Grounded by politics

With the Opposition uniting against the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (LARR) Act and submitting a joint memorandum to the President stating their intention to oppose the Bill, the chances of getting it passed in the Rajya Sabha, either in the ongoing session or even later, seem bleak. The bitterness in the stand-off between the Centre and the Opposition over the issue evokes disturbing memories of the legislative paralysis that marked the last couple of years of the previous government. The BJP was the culprit then, and one may be tempted to think it is being paid back in the same coin by the Congress and other opposition parties. But tit-for-tat is a poor operating principle in politics. If the BJP’s actions in stalling reforms during the UPA accelerated the loss in growth momentum, the Opposition’s tactics are threatening to do the same now. The real loser in this game is the economy and, ipso facto , the people of this country.

In the polarised political debate over the issue, several realities have been either obscured or ignored. If India wants to achieve high growth and wants it to benefit the maximum number of its people, it is not possible without a massive expansion in manufacturing output and the creation of large infrastructure. The country needs more factories, more roads, more railway lines, more schools, more hospitals and more housing for its growing population. None of this is possible without land. A workable law on land acquisitions, therefore, is a sine qua non for development. Another often forgotten truth is that farmers are neither against development nor against giving up their land in principle. In fact, some of the biggest beneficiaries of infrastructure creation, particularly rural infrastructure, will be farmers. Farmers by and large realise this and are generally prepared to give up land if they are assured of a just and transparent process and fair compensation. In fact, a recent survey by Lokniti found that as many as 62 per cent of poor farmers were willing to give up agriculture if they could find better paying work elsewhere.

The reality is that our track record in land acquisition, especially in acquisitions made by the state using its powers of ‘eminent domain’, have tended to be opaque and unjust in terms of compensation and rehabilitation. For instance, the number of unrehabilitated oustees dates as far back as the Bhakra Nangal project. But the UPA’s version of the Act made land acquisition virtually impossible. One may have misgivings about a provision or two in the BJP’s version of the legislation, but there can be no argument about the fact that we need a viable law for land acquisition. The solution lies in ensuring there are adequate checks and balances built into the legislation that ensure fairness and transparency. It would be a credit to our parliamentary democracy if the Centre and the Opposition worked together to find a way of achieving this.

COMMENT NOW