Whining over Tata decision to relocate factory site
Burning the car in effigy tells me you don’t want the jobs
Thousands of people have been protesting in the Indian state of West Bengal after the Tata group abandoned its plans to manufacture cars there.
Tata, one of India’s leading industrial groups, had planned to make what it said would be the world’s cheapest car, the Nano, at a factory in Singur. But the project was disrupted by a row over land on which the plant was built.
After months of sustained and sometimes violent protests, Tata has announced that it would scrap the venture and shift production of the Nano elsewhere.
“You cannot run a plant when bombs are being thrown,” said the firm’s chairman, Ratan Tata. “You cannot run a plant when workers are being intimidated.”
Local supporters of Tata’s West Bengal project were bitterly disappointed with the decision and thousands of them took to the streets around the plant.
Some were armed with sticks and iron bars and they blocked roads and disrupted traffic. Among them were labourers and contractors who had hoped that the Tata factory would provide them with sustained employment.
An object lesson – India has as many hypocrites, fools and scoundrels cluttering their political landscape as does the United States or Britain.
A “grassroots” revolt stymies building of the factory – led by an opposition political party. The government of the state doesn’t really do a damned thing to defend or support the construction project – probably because they were afraid of losing votes.
Now, Tata is taking their business elsewhere and the fools who protested whine almost as loud as the fools who didn’t protest. You can’t always get what you need; but, sometimes you get what you deserve.
The ordinary citizens of West Bengal are the big losers; but, they set that juggernaut rolling with the politicians they elected.
