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By Aseem Shrivastava Can a few "treasure islands" take shelter from the nation's Constitution in the guise of economic growth?
…In India there is a sacred bond that binds the tiller with the land. If you want to snap that bond do that with great caution. Don’t think you can do it lightly…it is a minefield.
-- Finance Minister P Chidambaram, at a meeting of empowered group of ministers (EGOM), January 22, 2007 We will give you our blood but not our land.
-- A slogan at Nandigram, West Bengal, where the CPM government is trying to seize land to hand over to the Indonesian conglomerate, the Selim group Humanity is living through a time of historically unprecedented crises. On the planetary scale we have succeeded in threatening our collective existence with all but insurmountable environmental challenges like global warming, whose scale and scope only become worse with each passing day of denial and inaction by world leaders. On the international level we live under the shadow of huge nuclear sabres, the noise of whose rattles gets louder every week. Here, closer to home, India’s millions are threatened with a myriad chaotic consequences of the ill-understood unfolding realities of rapid globalisation.
One big issue that has broken into the headlines during the last several months is the explosively controversial matter of Special Economic Zones (SEZs). Innocents have died in police firing. Riot charges have been filed against children. Police jeeps and other vehicles have been set on fire. Women farmers have been seen on national TV networks being beaten into submission after bloodletting by policemen. A train has been hijacked… And all this appears to be only the first chapter of a rather long and bloody novel, strewn with tales of rage and revenge. So much so that one may justifiably fear that the internal security and territorial integrity of India is endangered in the long run by the fast-track implementation of the SEZ policy. As recalcitrant ruling elites refuse to compromise and concede, and justifiably defiant groups of indignant farmers and protesters stand in the way of police and corporate vehicles, the stage is set for a long and fierce national debate over economic policy. A catalogue of questions What is the truth about SEZs? Is the very idea of an SEZ consistent with the doctrine of free markets? Isn’t the duty of the state in a free market economy to let buyers and sellers transact without undue interference on its part on either side of the market? What has been the experience of existing SEZs and other export-processing zones since they were first introduced in the country? What has been the approach to the creation of SEZs in other countries, especially in places like China? Why did the UPA government pass the SEZ Act through Parliament with such daring haste in 2005? Is the act itself constitutional if it contains clauses which allow it to override long-standing constitutional provisions? Can a few “treasure islands” take shelter from the nation’s Constitution in the guise of economic growth? Is such growth – potentially jobless, as so much of industrial growth nowadays – the same as economic development (involving such things as improved health, education and other forms of welfare) for large sections of the population? How can the state pass such legislation when it does not even have a publicly discussed and endorsed policy of land-use or, as the Prime Minister recently agreed, a “humane displacement policy”? How can state governments (in some cases) be allowed to violate their own land-use plans to make way for SEZs, without inviting Public Interest Litigations? How can the state allow the acquisition of prime agricultural land from farmers for industrial purposes? Why doesn’t the state encourage industry to develop the more than 20% (68 million hectares) of the country’s land area that is officially classified as “wasteland”, instead focussing on stealing away an area almost the size of the National Capital Region from the country’s farmers? If “SEZs are about infrastructure creation” as the commerce ministry has it, then how come they are gravitating precisely to those parts of the country – prime agricultural land close to cities – which already have substantial infrastructure? Could it be to “piggy-back” off the already existing rural infrastructure created assiduously for agricultural activity over the decades after independence? Why doesn’t the state encourage industrialists to develop infrastructure in the ravines of Chambal, something which would benefit everyone? What is the nature and extent of displacement of farmers, the landless and other workers and artisans in the rural economy as a result of the 400-500 SEZs in the pipeline? What sort of compensation is being promised to such losers from the policy? What has been the experience with such promises in the past? What is the likely impact on agriculture and food production and availability in the future if agricultural land is taken away, albeit (so far) only in small proportions? What are the political implications of trying to catch up economically with China (a totalitarian system) through SEZ policies which exempt private corporations from labour legislation, environmental regulations and tax laws which apply to the rest of India? Is all such competition fated to accelerate a “race to the bottom” in terms of the violation of human rights and environmental standards? Does this not endanger Indian democracy? Further, isn’t the competitive structure of Indian industry going to get distorted by SEZs (as industrialists like Rahul Bajaj have pointed out), such that every industrialist and entrepreneur would want to move to an SEZ region because he will not remain competitive with his rivals otherwise? Why are state governments so keen to fast-track the implementation of the policies promised under the act? Who has decisive power over the fate of SEZs -- the state or the central government? How is it that in so many cases land has already been acquired and handed over to corporate interests (like Reliance in Dadri, UP, or in Pen, Maharashtra) even before the latter’s application has been given a final, “formal approval” by the commerce and industries ministry, and thus prior to an official notification issued by the government, letting the policy take effect as a fait accompli? How can the state and central governments be in such flagrant violation of the (already questionable) SEZ Act without inviting Public Interest Litigations across the board? Are SEZs the way out of India’s employment impasse, which is going to get further compounded as 10 million youth are added to the labour force each year for the foreseeable future? When the liberalisation of the economy since 1991 may not have led to a net increase in the number of jobs created in the organised sector of the Indian economy (especially if livelihoods lost to “development” are also reckoned), is it reasonable to take seriously the claims made by Kamal Nath (Union Minister of Commerce and Industry) that SEZs will ultimately generate 3 million jobs, an annual turnover of Rs 15,00,000 crore ($335 billion: 25-35% of India’s annual GDP over the next several years), and will multiply Indian exports five-fold to $ 500 billion per year? (Figures quoted from Outlook, February 12, 2007) If it is true that a good majority of SEZs that have already been approved by the state are earmarked for IT/ITES Parks, what comfort can be offered to farmers and the rural population who do not stand a chance of finding employment in such highly skilled service industries? Or is the actual reason that SEZs are being pushed in such a big way the fact that they are helping engineer a real-estate boom in the country with the help of foreign funds, bringing astronomical windfall gains for builders, developers, realtors, property dealers and international financiers and investors (including many from Wall Street)? Why does only 25% of the land (according to Section 5(2) of the SEZ Act 2005) in all SEZs have to be used for industry, leaving ample room in the regulations for real-estate developers to add to their land banks and use them for financial speculation? Is this how the projects sited on SEZs will have post-facto economic justification? Why, after all, has the Reserve Bank of India classified lending for SEZs as “real estate lending”? Why are there serious dissensions within governments both at the centre and at the state level, as much as within political parties and, for that matter, among corporate Indians and the IMF itself with regard to the wisdom of creating SEZs in this country? Why, for instance, have the Congress President Sonia Gandhi, the Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar and the Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram expressed publicly their deep reservations with regard to the SEZ policy, ultimately leaving only the Ministry of Commerce and Industries canvassing heavily for it? If this is the extent of dissent within the political establishment itself, how are the projects still going through, and what are the likely implications of the increasingly explosive opposition to the policy from farmers, workers, artisans, political activists, intellectuals and countless other ordinary citizens both in cities and in the countryside? These are questions worth raising and answering. There are further questions – of a deeper nature – which leave any sensitive observer with a queasy stomach. What sort of an economy is the state in the process of promoting and creating if, in clear violation of market principles, its SEZ policy makes so many industries – who will have competitors making hay in the cloudless sky of SEZs – have a strong incentive to move to the SEZ areas, thanks to the uneven playing field created by the new law? Does this mean many more SEZs in the future if the policy is seen to be successful (in purely numerical growth terms over the next few years)? What sort of settlement pattern is likely to evolve in India in the decade to come if the SEZ approach is seen to be (numerically and nominally) successful? Are we heading for a further “enclavisation” of Indian society, whereby gated communities will grow in number and intensity of required security? How are the “treasure islands” going to relate to the world outside? Will India finally have to formalise its already unannounced apartheid society (whereby people from the underclasses know instinctively which parts of the city to avoid in order to save themselves the ignominy of being unceremoniously thrown out)? What sort of reaction can be expected from the already alienated countryside? Is there going to be a spurt in support for violent Naxalism? How many more districts (in addition to the 120-odd – out of the 600 in the country – that Newsweek reported last spring) in the country are going to fall outside the control of the Indian state, policemen afraid of entering them? Is the territorial integrity of India safe under the onslaught of such a divisive policy as the SEZs appear to be inflicting on the country’s population? These questions have to be asked of the governments at the centre and the states. And they have to be asked now, before it is too late and we are presented with destructive fait accomplis masquerading as democratically endorsed policies. (Aseem Shrivastava has a doctorate in Economics from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He taught Economics at universities in India and the US for many years and most recently taught Philosophy at Nordic College, Norway. He writes on issues of contemporary concern (globalisation, US foreign policy etc) for a number of magazines and websites, including Outlook, Z and Counterpunch.) InfoChange News & Features, February 2007 |
