New Land Bill Implies Deep Trouble
— Published by DNA Newspaper on 27 March 2015 —
there is a significant improvement in the lives of all .”
Land acquisition in India has probably
never been as debated, as after the decision of the present NDA government to
circumvent the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land
Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act 2013 (LARR Act) with an ordinance. While the 2013 Act
was not ideal from a human rights perspective, it was an improvement over the
1894 Act that it replaced. Massive nation-wide protests against the ordinance,
including from NDA allies, forced the government to review it. The amended
Bill passed by Lok Sabha, is however, as unsatisfactory as the ordinance
since it is essentially the same text. By tweaking some clauses, the government
wants to convey that it has protected the rights of farmers and other
land-dependent populations. In reality, the Bill fails the test of democracy,
welfare, equality, justice – founding principles of the Indian constitution.
What is Wrong
with the Land Bill?
1.
Misuses
the principle of ‘public purpose’
The 2015 Bill, like the LARR Act
endorses the notion of ‘eminent domain’ of the state and fails to adopt
a human rights definition of ‘public purpose’ or indicators to determine
whether a project truly benefits and improves the well-being of all. The
Bill provides exemption from Social Impact Assessment, acquisition of irrigated
multi-cropped land and consent for five categories of projects: national
security and defence; rural infrastructure; affordable housing; industrial
corridors; and, infrastructure (including public-private partnership projects
on central government-owned land). The obscurity of these categories,
without the provision of adequate detail, allows for wide application and
misuse of ‘public purpose.’ The Bills states that land for industrial
corridors can be acquired up to one kilometre on both sides – a provision that
could displace and destroy the livelihoods of thousands of small farmers across
India.
2. Violates international human rights law,
guidelines and principles
The Bill violates several
international human rights laws and principles. First is the
recognition of land as a human right since it is integral to the life,
sustenance culture, and livelihood of land-dependent populations, including
farmers, agricultural workers, pastoralists and forest-dwellers. Second is
the principle of ‘prior informed consent.’ The basic tenet of a democracy is
that people must have a say in decisions that directly affect their lives and
livelihoods. The Bill obliterates the need for consent for the five
categories above, thereby sanctioning land grabbing. Third is
the need for ‘human rights impact assessments’. The five categories are
exempt from Social Impact Assessment to determine the effects of land acquisition
on affected families. The UN Basic Principles and Guidelines on
Development-based Evictions and Displacement, and principles related to
large-scale land acquisitions, inter alia, mandate comprehensive
impact assessments to be undertaken in advance and stipulate procedures to be
followed. Fourth is the need to adhere to human rights
standards at every stage, including resettlement. All affected families,
irrespective of the land tenure they possess, must receive equal benefits.
Fifth is the principle of ‘social function of land’ that
calls for equitable use of land. The redistribution of land from the poor
to the non-poor, as sanctioned in the Bill, is a reversal of this principle. The
Bill also contravenes principles of non-discrimination, gender equality,
sustainability, and inter-generational equity.
3. Does not
protect food security
The majority of cases of violations of
the right to food are related to the expropriation of land, forced evictions,
and displacement. The amendment in the Bill to prohibit the acquisition of
multi-cropped land is a dangerous step, and would result in dependence on food
imports and economic instability.
4. Does not check against land misuse
The history of land acquisition in
India is replete with evidence of excess land being acquired and diverted. This
is apparent in most airport redevelopment projects. The Centre for Science and
Environment’s green rating survey 2012 reveals that Indian iron and steel
plants have about 1,200 hectares of land per million tonne of installed
capacity while a well-designed plant does not need more than 200 hectares. The
Bill, however, does not promote minimizing land acquisition. While it
states that wasteland should be surveyed and recorded, it does not advocate the
use of this land or the need to seek alternatives and less land-intensive
inputs for industry.
The Bill also dilutes the provision of
returning unused land after “a period of five years”, by inserting the words “a
period specified for setting up of any project or for five years, whichever is
later.” This could promote inequality and declines in productivity.
5. Does not address historic injustices
The greatest paradox of India’s growth
paradigm is the phenomenon of the poor subsidizing the lifestyles of
the rich. At least 70 million people have been displaced for
‘development’ projects in India since independence; the majority without
rehabilitation. The beneficiary population of these projects is, however,
different from the displaced population. Land is the basis
of livelihood for most Indians, especially women. The assumption that
monetary compensation for land is sufficient violates the human rights to work
and to an adequate standard of living. Furthermore, most of the affected
persons are not land-owners but share-croppers, agricultural labourers and
forest workers, including dalits and adivasis, who are never compensated.
Instead of redressing the historic injustice of forced land acquisition, the
2015 Bill will further increase marginalization.
6. Will not promote growth in GDP
Several reports highlight that obstacles to India’s economic
growth include fiscal indiscipline, tax evasion, food inflation, lack of
investment in agrarian reform, and large trade and investment deficits. Land
acquisition is not the problem, but is being projected as the panacea.
On the contrary, forced
land acquisition contributes to loss of GDP by increasing rural and urban
poverty. The economic cost of displacement to the country is significantly
higher than the perceived benefits of exclusionary industrial development. The
tragedy is that India has never documented its displaced persons or assessed
the impact of the collective loss of their livelihoods, land, housing, natural
resources, food, health, and education on the nation’s economy.
It is ironic that while advocating ‘Housing for All by 2022’
and increasing budgetary allocations to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment
Guarantee Scheme, the government has passed a Bill that will cause more rural
unemployment, landlessness, and homelessness.
There is an urgent need to question
the paradigm of neoliberal growth, and instead promote holistic development
through the adoption of a human rights approach. The government should optimize land use, develop sustainable
and equitable alternatives, promote non-land intensive industrialization
through improved technology, and implement human rights laws.
National development and economic
growth can be realized only when there is a significant improvement in the
lives of all Indians.
The Constitution of India declared India to be a
sovereign, socialist, secular, and democratic republic. While there was uproar,
earlier this year, of a government advertisement that omitted the words
‘secular’ and ‘socialist,’ the Land Bill 2015, in effect, has deleted the word
‘socialist.’
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