Articles by Dr. Shiva

THE LAND QUESTION:
TERRA NULLIUS Vs TERRA MADRE
(Reflections on Independence Day)
August 15, 2007

by Dr. Vandana Shiva
April 14, 2008

As India celebrates her 60th Independence Day, two worlds and world views, clash. One is the world of two thirds of India. The world of her land and her rivers, her peasants and tribals, her artisans, and tiny producers and her hawkers, street vendors and small shopkeepers. The other is the world of the global corporations, including those which started in India, who seek to grab the land of India's 650 million strong peasants and the markets where more than 100 million hawkers and vendors make a living. The Reliances, and the Cargills, the Bhartis and the Walmarts, the Tatas and are few, their appetite is big and limitless. They are carving out territories for themselves through Special Economic Zones. They are taking 80 per cent of India finds a livelihood. And everywhere where this corporate grab of land and markets is taking place, people are fighting back. From Nandigram to Gurgaon, from Dadri to Raigad, movements in defense of land and farmers land sovereignty are growing. The National Movement for Retail Democracy, a broad coalition of farmers, and hawkers, traders and consumers are organizing to prevent Walmart and Reliance from destroying the livelihoods of millions in India's diverse and decentralized, vibrant and self-organized retail.

And behind the two worlds that clash are two worldviews that clash. For the two thirds of India, the earth and rivers are mothers, which provide sustenance and need our protection. I have called this the "Terra madre" paradigm.

For the corporate CEOs, the land is empty, the markets are empty. This was the "Terra Nullius" paradigm of the colonizers.

The week from Quit India Day, 9th August, to Independence Day, 15th of August is being celebrated across the country through mobilization in defense of land and livelihoods. On 9th August, farmers in Gurgaon-Jhajjar organized a huge movement against Reliances' SEZ. On 9th August, Quit India Day, from Delhi's ancient market, Chandni Chowk, the Movement for Retail Democracy gave a call "Corporations, Quit India".

In Maharashtra, movements fighting against 78 SEZs organized a week of protests, with a public meeting on 13th in Pune where I joined them for solidarity. Terra Madre, Mother Earth is the inspiration for India's two third society.

The corporate world also celebrated Independence Day - as their independence from justice and equity, from democracy and people's sovereignty. Their celebrations were inspired by a "Terra Nullius" paradigm.

For both, land was the key issue on India's 60th anniversary. But for the corporations the land was "empty" - Terra Nullius While farmers defended their land in their villages, corporate CEOs had a "cook out" at Delhi's Maurya Sheraton hotel. The theme was "No man's land - Getting Real About Real Estate". 650 million peasants had disappeared. They became "No man". Their land became "No man's land." And in the "Menu of ideas" the CEOs offered on the land question, Sunil Mittal of Bharti, India's Walmart partner said: "Be it West Bengal, Kerala or Punjab, no state can prevent industrialization from taking place."

In his Independence Day speech on 15 Aug 07, the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh echoed the industrialists' vision of an India without her peasants. He wanted to transform India from an agrarian society based on small farmers, to an industrial society, which implies appropriation of the land of small farmers and destruction of their livelihoods. It implies emptying the land of people-creating a Terra Nullius. The Prime Minister's Independence Day message to India's peasantry is that they do not have the freedom to farm.

Industrialisation has become an amoeba world. When Mittal takes over land in Punjab to export vegetables under his partnership with Rotehschild, called field fresh, agriculture becomes an industry. When Mittal grabs millions of square feet of land for its retail and partnership with Walmart, selling Chinese goods that destroys India's domestic industry retail becomes an industry. When Reliance grabs land outside Mumbai in Raigad or outside Delhi in Gurgaon, Jhajjar, luxury houses, and supermarkets become an "industry".

Ultimately "industrialization" in all its avatars reduces to land grab. The rich grabbing the land of the poor, converting Terre Madre to Terre Nullius.

SEZs have become the most potent symbol of globalization and corporate rule gone amok.

Corporations mark out territory on maps, go to an Executive which has assigned to itself powers under the Special Economic Zone Act to steal land of the peasants and tribals and grant it to corporate friends. This is how the British governed. In Dehra Dun we have grants like "Jolly Grant" - territories offered by British officers to their friends and relatives in England, including those in jail. That corrupt officials of a British power engaged in land grab is bad enough. That a so called democratic government of the world's largest democracy should grab the land of the world's largest surviving peasantry for corporations is intolerable. It is even more intolerable because it is being done in the year in which we should be celebrating 150 years of India's first independence movement, and 60 years of India's independence.

Independence has included freedom from hunger. The British left our food security ravaged. Two million people died in the Great Bengal Famine because the rice grown by peasants was appropriated as taxes under the Zamindari system. Women of Bengal started the Tebhaga movement, saying "Jan Debo, Dhan debo na"

We got rid of Zamindari through the Zamindari Abolition Act. We prevented concentration of ownership of land through the Land Ceiling Acts. These were pillars of a free and independent India, based on the freedom and independence of our farming communities.

Today, the farmers are disappearing from the national conscience. The Times of India, Aug 13, 2007 has an article: "Death of village: Farmer vanishes from cinema" "Real India" said Mahatma Gandhi "lives in her villages". Independent India's ethos reflected this. Bimal Roy's "Do Bigha zameen", Mehboob Khan's "Mother India", Manoj Kumar's "Upkaar", Satyajit Ray's "Asami Sankat" captured the lives and stories, the tragedies and realities of rural India.

More than 150,000 farmers have committed suicide. Across the country farmers are fighting against SEZ. In their own way they are saying "Jan Debo, Jameen Debo Na". This is the living legacy of Gandhi's Satyagraha of which we celebrate 100 years in 2007.

Yet this struggle for freedom based on the defense of farmers inalienable right to their land finds no coverage in today's films (which are increasingly made for NRIs) or today's media (which is increasingly focusing on the reportage of the corporate elites and the consumerist aspirations of an alienated middle class which allows a handful of corporations to rob India's two third majority of its resources and livelihoods.

SEZs bring into a direct clash two different concepts of freedom - one is enshrined in our Constitution, in the laws we shaped to reverse the abuses of colonial rule, and to deepen democracy, such as the 73rd and 75th Amendment. This is the freedom of the peasant to own land and derive food, sustenance and livelihood from it. It is the freedom of rural India to have economic and social security.

The other concept of freedom is enshrined in the SEZ Act. It is the freedom of the Ambanis, the Tatas, the Mittals to grab the land of the peasant with government help. This freedom of corporations undermines the freedom of farmers. It undermines the constitution which protects farmers' freedoms. It undermines democracy. The very creation of the SEZ Act is undemocratic. Its implementation is even more so.

As territory deemed to be outside India, it is a direct assault on the sovereignty and integrity of India which ironically, the Act is supposed to protect (Section 5 1(f).

By creating enclaves free of taxes, environmental and labour regulations, the government is in effect creating zones not governed by the Constitution. The export industry association has said that the creation of SEZ will kill exports. Promotion of exports of goods and services is supposed to be another objective of the Act (Section 5 1(b).

The SEZ Act is not about production. It is about land grab and tax evasion.

Rule 8 states,

The Developer may allot land in the processing area on lease basis to a person desiring to create infrastructure facilities for use by the prospective units.

Rule 10 states,

The Developer may allot the land in the non-processing area for business and social purposes such as educational institutions, hospitals, hotels, recreation and entertainment facilities residential and business complexes.

We have mapped the SEZ's approved so far. They are concentrated around big cities because this is where land speculation and real estate developments are most profitable.

And that the corporations were grabbing more land than needed became cheer when the government was forced to limit the size of SEZs. This is now happening in non-SEZ projects.

Vedanta has been asked to scale down its land demands by about 1,800 acres from the original estimated 8,000 acres of its proposed mega Rs. 15,000 crore university in Puri.

Acelor Mittal has been asked to reduce land demands of 8,000 acres for its 12 million tonne per annum steel mill, captive power plant and civil township to be built for Rs. 40,000 crore. (Orissa asks Arcelor Mittal to re-assess land requirement", Times of India, 13 Aug 07)

However, while people's protests are forcing the government to step back in the use of the colonial 1894 Land Acquisition Act (whose "public purpose" clause is directly violated in the SEZ Act). Kamal Nath, the Minister of Commerce, wants super SEZs of 250 sq. kms. Five such manufacturing regions are being proposed along the Delhi-Mumbai industrial corridor in a new manufacturing investment region policy.

Inspite of protests from farmers across the country, the government is not just not stopping the land grab for SEZ's, it has now announced a mega industrial project, the Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor Project, running 1483 km. With 6 big investment regions of 200 Sq.Km each and an equal number of industrial areas of 100 Sq.km each will come up on this stretch at the cost of $100 billion.

The investment regions are -

Dadri - Noida - Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh
Manesar - Bawal in Haryana
Khuskhera - Bhiwadi - Neemrana in Rajasthan
Pitampura - Dhar - Mhow in Madhya Pradesh
Bharuch - Dahaj in Gujarat
Igatpuri - Nasik - Sinnar in Maharashtra

The industrial regions are -

Meerut - Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh
Faridabad - Palwal in Haryana
Jaipur - Dausa in Rajasthan
Vadodara - Ankleshwar in Gujarat
Alwadi - Dighi Port in Maharashtra
Neemach in Madhya Pradesh

The idea of this project did not emerge in India. The MOU was signed with the Japanese by Man Mohan Singh visited Japan in December 2006. The Japanese Prime Minister will inaugurate the DHIC project at the end of August (Delhi - Mumbai corridor okayed" Hindustan Times, 17.8.07. "Cabinet clears Delhi - Mumbai Corridor involving $90 billion", Business Standard, 17.8.07)

SEZs also have a rule on Contract Farming Rule 44:

Contract Farming - A unit engaged in production or processing of agriculture or horticulture products, may on the basis of annual permission from the Specified Officer, remove to a farm in the Domestic Tariff Area and Chemicals for pre and post harvest treatment, micronutrients, plant growth regulations of other organic and inorganic substances used for plant nutrition, insecticides, fungicides, weedicides, herbicides and the equipment.

This is a recipe for subsidizing toxic chemicals and non-renewable seeds, further aggravating the agrarian crisis and accelerating farmers' suicides.

However, it is not just SEZs which threaten farmers and their land rights and livelihoods.

Corporate Farming and Corporate Retail

Corporations are grabbing farmers land through SEZs. They are also eyeing farmers lands through corporate farming and retail. Reliance has SEZs in Gurgaon and Raigad, it has started Reliance Fresh stores, and Mayawati's Government in U.P. has allowed Reliance to enter contract farming.

Contract farming is Corporate farming. It is a recipe for alienating farmers' land through creating of indebtedness. We merely have to look at the U.S. of the consequences of agriculture controlled by agribusiness. There are more people in the U.S. jails than there are farmers on the land.

When corporations take control of agriculture, they sell high cost inputs such as seeds and agrichemicals and machinery to farmers on credit. Indebted farmers then have to sell cheap produce to the same agribusiness corporations. Corporations profit thrice over. They make profits selling costs inputs. They make profits buying cheap commodities. And they profit by alienating indebted farmers of their land. Most land in the U.S. is now owned by corporations and banks. If this model were to be applied to India with only 2% people on the land, 65% of India would be rendered disposable and dispensable.

Since you can't get rid of 650 million, this model is a recipe for social and economic disintegration, for the spread of violence and extremism. It is a threat to the very existence of our society and civilization.

And it is a threat to our food security. The Ambanis and Mittals are being increasingly projected as India's Annadatas. The Economic Times of 13th August has Mittal and other CEOs posing as chefs providing a "Menu of Ideas".

However, they cannot provide food security to India.

Firstly, the SEZs are diverting large tracts of fertile land out of agriculture.

Secondly, the corporate farming model is export oriented.

Thirdly, the chemical industrial system of farming producers less than the biodiverse ecological systems on our small farmers.

Fourthly, the assumption that we can import food is a fragile and false assumption in times of climate change.

Under the U.S. - India Agreement we have been forced to import wheat. The wheat came from the U.S. and from Australia. Austalia and the mid west of the U.S. are threatened by drought which will aggravate due to climate chaos.

And because of climate chaos, more and more land and food is being diverted to industrial biofuels. Corn prices have doubled because of diversion of corn to ethanol. Mexico, which was first made dependent on U.S. corn through NAFTA, is now victim of food scarcity. There have been tortilla riots in the land where corn originated. There could soon be rice and wheat riots in India if we allow more and more fertile land to be diverted to SEZs and corporate farming.

In our 60th year of independence we need to reclaim our real freedom - freedom from hunger and poverty. And this freedom rests on land in the hands of the peasantry.

Annexure

Recommendations of Parliamentary Standing Committee on Commerce on SEZ's:.

1. No further SEZs should be notified till SEZ Act and rules amended to meet public concern.

2. Existing cultivated land should be conserved for agricultural purposes and should not be diverted for non-agricultural purposes. It should not be used even for extension of urbanization and industrialization.

3. Restriction on use of agricultural land for SEZ purposes should not be a matter of administrative advice or guideline. Rather, it should be clearly reflected in the SEZ Act and rules made thereunder.

4. Gram Panchayats should be involved.

5. BOA should not entertain any application directly from a developer and the system of giving "in principle" approvals should be discontinued forthwith. Applications should be considered by the Board of Approval only after obtaining the inputs of the state governments.

6. The committee feels that if the existing tax benefits to the IT sector are extended for ten more years, the mad rush for SEZs in IT sector would automatically shop. The committee therefore recommends that the government should take a decision on extending the tax holiday to IT sector for a further period.

7. The Land Acquisition Act 1894 should be replaced by a modern legislation, which is relevant to the needs of the time.

8. Ownership of land acquired by the State Government, even for a SEZ, should not be transferred to the Developer. Instead the land should be leased out to its Developer.

9. Fiscal exemptions, which are not linked to exports, should not be granted.

10. Level playing field should be provided to the domestic industry vis-à-vis SEZs.