by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group
Politics, like weather, is given to abrupt change. Just a week ago it appeared that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, after observing the return of belligerent determination in his chief opponent and Congress president Sonia Gandhi, would postpone the cornerstone of his reform programme—a business-friendly land acquisition law.
It was surmised that he’d rather wait for his numbers in the Rajya Sabha to look better, strike if the anti-BJP unity that Sonia had forged gets frayed by the monsoon session of Parliament, if not earlier. But Modi no longer seems to be in the mood to wait and watch. By setting the stage for a re-promulgation of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (RFCTLARS) (amendment) ordinance, which, in short, is an about-face of the previous UPA’s contentious land acquisition law of 2013, Modi is smelling victory, or so it seems. It is a fact that the anti-Modi unity in the Upper House showed fissures in the first half of the Budget Session with many so-called diehard opponents of the Prime Minister, like the Trinamool Congress, BJD and even JD(U), stepping forward to defend the government bills on coal mines and on mines and minerals. But the land issue is more elemental. Will sufficient number Modi’s critics switch sides this time round? Or is Modi being over-optimistic?
The fresh ordinance is different from the previous one in a technical way, as it also contains the nine amendments that were added to the RFCTLARS Bill during its passage in the Lok Sabha. They relate to a slew of public projects requiring land acquisition, from coal mining and road extension work to laying metro lines. But the crux of the land issue is two-fold: identifying the ‘stake-holders’ (including tenant farmers and landless workers) through a Social Impact Assessment, and securing their consent. In the UPA dispensation, Sonia Gandhi, largely guided by Jairam Ramesh, a maverick public policy wonk with socialist ideas, put her stamp on UPA’s 2013 land acquisition law. It made SIA so inclusive that even persons having no ownership or tenancy rights on the concerned land would qualify as stake-holder. It got the number of potential beneficiaries multiplying. And that made the cost of acquisition prohibitive. The other contentious aspect of the UPA law was that of making acquisition subject to the consent of a vast number of the extended stake-holders, 80 per cent for private projects and 70 per cent in case of projects on Public Private Partnership (PPP) model. On the other hand, the ordinance that the Modi government has readied for re-promulgation has no provision for obtaining stake-holders’ consent in sectors such as national security, defence, rural infrastructure including village electrification, industrial corridors and housing for the poor. Modi’s Make In India dream hinges on this ordinance becoming a law, particularly as far as the proposed 1,453-km Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor is concerned, as a number of investment proposals are waiting for the land acquisition hurdle to be cleared.
For Modi, it is make or break as the growth model he has decided to pursue has infrastructure and industry at its focus, both of which must have readily available land. He is betting long on economic growth. On the contrary, Sonia’s strategy is to mobilise regional and pro-left parties through a strident war-cry that the poor are going to be robbed of their land. But Modi seems convinced that Sonia’s spiel is empty as the vast majority of young voters are not any longer tied to their little do bigha zameen; instead they’ve kept their eyes peeled for a rush of bulldozers and cranes, creating jobs that they need most. It is obvious that the government will take a chance with passing the new ordinance as a Bill in the Rajya Sabha at the earliest. But if it fails, the Modi-led government will not think twice in submitting it before a joint session of the two Houses, where it will have the numbers on its side. Land acquisition is an issue on which the government is willing to go the whole hog.
If Modi succeeds it will be a success for the Indian reform which, after being kick-started by the late P. V. Narasimha Rao in 1991, has now reached a stage when it cannot move an inch forward without cooperation of the state governments. If Modi can bring on the statute book a land acquisition law which is industry-friendly without being despotic, there is a chance that most regional parties, and even a section of the Congress, will follow his lead in raising the standard of governance at the sub-national level. Instead of caring too much for the Congress, Modi is now doggedly wooing the non-Congress strong regional parties. The BJP leadership has already retreated from its aggressive position in West Bengal and Odisha and built bridges with Jayalalitha in Tamil Nadu. Even back channel operation is at work in Bihar. It is the consequent mutual respect between the Centre and the states which alone can ensure an efficient revenue collection machinery, through the proposed Goods and Services Tax, among other things, and its efficient spending in areas that come under states’ jurisdiction—be it education, health or law and order. It is to his credit that judiciary has by and large been with him on crucial issues. And once the Land and GST bills are through, he will move on to amend the labour laws.
For Modi, victory on the land acquisition issue is also necessary in view of developments within his own organisation, RSS and BJP, where a section never too comfortable with his pro-market views got his strategy botched up. Such inside job is nothing new.
From the day Modi emerged as BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, he has been confronted by his sullen, or bitter, or confused compatriots who, though never lacking in sugar-coated compliments, have refused to accept his vision of India as a great power in the making. By putting his might behind the land bill, Modi has decisively proved that he is serious about growth.
