There is an India that shines with its fancy apartments and houses in rich neighbourhoods, corporate houses of breath taking size, glittering shopping malls. And then there is other India. The India of helpless peasants committing suicides, tribals dispossessed of their forest land and livelihood. Globalization is the context in which growth is taking place, the accompanying process of economic liberalization and privatization are tilting the balance in favour of the market against the nation state. Nineteenth century capitalism developed through a complex process of conflict and cooperation between the state and market. The state furthered the interest of the market, but at times also regulated it.
Noam Chomsky in his work. “The Prosperous Few and the Restless Many” noted that the economic structure in the US was slowly evolving towards the model of Third World, where most of money lies in the hands of a few individuals, the vast majority of the population consists of the working poor and the governments invariably support the interests of the upper classes. He pointed out how the US and State governments routinely granted subsidies to business effectively instituting welfare of corporations. A similar undercurrent of partiality of shared interest gets reflected in the current SEZ policy being adopted in India. More than 200,000 hactares of land will be required for upcoming SEZ projects causing huge displacement of local people.
The mass protest against SEZs gains momentum as the list of SEZs gets longer. The menace of huge displacement and the government’s pathetic record on rehabilitation imparts urgency to the situation. Faced with stiff resistance mounted by the local populations, farmers, agricultural labourers and villagers, some people have started saying that fertile cropland should not be divested for industrialisation and whenever possible, SEZs should come up on wasteland and not on very good farmland. Land is a state subject and the state governments are acquiring huge tracts of agricultural land from the farmers under the pretext of ‘public interest’, using the colonial Land Acquisition Act, 1894.
India has 55.2 million ha of wasteland (Down to Earth, Nov. 15, 2006). Acquiring wasteland for SEZs has been touted as an acceptable compromise, but several questions need to be answered because wastelands seem to be in high demand. As per the Planning Commission report 11 million ha is needed for Jatropha plantation. As per the Confederation of Indian Industry estimates 36 million ha is needed for the paper and pulp industry.
According to the 54th round of the National Statistical Survey Organization survey, about 15 per cent of India’s geographical area is common property resource (CPR), including community pastures and grazing grounds, village forests and cultivable wastelands. 61 percent of CPR land falls into the category of barren or wasteland. The survey added that 20 percent of households with livestock depend on CPR land for grazing and 13 per cent collected fodder from it. So where is the waste land for SEZs or industries? It is just being used as an excused for forced land acqusition.
Dr. Devendra Prasad Pandey
Lecturer, Rural Management
Mahatma Gandhi Chitrakoot
Gramodaya Vishwavidyalaya,
Chitrakoot (M.P.)
Noam Chomsky in his work. “The Prosperous Few and the Restless Many” noted that the economic structure in the US was slowly evolving towards the model of Third World, where most of money lies in the hands of a few individuals, the vast majority of the population consists of the working poor and the governments invariably support the interests of the upper classes. He pointed out how the US and State governments routinely granted subsidies to business effectively instituting welfare of corporations. A similar undercurrent of partiality of shared interest gets reflected in the current SEZ policy being adopted in India. More than 200,000 hactares of land will be required for upcoming SEZ projects causing huge displacement of local people.
The mass protest against SEZs gains momentum as the list of SEZs gets longer. The menace of huge displacement and the government’s pathetic record on rehabilitation imparts urgency to the situation. Faced with stiff resistance mounted by the local populations, farmers, agricultural labourers and villagers, some people have started saying that fertile cropland should not be divested for industrialisation and whenever possible, SEZs should come up on wasteland and not on very good farmland. Land is a state subject and the state governments are acquiring huge tracts of agricultural land from the farmers under the pretext of ‘public interest’, using the colonial Land Acquisition Act, 1894.
India has 55.2 million ha of wasteland (Down to Earth, Nov. 15, 2006). Acquiring wasteland for SEZs has been touted as an acceptable compromise, but several questions need to be answered because wastelands seem to be in high demand. As per the Planning Commission report 11 million ha is needed for Jatropha plantation. As per the Confederation of Indian Industry estimates 36 million ha is needed for the paper and pulp industry.
According to the 54th round of the National Statistical Survey Organization survey, about 15 per cent of India’s geographical area is common property resource (CPR), including community pastures and grazing grounds, village forests and cultivable wastelands. 61 percent of CPR land falls into the category of barren or wasteland. The survey added that 20 percent of households with livestock depend on CPR land for grazing and 13 per cent collected fodder from it. So where is the waste land for SEZs or industries? It is just being used as an excused for forced land acqusition.
Dr. Devendra Prasad Pandey
Lecturer, Rural Management
Mahatma Gandhi Chitrakoot
Gramodaya Vishwavidyalaya,
Chitrakoot (M.P.)
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