Otto's War Room (毛派): Association of Proletarian Solidarity (ASP – Italy) exposes Tata Motors and FIAT crimes in India

Document by the Association of Proletarian Solidarity (ASP – Italy) about the relations between Tata Motors and FIAT

On occasion of the week of solidarity with the revolutionary resistance of peoples of India (2-9 April) we released a document by ASP about the relations between TATA Motors and FIAT in Italian language, enclosed in a communication about an initiative to be held in Tuscany on 30^th April. We were requested from some receivers to have it translated in English.

Above you will find it in the English version.

CARC Party – International Department

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The bloody repression of protests of Indian peasants against the Nano factory

The Indian carmaker Tata Motors has launched the cheapest car in the world: the Nano, which in India will cost 1,500 €. It should be cheap in some imperialist country, anyway, not in India, where average worker’s wage is less than 150 € and a bank clerk’s one is 200 €, where 836 million people live on less than half a dollar a day . When in a couple of years the Nano will land on the European market, it will cost € 5 000.

"With the Nano, even the poor of India and of the whole world will be able to afford a car," announced the beaming president of the company, Ratan Tata. An environmental terrifying outlook, since the base Nano has a engine works with highly polluting petrol.

Maybe Mr. Tata aims to make huge profits thinking to the large numbers of the Indian market. Unfortunately for him, however, destructive and criminal Tata’s plans for now cannot run according to his optimistic predictions, since the production is being seriously delayed due to the strong resistance movement by the peoples of India. In fact the production is still very limited due to delays in the construction of the factory in Gujarat, where Tata has had to relocate the plant initially implanted in West Bengal, where in 2007 the local peasants had rebelled against the expropriation of land. A protest repressed with an incredible violence by local authorities.

(The burnt body of Tapasi Malik)

In January 2007 in Singur, Hoogly district in the state of West Bengal, the corpse of Tapasi Malik, an only 16 years old peasant girl, was found burnt in a ditch. The state police quickly dismissed the case as 'suicide'. Tapasi had distinguished herself in the struggle against the expropriation of land by Tata Motors, which claims a thousand acres in Singur to set up a factory for cheap cars in collaboration with FIAT, the biggest Italian carmaker.

As an act of terrorism against the resistance of the peasants, the young woman was kidnapped at night, strangled and burned. Before being killed, Tapasi was raped by the group of her killers.

For this crime, the federal police had arrested the local leader of the degenerate and reactionary Communist Party of India Marxist (CPI-M) which is in power in this state. The torturer Suhrid Dutta, in the pay of Tata Motors, after 18 months in jail was released and now is back to do his dirty work for the fascist tyrant Tata and his FIAT friends Elkan and Marchionne.

(Popular demonstrations against the Tata Motors)

Rapes, abductions and killings carried out by individuals or entire groups of policemen against villages and families, are Tata’s industrial plan, that FIAT and its CEO Marchionne in fact support with millionaire agreements written in the blood of thousands of people killed.

In the days following the repression raid unleashed by the mercenaries in the pay of Tata, Medha Patkar, social activist well known in India, visited the hospital in Nandigram a 10 year old girl who was tortured with the lathi (bamboo baton in use by the Indian police forces) exposing the horror unleashed by the Bangladeshi Prime Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.

In a society where the majority of the population lives on agriculture, plans to convert millions of acres into non-agricultural uses (industrial plants, roads, infrastructure, buildings), tie the devastation of the territory up with the social devastation for a development which the few will benefit from and which will marginalize the many.

These are the plans of foreign corporations that put their claws on India, these are the plans of the reactionary puppets ruling India in the pay of the imperialist powers: to destroy, exterminate, expel people from their land, to amass them in ocean slums and make them live like rats on the edge of the metropolis.

Agreements and collusions between the killers of Tapasi Malik and the FIAT

"Where cars come from and how they are made is not our business" FIAT person in charge for communications said, when called to comment on events in Singur.

This is the social responsibility by FIAT that the subjected trade unionists Bonanni and Angelini subscribed to the detriment of Italian workers, these are the moral guidelines of the Marchionne plan for Italy and for the rest of the world where it works.

To denounce and to strongly condemn the Government of West Bengal means to condemn the investment and business agreements FIAT carries out in Bengal.

January 2006 Industrial cooperation agreement with the goal of making closer ties with the Indian carmaker for the distribution of Palio and Siena car models. A first memorandum of understanding regards the production of auto in Ranjangaon plant in Maharashtra. FIAT will introduce, among others, the Grande Punto and the new three volumes car (D200). In another plant - as provided for by the second memorandum - will be manufactured low-powered diesel engines and transmissions for the Indian market and export. When fully operational, the plants will churn out 100 thousand cars and 250 thousand engines and transmissions.

February 2007 Fiat and Tata Motors are expanding their strategic partnership with the launch of an industrial project outside India. This is another significant step towards an integrated strategy which aims to move towards specific markets and segments.

This agreement, which follows a feasibility study began in July 2006, provides for the licensed production of a Tata pick-up with FIAT mark in Group Automobiles Fiat plant in Cordoba in Argentina. The first models will roll out from Cordoba assembly lines in 2008. It is planned an annual production of about 20,000 units. The project involves investments of around 80 million U.S. dollars.

November 2009 Ratan Tata met the Minister of Economic Development, Claudio Scajola, within Italy-India Forum. On this occasion he was awarded the honor of Grand Officer of the Italian Republic for his merits in the fields of economic engagement, social development and scientific research by the same Scajola. Tata said that "The relationship between FIAT and Tata is strong and growing. Our partnership is expanding to other models and we are willing to work with our partners on every platform and product. We also already talked about the European marketing of Nano, but Marchionne at the moment is very busy with Chrysler. I do not know anything about Termini Imerese plant.” This last statement opens new scenarios for the future of the Sicilian plant of Termini Imerese where firstly it was announced the stop of car production, then to give the management of the structure to Chinese partner Chery. Now the hypothesis Tata comes up, perhaps thinking of Termini as the Europe Nano productive plant.

Association for Proletarian Solidarity

April 2011