Mumbai: When the Land Acquisition Act was passed by the colonial British government in 1894, it was mainly used to acquire land for the then growing railway network. The sarkar’s prerogative ruled over all lowly matters like peasant rights to compensation and livelihood. The practice continued in the first few decades of Independence, though now the need for land was felt for the dams, the steel and power plants, the mines and the many new factories that were hailed as the “temples of modern India”.
The colonial disregard for peasants and the forest dependent tribal populations continued during the early Independence days and tens of millions of people were evicted from their lands, nearly half of them adivasis, though their share in the national population was just 8 per cent. The high proportion of adivasis was a consequence of their living in mineral rich regions, where most of the mines, river valley projects, steel and power plants were located.
From the 1980s onwards, the need for a new land acquisition law began to be felt. The process of formulating such a law finally started in 2007 and for the next six years it was extensively debated in the Parliament and the media. What emerged from all this was the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act passed by the Parliament in September 2013, repealing the 1894 Act.
It is important to remember that there was no opposition to it from the political or business class, and all political parties helped pass the legislation after several amendments made during the debates in the Parliament. While some criticised the new law as not doing enough for those who lost their livelihoods, most praised it.
It is therefore surprising that within a month of the Narendra Modi government being sworn in, there is an aggressive lobby within business circles that wants the new law to be repealed. “This is the single most important barrier to long term progress that the next government would inherit from the UPA,” remarked Arvind Panagariya, professor of economics at Columbia University, US, and an avid proponent of Right-wing policies the new government should follow. Others say the new Act “has made it nearly impossible for companies to acquire land to set up factories,” while others expect the Act will lead to a threefold rise in relief and rehabilitation (R&R) entitlements leading to a halt of many large
projects.
The hurry, when the new Act hasn’t even been given a chance to prove its worth, is inexplicable. The 2013 Act came into force not only because there was a political consensus behind it, but also as a result of the increasing trouble in acquiring land for industry. The most obvious examples are that of Nandigram and Singur in West Bengal, where the CPI(M)’s efforts to force land acquisitions for a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) and an auto factory led to violence by the affected villagers and their eventual loss of political support in a state they had ruled for over 30 years.
Forcible acquisition of land is seen as a money-making land grab by industry which gets itself allotted more land than it needs, say for setting up a SEZ, and then speculates on its value. But opposition to such practices is increasing. Reliance was forced to give up the scheme to buy 10,000 acres of valuable land in Ulwe, opposite the harbour of Mumbai, because of angry protests by local villagers. Similarly, it had to abandon plans for two 12,500-acre SEZs in Haryana because the local villagers just didn’t accept their offer.
There has also been a strong local opposition to Posco’s plans for a 12 million tonne steel plant in a coastal district of Orissa. Locals have lain in the searing sun to form a human shield to prevent the state government from taking over their land. It has been a six year long battle for the tribals who make a decent living from the forest, and will see their livelihoods destroyed by the steel factory.
There have been several communities dotted over the country whose battles to retain their land have become legendary — Narmada, Koel Karo, Singur, Nandigram, Sonbhadra, Chindwara, Bhavnagarm, Kalinga Nagar, Kashipur, Raigarh, Srikakulam and mining areas in Central India, among others. Such agitations cannot be handled by force but only by giving them enough in return and making genuine efforts to address the crises arising from land acquisition and R&R.
The new Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act is an attempt to come to terms with these realities. After being dispossessed in the name of development for several decades the people, specially the tribals, on whose land 90 per cent of India’s coal reserves and half of other minerals are located, are no longer willing to be taken for a ride.
In their greed for the fast buck, industry should not forget that it became imperative to change the law because over half the investment by corporate India was stuck due to problems related to land acquisition. Maoist militancy in Central India is also partly a result of the fruits of development not reaching them. (While a steel factory cannot employ locals because it requires highly skilled operators, it can certainly employ them in the tens of thousands as truck drivers and cleaners needed to transport the finished steel.)
The new Act is an opportunity, not a nuisance. It will make land acquisition fairer and easier. If the corporate world pushes the new government too hard to repeal the law, it could set off waves of anger and discontent that would be difficult to control. And that could bring down the very government they are banking on.
The writer is a Mumbai-based freelance journalist
