Land, Livelihoods and Company Sarkaar EPW, Vol - L No. 2, January 10, 2015 Editorials The ordinance amending the new Land Acquisition Act validates Modi sarkaar as Company sarkaar. If the government, which resorted to an ordinance on 31 December 2014 to amend the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 (LARR, 2013), had even an iota of honesty it would have also removed the words “humane, participative, informed and transparent” that describe what the Act was supposed “to ensure” in the process of compulsory land acquisition. But that would have been too much to expect from Modi sarkaar, for the ordinance itself establishes that it is Company sarkaar. And, for those who revel in the play on acronyms, the former union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh, who shepherded the LARR, has coined this one for “Modi” – it is increasingly coming to stand for “Murder of Democratic India”. In an “Information Note” on the ordinance to amend the LARR, the Company sarkaar claims that even as it brings in significant changes to remove “procedural difficulties in the acquisition of lands required for important national projects”, it has safeguarded the interests of “the farmers and affected families”. Of course, one change, which the government is taking credit for, was mandatory – it was written into the law itself. This is the one related to Section 105 of the unamended LARR – that “compensation in accordance with the First Schedule and rehabilitation and resettlement(R&R) specified in the Second and Third Schedules shall apply to cases of land acquisition under the enactments specified in the Fourth Schedule” with effect from 1 January 2015. The government is thus taking credit for something it had no option but to abide by, and thereby claiming that it has safeguarded the interests of “the farmers and affected families”. But talking of the Fourth Schedule of the LARR, it is in the set of 13 enactments listed therein that the “transparency” claimed in the Act does not apply, and this waiver of “transparency” was the “commission” of the then Congress-led government of which Ramesh was the union rural development minister. So, for projects in atomic energy, mining, national highways, petroleum and mineral pipelines, coal-bearing areas, electricity, railways, and six others, the requirement of a social impact assessment (SIA) and “informed consent” did not apply in the unamended LARR itself. But now, via the ordinance, the Company sarkaar has dispensed with these for a whole range of other kinds of projects – those “vital for national security or defence of India and every part thereof, including preparation for defence, or defence production”, rural infrastructure including electrification, “affordable housing and housing for the poor people”, industrial corridors, and “infrastructure and social infrastructure projects under public private partnerships”. The companies, whose sarkaar it is, naturally found the SIA, the conduct of “public hearings”, the “written consent requirements”, and the special provision to safeguard food security inconvenient, what with a possible transparent assessment of whether their projects actually serve the “public purpose” and whether the extent of the land proposed for acquisition is in excess of what is needed, as also a more accurate assessment of the loss of livelihoods and thus of theR&R needs of the “affected families”. So to hell with all of these requirements – “we” (the company and its sarkaar), “their mai-baap”, must decide the fate of the tens of thousands of poor people affected by “our” projects, and in this, “we” want no “compromises”. In the LARR, like in the twice-amended colonial Land Acquisition Act of 1894, any activity of the state and almost any activity of the companies are deemed to serve the “public purpose”, but now, in the ordinance, the latter had to be made a bit more comprehensive – private hospitals and private educational institutions are also deemed to serve the “public purpose”. The companies whose sarkaar it is also wanted private hotels to be included, but the sarkaar felt a bit embarrassed and kept it for later. The Company sarkaar did not however leave unamended the “retrospective clause”, which refers to land acquisition proceedings under the 1894 Act wherein no compensation award has been made, or an award has been made five or more years prior to 1 January 2014, but where physical possession of the land has not been taken or compensation has not been paid. The unamended LARR called for fresh proceedings to be initiated under its purview in such cases, and this would have benefited a whole lot of farmers, but now the condition has been tightened to the detriment of the land losers. What then does one make of the ordinance? With SIA, public hearings, and informed consent done away with for a whole lot of projects, deception, threats, intimidation, swindling and outright violence – in the process dispossession of people from their lands – will be back with a vengeance, all under the guise of the “public purpose”. “You take my life/When you take the means whereby I live.” – Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act 4, Scene 1. Since colonial times, a massive number of people – perhaps a hundred million – have been the victims of the processes of dispossession, expropriation, tearing up by the roots, one might call it, and displacement. The means whereby they lived have been taken from them in the name of development and modernisation – that which brings the highest rate of return on capital. And, the process just goes on, from one Company sarkaar to another.
Posted on: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 16:32:17 +0000
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