In the distant past, when India had a university system that worked in fits and starts, I was lucky to be in a class where Oliver Goldsmith’s The Deserted Village was a prescribed text. The way we were taught ensured that we read up on English social and economic history. The poem covers the period after the “enclosure” movement. Powerful landlords literally “enclosed” or took under their control large tracts of land which had earlier belonged to the so-called “sturdy English yeomanry” or had sometimes even been part of the “village commons”. This move made English agriculture more efficient and productive. But it did displace hundreds of villagers who became “erstwhile villagers” of their now deserted village. These people either drifted into the growing cities or migrated to the Americas. The romantic in Goldsmith is cloyingly nostalgic about the beauties of the English village, now so irretrievably changed. Goldsmith has no time for efficiency, productivity, GDP, growth, progress or for that matter change of any kind which disturbs his idyllic past, even if the past had been an imagined and imaginary one.
Goldsmith, of course, was impervious to the argument that land consolidation, in fact helped England become rich and powerful and that, over time, it resulted in the average English citizen becoming more prosperous and freer to explore the world beyond the limited, if beautiful, village.
The current arguments against the Sovereign’s right of eminent domain being made in the context of the debate on land acquisition remind us a little bit of Goldsmith. The newly elected pro-corporate, pro-business government is apparently trying to rob the poor farmers of India (somewhat analogous to English yeomen) and enriching greedy, ruthless industrial capitalists. The residual Leftists of India, who remain a very influential force are like Goldsmith—they would like to preserve the poor farmers in their idyllic, but stagnant state. These Leftists are supported by several sober persons who are genuinely concerned about the rights of the residents of the currently not-so-deserted Indian villages. Who benefits from growth and development? Why should poor farmers pay for the benefit of fat-cats? These kind of questions are invariably raised and there is a penumbra of respectability to the concerns they have regarding issues of justice and fairness.
Unfortunately, the poison pill laws passed by our previous government would be hard to defend even for a poetic genius like Goldsmith. Let us for a moment consider purely public goods—and not acquisitions for the notorious PPP projects, while making a passing note of the fact that the egregious SEZ land-grab, which in fact has precipitated so much of ill-will against all land acquisitions, was the brainchild of the solidly-socialistic government that preceded the current one. To build a road which is 1,000-kilometres long, one may have to cross two hundred villages at the rate of one village every 5 kilometres. In each of these villages, a “social impact” study will have to be carried out and then presented to the villagers; 70% of the villagers will have to approve the road. If half a dozen villages do not approve, then the road will have to be re-aligned. The re-aligned road will then need fresh social impact studies and fresh 70% approvals. In the meantime, nothing prevents lawsuits from patriotic NGOs, arguing that in the other one hundred and ninety four villages, which approved the road, the social impact studies were inadequately done and appealing these lawsuits all the way to the Supreme Court. There can also be lawsuits on the grounds that the 70% approvals were forged; in fact, in 95 villages only 67% percent of the villagers approved the road. These lawsuits can also be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court. One can predict our future. Fifteen years from now, our country would have proudly produced thirty thousand social impact statements, twenty-six thousand of which will be subject to lawsuits; we would have also had twenty-five thousand gram sabha votes of which twenty-four thousand will be in dispute. We would not have built a single kilometre; forget about building, we would not have even started building a single road. And you don’t even have to be a right-wing economist to know that roads benefit the poor the most. The poor, unlike the rich, cannot fly and earn frequent-flyer miles! In the same period, our friendly neighbour China, would have built an extra million kilometres of roads adding to their already extensive and excellent network. But we can be satisfied and happy, unlike the unhappy Goldsmith. We would have saved our poor farmers, our not-so-poor lawyers and our lavish NGOs.
We can debate till the cows come home as to whether every line of the new ordinance is correct or not; we can argue as to which projects are essential and represent genuine public goods. But none can dispute that the social impact studies and the 70% votes, both of which can be dragged out by endless litigation, have been put in place by persons who consciously or otherwise wish to make sure that we have no roads in India, despite the fact that we have a long tradition of gracious sovereigns—one can think of Ashoka and Sher Shah—building roads; in passing, one can also mention that the land law of our earlier government would have ensured that the not-so-gracious Lord Dalhousie would not have been able to start building the Indian railways. If I were a devious member of a Chinese think-tank committed to ensuring that India remains poor, I would keep hoping that the old law prevails and that the new ordinance fails. If I were a Machiavellian member of the British Parliament wishing gleefully to witness the continued poverty of India—because I have never reconciled myself to the fact that they sent us away—I would be welcoming representatives of Indian NGOs who oppose the new ordinance to come and testify in Westminster and would ensure that they get adequate TV publicity. But those of us who are admirers of Ashoka, Sher Shah, and even of some aspects of Dalhousie—we might feel differently.
The author is a Mumbai-based entrepreneur