The wind that shakes the barley

EAR TO THE GROUND

With the government free to acquire land and give it to whom it likes, it is the village and tribal communities that find themselves at the receiving end.

Who owns the land for which no one has a title? It should be like asking who owns the Ganges or the Arabian Sea. Though Russia has staked a claim on the North Pole recently, that cannot apply to all.

In India, where land acquisition has been widespread for the cause of industrial and real estate development, the Land Acquisition Act makes the government the master of all that it surveys, except for what people have ownership records.

It is the rule of eminent domain. Nothing belongs to the community. It either belongs to individuals or industry or government. And the government is free to acquire land and gift it to whom it likes, as it is considering now.

A Group of Ministers is studiously exploring the possibility of the government acquiring at least 30 per cent of land required to form a Special Economic Zone. So where does that leave the community?

Phulme Majhi, a Dungria Jharna tribal from Lanjigarh in Orissa's Kalahandi district, had titles for two acres of land. But he used to grow millets, tubers, pineapples and other produce on six acres of land that was shared by the entire community. When Vedanta Alumina set up its refinery in the Niyamgiri hills sacred to the tribals there, it bought his two acres of land for Rs 2 lakh. But the remaining land, for which no one had deeds, was also lost. The government acquired it and handed it over to Vedanta. Now, Phulme, who was living in plenty all these years, is left with less than Rs 2,000 a month, the interest he earns from the sale of land, and a future of abject poverty.

Besides the loss of land, what he and the 112 villages in the Niyamgiri hills have lost is the mountain, which, besides being sacred to them, housed rare species of plants and animals.

The Gods of Niyamagiri have no title deeds, like the tribals who worship them, and cannot escape evacuation, at least till the Forest Dwellers Act gets enforced in states by next year.

But villagers in Haryana are not roaming tribals and have title deeds if they have land. In Jhajjar and Gurgaon districts there, Reliance Industries is acquiring land for an SEZ, a township like Chandigarh, as its officials proudly say.

Here, the villagers should not be complaining like Phulme Majhi for they are getting Rs 22 lakh per acre. Yet, no one is celebrating. In Narsinghpura village in Gurgaon, where all the 3,000 acres of farmland has been acquired, villagers are glum as land is going for several crores outside the SEZ.

In Chandu village, people have refused to sell for the same reason. They are, however, resigned to the inevitable fate of their land being acquired by the government. In the same village, a school teacher, Rajender, has entered an interesting deal with the company. He has given his land on lease to it for five years. He gets around a lakh rupees a month as rent. He is happy.

The GoM, which is losing sleep over the government's inability to help the industry in acquiring land for SEZs while not angering the masses, might as well consider something like this. Let panchayats and individuals give land on lease at least for such projects. Of course, this won't prevent adverse cultural and environmental impact of the current industrial expansionism. For that, the environment ministry and state governments should start enforcing the law of the land.