The Low of the Land

A wave of unrest is sweeping across Western Uttar Pradesh over the land acquired for the Yamuna Expressway project. Two people were killed in police action and the protests have found an echo in Parliament, whose proceedings were disrupted by agitated Members. The developments could lead to a new phase of political mobilisation in the state against the Mayawati-led BSP government and could eventually stall the controversial infrastructure project.

The state government tried to silence the protests by hiking the compensation but it found only a few takers for the sop. What has complicated the issue is that land was being acquired not just for the road project but also for townships to be built by the private party in charge of constructing the expressway.

This leads one to the larger question of land acquisitions and the scope of the government in developing infrastructure projects. While there is a logic for the government to acquire land to construct roads, the million dollar question is whether it should also facilitate development of townships alongside by private builders.

As a commentator rightly put it, “a skewed understanding of what constitutes public purpose and private interests is at the heart of the problem. Clearly, the state government ought to have focussed on building the road and allowed market forces to transform villages alongside the road into urban centres in an organic manner.”

Recently, a Supreme Court Bench of Justices Aftab Alam and B.S. Chauhan, in a judgment said: “the whole issue of development appears to be so simple, logical and commonsensical. And yet, to millions of Indians, development is a dreadful and hateful word that is aimed at denying them even the source of their sustenance.”
The Bench said “the resistance with which the state's well meaning efforts at development and economic growth are met makes one to think about the reasons for such opposition to the state's endeavours for development. Why is the state's perception and vision of development at such great odds with the people it purports to develop? And why are their rights so dispensable?

Justice Alam said the fears expressed by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar in the Constituent Assembly had been confirmed. “A blinkered vision of development, complete apathy towards those who are highly adversely affected by the development process and a cynical unconcern for the enforcement of the laws lead to a situation where the rights and benefits promised and guaranteed under the Constitution hardly ever reach the most marginalised citizens.”

“This is not to say that the relevant laws are perfect and very sympathetic towards the dispossessed. There are various studies that detail the impact of dispossession from their lands on tribal people. On many occasions laws are implemented only partially. The scheme of land acquisition often comes with assurances of schools, hospitals, roads, and employment. The initial promises, however, mostly remain illusory”, the apex court observed.

Way back in April 2007, the Karnataka High Court had stated that the Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board was “indiscriminately” acquiring agricultural land in and around Bangalore and Bangalore urban and rural districts and Board officials had thrown all norms to the winds and in some cases, acquired entire villages.
Indeed, according to credible report, the Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor project has become an instrument of land grab in collusion with Government officials, who have even allegedly misled the Supreme Court, suppressed vital records and documents to favour the developer and reportedly submitted forged records to the Supreme Court.

Instead of 20,000 acres as originally conceived, 30,000 acres were notified and the project company Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprises Ltd (NICEL) has allegedly registered several hundred acres of notified land around Bangalore through benami transactions in the name of its employees and business associates and the Board has permitted the same.

Instead of about 70% of land coming back to Government under BOOT (Build, own, operate, transfer), records have allegedly been forged to sell more than half the land. Whereas only a fraction of land was required in and around Bangalore for road construction alone, now half the acquisition is in Bangalore itself and the company has been permitted by forged records to sell land it was supposed to return to Government. This includes patta lands given to Dalits and weaker sections and burial grounds of minority communities.

While the courts approved acquisition of only dry and waste land for the project, records were allegedly forged to acquire even agricultural and forest lands.

When the affected farmers protested against the injustice meted out to them, the police brutally caned them. The muscle men of the company also allegedly tortured them.

In its factsheet on SEZs and land acquisitions, the Delhi-based Citizens’ Research Collective makes a comparative study of the Indian and Chinese experiences vis-a-vis SEZs and points out that while mostly coastal wasteland has been given for SEZs in China, in India, it has been mostly fertile cultivated land.
Unlike in China, where the ownership of such zones rests with the state, in India, it lies with the private corporations and yes, despite the highly successful experience of Shenzhen, the Chinese have gone only for seven SEZs so far whereas in India, where SEZs have been largely unsuccessful and faced bloody, bitter resistance, we are going for 400-500 zones, more than the total number in the world.
There are enough reasons to believe that the skewed land acquisition policy has contributed to the growth of the Naxalite movement in the country, which the Forbes magazine recently described as India’s Dirty War.

I wish to conclude by quoting from a document prepared by Mr Vidya Bhushan Rawat, Convenor of the National Land Alliance. He asks, “one does not understand why the Government wants to give thousands of hectares of land which is agricultural land, for non-agricultural purposes. Where are farmers in the entire structure? Where are the Dalits and tribals in the entire structure of SEZ? In fact, shamelessly, the Government documents do not talk of their participation. It talks of job growth but it does not talk of how many thousands of people are uprooted from their homes and culture. If these were easy questions to answer, there would not have been any problems.”

The experiences in Singur, Nandigram, Chhatisgarh,Orissa and Bangalore highlight the need for a progressive land acquisition law that clarifies the role and responsibility of the state, the private sector and the stakeholders, in the matter of land acquisitions. We can afford to ignore this festering wound only at our peril.