The use of available land in the country and its ownership has been a matter of concern. The old land acquisition law of 1894 has been changed in 2013 with the new law the right to fair compensation and transparency in land acquisition, rehabilitation and resettlement Act. The Government is going to amend it with six major areas which has been a matter concern and the ongoing debate over land acquisition in the country has been engaged the policy makers and others concern on issues of land acquisition by the Government while the country is moving with agenda of rapid industrialisation following the path of many industrialize nations including China. There has been increasingly foreign direct investment (FDI) coming to India in number of sectors which demands huge land.
It is not just the private land of farmers, but the land in mineral reserve areas, seacoast and other places are also to be acquired where there are people living without a legal title over the land and still struggling to get a title over the land. The last sixty-five years of independent has not been able to solve some of the structural issues relating to land ownership and there has been no substantial investment by state in new land creation. There for the debate over land acquisition should include the question of land distribution and land creation in the interest of the land less poor and it should not be limit to the interest of framers only . The people opposing land acquisition to save the land of the farmers should not be seen as they are opposing industrialisation; rather we should have a balance policy which should be beneficial to both agriculture and industry putting the interest of farmers and industrial workers. The farmers know it that they are going to lose their productive assets for ever and they cannot buy the same quantity of land by the price paid to them as compensation. It is also linked to their food security, housing and a life with fellow community which will be no more available for them and which has been enjoyed by them since generations together. But we need industry and how we are going to meet both the end togetherIJ
The past experience in the country shows a disturbing picture that no where it is a better life of the displaced in new locations. There are many, missed in the process, remain dislocated, ruined, perished and pushed into the periphery. Many studies have established that the poor and marginalized suffer the most in displacement and the displacement debate in the country remain more focused on land owning class and issues of compensation and rehabilitation remain land based while private land ownership remain a matter of concern for a majority of the people in the country, mostly for Advasis, sharecroppers, Dalits and landless poor depending on Government lands.
The urban middleclass gets a faire deal in industry and service sector in terms of job as educated and many of them get compensation for their land as absentee land lord but people in rural agriculture sector remain as before. corporate and contract farming by market forces has been taking the space of small farmers with the increasing discourses of small farming is no more viable in a country of small farmers .It is the small farmers who have been contributing a major portion of food production of the country .
The State-sponsored food subsidy programme makes people dependant on State in the name of food rights without any productive engagement. The big farmers along with market forces remain major beneficiaries of the food subsidy programmee. The people in hamlets and slums get very less from the state as food items. It is small holdings which has been playing a vital role in maintaining food security of the family by multiple use of little available land in that context a reasonable land distribution among agricultural workers, sharecroppers can be more helpful in maintain food security rather than spending on food subsidy. The small patch of land along with support under other development schemes can be linked to food production in rural areas. It has chances of increasing employment and controlling distress migration of poor to urban locations in search of livelihood. There are many examples in number of countries where small farming has been proved successful. It has been very often argued in since the Fifties that land distribution is key to production and the historic struggles of Naxalbari, Tebhaga, Telangana, Bodhgaya and Bhoodan movement by Vinova has contributed to allocation of land to the poor which has been still a unfinished task with Government and remain in insignificant attention of all including Government and others.
More than private land, the so-called Government land which include land of the poor has been acquired by the Government and given to private bodies without concern for the poor who have been living there since generations without a title. There are millions of sharecroppers, poor landless agricultural workers and communities depending on various type of land, forest and water-based livelihood are out of the debate of compensation. The whole debate of compensation remains beneficial to land owners in the name of farmers, but all farmers are not landowners. There are farmers without a legal ownership over the land. Many of the landowners are absentee landlords without any involvement in agriculture who are looking for opportunities to dispose their land with a better compensation. The ceiling-surplus land very cunningly went back to the fold of those new Zemindars, and the State patronage becomes reverse in favour of the landowning class. It was poor people’s land named as assigned land which suppose to be distributed among poor, but there has been very little hue and cry for poor on the agenda of land distribution and land creation. There has been growing land alienation in rural areas without any restriction on land purchase.
The whole argument is built on price of land and compensation, but what about use of land for different purposes and ownership of landIJ The growing demand for land for different purposes should be focused with a scientific plan for land use. land should not be given to private hands on demand without assessing the actual need of land for the project where the principles of minimum use of land can be the thrust.
land creation has been equally important in the context of growing land use for different purpose. There is huge wasteland available without any productive use of that. The Government should make plan for investment in land creation by making available land for use of different purposes. There are many abundant mining areas and huge wasteland patch in the country which can be developed for agriculture and industrial activities without targeting irrigated agricultural land. The Government should develop special zones for industries as well as for agriculture basing on the comparative advantage over the land. The balance allocation of land for different purposes is required for a holistic development with concern for people engaged there for livelihoods.
(The writer is a researcher and a rights activist who can be mailed at manasbbsr15@gmail.com)