Memory Metamorphosis

What happened on March 14, 2007 in Nandigram? People still ask this question as they take part in the dance of democracy

- Agnideb Bandyopadhyay 

HOW does a place grapple with a torment of memories? Nandigram still doesn’t have a clue. The town, which lies in Purba Medinipur district and falls under the Tamluk Lok Sabha constituency of West Bengal, walks into yet another election seeking answers that continue to evade the people of the town. In the heart of Nandigram, the streets are adorned with banners and flags of the three parties that are in the fray. With a heatwave warning sounded in the prelude to the elections across south Bengal, people walk the streets covering their faces. The place recuperates from the sights and sounds of a massacre that continues to haunt the locals and forces them to drift back to the days that had suddenly made an unassuming township the centrepiece of Bengal’s political shuffle.

March 14, 2007—a conversational marker in the town—is the date that witnessed 14 people being killed as Nandigram protested land acquisition for a proposed Special Economic Zone (SEZ) chemical plant. The then chief minister of the Left Front government, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, had struck a deal with Indonesian business giant Salim Group to mount a project that would require 10,000 acres of land across the proposed area of Nandigram, which drew the ire of the people and led to the killings. Seventeen years later, the hatred still lies firmly lodged in the words of the locals. It doesn’t come aimed at people or the parties anymore, but at how they are forced to stay in the dark, awaiting answers.

Torn Apart