Nandigram: What Really Happened? (With CD)

On 14 March 2007 the peasant of Nandigram, a coastal area in West Bengal’s East Medinipur district, were ‘punished’ by their own State government for daring to oppose the government’s plans to acquire 10,000 acres of farm land to set up a Special Economic Zone.As thousands of women and children gathered to peacefully prevent government forces from entering their villages the police along with armed cadre of the ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist) unleashed a brutal assault that left 14 dead, several missing and hundreds of people injured. In the face of claims and counterclaims about the violence of 14 March, a group of concerned citizens across India decided to organize a People’s Tribunal on Nandigram to investigate the sequence of events that led to the carnage. The villagers of Nandigram deposed before the Tribunal’s jury from 26-28 May helping reconstruct what exactly happened on that fateful morning.This book is based on the Tribunal’s report that unequivocally dubs the incident of 14 March a state sponsored massacre and calls for stringent punishment for those responsible. Nandigram: What Really Happened? Is an important read to understand the gradually emerging police-state in India with corporations, political parties, state institutions and criminal elements joining hands to put down all forms of resistance by citizens to their agenda of ‘loot and grab’ development.