Development versus democracy
THERE are cases of farmers and those in tribal areas pressured to acquiesce to projects by barely concealed threats delivered by the local administration. On 31 January, members of the Trinamool Congress in Kolkata symbolically burnt copies of what has come to be known as the land ordinance. The ordinance proposes changes to the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013.
The government of India claims these will make the process of project approvals easier and boost the economy. Trinamool Congress leader and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has threatened that her government will not implement the ordinance. It is easy enough to write this off as another damage-control stunt by a party rocked by scandals and public displays of aggression by Trinamool legislators and cadres in the past year. But whatever else may be said of her, Banerjee is no slouch when it comes to intuitive behaviour.
She put her finger on this new year's key conflict of business and human rights, essentially a battle between development and democracy. For the past two months, it has been clear that the central government was preparing to push through an ordinance to finesse the land law (see Community rights and the kiss of death, Mint, 7 November) to make land acquisition easier. That came through on 29 December with the expected and, on the face of it, less politically troublesome route of so-called public-private partnerships, or PPPs.
Using leverage provided by the doctrine of eminent domain, which provides the state moral justification to acquire land for the greater good, the ordinance does away with the need for written consent of project-targeted communities when land is to be acquired for infrastructure projects, and social infrastructure projects like affordable housing.
The 2013 law mandated the consent of 70% of the acquisition-targeted community. Social impact assessments for such projects would no longer be required, another change the ordinance dictates. Along with industrial corridors, defence projects are also to be exempt from such perceived rigours of the law. The ordinance also tweaks the word companies to entities to broaden its ambit.
The palliative was provided by stressing that farmers and others who sold land would be compensated according to provisions in the land law. On 29 December, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's official twitter handle @pmoindia broadcast messages to underscore this fact. One such message read: "Proposed amendments meet twin objectives of farmer welfare; along with expeditiously meeting strategic & developmental needs of the country." The danger lies in such an exercise being one not of eminent domain, but pre-eminent domination. It permits government to do as it would for projects of power-hydroelectric, thermal and nuclear-build massive dams, road networks and any infrastructure project whatsoever in which private enterprise is a major, equal or minor partner.
Farmers and other sellers of land will have two choices: sell their land and sell their land. While streamlining legislation is one purpose, the ordinance does run governance risks. Former Congress minister Jairam Ramesh describes the ordinance as one that would open the gates for forcible acquisition of land or eventual diversion for other purposes. It is of little surprise that stocks of several companies engaged in infrastructure, real estate and defence production have gained since 29 December.
The greatest danger-and what is likely to be buried by a complicity of silence among business, politics and middle-class citizenry bought with the promise of prosperity-is the matter of consent.
Lack of consent cannot be a substitute for consent. That would be the sign of dictatorship, not democracy. There are well-documented cases of farmers and those in tribal areas pressured to acquiesce to, say, a nuclear power project or hydropower project by barely concealed threats delivered by the local administration.