Land Acquisition in Contemporary India: The Growth Agenda, Legislation and Resistance
| Published date | 01 March 2017 |
| Author | Siddhartha Mukerji |
| DOI | 10.1177/0019556117689851 |
| Date | 01 March 2017 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Indian Journal of Public
Administration
63(1) 85–103
© 2017 IIPA
SAGE Publications
sagepub.in/home.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0019556117689851
http://ipa.sagepub.com
1 Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University,
Lucknow, India.
Corresponding author:
Siddhartha Mukerji, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Babasaheb Bhimrao
Ambedkar University, Lucknow-226025, India.
E-mail: butku9@gmail.com
Land Acquisition in
Contemporary India:
The Growth Agenda,
Legislation and
Resistance
Siddhartha Mukerji1
Abstract
Land acquisition legislation in India has been a subject of public debate since
Independence. Guided by the socialist pattern of economy, the government
initiated land reforms in India but could only partially achieve this objective due
to political stronghold of landed class in rural areas. Land was, however, acquired
for building dams, mines and infrastructure. Such developmental initiatives were
justified as steps being taken to achieve rapid economic development necessary
for public welfare in the longer run. Also, there was little resistance to land
acquisition as the level of political consciousness was low and there were few
unorganised political organisations to channel the voices. In the post-liberalisation
period, land acquisition legislations resulted from the thrust for commercialisation
and fast track industrial investments. The new model of growth based on relentless
competition implicit in a market economy created immense opportunities for
the expansion of private business. Pro-business governments found it imperative
to make prominent changes in the existing laws to smoothen the process of
land acquisition. But, such measures have faced challenges on public platforms.
Resistance to land acquisition is far more organised and powerful than what it
was in the past. The article studies the politics of land acquisition in the light of
recent steps taken by the pro-business governments to amend land laws and the
resistance faced at both institutional and societal levels.
Keywords
Industrialisation, land acquisition, Make in India campaign, displacement, growth
86 Indian Journal of Public Administration 63(1)
Introduction
Land is a critical asset in any society. Millions of people in India are dependent on
land and its resources for their livelihood. But they lacked ownership of land and
had to work as tenants or wage labourers on lands held by the zamindars. Pre-
industrial agricultural societies have practised subsistence farming in which the
output is bare minimum to sustain the livelihood of farmers. Even after land
redistribution initiatives of few state governments in post-independence period, a
large mass of people mainly belonging to scheduled caste (SC) and scheduled
tribe (ST) communities remained landless. With some progress made on the
redistribution front, SCs became marginal landholders from landless with less
than 0.59 hectares of land. The Agricultural Census of India shows that the average
size of landholding in India decreased from 1.41 hectares in 1995–1996 to 1.15
hectares in 2010–2011. Data indicate that over 80 per cent of the rural households
are marginal landowners (Rukmini, r2015). The marginal landholdings increased
from 62.9 per cent in 2000–2001 to 67.1 per cent in 2010–2011 (Agricultural
Census Division, 2015). Migration for wage employment is also highest among
marginal landholders. In such a situation of vulnerability, land acquisition is seen
to cause greater marginalisation of peripheral communities.
The central concern of the land use amendments is the paradox between rapid
industrial and infrastructural development that necessitates land acquisition as
a prior requirement and displacement and social insecurities that result from
such developmental initiatives. State action in support of commercialisation and
land acquisition is seen necessary from the standpoint of collective benefits of
industrial development. The logic of ascendancy in global market is yet another
point of justification for growth-oriented policies and programmes. But its social
implications remains marginally addressed.
The article argues that the land acquisition legislation in contemporary India
is a fallout of the growth-centric model of development that itself is a derivative
of the ideology and interest imperatives of politics of the late 1980s/early 1990s.
The process of commercialisation gets triggered since 2000s in view of a more
internationalised environment in which business and industry could flourish in
a bigger way. This model of development is seen to be antagonistic to human
development goals. For instance, land acquisition for commercial purpose causes
precarity of various types such as displacement, lack of fair compensation,
encroachment on tribal lands and environmental degradation. Resistance to land
acquisition legislations has taken both institutional and societal forms. If the
growth agenda had triggered commercialisation since the 1990s, democratisation
of society manifested in civil society activism and social movements at micro-
and macro-levels that reinforced the culture of resistance. The recent legislations
on land acquisition is mired between two contradicting developmental claims:
The emphasis on the goal of economic growth because of its propensity to cause
trickle-down effect and the social concerns of displacement and resettlement
emerging from land acquisition and commercial expansion and leading to political
resistance.
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