[Reader-list] Govt report: land reforms

Thu Nov 12 17:35:27 IST 2009

" The Biggest Grab of Tribal Lands after Columbus "

This is the title of the section in the report dealing with the situation in "southern districts of Bastar, Dantewara and Bijapur in Chattishgarh."  and the conflict between "Peoples War Group now known as the Communist Party of India (Maoist) on the one side and the armed tribal fighters of the Salva Judum created and encouraged by the government and supported with the firepower and organization of the central police forces."

The full report can be read at :

http://www.rd.ap.gov.in/IKPLand/MRD_Committee_Report_V_01_Mar_09.pdf

Kshmendra

--- On Thu, 11/12/09, S. Jabbar <sonia.jabbar at gmail.com> wrote:

From: S. Jabbar <sonia.jabbar at gmail.com>
Subject: [Reader-list] Govt report: land reforms
To: "Sarai" <reader-list at sarai.net>
Date: Thursday, November 12, 2009, 4:34 PM

Govt report: land reforms

Mind The Drill <http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?262704>

A scathing report on the pro-business land takeover policy ...and it¹s
official too

  Smita Gupta 
<http://www.outlookindia.com/peoplefnl.aspx?pid=3889&author=Smita+Gupta>

The Daisy Cutters
* A government report critical of the land acquisition policies in rural
India 
* Says cycle of growing lawlessness, poverty, violence is a natural outcome
of state¹s neo-liberal economic agenda
* Amendments altering protective laws to attract private investment has
further marginalised the poor
* Report slams state patronage of Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh
* The report is devastatingly frank about the collusion between government
and big business, even accusing the two of funding and fuelling the Salwa
Judum in Chhattisgarh. ³This open, declared war will go down as the biggest
land grab ever.... Tata Steel and Essar Steel...wanted seven villages or
thereabouts...to mine the richest lode of iron ore available in India.
***

Once upon a time ³the temples of modern India reduced millions of tribal
people to ecological refugees²; now ³the minerals seen as the building
blocks of modern India² are putting them ³at risk of losing their land
through acquisition and further disruption of their societies and
economies². No, that¹s no dire warning  from some rights activist but,
significantly, a part of a government report, State Agrarian Relations and
Unfinished Task of Land Reforms¹, by a 15-member committee of the Union
rural development ministry in January 2008. Headed by minister C.P. Joshi
himself,  it includes the secretary, land resources, four other civil
servants (two of whom are retired), three economists and six representatives
from the NGO sector. Curiously, the chief author of the report is B.K.
Sinha, a retired IAS officer who now heads the National Institute of Rural
Development in Hyderabad.

The report promises to stir up a hornet¹s nest, suggesting as it does
radical changes in land management, stressing that the cycle of growing
landlessness, poverty and violence is a natural outcome of the government¹s
neo-liberal economic agenda. It also warns that if immediate steps are not
taken, it could be a downward spiral. The report admits that even within the
government there is a view ³that distributive justice programmes have been
overtaken by the development paradigm², and that many states had amended
protective laws to attract private investment but these have ended up
further marginalising the poor. It also makes a connection between the
alienation of tribals from their land in central India and the rapidity with
which Maoist influence in this area is growingand also slams the
government¹s patronage of the Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh.

That said, the report is a ³modified² version of the original document. When
the original draft was shown to the RJD¹s redoubtable Raghuvansh Prasad
Singh, the current minister¹s predecessor and under whom the committee was
formed (and in whose tenure most of the report was formulated), he told
Outlook he had ³pointed out that it had taken an extremist line; so it was
toned down².

But the more than 250-page tome is apparently not toned down enough for
UPA-II, with its recommendations on reducing the land ceiling, a homestead
policy, tenancy registration, giving tribals the right to decide how their
land would be used, and so on. Sources in government say the report is
³impractical, too utopian² and simply ³does not take into account ground
realities². The report now awaits the approval of the National Council on
Land Reforms headed by Dr Manmohan Singh. Council members include the deputy
chairperson of the Planning Commission, central ministers from the
ministries concerned agriculture, social welfare, tribal welfare,
environment and forestschief ministers and a group of experts.

If the report is ³too utopian² for the government, even committee members
admit that some of the report¹s key recommendations may be difficult to
implement. Dr A.K. Singh, economist and director of the Giri Institute of
Development Studies in Lucknow, told Outlook, ³The report suggests that
tenancy registration should be strictly enforced. In UP, it has never
happened as land has always been leased to tenants in an informal way. It is
doubtful that it can be implemented in UP, especially as land is a state
subject.²

Yet other committee members point out more contradictions. Neelima Khetan,
CEO of Sewa Mandir, Rajasthan¹s largest NGO, says, ³The report recommends
that homestead rights be given to all poor people, by distributing surplus
land. At another place, it talks of using Common Property Resources
effectively. How will the two be reconciled?²

But P.V. Rajagopal, who heads Ekta Parishad and was the moving spirit behind
the Janadesh Yatra in ¹07 (when 30,000 tribals from 18 states arrived in the
capital to press their demands), which compelled the government to set up
the committee on land reforms, is more sanguine. As a member of the PM¹s
Council on Land Reforms, which will put in place a policy framework and take
a final view on how the recommendations will be implemented, he¹s already
gearing up for battle. ³The government is torn between a World Bank-led
reforms agenda and the one that people like me are espousing. Of course,
there will be tensions between the two groups when the council meets. The
government, I am sure, will realise that if it goes the corporate way, it
will only increase migration, poverty and violence,² says Rajagopal.

Indeed, while the report focuses on the entire country (including a section
on the Northeast), the part relating to the tribals and Dalits has special
resonance today, as government forces engage in a bloody war with the
Maoists in central India. The report is devastatingly frank about the
collusion between government and big business, even accusing the two of
funding and fuelling the Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh. ³This open, declared
war will go down as the biggest land grab ever.... Tata Steel and Essar
Steel...wanted seven villages or thereabouts...to mine the richest lode of
iron ore available in India. (After) initial resistance from the
tribals...the state withdrew its plans. A new approach was necessary....
(It) came about with the Salwa Judum...headed by the Murias, some of them
erstwhile (Maoist) cadres. Behind them are traders, contractors and
miners.... The first financiers of the Salwa Judum were Tata and Essar...640
villages...were laid bare, burnt to the ground and emptied with the force of
the gun and the blessings of the state. (Some) 3,50,000 tribals, half the
total population of Dantewada district, are displaced, their womenfolk
raped, their daughters killed and their youth maimed. Those who could not
escape into the jungle were herded together into refugee camps run and
managed by the Salwa Judum...640 villages are empty. Villages sitting on
tons of iron ore are effectively de-peopled and available for the highest
bidder. The latest information being circulated is that both Essar Steel and
Tata Steel are willing to take over the empty landscape and manage the
mines.²

Clearly, the government has little time to lose, as Rajagopal points out,
³There is pressure from the Maoists and growing violence on the one hand,
and there is the pressure from non-violent mass movements to take a fresh
look at the land issue.² Indeed, the report may have some virtually undoable
suggestionsand certainly some contradictions (inevitable, given it has
sought to be fair to the competing perspectives of equity, ecology,
growth-efficiency, and community and gender). The government can ignore this
report only at the cost of not just its own future but, more importantly,
that of the country.

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