Land Acquisition Imperatives - Public Purpose and Consent

Dr Smita Gupta, senior economist with the Institute of Human Development and someone who is actively involved with farmers' organisations comments on the issues related to "land acquisition" in India. A Newsclick Presentation.

Srinivasan Ramani ( SR):Hello and welcome to Newsclick. Land acquisition remains a vexed issue in the country. Opposition to it comes from legitimate reasons. Farmers have generally been at the rough end of the transactions involving land acquisition. Remedies and recommendations have been bandied about primarily concerning amendments to the land acquisition act of 1894. we have with us here Dr. Smita Gupta, Senior Economist with the Institute of Human Development and with whom we shall discuss the issue and recommendations. Welcome to Newsclick.

Smita Gupta (SG): Thank you.

SR: Dr. Smita, is the chief concern about the land acquisition today the loss of livelihood it entails or that compensations are meager. What do you think about the chief concerns of the farmers vis a vis the land acquisition?.

SG: Actually, the compensation in my view is the least of the problems. Compensation as a problem is really been thrown up by the corporate media and by the corporate sector because they feel that you can fix it by giving more money. The issue is really of land use and it?s a question not of farmers but the country as a whole. What do we want to use our land resources for. And a country with our kind of food insecurity, it?s really important to look at agriculture, to look at food security, to look at food self sufficiency. So from the point of view of the national interest, it?s very important to look at the land use in a holistic perspective. Far beyond what individual farmers want or don?t want. And the second question is ok you want to acquire land for several public purposes. But then how do you define public purpose. In other words, when is it justifiable to take the land from the farmers and transfer it to some other use? So the definition of public use has to go beyond the colonial interpretation to this question and the third point is again related to this point is about the role of state. Is the state to play the role of a broker for the corporate sector? You know, is it the real estate agent. Not at all. Therefore the farmers livelihood is crucial. They are the part of the question of food security of the land use and what the priorities of the nation are today.

SR: You think this kind of holistic approach to land acquisition is lacking in the both in the central government initiative for ending the land acquisition act. Also in various state governments India priorities. Do you think is it lacking there.

SG: It?s not the question of lacking. See, the amendments are must required. The land acquisition act is a colonial act. It needs to be changed. There is no doubt about that. But the direction of change the Central Government is proposing is actually suicidal. What they are saying, let?s make it cheaper, easier, quicker for the corporate sector to acquire land. This they are doing in many ways by redefining the public purpose by reducing the amount of solatium that can be offered by allowing a huge amount of so called market based land acquisition. So therefore, the direction of amendment is completely faulty. This is a problem not just of Central Government but also in the states because much of the acquisition takes place by the state governments and there they really misuse the urgency, you know there are certain urgency clauses. So they misuse urgency clauses. If you allow urgency in all cases what it does is the protests which farmers can make against public purpose, against land acquisition under clause 5 B is not allowed. So therefore, the problem lies at both ends. And it is essential to conceive of the amendments in such a way that they are pro farmer, they are equitable, and the land acquisition and displacement only occurs when very clearly established public purpose is served. SR: In progressive circles, this is the refrain we hear as well. But at the same time they also mention that instead of leaving land acquisition at the agency of state government you should involve the gram sabha because ostensibly they feel since the farmer has a greater say in the gram sabha rather than under the aegis of the state government. Is it better off to leave decisions concerning to the land acquisition to the gram sabha. Do you think this provision that?s been asked for is valid for all kinds of land acquisition? SG: Let me put it in this way. If you look at To get the debate on the land acquisition, you find that there are three approaches broadly. One I call communitarian approach where the cornerstone of that approach is the prior consent of the gram sabha is essential and in the absence of that no land acquisition should take place. Then there is market based approach where they say that let the state get out of it. Let it be a directly a deal between land owners and the people who want the land. And the third approach to which I subscribe is actually the state led approach. But the state led approach is not of a kind which we have seen till now where you have absolute dictatorship of state. But a decentralized democratized state. Therefore the gramsabha has to play a very important role but it cannot be a final authority. And the reason I say this is there are many cases where gram sabhas are controlled by elites in fact, much of the country. And these vested interests are not interested in the land reforms. They are not interested in the land distribution and they are not interested in having any kind of public infrastructure for the poor housing etc., so there are time when they will veto their own land forming acquired for the larger public good. Therefore, while the consent is important, the question is what is the basis on which the decision will be taken and that has to be the larger good. SR: You spoke about the communitarian approach, private approach and the state centric approach. Let?s talk specifically about the private approach. What do you think is the chief flaw in this that has been envisaged where the land acquisition would be left to the private developers to acquire directly from the land owner. What do you think the chief flaw in this model?

SG: You see the understanding behind the land acquisition and the state is that when a public good is being served then you can acquire land even forcibly. But this doesn?t mean that the people have to part with their land without their rights being protected. So therefore, they have to recognize the project affected persons, their rights in terms of future livelihood security in terms of compensation, in terms of rehabilitation, all of these have to be protected in a very democratic way with them playing a central role of it. Now the moment you leave it to the market, the only thing they get is the price. Now this price itself is not regulated. So this price could be a fear price. You know that if everybody is forced to sell, I will be forced to sell. It may be a price on the basis of force or compulsion. Where there isbe money lending , where there are vested interests of various kinds to exert power on rural economy you would find people being forced to give up their land at a pittance. Therefore, this whole thing about this market based land acquisition hides behind it a huge violation of people?s rights to resettlement, to rehabilitation, to compensation. So therefore, there is something which is extremely dangerous. And if we allow this trend to continue, it is going to result in a blood bath.

SR: One concern about land acquisition that has been played out in this protests in Bhatta Parasol in Uttar Pradesh is that land is being acquired not for necessarily for productive means but rather for speculation, for garnering super profit. Do you think there should be express provisions to halt this kind of land acquisition.?

SG: That it is very clear that the supreme court in many order and you know right at the beginning when the British passed this act in 1894 you will be surprised to know even they said that the government should not become a real estate agent for the private sector for private profit. So all kinds of infrastructure projects which are mentioned in the projects which are meant for elites, real estate development and so on can not by any stretch of imagination can considered public purpose. Therefore, public purpose has to be defined in a very strict way and adhered to very strictly with no amount of discretion for the state. In addition to that the agencies to whom it is acquired also have to be clarified. Only when there is government ownership or public sector ownership of the project it should be acquired, otherwise there is no reason to acquire for the private profit. Therefore, I think it is absolutely essential but all this would come to the definition of the public purpose. If the land is required by the corporate sector the act has a provision for that and the current act has a whole section on it. You will be surprised to know that the amendments to which the central government is moving is actually removing that whole section. Now their memorandum of understandings has to be signed. Very strict conditions have to be adhered to. They are deleting that and bringing the corporate sector into the definition of public purpose making no distinction between public sector, private sector, state agencies and this is going to be terrible.

SR: So we are in for a stronger set of protests by farmers now because of these provisions being removed from the act per se.

SG: I think land and land rights which goes beyond land acquisition issues like land eviction, land use changes, use of waste lands and marginal lands but the land question is going to be the biggest question confronting the Indian state and the leadership of this actually has to be with very responsible forces because otherwise what you are going to find sporadic acts of violence all over the country because the farmers are going to protest and the state is going to react with this kind of mindless repression. So therefore, in the interest of the polity, in the interest of our democracy, if we don?t address farmers needs, farmers issues but more importantly the national need for food security, for protecting rights of the land depended people we are going to be in for a very very bad period.