Why the difference in two languages? The Trinamool Congress should clarify its stand on SEZs

http://sanhati.com/articles/3434/

April 10, 2011

Press release by SEZ-birodhi Prachar Mancha

Original Press Note [PDF, Bengali] »

It is well known that the Trinamool Congress has come so close to the corridors of power in West Bengal today, mainly because of the valiant resistance of the people of Singur and Nandigram against land acquisition and special economic zones (SEZs). Naturally, the people have an expectation that the Trinamool Congress would take a strong and pro-people position on SEZs and stop SEZs in West Bengal if it comes to power. We were happy to see that in the recently released Bangla edition of the election manifesto of the Trinamool Congress, it is clearly stated under the “establishment of land-bank” section in p 16 that “SEZs would not be allowed in West Bengal”. However, we were amazed, and alarmed, to find that not a single word has been written about SEZs in the English version of the election manifesto! A reading of the English version of the manifesto makes it abundantly clear that the English version has been addressed to the corporations and the chambers of commerce, whereas the Bangla version is full of pro-people promises. That is why the English version does not contain any statement about stopping SEZs. Possibly because this has come to public notice, the English version of the manifesto in the Trinamool Congress website has been renamed as “vision document”, although the pdf file is still named as “manifesto_english”.

The hypocrisy and double standards of the parties of the CPI(M)-led Left Front regarding SEZs is well known. Although these parties express their strong opposition to the SEZ policy at the national level, more than 50 SEZs are either running or are in various stages of the approval process in Left Front-ruled West Bengal. By passing the first SEZ act in the country (West Bengal SEZ Act, 2003), two years before the SEZ Act was passed by the central government in 2005, the Left Front government has appeared as the path breaker in the issue of establishing SEZs in India. The barbaric attack by the Left Front government on the people of Nandigram in order to acquire land for the SEZ of the Salem group has exposed its pro-capital and anti-people position to everyone.

We are concerned to see that the Trinamool Congress is following this same path of double standards. We demand that the Trinamool Congress adopt a clear stand on SEZs and maintain a consistent position in both the English and Bangla versions of its election manifesto. We appeal to all the people to demand that the candidates of various parties in their constituencies clarify their stand on SEZs. We call upon everyone to build up a movement to stop SEZs and cancel the SEZ Act which threatens the country’s sovereignty and the livelihood of its people, because only a peoples’ movement can force the established political parties to cancel this disastrous policy.

With greetings,

Arjun Sengupta/ Jayanta Sinha

Joint secretaries
SEZ-virodhi prachar manch
Contact: 9007386136

The New Cellu-lar Jail

http://kafila.org/2011/01/23/the-new-cellu-lar-jailmadhumita-dutta-venkatachandrika-radhakrishnan/#more-6349

Guest post by MADHUMITA DUTTA and VENKATACHANDRIKA RADHAKRISHNAN
The writers are activists based in Chennai working on issues of land, labour, industry and SEZs.

Sriperumbudur grabbed media attention in 1991 when former Prime Minister Mr Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated during an election rally. Since then, this nondescript little village-town in west Chennai, dotted with paddy fields and large expanses of natural water-bodies, has transformed itself into a little ‘Shenzen’- world’s largest special economic zone in Southern China, which churns out one out of every eight mobile handsets sold anywhere in the world. Slated to attract investments worth $4 billion in electronics and automobile manufacturing, Sriperumbudur is now home to the largest mobile handset making factory of Nokia, a Finnish company that can churn out 7.5 lakhs handsets a day. This town and its neighbouring region is also known as the Detroit of India, churning around 12,80,000 cars every year. With a booming manufacturing industry and a promise of 2 lakhs jobs, Sriperumbudur is touted as the jewel in the industrial crown of Tamil Nadu. But of recent this seemingly success story has turned a little sour.

The jewel has a tarnish which the state government does not know how to hide anymore: growing labour unrest, demand for unions, and frequent strikes.The state’s response has been swift—arrest the ‘erring’ workers and bust the unions. And it does that quite cleverly. It’s done as neatly as is the ‘clean’ image of these sophisticated modern industries, barring a few instances where police has lathi charged the workers.

“Their modus operandi is to form a party affiliated union, broker deal with the management, get the workers back to work and whoever does not fall in line, have them arrested or have their jobs terminated. Pretty neat. ”, alleged A Soundarajan, state general secretary of Centre for Indian Trade Union (CITU). Soundarajan and his colleagues should know better. They are out on bail after being incarcerated for 15 days in Vellore Central Jail in October. Their crime: daring to form a union and organising a strike in Foxconn India Limited, a Taiwanese MNCs. While the CITU leaders and workers were in jail, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK)-affiliated Labour Progressive Federation (LPF) union, which also has a union in Foxconn, brokered a ‘long term wage settlement’ with the Foxconn management, thereby compromising on the workers’ demands.

“This is a repeat of what happened in the 1960s. At that time, the congress-led government did the same thing during the strikes in MRF, Ashok Leyland, TI Cycles. Used party affiliated union to broker compromised deals to break genuine worker’s strikes”, said Soundarajan. For about 60 days since 24th September, the young workforce of Foxconn India, a special economic zone (SEZ) and a key supplier of electronic components to Nokia SEZ, were sitting on strike demanding better wages, good service conditions and recognition of their trade union . “We get very low wages. Trained permanent employees who have been with the company for more than 3 years get only about Rs 4500 per month,” said Dinesh of the CITU-affiliated Foxconn India Thozhilalar Sangam who is one of the 23 workers suspended for engaging in unionizing activities. “We have rejected the wage agreement reached between the management and Foxconn India Thozhilalar Munnetra Sangam (LPF). They did it behind our backs”, added Dinesh.

As per the ‘wage settlement’ published on 12th October by Foxconn management, workers will get a maximum gross salary of Rs 9500 per month staggered over a period of three years and starting with Rs 7830. “We had demanded Rs 10,000 per month as gross salary for the permanent workers, but the LPF union cut a deal for lower wages with the management and settled the dispute. The state government actively participated in this process through the labour commissioner’s office,” informed Soundarajan. “Things get desperate when the strike goes on for so long. We had so many rounds of talks with the labour commissioner, besides meeting the ministers, including the Chief Minister. But nothing came out of it. Management did not even reinstate the suspended workers. It is specifically targeting workers affiliated with our union”. The workers allege that the management is demanding a written undertaking from the suspended workers ‘to not join the union’ before they can be reinstated.

Unlike in Maharashtra and West Bengal, there is no law in Tamil Nadu which makes it mandatory for the private companies to recognize trade unions. Foxconn workers were forced to call off their two-month-long spirited strike, their demands unmet and 24 of their colleagues still suspended from job. Similar strikes were witnessed recently in a Chinese SEZ called Build Your Dream (BYD Co) in Sriperumbudur. On 21st October, 4000 permanent and contract workers of BYD Co went on strike. They were demanding 8-hour work shift, permanent employment, better amenities and right to associate. The same day BYD management and officials from the State Labour Department assured the striking workers that their demands will be ‘negotiated’. Workers resumed work the next day. But the management did not show any intention to fulfill its promise.

“Instead they abused and mentally tortured one of our workers named Prem. They accused him of organising the strike and trying to unionise. Prem felt so intimidated that he tried to commit suicide by consuming two bottles of Iso Propyl Alcohol. Another contract worker was also arbitrarily targeted and sacked by the management,” lamented Prema, a worker from BYD Co. Agitated BYD workers resumed their strike on 28th Oct and continued stay-in-strike (inside the factory) till 30th October. They were later forced to shift the strike outside the factory gates by the police. On 1st Nov’2010, the management stuck a ‘notice’ on the factory gates, suspending 437 workers. The notice further stated that the factory was “an SEZ” and “a Public Utility Facility under the SEZ Act”. Therefore under “section 22 of Industrial Disputes Act”, the ongoing strike by the workers was being declared “illegal”. It also made clear that during the lockout period workers will be treated in “no work no pay mode”. Unmindful of what the notice said, the workers, mostly young women in their 20s, continued to strike. But at the end of three weeks of strike, the workers were left with little choice but to go back to work.

Management has now issued them new IDs thus effectively obliterating their previous work records. Many of them hail from faraway districts, are first-generation literates and the only ones in their families with a steady income. “DMK government is compromising workers’ right in its greed to attract foreign investment. They are making the workers desperate. In the 70s’ Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi had declared that the government would crush the workers’ agitations with an iron hand. He is doing it again now”, recalled Soundarajan.In the past one year, Sriperumbudur, Orgadam, and Irrungattakottai have seen a number of labour strikes. In most cases, the demands have been more or less similar: better wages, better service conditions, safety and basic facilities at work place, and right to unionise. In June this year, workers of Hyundai Motor India went on a flash strike demanding that the management reinstate 67 of their co-workers who had been dismissed for demanding the recognition of trade union.

In a similar case, employees of Nokia India also resorted to strike early this year demanding wage revision. In August this year, 28, workers of Sanmina went on a 2-day strike for similar reasons but which was crushed by the police by threatening arrest if the workers persisted. As per state labour department’s policy note (Budget Performance 2010-‘11), between Jan’ 2009 and Mar’ 2010, the state had witnessed 72 strikes and lock outs, out of which 40% were related to wages.Tamil Nadu may eventually realise its dream of becoming an industrialised state, but not before thousands of young workers are consigned to a life of discontent, despair and disillusionment.

As India goes global the public goes private

http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/1671

By Aseem Shrivastava

Picture this. At an air-show in Los Angeles one of the biggest arms manufacturers in the world, British Aerospace, invites Mr. Bill Gates of Microsoft to have a go at flying one of the latest models of their Hawk fighter aircraft. Would the American media respond by flashing front-page images of a beaming Bill Gates waving to supporters as he was entering the cockpit of the Hawk, following them up with adulatory reports describing the elevated feelings felt by the unexpected new pilot as he conquered the sound barrier? Or would the event not generate a national scandal that a private businessman accepted the invitation to fly a military aircraft, which ordinarily can only be tested by pilots on public duty?

More than likely the latter possibility would transpire. However, what happened in Bangalore last month was another story, as the Indian national media fell to new depths of celebrity "journalism".

Corporate Americans, having grown up in a world run by car salesmen, will go to any lengths to sell what they must. Thus it came as no surprise when Lockheed Martin – one of the biggest defense contractor firms in the world – invited Mr. Tata into the cockpit of the F-16 Falcon at the Bangalore Air Show in February: the Indian Air Force was, after all, expanding its multi-role combat aircraft fleet and the American company was competing in the Indian arms bazaar with the likes of Sukhoi of Russia. To let corporate India's leading icon of the season have a go at their merchandise must have seemed like an obvious sales ploy. (Would they have tried this gimmick in their own land?)

A private fantasy was gratified. Mr. Tata's dream of flying a fighter jet came true.

Not only India's national English language dailies, even the vernacular press, flashed front page pictures of India's oldest civilian pilot, waving like a rock-star to fans as he stepped into the cockpit of the fighter aircraft. The Times of India gushed that "Tata group chairman Ratan Tata soared to new heights". Delhi's Hindustan Times said that he "had a wonderful time." The Indian Express said that Mr. Tata had "a terrific, terrific ride." Even the ordinarily sober The Hindu said that Mr.Tata had an "exhilarating experience."

All this quoted without the dimmest trace of irony. When boys get their toys, it is indeed "wonderful" and "exhilarating". It is evident from the unanimity of the reports that Mr.Tata indeed had a jolly good time up in the high skies.

The most remarkable fact of all – the corporate boss of a leading private concern playing with military gadgetry, normally accessible only to men and women in public uniform – went unobserved by our free press. In the day of "Corporate Executive Officers", when businessmen are taking seats of pride in Parliaments and political leaders are more than happy to see described what they do as a "job", not to mention holding shares in companies, how does it matter if ancient public norms are blithely flouted and one of the most precious distinctions in the annals of democracy is quietly erased?

Public morality has gone corporate long back. The public has been colonized by the private ever since the era of manic privatization was thrust upon us. The joke is on us, the on-looking public, who don't seem to realize that the time-honored separation of the private and the public spheres is an inconvenient anachronism, an obstacle to mounting prosperity which should be kicked off the growth path.

The all-important distinction between the private and the public realms – dear in the past not only to democracies but to all self-respecting polities since the days of Greece and Rome – is being openly undermined in India, in vulgar mimicry of the successful pioneering trail blazed by corporate totalitarianism in that most famous of all democracies: the United States of America. If it works there, it must be good, and thus worthy of emulation.

Why reducing the public to the private is deadly

But why anyway is it a good thing to retain the distinction between the private and the public realms? Haven't we been delivered the technocratic wisdom often enough from the highest pulpits that running a government is essentially no different from managing a company? So what's wrong with it if men and women are corporate executives one day and ministers or bureaucrats the next, as long as they are honest (sic) and capable? What's wrong, for that matter, with the government making an open offer to the Tatas that it was willing to use public money to help it financially in its recent purchase of the British steel company Corus Inc (even as it complains about lack of resources when it comes to allocating more funds for development programs for women and children)? Or with the government declaring Special Economic Zones (SEZs) as public utility services under the Industrial Disputes Act and, with a happy conflation of the private with the public interest, making strikes and collective bargaining illegal, while enabling contract labor?

Well, if nothing is wrong with all this, why don't we campaign for an amendment of the Constitution, and make it the most urgent formal task of the government to enable corporations to maximize profits, enrich themselves (in the name of development via the long dysfunctional trickle-down effect) or, more simply, just legalize graft? Indeed, our government has been doing precisely that, offering sops to corporates via tax breaks, SEZs and the like, obsessed as it is with the maximization of the rate of national economic growth – to the effective exclusion of virtually all social goals, including development – for years now.

Listening to the chorus of applause from the mainstream media both in India and in the West, it would seem that this democracy has overcome its erstwhile socialist infantilism and finally matured into corporate adulthood – allowing, as is only in the fitness of things, men and women of eminence to occupy top corporate positions today and high offices in government tomorrow. In fact, in the age of (An)globalization, well-connected members of our ruling elites have long been in the habit of changing offices globally – having manned the upper echelons of imperial projects in the offices of the World Bank and the IMF in Washington virtually being a prior qualification to be at the national political helm in New Delhi, a custom which is finely attuned to the needs of our imperial masters.

What could be wrong with such an efficient arrangement? Free and fair elections are after all not fundamentally different from free and fair markets. We choose our leaders in one place, our cars and favorite magazines in another. And we expect our leaders to entertain us, just as we find amusement in driving fast cars (thanks to Vijay Mallya New Delhi's Rajpath, which once hosted political protests, might well see a F-1 race soon) and watching thrilling films. Such is the lure and charm of a Laloo Prasad Yadav. So what's wrong if Ratan Tata, the corporate Pope, is also seen as a rock-star with all the star quality that comes with the role? Only sour grapes and petty envy would bicker about such a thing.

Is it? If the government becomes a business, then profits and growth obviously become its overriding pursuits. What then? Who is allowed to criticize this noble project and all it inevitably involves, especially today? What happens to human rights, to labor standards, to environmental regulations, to tax laws, to social commitments and political promises for distributive justice? To the Constitution itself? In fact, one is entitled to ask, what happens to law and public morality? Shall we simply open up the market for justice too? Shall we experiment with private judicial systems in addition to privatizing the executive branch and the legislature (public offices are already auctioned in so many parts of the world)? In short, shall we just dispense with public liberty altogether and write into law a formal "corpocracy" which finally prises open all political markets, legitimizes private tyranny and inducts it into the visible mainstream of the affairs of state?

But somewhere, the line between public and private will have to be drawn, if only because in the absence of a robust public realm, private parties – driven by the will to power – will fight their way to war with each other, at our expense. (They already do, even in the presence of strong governments. So how much more so in their absence, unrestrained by any law or public morality whatsoever!) Society will not survive for long under such circumstances.

Among so many other things, isn't democratic government there precisely because the unrestrained pursuit of private commercial interest leaves no time or room for worrying about matters which concern everyone, not just a minority constituency of privilege? BAE and Lockheed Martin can't help themselves from selling arms across the world. It is their stock-in-trade, their line of business. And the imperatives of competitive capitalism will not brook any complacency, the reason that public restraint is necessary. To cut costs and grow their market shares corporations will scour the earth, loot indigenous peoples, pollute air and water and slog pliant female labor for 12 or 16 hours a day. Without public restraint what is there to prevent them from committing such crimes and hasten the end of civilized society itself?

Laws are there to protect public and individual liberty against oppression by those who hold power. This is why the rule of law is rightly regarded as one of the enduring achievements of civilized humanity. If it is threatened today – by imperial gluttony and other varieties of barbarism on the one hand and a relentless, unmitigated, corporately nurtured, state-sanctioned greed on the other – the answer is not to allow classes and social groups who hold power to further consolidate their influence. Both courage and wisdom actually lie on the side of challenging and restraining such power in the larger interest. Indeed, it may turn out – given the emerging facts on climate change and other looming environmental crises – that our very survival as a species might come to hinge on the evolution of a new public ethic which finds it within its imagination and character to do so.

In this task the media can be an accomplice or an obstacle. What we have seen so far makes the media resemble nothing so much as a disheveled theatre stage occupied by a bunch of image-toting lackeys of shadowy moneyed men in pin-striped suits, their shotguns held not too far from the heads of editors. They have monopolized the mike, carrying on their petty private squabbles within range of public audibility, putting the public to sleep with their tabloid perversions, while quietly conspiring to keep off-limits any authentic discussion of issues of genuine public significance.

It is time that the newspapers and the TV channels woke up from their somnolence and put an end to the charade of glamorizing the rapid encroachments on the best traditions of democracy. The Lockheed-Martins, BAEs and Tatas cannot be expected to behave with a sense of public responsibility. They would not be where they are had they had that. They have to be exposed and restrained. It is impossible without the media.

If freedom matters to us, we must heed Rousseau: "A free people obey laws and laws only, and it is by the force of the laws that it does not obey men."

Aseem Shrivastava is an independent writer. He can be reached at aseem62@yahoo.com.

Sez Who?

EXPERIMENTER invites you to the launch of SEZ Who? curated by Tushar Joag on Sunday 21st June 2009, 6-8pm.

SEZ Who? opening: Sunday, 21st June, 6 – 8pm

SEZ Who? is a collaborative project led by a group of artists formed by Justin Ponmany, Prajakta Potnis, Sharmila Samant, Tushar Joag & Uday Shanbhag exploring the impact and rationale of commissioning Special Economic Zones in India. Unlike a typical exhibition, it brings into the gallery environment a live collaborative project that transforms constantly to finally realize its end by creating SEZ like settings and experiences. SEZ Who? attempts to open up new points of view on the physical transformations and emotional challenges of human dislocation.

Tushar Joag will be present at the opening to introduce you to the project and answer your questions.

Experimenter is open everyday between 11.30 AM - 7.30 PM except on Sundays. For more details visit www.experimenter.in

What Is SEZ Who?

SEZ Who? is a project led by a group of artists and Experimenter exploring the impact and rationale of setting up Special Economic Zones in India. Unlike a typical exhibition, it brings into the gallery environment a kind of activism-based collaborative project, which transforms every week to finally realize its end by creating settings and experiences for the viewers of the establishment of an SEZ like conditions. The larger objective of doing such a project is to create SEZ construction like situations and thereby sensitize the viewers and open new points of views on the physical transformations and emotional challenges of human dislocation.

What is the role of the Artists in this project

Five leading contemporary Indian artists, (Tushar Joag, Prajakta Potnis, Sharmila Samant, Justin Ponmany & Uday Shanbag), led by Tushar formed a fact-finding team and spent 5 months travelling, researching and interacting with locals in areas around Mumbai that have been proposed to be demarcated as SEZ’s. They have documented notes, interviews, events, protests and attended rallies. They have then reacted in artistic coded language to envision this project and hope to extract a stance on the issue from through the project & from the viewers.

What is the role of the Gallery in this project? - put 1/ 2 quotes

Experimenter has in collaboration with Tushar Joag envisioned this project and is another step in its dedication towards using the strength of contemporary art to impact and challenge viewers. Also keeping in line with engaging meaningful exhibitions Experimenter acts like an incubator of concepts and ideas that go beyond addressing only the needs of the art viewing community.

What is the line up of events

Date	Event	Description
20th July 09	SEZ Who? launch	Tushar Joag introduces the month long project at Experimenter through an interactive session
29th June	SEZ Who? transformation	The gallery is not just a gallery anymore, Find out. The SEZ Who? lucky draw contest opens
14th July	Film screenings	4 docu-film screenings including one on the SEZ Who recording of reporting from Gorai SEZ
20th	Art object	Experience the SEZ Who? art object first hand.

EXPERIMENTER
2/1 Hindusthan Road, Kolkata - 29
+91 (33) 4001 2289 / 2463 0465
info@experimenter.in
www.experimenter.in

China's showpiece SEZ, Shenzen

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27527443/

China's economic certitude crumbles

Nervous officials turn to bailouts to forestall worker unrest

A worker, waiting to get defaulted salary, sleeps on a desk in the Junling Branch Factory of Smart Union Group (Holdings) Limited., a Hong Kong listed company and supplier to U.S. Mattel Inc, at Zhangmutou Township on October 18, in Dongguan of Guangdong Province, southern China. Over 6,500 workers lost their jobs after the Hong Kong-listed company, closed two factories.

By Ariana Eunjung Cha

updated 12:52 a.m. ET Nov. 4, 2008

SHENZHEN, China - When Chong Yik Toy Co. went bankrupt, the bosses fled without meeting their payroll and angry workers took to the streets in protest. Less than 72 hours later, the local government came to the rescue.

Armed with bags full of cash totaling half a million dollars, accountants began distributing the money so the 900 former employees would have something to get by on. The Chinese officials who made the emergency payments on Oct. 21 called it an "advance," part of a "back-pay insurance fund."

But the reality was obvious to everyone: It was a government bailout.

In the initial weeks of the global financial crisis, Chinese officials resolutely declared that they were not significantly affected. But now, as factory closings, dire corporate earnings reports and stock market losses continue to mount, the Communist Party's confidence has changed to another feeling entirely: fear.

For the first time in the 30 years since China began its capitalist transformation, there is a perception that the economy is in real trouble. And for the Communist Party, the crisis is not just an economic one, but a political one. The government's response offers a glimpse into its still ambiguous relationship with capitalism -- relatively hands-off in good times, but quick to intervene directly at the first signs of a downturn in order to prevent popular unrest.

In recent weeks, local governments have set up special loans for ailing companies and initiated severance payments for workers who have already lost their jobs. Officials are candid in acknowledging the efforts are needed to head off what they call "mass incidents" -- the Communist Party euphemism for protests.

The economic devastation has been worst in the industrial centers of southern China, areas that had thrived in recent decades by producing the electronics, clothing, toys and furniture that fill retail stores in the United States.

With export orders falling because of the global slowdown and rising raw material and labor costs, more than 68,000 small companies nationwide collapsed in the first half of 2008 and about 2.5 million jobs in the Pearl River Delta region may be lost by the end of the year, according to government and industry estimates.

As the economy has soured, dissatisfaction has grown: Since mid-October, there have been dozens of labor protests involving thousands of workers at major exporters, including several publicly listed companies.

Meanwhile, government figures released last month show that the gross domestic product grew by 9 percent in the third quarter -- robust by almost any standard, but not in China. Here, the figure represented the slowest growth in five years, and was dangerously close to 8 percent. That's the level at which economists say China needs to grow in order to keep generating enough factory jobs to maintain stability in the labor market, as millions of peasants continue to pour into Chinese cities in search of work.

At the same time, some of China's most revered companies, whose growth once seemed limitless, have reported surprising losses in the past few days. Air China, the nation's biggest international carrier, posted its first loss in seven quarters because of declining passenger numbers and wrong-way bets on fuel prices. Bank of China, the nation's largest foreign-exchange lender, said that as credit-market losses went up, its profit growth went down to its slowest in two years.

China's leaders have made a variety of moves to try to stabilize the economy -- three interest rate cuts in six weeks, new export tax rebates, reduced costs for home buyers, and billions spent on infrastructure. But any hope that a strong Chinese economy -- the single largest contributor to global growth -- would offset the slowdown elsewhere is gone.

The government's efforts to prop up individual companies are a radical move for a country that in recent years has tried to move away from its "iron rice bowl" philosophy, in which jobs and wages are guaranteed for life, and transition to a more sink-or-swim-style capitalism.

In the coastal province of Zhejiang, the local government is setting up a special $9.5 million loan fund to help companies such as the deeply indebted Feiyue Group, which exports sewing machines and suitcases. In Jiangsu province, the government extended unemployment benefits to migrant workers laid off from ailing factories; these workers had previously been shut out of public services because they don't have residency cards.

The Guangdong provincial government in the south is scrambling to set up a special fund to compensate laid-off workers in order to "protect against some of the financial and social problems caused by such closures."

Eddie Leung, chairman of the Dailywin Group, which makes Movado and Anne Klein watches, said Guangdong officials also seem to be backing down from efforts to transform the area from a manufacturing hub into a high-tech and services center. In recent years, the government had been content to see polluting factories and sweatshops go out of business to make room for companies higher in the value chain. Now the government seems inclined to help them survive.

Chong Yik Toy is but one of a number of bankrupt companies whose employees have received payoffs from the government.

In the eastern city of Wujiang, nearly 1,000 workers from bankrupt Chunyu Textile Co. received four months' salary on Oct. 27 after they swarmed the area's four main roads to draw attention to their cause. After more than 1,000 workers for home appliance maker BEP International Holdings gathered outside the factory to protest, district officials gave them $44 each late last month. The employees were also allowed to continue living in the defunct factory's dormitories for free. The same week, the government offered three months' back pay to the 900 workers at Gangsheng, an electronics supplier, after they staged a protest at a shop near their factory.

In the neighboring city of Dongguan, the local government handed out about $3.5 million on Oct. 21 to the employees of Smart Union -- which sold its toys to Mattel, Disney and Hasbro -- after the 7,000 workers staged a strike.

Hu Weicai, 38, who worked with the plastic molds used to make electronic toys, said employees became nervous when the owners slipped three months behind on salary payments. The workers occupied the factory and the surrounding streets until government officials promised them they would be paid.

"The government was very afraid when they saw what was happening. What the government fears most is workers making trouble. They paid us to stabilize our moods," Hu said.

But employees said a one-time payment will provide only a temporary reprieve from the unrest if the workers are unable to find new jobs.

Jia Yingge's husband, a guard, received a little less than his monthly salary of $300. With no employment prospects in sight, she worries about how the couple will support their newborn son.

"If you mention this company's name, no one wants to hire you because they know about the blockade and now we have a bad reputation," Jia said.

When Liu Fangping, 38, was paid, the government took his fingerprints with red ink -- presumably to make sure the right person was receiving the payment. But Liu noted that the prints could also be used to pinpoint troublemakers who continue to protest despite the handouts.

"I don't think the government is doing its best to protect the rights of workers," Liu said, adding that officials seemed more interested in controlling unrest than helping individual workers.

Indeed, signs posted at the gates of closed factories did not direct former workers to places where they could get help, but instead displayed a warning. In large black characters, they reminded workers that they could be detained for stirring up unrest, for disobeying security officials or even for "unlawful gathering."

Researchers Crissie Ding and Liu Liu contributed to this report.

The poor poetry of industrialisation

http://www.himalmag.com/2007/february/opinion1.htm

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) in wonderland.

by | Aditya Nigam

bilash rai

The West Bengal Chief Minister and the ruling Left Front (LF) government’s former poet-commissar, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, translator of Mayakovsky, is busy with another kind of poetry these days. He is transposing the ‘poetry’ of industrialisation – as it happened on the soil of England – onto the land called Bengal. Dazzled by the dreamworld of capital, Buddhadeb has been quick to shake off the shackles of his earlier convictions and seek aesthetic pleasure in his new role as the ‘Commissar of Industry and Progress’. For quite some time now, Bhattacharya has been trying to convince prospective investors to take the leftists at their word when they say they really are in favour of neo-liberal reforms: “We are realists and we know it’s either reform or perish.” Progress, he understands, entails the death of all that is archaic – revolutionary convictions and agriculture, for instance.

Rapid industrialisation is the only way forward, and Special Economic Zones (SEZs) are the quickest way to industrialise. The idea of SEZs has been directly imported into India – and indeed into West Bengal – from China, and from the neo-liberal’s point of view, such units are the important first step in the direction of the brave new world of capital. Eventually, these enthusiasts intend to extend to the entire country the facilities enjoyed by SEZs – tax holidays, exemption from labour laws, unrestricted import facilities, cheap land taken over from Adivasis and peasants, and the freedom of unrestrained exploitation of natural resources.

China is Bhattacharya’s immediate inspiration and justification; but alas, unlike in China, he has a democracy to deal with. The process of industrialisation that Bhattacharya and his party, the CPI(M), have initiated would be every bit as ruthless and violent as it is in China – but for this fact of democracy, which allows the peasants to manifest their resistance.

Thus it happened that on 1 December 2006, several thousand police and paramilitary troops descended on a small and obscure place, the name of which very few outside the state of West Bengal had heard of: Singur. They came to fence off an area of 997 acres of prime agricultural land in Hooghly District so that it could be handed over to the Tata conglomerate, who would establish on it a plant for the manufacture of cheap cars.

What happened in Singur revealed in a flash to all of rural Bengal the plan for the much advertised industrialisation programme: The peasants would be dispossessed at any cost to clear the way. The police fired teargas and rubber bullets at the protesting villagers. They were beaten up and their paddy harvests set on fire. For the peasants did not give up their land voluntarily.

The anger among the local population has been building up ever since the news of the Tatas’ plans for the factory reached Singur in May 2006, even as the newly-elected Left Front government was taking oath. As mass discontent became apparent, various smaller leftwing organisations, especially Naxalite groups and intellectuals, started becoming involved. The involvement of Medha Patkar, leader of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) and the National Alliance of Peoples’ Movements (NAPM), helped draw attention to the issue, while the active championing of the cause of the peasants and sharecroppers by the Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee brought in the dimension of electoral calculus.

Weak wicket
The Bhattacharya government has been claiming that the acquisition process has been transparent and democratic, and that of the 997 acres required for the project, the consent of the owners had already been acquired for 952 acres by December. These owners – so claimed the LF government and the CPI(M) leader Brinda Karat – had not only given their consent, but were enthusiastically queuing up for the attractive cash compensation package. In a show that smacked of manipulation, the CPI(M) even got these villagers to set up an organisation to “support industrialisation”. Revealingly – and a trifle farcically – it was called ‘Pragatisheel Swechchha Jomi Bikreta, Shilpa Sthapan O Shahar Unnayan Committee (Committee of Progressive, Voluntary Land-Sellers, Supporters of Industrialisation and City Development)’. These people were apparently dying to give up their land at prices far below the market rate for the noble cause of industrialisation! Be the case of the ‘land-seller’ as it may, what about the animal called the sharecropper? What about the people who work the land but do not own it? What about those for whom the CPI(M) had in the early 1980s devised the well-known ‘Operation Barga’, to protect their tenure by means of registration? By the time Singur happened, however, the landless peasant/sharecropper had all but disappeared from CPI(M)’s horizon. When cornered, the party’s leaders said they had ensured that the landless would be given jobs in the factory. Given that all labour laws are null and void within an SEZ, it was left unclear how CPI(M) would ensure that the job guarantee would be affected.

Critics have pointed out that even government statistics show 333,372 hectares of fallow and 119,146 hectares of uncultivable land available in West Bengal, in addition to over 40,000 acres of land locked in mills and factories no longer functioning, which could be used for the purpose of setting up a new factory. Amitdyuti Kumar, vice-president of the Association for the Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR), also refers to a memorandum submitted by the CPI(M) MP Santasri Chatterjee, president of the Hooghly District chapter of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions, to the local district magistrate, demanding use of such premises for the establishment of new industrial units.

Interestingly, Chatterjee’s memorandum also states that the Birlas were given 744 acres in 1948 in order to set up Hind Motors in the district, but that they only used 252 acres – 500 acres had remained unused for 58 years. Critics argue that automobile factories, including the Tatas’ own, do not need such large parcels of land. They also point out that, even by Tata Motors’ estimates, there is no way the project will generate more than 2000 jobs. Yet the number of people losing livelihoods, including sharecroppers, is likely to be in the region of 15,000.

The government’s claim that the Singur land is good only for single-crop cultivation, or that it is wasteland, has also been shown to be false. Most of the land concerned is fertile multi-crop land, and the government’s claims on the matter seem to be based on land records that have not been updated for decades. Noted leftwing historian Sumit Sarkar recently affirmed, after a visit to Singur, that most of the government’s claims are indeed highly questionable: neither was the process of acquisition democratic and transparent, nor was the claim that the land was single-crop correct.

Outsiders, insiders
Singur was still creating a stir when a major eruption occurred in the Nandigram area of East Midnapore District. Here, in early January, the villagers were up in arms, as news reached them of an order by the Haldia Development Authority, under which Nandigram falls, identifying land for acquisition in the preparation of two new SEZs in the area. One of these is to be set up by the Salim Group, an Indonesian multinational corporation that was at the centre of much controversy last year, as Buddhadeb had committed it 5000 acres of land without consultation with other government functionaries. The drastic amendments he proposed to existing laws in order to facilitate these acquisitions, however, were rejected by a unanimous vote of the state assembly.

The two SEZs in the Haldia area will involve much more land than did the Tatas’ venture – somewhat over 14,500 acres to begin with. As the leaked news reached Nandigram, panic set in and preparations were made on a war footing for the possible arrival of police and paramilitary forces, to implement the land acquisition. The rage of the population fell on the local CPI(M) cadres, who had to flee for their lives. An angry crowd also set the local party office on fire and put up roadblocks in the approaches to the village. Sumit Sarkar’s report on Singur laments that the word cadre has become a term of abuse in local parlance. The party’s response to this outburst was to mobilise more ‘cadres’ from neighbouring areas and to launch a pre-meditated counterattack in which at least six people were killed.

In the course of its troubles in Singur and Nandigram, the CPI(M) leadership needed a scapegoat by means of which to discredit the struggle against its policies. They found this in the figure of the ‘outsider’, a representation that encompasses anyone who is not directly affected by the land acquisitions. The outsider could be Medha Patkar, the local Naxalite activist, students or intellectuals from Calcutta, or even local activists of parties such as the Trinamool Congress and the Socialist Unity Centre of India (SUCI). This is a strange argument for the communists to make, given that not one of their unions in any factory could have been set up without the active support of people from ‘outside’. But more to the point, might one be pardoned for asking, Are the Tatas and the Salim group of industries ‘insiders’? Is Buddha Babu, who committed other people’s land to these companies against the will of the owners, an insider?

Though there is an apparent calm for the time being, the West Bengal countryside is simmering, and much will depend on whether Mr Bhattacharya and the CPI(M) are prepared to rethink their strategy of rapid industrialisation. Agriculture in its present form might not be the best option, but if the rationale behind industrialisation is that it will create more jobs, it is clearly misplaced. Does Buddha Babu have any other strategy in mind, and will he act on it before irreversible damage is done?

Goa: How the battle was won

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By Rifat Mumtaz and Madhumanti Sardar Recently, Goa became the only state in India to openly declare that no more Special Economic Zones (SEZs) would be set up on its territory. This was a result of relentless pressure from almost the entire state -- villagers, educated middle class, professionals, activists, the church and media
Think of Goa, and beaches, pristine forests, churches and hordes of tourists spring to mind. But in the last few weeks the state has grabbed the headlines for different reasons. Despite 22 industrial estates, Goa has successfully refused to host Special Economic Zones (SEZs). The struggle against SEZs in Goa has been led primarily by the educated middle class and professionals from all walks of life. Begun in early-December 2007, mid-January 2008 saw the anti-SEZ campaign reach fever pitch. Almost the entire state, including members of the political establishment, villagers, the church and the media stood united in their demand for the scrapping of SEZs. Finally, the state government was forced to cancel all approved SEZs and recommend denotification of the rest by the central government. Goa had approved seven SEZs, of which three were notified. Developments like these are unheard of in the rest of the country. Struggles against SEZs have very often been labelled “anti-development”, and the middle class has opted to stay silent on the issue. Yet in Goa it was the middle class that spontaneously came forward to initiate and lead the anti-SEZ drive. “The local people’s resistance, under the SEZ Virodhi Manch (SVM) and support groups in the Goa Bachao Abhiyan (GBA), drew members from educated middle class professionals,” emphasises Pravin Sabnis, a corporate trainer by profession and member of the GBA. The GBA was formed as a people’s movement in 2003 by middle class intellectuals and professionals against the Goa Regional Plan 2012. It was instrumental in getting the plan, which would have led to the destruction of forests and the environment, scrapped. Set up in mid-2007, immediately following the success of the GBA, the SVM is a non-partisan umbrella grouping of various village-level people’s resistance movements against SEZs across the state. Fighting the SEZ battle through RTI The Verna Industrial Area (VIA) is the site of four SEZs including the notified 105.91-hectare K Raheja Corporation Pvt Ltd IT/ITES SEZ. All are in Phase IV, for which land acquisition has already taken place. The anti-SEZ movement has been very intense here, primarily led by villagers from Lutolim, Nagoa and Verna, in Verna constituency. The key initiators of the movement -- Frankie Monteiro, Charles Fernandes from Verna village, Allen Fallerio from Lutolim village -- are all professional engineers; Peter Gama, also from Verna, is a contractor. Presently grouped under the SVM banner, they have been waging a year-long battle against SEZs to protect their village and culture from corporate greed and corrupt politicians. Interestingly, the fight against SEZs started when Monteiro tried to unearth the details of a seemingly fraudulent 20-point programme in his village. “During the elections, the local MLA, under the garb of free housing for the poor, was inviting an influx of migrants -- a secure votebank for him. I filed an RTI application to examine the project details and with those minutes tumbled out details of the SEZ projects as well,” he says. “We didn’t have any inkling then even about the concept of SEZs, but living just 2 km away from the proposed site we had to know anyway,” he adds. They started by reading the SEZ Act and Rules and simultaneously filed hundreds of RTI applications in early-2007, painstakingly gathering documents on the various SEZ projects. Monteiro, who has filed the most RTI applications, has spent over Rs 18,000 only on applications and appeals. “The biggest challenge was to read and interpret the massive piles of information that we collected. Since the lawyers were asking for too much, and we had to bear the expenses, we trained ourselves to read the documents and familiarise ourselves with the legal text,” says Fallerio. Both he and Monteiro spent nights after office hours, poring over their gathered documents. “Reading the SEZ Act, we realised that SEZs are fully autonomous foreign territories, like a state within the state, and the government and local bodies have no control over them. The concept itself shocked us. We, the original inhabitants of the village, would suddenly become foreigners on our own land! And those exemptions, breaks and special concessions… it was just unacceptable!” fumes Monteiro. Moreover, the documents revealed startling legal violations and irregularities within the SEZ projects. For instance, the Raheja SEZ documents showed that the company had not even bothered to submit a detailed project plan; the project application was incomplete and mandatory formalities like the inward slip and company seal were absent. Before allotment within an industrial estate it is mandatory for the state’s Industrial Development Corporation (in this case, the Goa Industrial Development Corporation, the GIDC) to conduct a study or assessment of the project. This was not done. The company was allotted land merely on the basis of a letter from the then chief minister asking the GIDC to “help them” (see box). As the group expanded its RTI applications from the Verna Industrial Area to cover the rest of the state, they unearthed violations in the other SEZ projects too. Armed with their knowledge of the dangers of SEZs and the unearthed “frauds”, the four started an awareness-building campaign initially in their villages and subsequently throughout Goa. “We held numerous street-corner gatherings and formal meetings, and conducted powerpoint presentations. We also got in touch with other locals and groups where SEZs were coming up. The response was fantastic,” says Gama. As more and more people got to know about the SEZ provisions and “frauds”, the number of supporters swelled. “Villagers not affected by SEZs also turned up in large numbers to show their support. The media supported us unstintingly. We only had to call for a press conference and provide our data,” says Monteiro. On a number of occasions, individual press reporters came up to him and said: “Being Goan it’s our duty to protect our land.” SEZs stormed in Verna Not content with the awareness campaign, on November 3, 2007 a crowd of 200 local SVM members from around Verna swarmed onto the Raheja SEZ premises to inspect it. They entered with banners and shouting slogans, before the security men could stop them, and stayed inside for over two hours. “It is our land, and being the original inhabitants we have every right to know what is going on in our own village. So we just walked in to see,” say members of the SVM. Inside they were shocked to see construction in full swing, much before SEZ notification had been given -- a gross violation of the law. Over four months of construction had already occurred and the place was teeming with hundreds of labourers. When confronted, the site engineer said they were working on the basis of “verbal permission” from the GIDC. They also discovered several borewells extracting precious groundwater. This has all been captured on video, as evidence. The movement started receiving support from every corner of the state. While pressure at the political level was intensified by Mahatany Saldana, ex-MLA and GMAS leader who is opposed to SEZs, members of the GBA and Council for Social Justice and Peace -- the social arm of the church -- also gave their backing. With the strong anti-SEZ mood in the state, Goa’s Chief Minister Digamber Kamat was forced to declare a halt to all SEZ activities in the state. Once his statement was released, local members of the SVM and GBA, totalling over 250 people, once again stormed into the Verna SEZ site. They took away mobiles from the security personnel and engineers, demanded that they stop work immediately, in line with the chief minister’s statement, and told workers engaged in the construction to leave the premises. Threatening dire consequences, they also ordered officials to pack up and leave with their machinery. According to the protestors, even the policemen who came to arrest them backed off. Kerim -- Why industries? Kerim village in Ponda taluka is known for two strong protests put up against industry, within a span of 10 years. This is the site of Goa’s first notified SEZ project -- Cipla’s Meditab Specialities Pvt Ltd. Here too, stiff opposition from locals halted work on the SEZ, which is located in Bhutkhamb hill on 12.32 lakh sq mt of land. It was slated to become India’s largest pharmaceutical formulation plant. Bhutkhamb hill is also home to Bhutkhamb Dev and Mharu Dev, local deities that attract scores of pilgrims especially in the month of January, marking the onset of the sacred month of ‘Poush’. The dense forests, clear waters of the Arla lake, an unusual calm, and heady fragrance from the surrounding spice plantations give the area a unique beauty of which the locals are extremely proud. Today, tourists from around the world flock here; the world famous eco-tourism resort Tropical Spice Plantation is located here. Sandip, a civil engineer and partner in the resort, says the area has no borewells. Water levels are within a depth of 12-15 feet and the huge Arla freshwater lake adequately meets the irrigation needs of the extensive spice plantations in the area. Abundant natural springs and wells feed the lake and its surroundings, meeting the water needs of the people of Arla ward and villagers downstream. According to Swati Kerkar, yoga teacher and former bank employee who lives in Kerim, people here are ready to sacrifice their lives in order to protect the sacred groves and the environment. And they have done it before. In 1994, locals stopped DuPont’s Nylon 66 project in an agitation that claimed the life of one protestor. The project would have polluted the area and severely drained the watertable, destroying the rich ecology of the region. This time too, villagers fiercely opposed the SEZ project. Resident Ramkrishna Jhalmi, a teacher by profession, got to know of the project through a newspaper article in 2006. With a few other concerned villagers, he approached the NGO Prerna, in Panjim, for a better understanding of SEZ legislation. The Internet for background research, and film screenings on SEZs were modern tools widely used to conduct a series of awareness drives to elicit support. “We joined with other groups like the Goa Bachao Abhiyan (which opposes the Goa Regional Plan), SEZ Watch, and SEZ Virodhi Manch in a roundtable conference on SEZs organised by the GBA. After returning from the conference we knew that we were not alone,” Jhalmi says. “The information collected under the RTI made it very clear to us that the government was in a hurry to allot land to Meditab,” Jhalmi adds. The application submitted in March 2006 by the company was not in the standard format, yet the GIDC allotted the land (see box). This land was in the process of being transferred to the University of Goa after the Nylon 66 struggle. Kerkar says: “Thus, our decision to oppose the project became more firm.” The protest against the Meditab SEZ reached its peak on the night of December 7, 2007, during a jatra (religious procession)in Kerim. A trolley carrying heavy construction machinery to the SEZ site accidentally hit a tree and also caused the electricity to trip. It was then that the residents realised that construction work had already begun at the site. They immediately contacted activists from the GBA and SVM. Furious, the procession changed course and proceeded towards the Meditab site to check the area. Workers were told to stop work and move out. The villagers decided to stay there until the next morning, when mediapersons and activists from Verna and Panjim joined in the protest. By morning the villagers had decided they would not vacate the site until every bit of machinery was removed. The presence of almost 600 people at the gates of the Meditab SEZ site, on the morning of the 8th, forced the state government to remove all policemen from the site. Don’t the middle class care about industry and jobs? People living around the Verna Industrial Area say: “We are not averse to industry. But we have experienced haphazard industrialisation at the cost of our local ecology and culture. Jobs have gone to migrants who have strained the local resources,” says Orwell D’Silva, a tribal rights activist and social work graduate from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS). The Verna Industrial Area was built in 1989 with promises of area development and jobs to locals. Instead, people lost their forests, pasturelands and the majestic hills that were blasted to accommodate factories. A large perennial stream, the source of drinking water and irrigation, is almost dry thanks to numerous borewells and the extraction of groundwater related to activities inside the SEZ. Locals fear that with further industrialisation and migration, the large Verna freshwater lake will become a sewage dump. “Then we will lose our heritage,” says a worried Peter Gama. Perhaps more than the fallout of migration, the average Goan is unable to visualise development in isolation of the surrounding natural beauty. They deeply value the thick forests, gushing springs, large freshwater lakes and majestic hills dotting the landscape. Swati Kerkar says: “It is the current development pattern that is influencing youngsters. They have been taught to neglect their traditional occupations and live and work in urban cities.” “But we are lucky,” she adds, in that, except for very few people, everyone in Kerim is connected to the village and happy with their self-sufficiency. “We want to save our lands for generations to come. We are not so poor that we would throw away our beautiful land for unmindful industrialisation.” “We are often called lazy and unambitious. Rather, we are susegad, meaning ‘contented’ in Konkani. We have what makes life beautiful. We don’t need huge salaries and high-profile jobs. What we earn is enough for us. We cannot imagine our life without the surrounding nature. Why should we look towards industry,” Kerkar asks. Anna, owner of the Tropical Spice Plantation Resort says: “We felt that in one year such massive industrial projects in the hills would take away most of the water and would not only result in the drying up of natural springs and lakes but would also prove disastrous for the spice and fruit plantations. There would be an irreparable impact on the ecology of the area, and we will not let anybody do that to our land.” Albertina Almeida, lawyer and GBA activist, says: “Even middle class youth are okay with (the idea of) migrating abroad or to other parts of the country for work. But they will not tolerate the destruction of their rich lands in favour of industry. Expatriate professionals and NRIs are anxious to preserve their state and its culture so that they can come back home, often tired of the stressful, cluttered city life.” Sabnis and Almeida, also members of a group working on communal harmony, readily agree that the regional plan has helped unite middle class Goa, and that the present SEZ struggle is testimony of the average Goan’s ability to rise above religious differences to save the land. Catholics and Hindus together form 80% of the state’s population. “No government dares go against our interests,” says Sabnis, adding, “after all it’s a question of votebanks too!” Anna concludes: “The current model of development means more destruction. If we start looking at everything from a commercial point of view we will ruin our life and nature. If we desire to turn everything into gold like the proverbial Midas, what will we leave behind for the next generation? Ultimately, humans cannot survive without food and nature.” Sequence of events in two notified SEZ projects K Raheja Corporation Pvt Ltd, at Verna April 11, 2006: Company writes to the chief minister of Goa April 12, 2006: GIDC admits an application from the company April 14, 2006: The chief minister, through a letter, directs the GIDC “to help” the company April 19, 2006: A board meeting is held for land allotment April 20, 2006: The company is allotted land and subsequently starts construction November 6, 2007: Notification of SEZ December 8, 2007: SEZ site stormed Meditab Specialities Pvt Ltd (Cipla), at Kerim August 23, 2005: MoU signed between the Goa state and Meditab Specialities Pvt Ltd (Cipla) March 27, 2006: Single-page application made to GIDC for land allotment March 28, 2006: Land allotted by GIDC at its 286th board meeting April 3, 2006: Executive summary and application without inward stamp of the company submitted to GIDC December 7, 2007: SEZ site stormed (Rifat Mumtaz and Madhumanti Sardar work with NCAS and are involved in campaigns against SEZs)

The SEZ versus the ‘unrewarding’ small farm

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By Aseem Shrivastava Kakinada farmer Narasimha Murthy’s 5-acre farm supports 50 people, each living on around Rs 800 a month, more than twice the official rural poverty line. Why would farmers like him in 16 villages in Andhra Pradesh want to give up this livelihood for the Kakinada SEZ? What does the SEZ offer them anyway?
Lush green paddy fields shine in the sun. Tall coconut palms sway on the gentle hills. Our jeep rolls into a coastal hamlet. The huts are made in the traditional Coromandel style, long dried palm fronds used to make the thatched roofs that hang low, almost completely hiding the small windows. Children play in the schoolyard. Farmers are at work in the fields. As we get down from the vehicle we are introduced to the farmers, who for over two years have been protesting land acquisition for a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) that’s being planned outside Kakinada town. Kakinada is an increasingly important port. Among the companies that are interested in making investments in the planned SEZ is India’s largest oil and gas company, ONGC (though there have been some doubts regarding its participation because of saturation of refining capacity on the east coast). If a major oil refinery comes to the area, a local NGO activist points out, as many as 30,000 fisherfolk along the coast will lose their livelihood because of the dumping of chemical waste into the ocean. Needless to say, no environmental impact assessment was done for the SEZ before approval was granted, first at the state and then at the national level. (In fact, there has been no environmental impact assessment done for almost all SEZs that have been approved.) The Kakinada SEZ was notified in April 2007. Two women who look like mother and daughter drop their sickles and come and hold my hand. Their eyes look straight into mine. Their lined faces are pained. “Where are we going to go if this land is taken away? Who will give us jobs again,” they ask. They are among those who will lose most from the land acquisition. They are dalits. We visit four of the villages that are going to be displaced by the SEZ. Land acquisition issues The collector in the region claims that three-quarters of the 10,000 acres of land for the planned SEZ has already been acquired. Most villagers and activists dispute this. Besides, most of the ‘acquired’ area is from the ‘assigned lands’ category, in other words already in the custody of the government (ironically, it is meant for distribution to landless tribals or dalits). According to a legal activist in Kakinada, a Congress and a Telugu Desam MLA have together managed to corner over 1,000 acres of this land. In theory, much of the assigned lands have already been allotted to tribals or dalits, but without the knowledge of the latter! In one case, the activist cited, 40 acres stand in the name of dalit families who know nothing about it (and, in some cases, are no longer alive!). This land is now being given to the SEZ developer, since no titles have ever been given for lands allotted to tribals and dalits since the 1960s. (I have pictures of villagers, their land titles written in chalk on slate-boards, standing in the middle of paddy fields they have been cultivating for as long as they can remember.) Andhra Pradesh is one of the very few states that have laws protecting the sale of tribal land (though not land owned by dalits) in ‘scheduled areas’. Most villagers are refusing to sell their lands, though in a few villages some have done so, often under pressure from officials (some farmers are submitting affidavits to this effect). The SEZ was earlier planned right on the coast in order to facilitate shipments of refined oil. However, an MLA who would have lost land in the bargain prevailed on the Congress government led by Rajsekhar Reddy to shift the location further inland. As a consequence, 16 villages are going to be displaced by the SEZ. The chief promoter of the SEZ is Kakinada realtor K V Rao who used to be the secretary of industrial promotion (AP) till not so long ago. The land to be acquired has been declared ‘infertile’ -- lush paddy fields notwithstanding. It is no surprise that the SEZ promoter wants precisely this area of land: water is accessible less than 10 feet below the ground and there are plenty of springs and waterholes in the area (the Godavari, Pampa and Suddagadda rivers are not far either). Government officials continue to argue that these are ‘dry’ lands. Are small farms really unrewarding? ‘Wish is the father of thought’ goes a German proverb. Downtown India would like to see the demise of traditional ways of life in the countryside. (How else could industry access the vast resources lying under forests and fields?) A fast-spreading belief among the educated class in this country is that agriculture in general, and small farms in particular, are doomed to economic extinction. “Holdings are too small to be scale-efficient,” goes the argument. A little research reveals otherwise. International financial institutions and globally powerful agribusiness corporations have long been busy manipulating the economic policies of this country (via its own willing policymaking elite, junior partner in the spoils game) in their own interests. This has meant that life has become (been made?) very difficult for peasants. Under conditionalities imposed by the IMF and the World Bank, public spending on irrigation and rural infrastructure has declined precipitously since 1991 (causing discernible stagnation in agricultural productivity). Costs of production for small farmers have been increasing. Not only have many subsidies (which support agriculture in competing parts of the developed world) been withdrawn (impacting small and marginal farmers most), farmers increasingly have to pay corporations for (now patented) seeds and related inputs, demand for which has been accelerated by the new technologies being sold to them. At the same time, under WTO agreements to which our government is a signatory, farmers are forced to compete with subsidised produce from abroad, cutting down their revenues. The pincer movement accounts for much of their distress and, in many cases, their suicide. The above is true in many parts of the country (parts of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, Punjab, Andhra Pradesh) where agriculture is more integrated with the globalised economy. Along the Coromandel coast, the story so far has been a different one. Consider Narasimha Murthy, a handsome middle-aged farmer who owns five acres of fertile land in the village of Ravivari Pader near the town of Kakinada. He grows paddy for his own family (of five) on one acre, producing 40 bags every year. An acre each is devoted to casuarina, eucalyptus, chickoo and mango, interspersed with coconut, sweet potato, gourd and other vegetables. He employs 10 people every day during the sowing and harvesting seasons. We sit down and do the economics of farming together. We discover that after paying each of his 10 workers Rs 100 a day during the sowing season and Rs 80 a day during the harvest, Murthy earns about Rs 18,000 every month, apart from the rice and vegetables that grow on his land. Thus, he runs an operation of almost Rs 4 lakh a year, which supports 11 working people and their families. In other words, 50 people are dependent on these five acres of cultivation, each living on an average of around Rs 800 a month, more than twice the official rural poverty line of under Rs 356 a month. Such a local subsistence economy falls beyond the cognitive horizons of our policymaking economists. The question arises: Why should a farmer like Murthy be willing to surrender his land for what are being heroically advertised as greener pastures outside agriculture? Also, what sort of guaranteed employment can the government or the SEZ corporations offer the landless workers who will inevitably be jobless once the land is taken over? (One may ignore, as has become the habit in this country, the loss of community ties and culture that such dislocations invariably involve.) The questions appear to answer themselves. It is all too facile for educated city-dwellers -- regardless of political stripe -- to believe that this country needs more (energy, water and resource-intensive) industrialisation and that, far from being what economists call a ‘zero-sum’ game, it will lead to everyone becoming materially better off in the long run, though there might be some short-term costs of transition for some. No doubts are entertained about the environmental costs of such a ‘fait accompli’ project; nor are the poor consulted as to what their precise needs and expectations are. We go on calling ourselves a democracy in a context where State-backed corporate hegemony rules the countryside as much as the imagination of the urban public. The jobs that modern industry has been generating in India are not large in number (less than a few million net jobs have been added in the organised sector since 1991). Nor are the skills required for them readily available in India (because we have not bothered about proper education). The business pages are full of stories of ‘unemployability’ and ‘mismatch’ (between what Western-style industrialisation needs and what Indian workers, many of whom are refugees from industrial modernity, are able to offer). In such a context, it is Murthy, the small farmer from Kakinada, who is more rational than our erudite economists and policymakers who advocate land acquisition for industry, no matter the cost to farmers, landless workers and agriculture as a whole. It must also be understood that industry wants land precisely in areas of fertile agriculture because that is where -- unsurprisingly -- infrastructure like power, roads and irrigation are most developed. This lowers the costs for industry, as against siting projects in the middle of wastelands and deserts. (It also worsens the possibilities for agriculture when industry piggy-backs off the infrastructure created over six decades for farming purposes. But this doesn’t seem to bother anyone.) Finally, especially with regard to land acquisition for SEZs, is it obvious that the large amounts of land being acquired will not ultimately be deployed in real estate speculation? If so, how come the size of lands being acquired for industry (such as for the Tata car project in Singur or the many projects in Chhattisgarh) far exceeds the area required for the project? In a context where real estate markets around the country are booming under the large influx of foreign capital, the question could not be more relevant. In Kakinada itself, the promoter of the SEZ is a senior bureaucrat-turned-realtor. “You are under people’s arrest” An event of great significance took place on September 6, 2007. Early one morning, in Sriramapuram (one of the villages falling under the SEZ area), a posse of 1,200 policemen arrived in the village in dozens of vehicles, with surveyors, revenue officials and senior functionaries of the district administration in tow. Their aim was to persuade, and if need be terrorise, the villagers into surrendering their lands. Sriramapuram is a village of around 3,000 inhabitants. As people began to argue with the officers, four elders from the village were arrested and sent off to Kakinada jail. The villagers responded by surrounding the policemen, saying that they were under “people’s arrest”. Arguments and altercations ensued. The police used water cannons. In the meantime, some village youth dug up -- as in Nandigram -- the road that the vehicles had taken to enter the village. Marooned in the village, the police were forced to concede. They released the elders from jail and agreed to sign a written bond that they would not enter the village again. At the time of writing this, they still haven’t. A small triumph for Indian democracy! The event in Sriramapuram went unreported in the English media in Andhra Pradesh and, of course, outside the state. Only the local Telugu papers carried a front page story on it, with photographs. When I shared the story with an audience of 250 people in Hyderabad a few days after my visit to Kakinada, no one had heard of the protests and the “people’s arrest”: a tribute to the effective censorship being exercised by the media. The Andhra Pradesh State Human Rights Commission (APSHRC) presented a petition to the high court the same day, saying that the commission took “cognisance of the fact that the government is coercing and using force, involving police and also revenue officials against villagers to part with their lands, and even migrate from their villages, paving the way for the formation of SEZs”. The commission also noted that “undue influence is being exerted by government officials in seeking to withdraw all social welfare beneficial schemes”. Other than terrorising villagers from time to time, in order to ‘encourage’ farmers to quit the land and leave it for SEZ development, the district administration, in an interesting set of moves, has been withdrawing development programmes from the Kakinada villages. In Sriramapuram, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), enacted nationally with such fanfare only last year, has been withdrawn. Families reliant on the scheme have been rendered jobless. The village school, attended by 250 children, might be shut down soon. In some villages, primary health centres have been closed. The villagers’ electricity bills are being inflated; one of them showed me a bill for Rs 6,537, followed by the previous bill for Rs 388 (he is appealing to the courts). In 12 villages, old age pension funds have been stopped, thanks to the efforts of an MLA. Road-building work has also been suspended. Let’s call it “development through perverse blackmail”. Or, more appropriately, in the words of a well-known economist, “developmental terrorism”. The collateral damage of economic development in India is indeed mounting every day. Recently, members of Andhra Pradesh’s Human Rights Forum visited the area. They confirmed reports that the villagers were being misinformed, forced and terrorised into surrendering their lands. They were being promised land in exchange for their present holdings elsewhere, officials claiming that facilities like transport and power were better there. Farmers had been fed rumours that their neighbours had already sold off their lands. Surveys had forcibly been conducted by revenue officials on private holdings. Farmers had been warned that if they did not give up their lands they would be running to the courts for the rest of their days. The Human Rights Forum is submitting over 100 affidavits from farmers to the APSHRC. It is demanding that work on the KSEZ be stopped immediately and thorough investigations carried out. The coming months will tell whether the farmers of Kakinada will secure justice in the face of the stiff odds that confront them. Barring an NGO and a human rights group there is no one taking up their cause. The silence in the media is deafening. At the same time, they are being held down by virtually the entire establishment: revenue officials, development officers, the police, not to mention the powerful promoter of the KSEZ and business lobbies in the state. It is hard to foresee the sequence of events. But it is clear that the farmers remain unconvinced by the arguments and offers being made to them by the administration. They will not vacate their traditional lands without a fight. InfoChange News & Features, December 2007