It seems likely that, the formalities of protest over, the
political class of India will gradually agree that the proposed land bill, with
cosmetic changes, is necessary for the well-being of the country. The bill will
then continue to clothe the state with the powers for acquiring land that the
British gave themselves a century and a quarter ago. They were a colonial
power, and their Dharma was to suck the inhabitants of this country dry. What
has given successive “by-the-people-of-the-people” governments of this country
the nerve to continue using it for the same purpose for nearly 70 years?
Governments over the years have tried to convince us that
the protests against the land acquisition law come from those who are against
progress and development. The more zealous have managed to tinge such protests
with an unpatriotic, even seditious cast. In his address to the farmers, Mr.
Modi sought to scare them with a future without roads, schools and homes if
they did not sign on to the land bill.
This is insincere and untrue. In fact, the arguments against
India’s land acquisition law have never been about development. They have
always been about whether those who are displaced have any right to say no,
just like we assume everyone else does.
They say we need four things to produce things. We need land
on which to put our machines and the workers. We need money to buy the
facilities and generally run the place. We need labour to actually produce the
stuff and entrepreneurship to imagine it all and make it happen.
The argument is that when a particular piece of land is
required for “economic development”, it is an obligation of the citizen who
owns it to make it available to the state, regardless of whether he wants to do
so. Let us apply this notion to all the other things we need for producing
things and see what happens.
Let us first take labour. We are quite familiar with poor
people, whose only asset was their hands and ability to work hard, being asked
to contribute that asset without their consent. Through history, we have
variously called it slavery, indentured labour, begaar, bandhua mazdoori and
other similar names. Today, each one of those practices evokes a horror inside
us. The world has gone to considerable lengths to ensure that, at least
overtly, this doesn’t happen ever again. Nice people don’t, simply don’t,
acquire labour without consent.
How about money?. Those who seek to acquire capital without
the owners’ consent quickly become international pariahs. Countries that failed
to repay money they had borrowed have had generations blighted in their
struggle to repay. Equally, elaborate laws prevent an individual from trying to
take someone’s money without his consent. We all think those laws are a good
thing.
Coveting the fruits of someone else’s entrepreneurial skills
without his consent also falls foul of modern commandments. The hyperactive movement,
right around the world, to protect intellectual property rights has only gotten
more pervasive over the years. Of course, it would help a lot of people if the
drugs were a bit cheaper, or the fancy phone didn’t sell for ten times its
production cost. But entrepreneurial skill is sacrosanct, not to be taken
without due reparations being made.
Why, then, is it acceptable to take land without due
reparations? As we have said earlier, no sane person would today suggest forced
labour, and conscripting capital and entrepreneurship would set up our ruling
class against the might of the global ruling class. Land, however, is easy to
take; the affected constituency is entirely domestic, fragmented, powerless and
used to being ignored.
That constituency is not just farmers, as has been made
out. Among those affected, farmers are among the better organized, which is
perhaps why the political class at least recognizes them as stakeholders.
However, the question of consent and acceptable reparations for land affects
the farmer, the forest dweller, those who eat the produce of land, those who
drink the water that flows on it, those who walk and sleep on it and those who
consider it mother. That makes it just about every one of us.
As we might expect, different holders of land rights are
affected differently. Suppose the rights of the state to acquire land was
applied to acquire and demolish every other row of houses in Mumbai’s Cuffe
Parade. Suppose we paid Rs.20,000 a square foot, about 25% of the current
market value of the properties. (This is about the percentage a recent study
suggested independent India has paid those whose lands it acquired under the
land acquisition act).
For those who didn’t have to give up their homes, the
outcomes would be highly beneficial. Roads could be widened, traffic would flow
smoother and people would save hours that they currently spend sitting in their
cars. The air would get distinctly cleaner without the exhaust from cars. The
streets would be quieter. There would a lot more green cover. The demolition,
the creation of open spaces, as well as the construction of new houses for
those who were displaced would all contribute to additional GDP.
How would it be for those whose homes were acquired? Having received
just a few crores of compensation money, how would they cope? Where would they
go? How could they bear to travel to the north of the city from their offices
at its southern tip? Wouldn’t the world come crashing down?
Well, you should ask some of the people who were actually driven
off their homes, forests, farms and shanties what it means for the world to
come crashing down. There is the householder who has slowly watched the water
of the dam come into his home and lap at his feet because he refused to leave
when ordered to do so. The authorities raised the water level anyway, offering
him the choice of either drowning or fleeing. There is the traditional forest-dweller,
who was pushed out of the forest, the only thing he understood and depended on
for food, recreation, social support and spiritual succor. Dumped upon a piece
of barren, rocky land, he must quickly learn the art of settled agriculture if
he wishes to survive. This skill is something that has taken settled
communities centuries to perfect. There is the farmer who was making ends meet
on a small patch of fertile land. After years of struggle to get the piece of
compensation land promised to him when he was pushed out, what he gets is rocky
and useless for what he knows best, cultivation. And his new home is a
bewildering ghetto, where the supporting social structures and the emotional
links of his old village have disappeared completely.
This is why the Cuffe Parade land will never be acquired. It
is extraordinarily painful for those who pay the price for the better life of
others. Cuffe Parade residents know how to protect themselves. Therefore, the
land must be taken from those who don’t know how.
Eminent domain is a respectable-sounding phrase, used around
the world. It makes it possible for governments to require that individuals or
communities give up their assets or rights if the governments deem that a
larger purpose is served by such sacrifice. Of course, different countries place
different restrictions on the exercise of that right. India’s law, being
largely unchanged from the colonial-era legislation even after the UPA’s
amendment of 2013, probably ranks among the worst.
Implicit in the submission of a people to the will of a duly
constituted government is a social contract – that the people entrusted with
that power will use it as trustees of the people, they will display great
wisdom in their understanding of the world and great compassion and concern for
those that have given them that power.
The exercise of eminent domain requires it
to an even greater degree. That is because it expressly involves imposing costs on one
(usually small) group of people so that a larger number may benefit. In such a
circumstance, the larger community must act with great restraint and deep sense
of responsibility for those that are bearing the costs. The government must be
the bearer of that concern and its actions must be steeped in it.
Given that the history of land acquisition under successive
governments in independent India is such a blot on our democracy, there is little
reason to trust that this government will act from such a concern. Indeed, the
desperation to avoid a meaningful dialogue among the stakeholders and somehow
ram through a new, illegitimate law, suggests that misery will continue to
haunt the exercise of these powers.
We haven’t yet learnt how to stop colonising our own.
