New Delhi: Nandigram, the tiny speck on West Bengal’s map in Purba Medinipur district that grabbed headlines in 2007 for its stiff resistance to land acquisition for a chemical hub by the then Left Front government and catapulted Mamata Banerjee to power in the state, has turned into a nemesis for the former Chief Minister.
From the war-cry of “Tomar Naam, Amar Naam, Nandigram, Nandigram” (your name, my name, Nandigram, Nandigram), Mamata’s Trinamool Congress is now grappling with criticism over the absence of any significant commemoration of the movement on November 10 this year.
The day is observed as “Nandigram Day”, or “Martyrs Day”, every year since the fall of the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee-led government. Participants recall the crackdown allegedly by Left Front supporters who opened fire on a protest rally that day in 2007, killing at least two people in an incident known as “Operation Sunrise”.
This year, Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari paid homage to the martyrs in a ceremony to mark the day in Nandigram.
The strongest condemnation has come from Trinamool MLA and spokesperson Kunal Ghosh, who is known not to mince words and to speak what he thinks is right. For Mamata Banerjee, Nandigram was a movement that gave her a moral cause, a political narrative and, ultimately, the keys to the state secretariat.
She coined the slogan “Ma Mati Manush” (Mother, Motherland, People) that the Trinamool Congress used during the 2011 election campaigns to highlight the plight of the villagers affected by the acquisition of some 10,000 acres of agricultural land to build a chemical hub. That interpretation transformed West Bengal’s politics.
Together, Singur and Nandigram allowed Mamata to construct a powerful narrative against the then-ruling Left Front. The issue of industrialisation became a question of power, land rights, and government arrogance. The image of farmers resisting alleged land grabs destroyed the Left Front’s carefully nurtured image as the protector of rural Bengal.
The movement expanded far beyond Purba Medinipur and became a statewide referendum on Left rule. By the time voters went to the polls in 2011, “Ma, Mati, Manush” gained prominence and Mamata stormed to power, ending 34 uninterrupted years of Left Front rule. For the Trinamool Congress, Nandigram became sacred political territory.
But history had another twist waiting. Among the local leaders who emerged from the anti-land acquisition agitation, none gained more prominence than Suvendu Adhikari. He was among the principal organisers and one of the architects of Trinamool’s rise in the region.
For years, he was regarded as one of Mamata Banerjee’s most trusted lieutenants and perhaps a natural heir within the party’s second rung. But after a fallout, his switch to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2020 reinvented the political turf once again. When Mamata Banerjee decided to contest the 2021 Assembly election from Nandigram, the move was designed as a statement.
It was a bid to reclaim the movement’s legacy and demonstrate that the political ownership of Nandigram remained with her and the Trinamool Congress. Instead, Nandigram delivered the most symbolic setback of her career.
Mamata lost to Adhikari in the same constituency that had launched her to power. Even as the Trinamool swept the state and secured a decisive third term, its supreme leader had to seek an entry to the Assembly through a by-election.
Even more significantly, the BJP emerged as the principal challenger in a region where the Left had once been the dominant force and where the Trinamool later appeared invincible. That reality perhaps explains the awkwardness surrounding Nandigram today for Mamata Trinamool.
Celebrating the movement means revisiting the story of Trinamool’s greatest triumph simultaneously with one of its most embarrassing setbacks. It means acknowledging that the movement’s most influential local face now sits obliterated, failing again to secure an entry to the state Assembly after losing – again to Adhikari – from her home seat of Bhabanipur.
Nandigram thus remains the defining moment of Mamata Banerjee’s political life. It transformed her from a perpetual agitator into a credible chief ministerial contender and reshaped Bengal’s political map. But it also demonstrated the uncertainty in democratic politics, where the most powerful has been humbled.
If Nandigram was the battle cry that brought Mamata Banerjee to power, it has also become the mirror through which the limits of that power are increasingly visible.
(IANS)
