The Hindu Business Line : Let farmers decide

No farmer who chooses to continue with agriculture should be forced to part with his land. Likewise, a farmer unwilling to continue with agricultural operations must be free to sell his land to anybody he chooses, at any price acceptable and at a time that suits him.

Sharad Joshi

The Nandigram controversy notwithstanding, there is a general consensus that Special Economic Zones (SEZ) are necessary and desirable for India’s growth . The Indian entrepreneur, barely out of the shackles of the licence-permit-quota Raj, is called upon to face global competition. It is a common practice in fish breeding to keep the young in a nursery’s special protective environment before they are let out to fend for themselves . SEZs are like nurseries fo r the industrialists in India. They give industrialists a shelter from taxation and duties as also the laws favouring the labour and putting the employers at a disadvantage. The special economic zones will be a part of the Indian economic scene till India becomes a superpower herself.

The only problem is the question of getting land for these SEZs. Japan did not have this problem because it never followed a policy based on dualism between industry and agriculture. It allowed farmers to accumulate surplus and use it for primitive accumulation of capital. Japan became, consequently, the land of small cottage industries in villages. These industries absorbed the surplus labour in agriculture, developed assembly plants of their own and, in due course, matured into industrial giants of today. There never was any need to make land artificially available to industry.

China and India, both votaries of some sort of socialism and dualism between industry and agriculture, followed policies of deliberately transferring agricultural surplus to help form primary and secondary industrial capital by depressing the prices of raw materials and wage goods. The class of industrialists largely evolved out of those that had political contacts necessary to wangle the licences and permits. The farmers remained debt-ridden and were driven to suicide.

Coercive acquisition

The State governments, competing with each other to attract investment, are in a hurry to acquire lands from farmers under an antiquated Land Acquisition Act based on the principle of eminence juris under which all land belongs to the sovereign. This coercive acquisition is being opposed in most States by farmers, although a majority of them would like to quit agriculture, given a chance.

The Nandigram struggle brought the issue to the fore and several well-meaning people rushed in to suggest remedies. Some proposed that the government should acquire only fallow and infertile lands. Others suggested that the farmers should get adequate compensation for the land lost.

In Maharashtra, the farmers themselves were making some innovative experiments when the former President and a scientist of global repute, Mr A. P. J. Abdul Kalam joined the fray. On a recent visit to Pune , he made two suggestions, according to media reports. One, he advocated that the model of ‘Magarpatta’ be replicated. Two, the farmers should be compensated with equity shares in the industries that would be set up in the SEZ, in proportion to the value of the land taken away from them.

The ‘Magarpatta’ model

Magarpatta (literally ‘Crocodile Belt’) is named after a venerated cooperative baron of the region, Annasaheb Magar. According to the publicity hoarding of the ‘cyber city’, when some hundred families of the clan came together to oppose their villages being incorporated into the Pune Municipal Corporation area and decided to pool together their land and develop it themselves through the formation of a cooperative society, they had to cut through a forest of legislations and restrictions as also shortage of funds. They succeeded in their endeavour, thanks to the political clout they enjoyed.

Mr Kalam may not have been told this but the publicity brochure of the Magarpatta admits that the project is an extension of an earlier experiment that took place a few years ago at another shanty town adjoining Pune. There lies a whole tale behind this. Some prominent political leaders had conspired to acquire vast tracts of land around the town of Chakan, ostensibly for the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC). The local farmers opposed this and proposed to the government to allow them to form a joint stock company, the equity of which would be given to the landowning farmers in proportion to the value of the land they owned. T

he company was to carry out the development of the industrial estate, and allot the developed plots for industrial use and distribute the earnings as dividends on the equity. The company had announced that it would be able to pay almost 10 times the price that the government was offering. This caused a flutter among land grabbers who ensured that neither the Congress nor the Shiv Sena government would okay the proposal. The project of ‘Magarpatta’ too was conceived only after ensuring that the farmers’ proposal did not materialise . Had the farmers’ proposal taken shape, the problem of land acquisitions and resettlement of the displaced persons would have been solved once and for all.

Magarpatta is highly contrived and incapable of replication. The project proposed by the farmers had one additional advantage in that it would have converted the immovable landed property into movable equity, permitting the female members of the farmers’ families to have a share, which has till date been denied to them. The political parties were unhappy about two features of the farmers’ scheme. It was aimed at demonstrating that in all the years since Independence, the political leadership had pocketed chunks of money in each case of the acquisitions. It would have cracked the male hegemony of the landed agricultural property, which was an anathema to the political establishment.

The ‘Magarpatta’ enthusiasm of the former President could have come out of misinformation. His other proposal that farmers be given shares in the industries coming up in the SEZ in compensation for the land that they lose, is bad, both in principle and in practice. The farmers are suspicious that some of the industries proposed in the SEZ are only a gambit for acquiring land and that the industry would be wound up once the title to the land is established. This has happened in the past.

Equity in industrial projects

The farmers are unlikely to even consider the idea of accepting equity in spooked industrial projects . Even if the projects were all honest, it would be wrong, in principle, to force on the farmers, equity of such projects, merely because they were the owners of the land. The farmers must be allowed to choose the appropriate avenues for investment with appropriate guidance .

The farmers may decide to invest in the industrial projects coming up on their own lands from the compensation money that they get out of the acquisition. They should do it out of their free will and counsel, but no outsider can force the decision on them. The position on the question of land acquisitions is simple. It must be accepted that the land belongs not to the sovereign but constitutes a form of property that a citizen must have the right to acquire, maintain and dispose of. Consequently, all amendments to the Constitution starting from the first, which had the effect of abridging the right to property, need to be annulled.

Constitutional rights

To ensure food security, particularly in the context of climate change when the cereal production is threatened, no farmer who wishes to continue with agricultural operations will be forced to part with his land under any act of the government. On the other hand, if for any reason whatsoever, a farmer is unwilling to continue with agricultural operations, he should have the right to dispose of his land to anybody of his choice, at any price that may be agreeable to him and at any time that suits him. This would be consistent with the acceptance of the farmer as a full citizen with all the Constitutional rights that devolve therefrom.

(The author is founder, Shetkari Sanghatana and Member of Parliament —Rajya Sabha. He can be reached at sharad.mah@nic.in)

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