Development Induced Displacement in W...

Development Induced Displacement in West Bengal : Some Empirical Data and Policy Implications.
Abhijit Guha
Reader, Dept. of Anthropology
V.U., E-mail: abhijitguh...@rediffmail.com

  General Scenario
  The first striking thing one observes in this field is the virtual absence of any empirical and theoretical work on development induced displacement in West Bengal. This of course does not mean that displacement and rehabilitation are non-existent in West Bengal1, which in the pre-Independence period, was the leading state in terms of industrialisation, and where, after Independence, large industries and thermal power plants have been built up displacing many families (including tribals) from their agricultural land and homes. West Bengal has also experienced large-scale mining on the western part of the state bordering Jharkhand. In an article published in 1989, Walter Fernandes and his co-workers, quoting from Government sources, have shown that for the Durgapur Steel Plant in Bardhaman district of West Bengal 6,633.44 hectares of land was acquired, which displaced 11,300 persons, 3.39 percent of whom were tribals (Fernandes et al. 1989). In the same article, Fernandes
 quoted another Government source which showed that up to 1983 there were 114 mines (all are coal mines) in West Bengal although he did not give any concrete figure about the total number of displaced persons owing to the acquisition of land for the establishment of mines. Through extrapolation, Fernandes, however, arrived at an estimate of 1,380 displaced persons per mine in India which brings out a figure of 1,57,320 persons in case of West Bengal. In more recent period, particularly since the adoption of a liberalised economic policy by the Central Government, quite a good number of development projects have been launched by the West Bengal Government and many more will be coming up in near future. The building up of a new township near Kolkata and the establishment of industries in the rural areas of West Bengal including a port centered industrial complex at Haldia in the Purba Medinipur district constitute the recent development package of the Government of West
 Bengal. For the successful implementation of this development policy large scale acquisition of land has already been taken place in West Bengal, which displaced quite a good number of small and marginal farmers. No published statistics on displaced (DP) and project affected persons (PAP), let alone their caste/tribe affiliation, are available from any official source of Government of West Bengal. Displacement and rehabilitation have not yet entered into the official agenda of the Government of West Bengal like the routinised recording of bargadars (sharecroppers) and the number of landless labourers who have been given land by the Government.    
On the other hand, the West Bengal scenario is yet to figure in any substantial manner in the academic literature with respect to land acquisition, development induced displacement and rehabilitation. There exist at least four special volumes of important Indian journals devoted exclusively to displacement and rehabilitation, but none of them contain any case study or policy-oriented paper on West Bengal. These journals are Social Action (Vol. 45, No. 3, 1995, July – Sept.), Lokayan Bulletin (Vol. 11, No. 5, 1995), Economic and Political Weekly (Vol. XXXI, No. 24, June 1996) and Eastern Anthropologist (Vol. 53, Nos. 1-2, January-June 2000).
     The same is true about recently published monographs viz., Development Displacement and Rehabilitation edited by Walter Fernandes and Enakshi Ganguly Thukral (1989) The Uprooted (1990) edited by V. Sudarsen and M.A. Kalam and Development Projects and Impoverishment Risks edited by Hari Mohan Mathur and David Marsden (2000). Very recently, Partha Chatterjee, a renowned political scientist, has undertaken a study on resettlement and rehabilitation in West Bengal. His paper, which is still unpublished was presented in a workshop on “Social Development Research” in West Bengal held during 6-7 July 2000 at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Kolkata. In this significant paper, Chatterjee has pointed out that participatory rehabilitation through NGOs has become a “mantra” which is being repeated by the Governments, funding agencies, experts and activists but “little attention has been given to the specific forms of practice through which appropriate and adequate
 ‘participation’ can be ensured” (Chatterjee 2000). Chatterjee used three cases of displacement and consequent rehabilitation in West Bengal to assess the role of the political parties’ vis-à-vis Government bureaucracy in providing rehabilitation to PAP in West Bengal. His findings on the political processes that centered around the rehabilitation mechanisms of the recent industrialisation in Haldia (1988-91) and the establishment of new township in Rajarhat clearly demonstrated the dominance of the local political society over the Government administration. Quite interestingly, in both the cases, the distribution of rehabilitation benefits was based on a ground-level agreement between the representatives of the ruling and the opposition political parties of West Bengal. The net result of this process was the distribution of a better and quicker rehabilitation package to the project affected families than it would have been made by the usual land acquisition procedure
 carried out by the bureaucratic machinery alone. In West Bengal, it was the political society (represented by the political parties) rather than the civil society (represented by the NGOs), which took the role of a mediator between the state and the PAP. Field based empirical accounts of development caused displacement in West Bengal was published for the first time by the author of this article in journals based on a case study in erstwhile Medinipur district (Guha 2004a).  
Land Acquisition in West Bengal : Legal Developmental and Policy Dimensions
     Land acquisition in West Bengal has a special significance in the context of the pro-peasant land reform policies adopted and implemented by the Left Front Government in West Bengal since it came to power in 1977. Almost all the studies conducted by the researchers on displacement in other states of India did not take into consideration the dampening effects of land acquisition on small peasants and sharecroppers who are the real beneficiaries of land reforms.
     Agricultural land is not only a socio-cultural and economic category for the peasants in a rural setting but the rights of the people over such land depend on the functioning of a specific set of legal, administrative and policy apparatus with which a particular state power is endowed in a given period of time. The functioning of the legal, administrative and policy apparatus of the state power do not again operate in a cultural vacuum. The differing and sometimes quite opposing perspectives on issues around development form the cultural context within which the state apparatus functions.
     According to the Land Acquisition Act, the state can exercise its right of eminent domain wherein it is the ultimate owner of all land, which it can acquire for public purposes after paying full compensation calculated on the basis of market value. Despite several amendments of the Act after Independence, the two basic principles of land acquisition, viz. (i) public purpose and (ii) compensation on market value, remain unchanged. The various criticisms of Land Acquisition Act in India have also centered around these two cardinal principles. One of the major criticisms of the Land Acquisition Act is that the ex-pression “public purpose” is nowhere defined in the Act and in India the courts do not have the power to decide whether the purpose behind a particular acquisition was a public purpose. The court can only direct the Collector to hear the objections of a person whose land hand been acquired, but the Collector may not always listen to the objections raised by the
 legal owner of the land.
     The second criticism of the Land Acquisition is anthropological in nature. It says that the calculation of compensation on the basis of market value not only deprives the landowner, but it also hides the various socio-cultural dimensions of land ownership in an agrarian society. Land does not only have a market price at the time of acquisition, but it also serves various social, political and psychological functions to its owner. The ownership of a small piece of land can empower a landless family and increase the status and prestige of that family in the local milieu. A piece of land supports a family for a number of generations, not simply its present members at the time of acquisition. But these important dimensions of land and its ownership in an agricultural society are not considered for calculation of its value while giving compensation to a landloser.
     Beside these two criticisms, there are others which grew out of the lengthy discourse and debate carried out by activists, scholars, legal experts and non-governmental organisations on the various shortcomings of this Act. The criticisms are as follows:
1.     The Land Acquisition Act only deals with compensation and not rehabilitation of project affected persons whose lands have been acquired. The responsibility of the state towards the affected persons ends with the payment of compensation.
2.     The Act considers the payment of compensation to individuals who have legal ownership rights over land. This means that under this Act no compensation is payable to landless labourers, forest land users and forest produce collectors, artisans and shifting hill cultivators because they do not have any legal right over land, although these groups of people are also affected when agricultural and forest lands are acquired for development projects. In West Bengal, the state Government had to make an amendment in the LA Act(it was done in the 1960s) in order to provide compensation to sharecroppers (bargadars), who also suffered loss of livelihood because of acquisition of agricultural land.
3.     The Land Acquisition Act only recognises individual property rights, but not community rights over land. As a consequence, the usefructory rights of the tribal and non-tribal communities over common land do not find any place in this law. So when village common lands are acquired, no compensation in any form is provided to the village communities who derive various types of benefits (e.g. cattle grazing, fuelwood collection etc.) from these lands. The Land Acquisition Act does not have any scope for this kind of compensation for loss of common pool resources (CPR). Interestingly, in the vast rural areas of India, privately owned agricultural lands are also used as common grazing lands by the villagers in the post-harvest season. The Land Acquisition Act has no provision to compensate the villagers who may not be the owners of a particular piece of agricultural land but enjoyed usefructory rights of cattle grazing on this land after the harvest of the crops (Guha
 2004b).
It has already been discussed in the preceding section that no systematic and comprehensive study on land acquisition in West Bengal exist till today. There is no baseline empirical survey on the nature and extent of land acquired in West Bengal for various development projects, nor is there any research on the specific problems of application of the Central and State Acts on land acquisition in West Bengal. Recently, Walter Fernandes and his team have undertaken a comprehensive macro-level empirical survey (sponsored by the Ministry of Rural Areas and Employment Govt. of India and North-Eastern Social Research Council, a research oriented NGO) on the nature and extent of development induced displacement and rehabilitation in the 16 districts of West Bengal for the period 1951 – 1995. Being one of the research supervisors in the aforesaid research project for the South Bengal districts (Medinipur, Bankura, Purulia and Hughly), it is within the knowledge of the present
 author that the results of this survey may be published in future (personal communication Walter Fernandes, 2000).
     Since Independence, besides the colonial Land Acquisition Act of 1894, there existed another State Act entitled West Bengal Land (Requisition and Acquisition) Act, 1948. The latter Act is no more applicable in West Bengal since 31 March 1993 by a decision of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly. In fact, when this particular piece of legislation was first enacted in the State Assembly it was stipulated that the Act has to be renewed in the Assembly by a majority decision every five years since this is a very powerful and coercive law. The Government opinion was that the State of West Bengal, which had to receive millions of refugees from erstwhile East Pakistan just after Independence, needed huge amount of land for various developmental purposes. For this reason, the Government was in need of an Act, which was more powerful than the colonial Act in acquiring land from the private owners. By West Bengal Land (Requisition and Acquisition) Act the Government could first
 requisition a particular piece of land for which the payment of compensation may not be made before the land take-over while in the earlier LA Act of 1894 the Government could not take possession of any land without payment of compensation. In the absence of any district by district published records on the amount of land acquired by West Bengal Government by the two Land Acquisition Acts it is not possible to make any assessment of the policy directions of the state Government in acquiring land by these two Acts which vary in their basic approach towards the payment of compensation to the project affected people. But the long period (1948 – 1993), that is nearly 45 years, during which the West Bengal Government has kept this powerful Act alive is itself an evidence of its frequent application. In terms of political composition, it should be noted that during this long period both Congress and Left ruled Governments, who were in power, continuously renewed the Requisition
 and Acquisition Act of 1948 in the State assembly.
     The debates and discussions that took place in the West Bengal Assembly around West Bengal Land (Requisition and Acquisition) Act 1948 revealed certain interesting points which are enumerated below:
1.     Without any exception, the political party in power (Congress or Left) invariably justified the extension of Act-II for quicker acquisition of land for various development works.
2.     Both the Congress and the Left Parties criticised the oppressive character of the West Bengal Land (Requisition and Acquisition) Act, 1948 whenever they were in opposition although representatives of the parties in the Legislative Assembly went for vote on the bill twice only. It seems that whether the parties would go for vote depended on factors other than the immediate issue at hand.
3.     The delay in the payment of compensation seemed to be the most commonly accepted issue which was raised in the Assembly and no substantial improvement seemed to have taken place with regard to the time taken for the payment of compensation.
4.     No member ever raised the point that the Government has a moral responsibility for rehabilitation of the displaced persons due to the acquisition of land. It may be noted in this connection that the Report of the Expert Group on Land Acquisition formed by the Ministry of Agriculture, Govt. of India, which was published in 1967, categorically mentioned rehabilitation of displaced persons as a “moral responsibility” of the Government. Since 1967, no member of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly, irrespective of political affiliation, was found to have made use of the aforesaid report of the Expert Committee to demand rehabilitation of displaced persons during debate sessions on Act-II. Incidentally, the report is still available in the Library of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly.
5.     It is only the Left Members who have suggested that the rates of compensation for the rich and the poor should also be different but they did not make any move towards the differential payment of compensation through amendments in either Act-I or Act-II since they are in power from 1977.
6.     The speech delivered by the Land and Land Reforms Minister of the Left Front in the 103rd session of the Assembly on 23 February 1994 revealed the pace at which the land acquisition process was in operation in West Bengal (15,000 pending cases under Act II). One could easily infer from this the kind of harassment caused to the displaced persons in the districts of West Bengal although no member (belonging to Left or Congress party) spoke on this issue in the Assembly. Every political party seemed to have taken the stand that this harassment of the people of West Bengal caused by land acquisition was an inevitable outcome which has to be shouldered by the poor farmers for the sake of development of the state (W.B. Legislative Assembly Proceedings 1956, 1963, 1967, 1970, 1972, 1973, 1978, 1983, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1994).
http://groups.google.co.in/group/GRASSROOTS-in-action/browse_thread/thread/e89c14ce779df9d4

Govt hits back at Naxalites
Nadeem Ahmed (HindustanTimes.com)
May 9  

With the affected states having failed to effectively crush red
extremism on their own, a joint war on Red terror has been mounted
with the Centre playing a pivotal role, particularly in the scenario
of post-December 13 attack on Indian Parliament and India's pledge to
eliminate all forms of extremism.

A stick and carrot policy has been evolved in coordination with all
states concerned.

A Coordination Centre comprising Chief Secretaries and police chiefs
of all the nine naxal-hit states has been established headed by Union
Home Secretary. One of its prime aims is to choke escape routes of
naxalites whose tactics of taking refuge in adjoining states after
committing crimes has been effective over the years.

It annually reviews anti-naxal operations, which include bullets for
radicals and sops for deserters and people in areas of ultra-Leftist
influence. Central government has already agreed to share financial
burden of the war against them.

The latest December 28 meeting of the Coordination Centre reviewed the
situation in affected states of Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, West Bengal,
Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Maharashtra and Uttar
Pradesh. It discussed steps needed to prevent fallout of Nepal Maoist
violence in India and counter naxalites' "plans" to strike at
high-profile targets. It was also decided to expedite developmental
works in affected regions.

PWG, MCC banned: The Centre on December 5, 2001 banned People's War
Group and Maoist Communist Centre, the fiercest naxalite outfit in
India, under Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance. "All formations and
front organisations of the CPI (ML) People's War and Maoist Communist
Centre have been declared terrorist organisations under POTO," an
official declaration said.

The ban clubs the duo with other dreaded terrorist groups like
Lashkar-Tayeba, Jaish-e-Mohammad and ULFA besides 20 others,
reflecting the toughest anti-naxalite stand of the Centre in years.

However, since the PWG had already been banned in AP and both PWG and
MCC in Bihar, the efficacy of a nationwide ban is being debated.

The March 6, 2000 meeting of Coordination Centre has decided to
improvise training for security forces engaged against naxalites.
Greater sharing of intelligence between the states, setting up of
joint groups at inspector-general level to facilitate co-ordinated
operations and inter-state movement of troops were other measures
finalised at the meet.

The March 6, 2000 meeting had agreed on the following points:

-Centre will examine and recommend desirability of raising an Indian
Reserve Battalion to fight naxalites.

-Aerial photography of the affected zones will be considered.
-To make available monitoring equipment to intercept naxalites'
wireless messages.
-A development plan will be outlined to rtemove socio-economic causes
of naxalism.
-Inclusion of newer items and newer districts in the scheme for
reimbursement of security-related expenditure (SRE).
-Special training facilities to be made available with assistance of
Intelligence Bureau.
-Studying the proposal to form special inter-state operation groups
against naxalites.

ANDHRA PRADESH

The state, worst hit by naxalism, has been pursuing a multi-pronged
approach to tackle the "menace".

Social Initiative: While its Janmabhoomi programme aims at community
participation by empowering Village Development Committees and Self
Help Groups, authorities are gradually redistributing the land, which
had earlier been "grabbed" by naxalites, among peasants.

Since 1993, the state has been offering attractive rehabilitation
packages to bring naxalites back into the mainstream. More than 3905
naxalites have surrendered and over 1070 rehabilitated at a cost of
over Rs. 10 crores so far.

The state is also utilising Central anti-poverty programme of
Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana in the naxal-infested areas.

The state has also launched the AP Tribal Development Project with the
help of United Nation's International Food and agriculture Development
and the Dutch Government. It has resulted in setting up of 1030
Village Tribal Development Associations, more than 1230 Self-Help
Groups and 467 grain-banks.

Law and Order Problem: Contrary to many socialists, the state
considers Naxalism as a law and order problem. The data that only 433
of 2077 casualties in decade-long ultra-leftist violence in the state
had caste or class orientation backs the state's stand.

In addition to banning PWG in the state and then pushing the Centre to
ban it nation-wide under POTO, the state government had formed a
special anti-naxal Police force called Grey Hounds who were equipped
with modern weaponry and trained in guerrilla warfare.

The Disturbed Areas Act has been put in force in a number of
naxalite-hit districts. Round the clock security is provided to almost
all the key leaders in naxal-hit areas.

Chandrababu Naidu has proposed use of unmanned aerial vehicles to
track naxalite movement. Although Defence Ministry has raised initial
objections, the Centre is considering the proposal.

MADHYA PRADESH

The state government has adopted a blow-hot-blow-cold approach to
tackle naxalism.

The state government in July 2000 decided to constitute a Hawk Force
on the lines of Gray Hounds of AP and to give the members of this
force 70 per cent of their basic pay as Naxalite Operation Risk
Allowance.

In May 2000, the state decided to give police officers in
Naxalite-affected areas the powers of executive magistrates. The state
assembly passed the MP Special Areas Security Bill 2000 on Nov 27,
2000. It has also decided to send its police officials to AP Police
Academy for special training.

Besides taking steps to arm the forces with modern weapons and using
helicopters to monitor naxal movement during elections, it has
proposed to build 2,700 km of roads in the naxal-affected areas at a
cost of Rs 201 crores. It has also launched a Jan Jagran Abhiyan to
wean tribals out of naxalite influence.

CHHATTISGARH

The newly-created predominantly tribal state has got naxalism in
legacy from its parent state Madhya Pradesh. Almost all its 16
districts, including the densely forested Bastar, have PWG presence.

Special Task Force has been pressed into service in all 16 districts
of the state. It has decided to raise two new battalions of police.
Village Courts have been established in a bid to counter the 'people's
court' conducted by Naxalites.

A minor forest produce costs and prices committee has been set up to
recommend minimum support prices for all minor forest produce except
tendu leaves to check exploitation of tribals.

BIHAR

The large-scale poverty, caste and class struggles, "criminal politics
and bad administration" have more or less failed all the anti-naxalite
measures. In vast areas of abject poverty, these factors have in fact
strengthened PWG and MCC -- the most dreaded ultra-leftist forces in
the state. Caste armies like Ranvir Sena and continued revenge
killings have compounded the problem.

Experts say, in some cases the anti-naxalism measures have actually
helped Red ultras. Operation Siddharth, Jawahar Rozgar Yojna and
Minimum Needs Programme aimed at providing relief to oppressed classes
had just the opposite effect due to "bad governance".

To make it worse, the state police are inadequately equipped to
counter ultras' modern firepower.

JHARKHAND

It has launched an exercise to identify areas where landowners had
been reportedly evicted by some naxalite outfits. Officials say naxal
groups are allegedly forcing villagers to cultivate "occupied land"
and take up arms. The government intends to takeover all the
naxal-occupied agricultural land and distribute it among villagers.
However, the state police are poorly equipped. The state plans to
modernise the police set-up and raise two additional battalions.

ORISSA

Orissa has put Rs 20-crore proposal to the Centre to tackle naxalism.
According to an action plan, Orissa police will be trained in jungle
warfare by its counterparts in Andhra Pradesh.

The state is raising Indian Reserve Battalion and Eighth Battalion to
fight Naxals. While Orissa will bear the cost of raising Eighth
Battalion, Centre and State will share the cost of Indian Reserve
Battalion.

The State Government has also devised an inter-state co-ordination
mechanism to deal with the problem. Orissa part of common war zone.

MAHARASHTRA

Both Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh have urged the Centre to amend the
Forest Conservation Act so as to remove legal hurdles for laying new
roads and starting development projects in tribal-dominated areas.

WEST BENGAL

Comprehensive land reforms in West Bengal under the Left Front
government has taken away much of rationale for the ultra-leftist
movement in the state. However, many an ultra-leftist still have their
roots there.

http://groups.google.co.in/group/soc.culture.tamil/browse_thread/thread/473aec1bc23fc219

Economic constraints of tribal development in KBK