Indian Police Kill 11 at Protest Over Economic Zone

NY Times
March 15, 2007

By Somini Sengupta

NEW DELHI, March 14 — The police fired on protesters in eastern India early Wednesday, killing at least 11 people at a demonstration against one of the new Chinese-style economic zones.

The violence erupted when the police tried to enter Nandigram, a rural area in West Bengal State, where the Salim Group of Indonesia has proposed building a vast chemical hub. Protesters had blockaded the area for several weeks, and it was effectively off limits to state law enforcement.

The Nandigram strife has become a parable of a larger debate roiling India over whether and how the government acquires agricultural land and hands it over for industrial development. The central government announced in January that it would temporarily suspend the approval of new zones and review rules for acquiring land and compensating landowners and farmers.

The Special Economic Zones at issue are especially attractive to companies because they offer long-term tax breaks. Applications are pending in India for zones devoted to development as varied as technology companies and power plants.

Roughly two-thirds of Indians rely on agriculture for their livelihood, and farmland conversion is an emotional and politically charged issue.

West Bengal, which is governed by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), has emerged as the center of that debate.

The state’s government has faced protests in another area, Singur, over converting nearly 1,000 acres of agricultural land into an automobile factory. Last year, 11 people were killed in protests over the building of a steel plant in another eastern state, Orissa.