Land For The Landed?

With two new crucial Bills, the State is set to give itself even more teeth to aid the corporate takeover of land.

Of the 13 Bills introduced in Parliament this winter, two critical ones included the Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill and the Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill 2007. The Bills were preceded by a National Rehabilitation and Resettlement policy, which was passed by the Cabinet on October 11, 2007. These legislations and policies are being touted as timely and a solution to what many call a “trouble-free” land acquisition. On the contrary, activists and NGOs fear that the ground is being set by the state to arm itself, once again, with unprecedented legal powers to aid and abet the corporate takeover of land.

India’s history of development-induced displacement started with the Land Acquisition Act (LAA) introduced by the British in 1894. Since then, the British government and the Indian State have forcibly displaced millions of people from their lands to make way for “development” projects in order to “industrialise” the nation.

For the last three decades or more, people’s movements and social action groups have been demanding a repeal or amendment in the LAA — the key point of contention being the misuse of the term “public purpose” and the abuse of the power of “eminent domain” that enables the government to acquire any piece of land by force. A policy for rehabilitation and resettlement of those losing their lands has also been conspicuous by its absence.

In October 2006, the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD), after failing to ensure implementation of the weak relief and rehabilitation policy of 2003, came up with a new draft policy document. Both failed to clinch the key issues that were being repeatedly raised by activists and project-affected communities. The policy passed by the Cabinet in October 2007 and the corresponding bills tabled in Parliament are a response to the pressure on the State due to the opposition to the takeover of agricultural lands for creation of Special Economic Zones (SEZ). The farmer’s struggle against the attempt to acquire land for Indonesia’s Salem group’s SEZ in Nandigram, West Bengal, and the torrent of similar movements across the country form the backdrop for this policy. The recent statements by the Ministry of Commerce to lift the cap off the maximum land area for SEZs, since the new policies will now address the issues of displacement, are clear indicators of the role that SEZs played in the speedy promulgation of the rehabilitation policy and Bill. The question is will these new policies truly address the issues arising from displacement in general and transfer of land to SEZs in particular.

The rehabilitation policy of 2007 has some potentially positive aspects — a departure from the earlier drafts. It provides for a social impact assessment; talks of rehabilitation for those affected but not necessarily owners of land; puts in place a statutory monitoring and grievance redressal body. But its silence on critical and long-standing problems will be an impediment to a sensitive redressal of the miseries of affected communities. One of the most crucial demands of project-affected and displaced persons has been severely compromised in the policy. It almost relies completely on cash compensation apart from the resettlement package. This would have a direct impact on farming communities.

At a meeting organised in November 2006 in Delhi, the Minister of Rural Development, Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, defended the new policy as being a substantially better draft than any of the previous ones since it put “rehabilitation before displacement”. He said that “land for land is not a practical option” and therefore the policy looks at rehabilitation of displaced persons into other livelihoods (not based on land) through vocational training. He argued that theSocial Impact Assessment procedure and a renewed process to determine monetary compensation
would aid in better rehabilitation.

The minister reiterated that the new policy accompanied by amendments to the LAA would allow the State to acquire only 30 percent of the land for a private project. The rest will have to be purchased directly by the project developer. This change is despite all the stories of devious land purchases and deals cut by private parties, especially for SEZs. Real estate speculation has escalated land prices and distress sale by farmers in the absence of supportive agricultural policies have marred the lives of rural communities. The biggest losers are the marginal or landless farmers and the agricultural labourers who survive off these lands but have no right to compensation in case of private purchase. Rajendra Singh Rawat, a social activist from Uttar Pradesh, says,“Unless there is a land use policy that stipulates the possible use for different categories of land keeping in view the interests of farmers and other poor communities, these laws will not do much to address their woes.”

Shekhar Singh, convenor of National Campaign for Peoples’ Right to Information who was active in the drafting of National Advisory Council’s version of the policy in 2005, points out to some of the disturbing aspects of the current draft policies. “While the draft talks of minimal displacement, it has no procedures mentioned on how this will be done. The Social Impact Assessment is a positive tool, but only if it is done in a prescribed form and before the process of land acquisition. Further, there are almost no clauses on penalties for violations of the Acts”. He states that the term “involuntary displacement” used repeatedly in the policy implies forced displacement and resettlement.

THE EXTENT of the application of the policy is also not clear. While the earlier draft was specifically for persons affected by development projects in rural areas, this version is broader and could bring into its purview a wider population extending to urban areas. While urban areas do require to be covered, there are several peculiarities of these areas that the policy does not address.“It is unclear if the rehabilitation of social refugees and those affected by disasters would be covered in this policy,” says social activist Harsh Mander.

Aruna Roy, ex-member of the National Advisory Council of the UPA, drew attention to an earlier draft prepared by the NAC in 2005 after much deliberation and rejected by the PMO. She says, “Apart from clearly outlining procedures and timeframes for rehabilitation, the NAC draft had a provision for consent from Gram Sabhas — a critical clause that has been completely left out in the current policy.” Himanshu Thakkar of South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People draws our attention to the sub-optimal process that the drafting followed. “After the draft policy was put out by the MoRD in October 2006, representatives of people’s movements and NGOs had a detailed consultation with the ministry in December 2006 where it was unanimously agreed that the before finalising the draft, the ministry would hold public consultations in a few state capitals to get more inputs. That was never done.”

Now that the draft Bills have been tabled,it remains to be seen if advocacy groups and affected communities will get space to negotiate critical changes in the Bills before they are passed by Parliament. With hundreds of mega projects and SEZs waiting to lay their hands on any piece of land available, these legislations are set to fruther skew the distribution of land in the country.

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