Indian Premier Narendra Modi has provided the seemingly downcast Communist-ultras, back home, some good reasons to cheer — first, by making suicide a non-offense so that farmers’ distress deaths are not recorded officially and now arbitrarily amending the new land acquisition law ratified by parliament in 2013.
By administering a neo-liberal coup-de-grace with his autocratic “ordinance governance,” Modi is creating sufficient ground conditions for a proletariats’ revolt led by the armed radical-leftists in the near future. The 2013 legislation — having bipartisan parliamentary approval that included Modi’s own Bharatiya Janata Party — sought to prevent forcible land acquisitions, enhance compensation for both owners and families dependent on the acquired land, ensure resettlement and rehabilitation of people displaced, curtail indiscriminate abuse of law, provide farmers a share in the appreciated value of the acquired land, return any unused land, create land-banks and empower the village administration to have the final say on land acquisition.
Even the judiciary in India has upheld the new law, which replaced the antiquated colonial Land Acquisition Act that India continued to follow so many years after independence. Sadly, Modi’s government has virtually nullified the entire 2013 law through an undemocratic ordinance that goes against the spirit of a constitutional multiparty democracy. While cleverly retaining compensation for the displaced, the ordinance removed the mandatory consent clause for both public and private projects. It also enabled the acquisition of multi-crop irrigated land. Then, provisions related to food security were removed. Social Impact Assessment (SIA) of the acquisition process and compulsory public hearing clauses were omitted, thus leaving little scope for negotiation on compensation amount.
The ordinance stipulates that a land remaining unused for more than five years will not be liable for return to its owner any longer. Perhaps, Modi needs to be reminded that there is an internationally accepted norm of compensating for livelihoods lost. And that process cannot be initiated without a proper SIA. By axing SIA, Modi simply ensured that the government is not required to identify, compensate and rehabilitate millions of landless peasants who work on lands owned by others? After all, on what basis will such compensation be provided especially when there is a prevalence of sharecropping system of farm tenancy in India and a sizable majority is unregistered?
Hence, SIA would have adequately addressed the compensation issue of not just the land-owning farmers, but also those — like sharecroppers, land-tillers, small grocers, small-time vendors et al — who loses their livelihoods following the acquisition of large stretch of land. But then there are no ifs and buts for a blatantly pro-corporate Modi when it comes to the issue of showering sops — often unethical and unjustified — to the rich. Egged on by free-market lobbyists, remote-controlling his government, Modi — who loves to vaunt his subaltern roots every now and then — has shown no hesitation in introducing policies that will abet expropriation of the peasantry and rural poor. Modi, in fact, has a history of aiding the plunder of arable agricultural lands that supports a hugely populated India’s food security. The flat alluvial wheat basket in Modi’s home province of Gujarat, for instance, has been earmarked for an upcoming city-project that is proposed to be completed in three decades.
The reluctant land-owning farmers, being virtually cheated with a paltry compensation package, say the government representatives told them “the area will become India’s Singapore and their land will turn into gold.” But then nobody expects a doggedly anti-poor Modi to change course suddenly. Modi has shown no inhibition in rubbing shoulder with the high and mighty of the corporate world, often promising them undue favors and this despite the former Rural Developmental Minister Gopinath Munde’s serious reservation. Interestingly, Munde was killed in a mysterious road accident after he categorically asserted that “there can be no change in the consent clause that provides for land acquisition only after getting the written permission of farmers” and promised to ensure effective implementation of the 2013 Land-Act that Modi diluted with a stroke of his pen. Indeed, Modi’s government has sent shivers down the spine of Indian farmers as the state will acquire large tract of lands constituting no less than 40 percent of the country’s geographical area for ostensible development purposes. But what shocks every sane mind is an elected political executive’s complete ignorance of farming community, agricultural workers and the tribal population’s perspectives as they are supposed to be the worst affected by the imposition of a ruthless laissez-faire capitalism on India’s poor.
According to Indian government’s own rehabilitation figures, a vast majority of people displaced because of development projects continues to await proper rehabilitation. Besides, by 2020 India will be required to produce nearly 70 million tons of additional food grains (over today’s 200 million tons) for 350 million extra people despite shortages of arable land due to flawed land policy. Unfortunately, this will result in India witnessing a socio-political churning of great magnitude. There will be cycles of violent reactions and movements of the subaltern class across the country, rooted in issues of right to livelihood, defense of property and equitable access to justice. And external forces will inevitably influence the course of these struggles so much so that India may end up bleeding profusely. In a diverse nation like India, having multiple stakeholders with different values and priorities, a land policy must balance the competing interests. Or else, entrepreneurs will end up losing heftily if the local people, especially livelihoods losers, remain permanently aggrieved.
