Ground rules

We don’t want any more Nandigrams,” said the Supreme Court, hearing the petition on the Allahabad high court’s cancellation of land acquisition projects in Greater Noida, because of the complaint that this land was acquired for industrial purposes and then transferred for residential use. The court also warned the UP government that it would have to intervene if the state relied on the urgency clause to take over land, which overrides the objections of farmers who own it. “We will not keep our eyes closed. You take it [agricultural land] from one side and give it to the other… This has to go and if it does not go, this court will step in to ensure that. It is development of one section of society only,” the court told UP state authorities.

But Nandigram was an entirely different issue — not one square inch of land was actually acquired. It was, instead, a shocking instance of state-backed violence from party cadre. The central failure at Nandigram was not a question of law: it was a political failure. Since then, the Trinamool Congress-led recalcitrance on land has ended up stalling a new and improved land acquisition law, and different states have been compelled to come up with their own interim solutions. The Mayawati government has largely practised a nimbler politics with land acquisition — offering greater compensation to farmers, and often outpacing her opposition. The point is that “land acquisition” is a large category that encompasses very different struggles and adjustments. Can one conflate a case of clear resistance to acquisition, as in Nandigram, with wrangles over pricing and stakes in real estate as in Noida?

Specifics are everything with land acquisition projects in various states. This is why we must be careful even in observations. Given the high esteem in which we hold the Supreme Court, there is a real danger in these obiter dicta, analogies that are not part of the judgment but yet frame it in normative terms. There are many views on what the ideal land acquisition process should look like. However, until land acquisition amendments, long-deferred by political battles, are passed by Parliament, states muddle along as best as they can. We need a clear and considered legislation to balance these complex interests, not ready comparisons.