The BJP’s National Executive meeting in Bengaluru exposed the party’s defensiveness and desperation in the face of the all-round revolt against the Land Acquisition Ordinance and Bill. The Modi Government’s amendments to the Land Acquisition law are all aimed at making it easier for corporations to grab land from farmers without consent. All over the country, there have been growing protests against the Land Grab Ordinance and Modi Government’s other pro-corporate moves that threaten the land and livelihood of farmers and adivasis.
Modi, in his radio programme Mann ki Baat, had already tried to persuade farmers to support the Land Acquisition Bill. But farmers, distressed by crop loss due to unseasonal rain, hail, and drought, have remained unimpressed.
The fact that India’s ruling party, elected to power in a landslide mandate less than a year ago, dedicated almost its entire National Executive meeting to the agenda of persuading people to support the Land Acquisition bill, is significant. The BJP won the election by promising people ‘development’. But farmers imagined that ‘development’ would mean relief for their distress and for the agrarian crisis. They had not bargained for an even speedier and more ruthless push to grab their land to boost corporate greed.
The Prime Minister’s jibe at judicial decisions being influenced by fear of ‘five-star activists,’ also displays the same defensiveness. It seems that Modi is referring to the Supreme Court’s relief to Teesta Setalvad in the anticipatory bail matter; to the Supreme Court’s recent verdict holding Section 66A to be unconstitutional; and to the Delhi High Court verdict overturning the Government’s attempts to prevent anti-land-grab activist Priya Pillai from traveling abroad. By suggesting that the judiciary is unduly ‘influenced by’ activists who approach Courts to defend constitutional rights and liberties, the Prime Minister is displaying his own scant respect for those rights and liberties, especially the rights of minorities, dissenting voices and movements against land grab.
But what is even more interesting in the Prime Minister’s remark is the attempt to discredit activists as being ‘five-star’ (i.e. elite and privileged). In his Mann ki Baat broadcast on the Land Acquisition Bill also, Modi had asked farmers not be swayed by ‘disinformation spread by those who live in air-conditioned rooms’. Such remarks are symptoms of Modi’s own defensiveness over his own image as the recipient of lavish gifts like pinstripe suits from businessmen, and chartered flights by corporations like Adani. Modi’s Government, that has arranged for an SBI loan of $1 Billion to Adani, and is now going all out to facilitate corporate land grab, is being called the ‘Government of the rich’ and the ‘Company Raj’ by people at large. In the wake of such policies, Modi’s attempts to brand activists working among the poor, oppressed and underprivileged as ‘five-star’ can hardly carry much conviction.
Modi has attempted to say that the Land Acquisition Bill will not apply to tribal forest land. But the fact is that the Modi Government is also moving to revise the Indian Forest Act, 1927; Environment (Protection) Act, 1986; Wildlife Protection Act, 1972; National Forest Policy,1988; and, the National Wildlife Policy, 2002 in order to ensure ‘ease of business’ for corporations. It has also passed executive orders to make around 100 changes in regulations to facilitate acquisition of forest land. The various changes being made are all intended to do away with the need for holding public hearings or taking consent from adivasis for acquisition of forest land. In a consultation with the World Bank, the Modi Government has said that it is not ‘comfortable’ with making it mandatory to seek free, informed and prior consent of tribals displaced by World Bank funded projects. The PMO has also chastised the Tribal Affairs Ministry for upholding the Forest Rights Act and other forest protection laws. The PMO has said that the Tribal Affairs Ministry’s denial of clearance to projects that violate these laws, shows a ‘lack of commitment.’ This amply shows that the Prime Minister’s ‘commitment’ is entirely to corporate interests, with none to spare for laws protecting the Constitutional rights of adivasis and peasants.
The Land Acquisition Act 2013 was no gift from the UPA Government. It was won thanks to the blood shed by peasants and adivasis in militant struggles against land grab, from the Narmada Valley to Kalinganagar, Koel Karo, Khammam and Nandigram. Governments of every hue had passed the SEZ Act and used the 1894 Act to grab land by force for corporations. People’s resistance eventually forced the UPA Government to pass the 2013 Act offering some minimum protections against such land grab. The resistance to the Modi Government’s Land Acquisition Ordinance and Bill also, and to its other moves to undermine the need for consent in acquisition of land from adivasis and peasants, also cannot rely on the Opposition parties that have themselves been partners in corporate land grab. People’s movements alone will wage and win the battle this time around, too!
