KEY POINTS:
"Wheels truly show your status. If I had a four-wheeler I would have better marriage prospects in my village, I would be respected," says Bengali market stall owner Venkat Banarjee. "I have an old Honda motorbike, so I am looked down on. To be able to afford a proper car, with four wheels, that would change my life, it would turn things around."
Four wheels good, two wheels bad, is a middle-class mantra, and now Indian billionaire Ratan Tata is preparing to unveil the world's cheapest car to meet the aspirations of the world's fastest-growing consumer markets.
Taking shape in a controversial Chinese-style "special economic zone" on the outskirts of Kolkata, the "Indian Mini" or "People's Car" is a concept Tata believes will offer the "miracle of personal transport" to India's masses and make his company a huge international player.
The domestic and global automobile industry is keenly watching the development of this ultra-economy car, expected to be launched at the end of the year and sell at about 100,000 Indian rupees ($3200), half the cost of the cheapest car available, the Suzuki Maruti 800.
The firm has shrouded the prototype in mystery, although Tata has dropped a few hints: "It is not as small as a Smart. It is not a car with plastic curtains or no roof. It's a real car." Tata is involved with the project and reportedly vetoed the design of the wipers - one wiper, not two.
Tata Motors is India's largest commercial vehicle maker. Tata Steel, an arm of the conglomerate, is now the world's fifth-biggest steelmaker after swallowing up the Anglo-Dutch Corus Group for US$12.2 billion. Last week, the firm was linked with a buyout of Jaguar.
But rather than become a symbol of growth and modernisation for a nation, Tata's "People's Car" has quickly come to symbolise the David versus Goliath battle between India's super industrialists and impoverished farmers who claim their land was seized by the government to make way for the new plant.
In Singur, West Bengal, where the world's cheapest car will be produced, hundreds of farmers, evicted from their land to make way for the special economic zone, are refusing compensation "pay-offs". Instead of public consultation, an 1894 colonial-era land law was exploited by West Bengal's government to acquire the land for Tata.
Hundreds of people have been hurt as protests have turned into clashes with police. Protesters claim the land seized for the plant is the most fertile on the plains of Bengal. The government denies this and claims most of the 14,000 farmers have accepted compensation.
Driving across the monsoon-lashed landscape of Singur, agricultural life is still thriving. Most farmers are on the third crop of the season. "This plant is the absolute end of us because we know more will follow or it will expand and we will be squeezed out and forgotten about," said farmer Bishnupada Mondol, 36. "As things stand many of the farmers have accepted the cash, but they don't realise the long-term future.
"I know of a few neighbours who have been offered a job in the Tata plant, but in reality they are simple farmers; working on a production plant will turn out to be their worst nightmare. People here have large families and they will spend the money quickly, then look around them and realise they have no land, no income and no prospects. I, for one, will not give up my land."
Nearly 404ha of farmland is already fenced off beside the best highway in the state. A further 320ha has been targeted. The project is billed as key to the rejuvenation of West Bengal, a signal that the communist regional government is investor-friendly.
Over the past year the Indian government has received applications for 250 similar special economic zones, involving turning huge tracts of land into gated business enclaves with middle-class townships attached. The zones have become a time-bomb for the political classes but the message coming from government is simple: this is a time of change, for the better.
Environmentalists, while sympathetic to evicted farmers, claim bigger issues than land seizures are at stake. "What we are really worried about is the appalling congestion in India's biggest urban areas," said Anumita Roychowdhury, associate director of the Centre for Science and Environment in New Delhi.
"Once people start using cars it will be hard to get them back, and selling cars for bottom dollar and encouraging banks to offer finance plans is a recipe for disaster. Tata reckons he will sell a million of these things a year. This will be an environmental disaster."
There could be further bad environmental news. Ford Motor Company in India have plans to make a small car for India while Honda and Volkswagen are expected to follow suit. India's environmental lobby seem resigned to defeat.
"He [Tata] knows he is on to an absolute winner," says Roychowdhury. "In the new India, four wheels has emotional appeal, not just practical. It is hard to get people to see beyond their immediate desires."
- Observer
