It’s official: with great satisfaction of both parties, Italy’s Fiat will partner with the Indian colossus Tata to produce pickup trucks in Argentina. Tata Motors has garnered a lot of press thanks to its newest product, the world’s cheapest car, planned to hit the market in 2008 at a cost of 1,700 Euros (about $2200). Less publicized is the fact that the factory slated to produce the new model, in West Bengal, is at the center of controversy, violence and harsh accusations, including homicide.

The Land Issue. Construction began on the factory in Singur, Bengal last January 21. The 400 hectare tract of agricultural land for the plant was acquired by the government using a law dating from the British Colonial regime, the so-called Land Acquisition Act of 1894. As a result, 14,000 farmers were thrown off their land, now ringed by ten kilometers of fence and monitored by armed guards. The farmers have no other means of survival. Many deny having ever signed the agreement to give up their land, others claim they were threatened into signing, and others admit having signed upon receiving a promise of jobs in the new factory. In fact they had no choice; the old colonial law does not require the inhabitants’ permission in order to seize their land. The documents ceding the land serve only to determine the terms of compensation. Payments may be made only to claimants who can show property documents, and have been calculated at 1600 euros per lot, a figure far below market value, and not enough to guarantee a future to the expropriated families. The price is even less than the cost of one of the cheapest cars in the world. But it gets worse.

Brutal Violence. For months, the farmers have been denouncing acts of intimidation and violence against them by police and squads of goons hired by the government and Tata Motors. Demonstrations against the factory, which the government tried to ban by citing a prohibition on assembly in Section 144 of the Indian code, have been suppressed with violence: one person was beaten to death and dozens wounded. Indian journalists began to take note when even they found themselves “at the wrong end of the billyclub.” The shadow of a murdered woman also hovers over the Singur factory. On December 18 2006, the body of Tapasi Malik, an activist in the farmers’ struggle against the land seizure, was found in a hole within the fenced, guarded area. Autopsy revealed that she had been burned alive after being tortured. Although the police immediately called it suicide, Tapasi’s friends and family have accused the police and Tata goons. The farmers charge that the government wanted to teach a lesson to one of the most active protesters against the Singur factory.

Political Face-Off. The Singur protest has become a political issue in West Bengal. At issue are the policies of the government of Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee of India’s Marxist Communist Party. The opposition is led by the Trinamool Congress (whose leader conducted a hunger struck for some weeks against the land seizure), and by Maoist and Marxist-Leninist parties. Naxaliti Maoist guerrillas, who have been carrying on a war to establish an independent socialist state in West Bengal, have also declared themselves in favor of the farmers. They are calling Tapasi Malik, “The Martyr of Singur.”