Belling the cat

To one whose land is acquired, whatever the purpose and the compensation paid, the loss is ultimate and permanent. To one who is city-bred, from “Do Bigha Zameen” to “Peepli Live”, although removed by a six-decade time-frame, the message is the same, provided the message is understood and accepted. The on-coming change with the government’s ordinance amending the contentious Land Acquisition Act is despite these warnings. Whatever be the benefits to the society as a whole, the price that will be extracted will be huge after displacing millions of people from their homes and farmlands. It had been a distant thunder for long, as economic reforms benefitted mainly the urban classes and the industry. But with their touching the rural areas in a resolute manner, the core of the Indian society would be altered. Both India and Bharat are in for a change that would be irretrievable, for good and otherwise. It is a mixed bag. Take it - you can’t leave it. This sense of despondency stems from the consensus on speedy, short-cuts to land acquisition among the political parties. The exceptions, weakened electorally now, are the Left parties that were singed by the Nandigram experience in West Bengal and the ‘Janata Parivar’ that represents the under-developed Hindi-speaking belt. There is a broad agreement among national parties, the Congress and the BJP, with regional forces unable to articulate their voices.

The BJP opposed the move when the UPA-II government attempted it. Now, the Modi Government has come up with an ordinance that dilutes the provisions relating to the safety net for the farmers even further. The BJP is pushing it at any cost – even taking the ordinance route that it had opportunistically opposed earlier.

The Congress’ opposition is to the ordinance route and to the ‘dilution’ of its earlier bill, not so much to the substance of the move. The moot point is: what is excluded from the ordinance’s purview after the exclusion of power, highways, housing, defence and infrastructure projects and private-public partnership projects? Even multi-crop land can be acquired for these purposes. India is poised to be a huge importer of food.

The ordinance removes the ‘consent clause’ pertaining to the panchayats and the gram sabhas. There may be no legal entity left in the countryside to oppose any land acquisition. Are we, then, heading for a situation when only political parties will approve or disapprove of a takeover? That, as has been the record with regard to many industries, the special economic zones and nuclear power plants, is bound to be pure opportunism, bearing no connection with either development issues or with the dangers from it to environment. We have seen foreign-funded NGOs leading such movements and the political parties endorsing them, depending upon who is in power and who is in the opposition in the given area. Will the ordinance be challenged in the court? Who will bell the cat?