Why they reject an SEZ
The industry-government lobby should take a hard look at why farmers are suspicious of its intentions
Fifteen years ago, Raigad had already been pulled into the epic Maha Mumbai Metropolitan story. Industries were firmly settled in close proximity with supposedly no-development zones. An invisible airport had already been conjured on agricultural fields through signs and signposts and the city of Mumbai loomed very close uncomfortably close, thanks to the Nhava Sheva Port active there with its face turned firmly away from the hinterland. Navi Mumbai had already colonised large parts of the district, setting up blueprints for numerous stations and roadways that are now flush with urban commuters.
As is often the case, the impact of development was being felt most by small farmers. The Patalganga river had lived up to its name and farmers and locals used to walk by the river in the evenings to see what colour it would be dyed in depending on the nature of chemicals that flowed through. Sometimes it was flaming red, at others deep purple, but mostly black.
Even then, the villagers I used to interact with as part of my fieldwork expressed a lot of uncertainty about the transformation unfolding in the lush green coastal district of Maharashtra. Yet, there was also ambivalence. Theirs was never an unequivocal dismissal of modernisation and development. In fact, there was a lot of genuine admiration amongst certain sections of the population.
For a district that had been completely bypassed by colonial economic policies, (except for exploitation of forests and the massive displacement of tribal communities) such interventions were seen as a sign of administrative life and an active government. This was the case though most of the residents never had any control over the scenario, nor were they ever consulted. Even activists in the region, working with tribal communities, were rarely too extreme. They had been absorbed by the legacy of moderate socialist and secular activism and Gandhi-inspired land reform movements that took root there several decades ago.
Therefore, when the idea of a referendum was announced with regard to an SEZ, I was confident that the verdict would not be a knee-jerk one. Either way, the farmers would express their opinion based on years of experience with industrialist lobbies active there, without being swayed by rhetoric or quick-fix resistances.
If the farmers have rejected the SEZ, it is time we sit down and reflect why they have done so. One has to accept the fact that there had to be something wrong with the way in which the area had developed all through these decades. One has to revisit the stories of a corrupt local administration that used to and continue to circulate through the district.
It is vital that the industrial-government lobby takes a hard look at the reason why the countryside is so suspicious of its intentions. What is the model they are following? If we look carefully, it is based on the same approach that colonial administrative policies followed in the case of mining activities and plantations in the North-east, in Bihar and other tribal belts all of which are now marked out as politically troublesome areas in which violent resistances have sown selfdestructive seeds. There is no thought given to local needs, nor to long-term impact. There is rarely a proper evaluation of the needs of the industrial lobby vis-àvis those of the farmers themselves.
It is a fact that no one in rural or urban India is against development. All they are saying is lets do it some other way. Lets do it in a manner that does not have to be extreme either way. Is that asking for too much in a democracy that has still not sold its soul completely to the corporate world?
Farmers are not against development. They want it to be done in another way Rahul Srivastava, a PUKAR associate, specialises in urban issues, and writes on traffic, trains, illegal construction, Mithi, monsoon… in short all things that make Mumbai go grrr