One such example is the Lalgarh crisis. It all started from the day of laying the foundation stone of Jindal Steel’s mega project in Shalboni in West Midnapur district, West Bengal.

As the land acquisition process was a bit different as mostly arid land was acquired for this huge project, land row could not gain momentum inspite of the initial efforts by the opposition. The Rs 35,000 crore project includes one of the largest steel factory of 1 crore tonne capacity, a 300 MW power plant and a cement factory of 1 million tonne capacity.

At least 24,000 youth, mostly locals, are going to be directly or indirectly employed by the project, resulting in an ultimate change in the whole economic scenario of this backward district. Obviously, the underprivileged rural people will get the benefit of this economic development, which will at least to some extent, help to alleviate the sense of deprivation and lack of development there.

This might look like a silver lining in the dark horizon to most of us, but to the ‘Maoists’, there can’t be any more ominous signal than this. Having failed to mobilise local people into land protests like Singur or Nandigram, they became desperate to stop the project at any cost. The so-called Maoists, who had blown off an ambulance killing a doctor (Dhaniram Mandi, 46), a nurse (Bharati Majhi, 24) and the driver (Bapi Misir, 45) on October 22, in broad daylight, planned to blow off the CM, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya’s convoy this time.

On November 2, after the ceremony of laying of foundation stone of the project, when the CM was returning, the Maoists exploded a deadly remote-controlled bomb. But incidentally, they could neither kill the CM, nor the Central ministers or Jindal brothers, who were just behind the CM’s convoy.

A few policemen, who were in a jeep behind the CM’s convoy were fatally injured. This sudden attack left the whole police administration in utter surprise, when they discovered underground wires more than 1 km long, winding through the blast site into the paddy fields.

Sensing a possible nexus between some of the local people and the ‘Maoists’, the police launched their search operations, in whic they allegedly ‘tortured’ some families. The accused police officer involved in the alleged ‘torture’ was transferred following this allegation but his mistake had already agitated the rural tribal people there.

This was exactly the situation the Maoists were waiting for because now they could put their own demands before the administration in the name of the newly formed ‘Pulishi Santrash Birodhi Janaganer Committee’ (‘Mass Committee Against Violence by Police’).

Interestingly, the committee, which openly denies any Maoist link, demands:

i) The acquittal of all the arrested Maoists between the year 1998 and 2008.

ii) The acquittal of all the arrested persons in the CM’s convoy blast case.

iii) The withdrawal of all the cases (including murder cases) against the famous Maoist leader, Shashadhar Mahato.

iv) The withdrawal of police, CRPF and other security forces from the Maoist dominated areas etc. In other words, the committee is demanding for a free region for the Maoists where they could run a parallel government.

The armed members of this committee felled thousands of trees on the roads, cut the roads by digging across it, in order to completely disrupt transport and communication. They killed a local ration dealer after he failed to supply 100 kgs of rice. With each passing day, the committee is making its stand more rigid, their demands are increasing and their agitation is spreading to new areas.

While the state government and administration is still trying hard to strike a deal with the agitators through discussions, some political forces are active there to dismiss any peace process for their own narrow personal and political gains. Mamata Banerjee and her party colleagues are right there to take the opportunity of this volatile situation. (source: Mamata Stokes Lalgarh Fire, The Times of India, Kolkata, Nov 20, page 4). With a picture of TMC leader Sisir Adhikary dancing with weapons in his hand, a report in Nov 20, The Times of India says : ..But at a time when things were inching towards the better, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee added fuel to the fire by announcing to carry forward their agitation... .When this article is being written, the deadlock is still there. Briefly, the truth is that the poor people living in an underdeveloped locality, suffered for various reasons, including administrative negligence for long and now some vested interests want them to remain there in darkness. Unless the poor and tribal people are allowed to voice their own demands, the opportunist forces will continue to hijack their movement to accomplish their own ends.