saw as land-grabbers represents an anomaly pointing to an inevitable necessity.

        The cadres were never committed foot soldiers oriented to effectuating a proletarian revolution. They were always the muscle men who were expected to ensure the writ of the party. The ground reality is that the major portion of West Bengal acreage is cultivable.

        Jyoti Basu's 1985 philosophy was that when well known private companies desired to enter his region with ideas of industrialisation, they represented the antithesis to his party's commitment to help poor people acquire landed property albeit of a small dimension. If he kept to this position, he would reply with a definite 'no' to the stance taken by his present comrade Chief Minister of West Bengal that 'people are feeling confident that more stress is being laid on private (enterprise) sector.' The reality is that 2006 is not 1985. Between these two years, West Bengal communism has changed its character and complexion. They had opted for communism for the non-revolutionary reason of challenging the denial forced on them by the Hindi heartland in having their place in the national stream.

        Communism was internalised by these gentlemen communists who were of the educated classes allowing departures from conservative ideology Their operation Barga was not aimed at provoking any agrarian revolution. On the contrary, the curse of the strategy was to build a support base for the party among the rich and middle peasantry. Precisely why Bhattacharjee thought of inviting the Tatas to start their car project in Singur. And Singur has thrown up the signal that Stalinist methods would not work in fighting dissent.

        Nandigram which witnessed great violence demonstrated this reality. Actually, the campaign here against land grab differed in its strategy and rhetoric from Singur. In the former case, the campaigners even fudged data to contradict official claims that much of the land was not acquired. At Nandigram, protestors included some from the religious, political grouping, the Jamait-e-Ulma Hind, which imported communal over tones to events unfolding in that area. Added to this, there was the convergence on this area of activists and strategists belonging to different ultra-Left Naxalite factions from regions beyond the State's borders.

        The government sees in this possibilities for subversive activities in the south-western parts of the State as had been provoked by Maoists earlier. The Chief Minister has therefore deemed it wise to go slow and has begun disabusing wrong impressions about special economic zones coming up in over 20,000 acres in another place as against the 900 odd acres assigned to the Tatas.

        When confronted with the notice about land acquisition in Nandigram put out by the Development Authority, the CM has asked the District Magistrate of the place to tear up the notice as a conciliatory measure besides affirming that he would go slow on the process. What is stake is not communist ideology but the future of industrialisation in West Bengal which slopped out of the industrial map of India during Jyoti Basu's regime as Chief Minister, leading to Kolkata being labelled a dead city by Rajiv Gandhi.