A country for sold men
Our SEZ laws force the poor out of their only means of sustenance, without alternative, and for a pittance
Our SEZ laws force the poor out of their only means of sustenance, without alternative, and for a pittance
It is happening quietly, but certainly. Little by little at first, and recently in ways far more brazen, whole chunks of our country are being sold.
Privately owned land can always be acquired for public purposes. There are roads to be built, and dams, hospitals, bus stops, water works everything we take for granted but which somebody has to build, maintain and run to provide the essentials of civic life. Previously, the public purpose was identifiable and while the rationale may have been questioned later, the motives were not.
Today, civic authorities throw up their hands and say the only solution is to privatise. Privatise what? Everything: from policing, to land laws, water supply and sanitation to all forms of local governance.
As a vehicle for privatising an entire country, there has never been a statute as breathtaking in its sheer audacity as the law governing Special Economic Zones (SEZs). The lugubrious title of the zhunka-bhaakar version of the central SEZ law, The Maharashtra Special Economic Zones and Designated Areas Act, 2010, masks its true intent: to parcel out whole swathes of the state to private corporations, and let them do what they like.
By a clever piece of legislative legerdemain, these areas will become industrial townships. This means that within these areas developer corporations will have all the powers of a municipal authority: transport, hospitals, health care, markets, schools and colleges, public monuments, parks, police and fire stations and even the registration of births, deaths and marriages.
Governments point to China and claim that, for faster growth, India too needs SEZs. Take a closer look. The first SEZ law in India was proposed in 2000 and much earlier in China. By 2006, China had only five or six SEZs. In India, by October 2006, a staggering 403 SEZs had been approved. The Chinese SEZs are all located near the coast, very close to major transport hubs and routes and within shouting distance of significant commercial centres like Taiwan or Hong Kong. The Indian SEZs are all over the place. In comparison to any single SEZ in China (Shenzhen sprawls over 493 sq kms), Mukesh Ambanis beleaguered SEZ across the harbour is tiny: a mere 14,000 hectares. But when you multiply that by a factor of 500 or upwards of 1000, you get some idea of the sheer scale of the Indian SEZ model.
SEZs are not entirely new. SEEPZ in Mumbai, Kandla, Vizag and other places were all precursors. Every special zone had two distinctive elements: reduced taxes and milder labour laws. What the SEZ law now does is to make land available at a throwaway cost.
For real estate developers, this is a bonanza: a statute that forces people to sell their land and simultaneously lifts all restrictions on what the developer can do on that land. The inevitable result will be a proliferation of enormous gated communities, each with their own constabulary, security and, in all probability, high walls to keep the undesirables (thats us) out.
Why would anyone want to live in a gated community? For one thing, its a very nice place. Things are neat and orderly. Everybody behaves. The notso-nice people are kept out. True, you might suddenly get the feeling youre living in Peter Weirs The Truman Show, but thats a small price to pay.
Most of all, theres this: in Legoland, poverty just doesnt exist. The poor have been bought out, you see. Where have they gone? Not your problem, but in all likelihood to the city you left behind, to beg on its streets, to make a hovel or a slum somewhere.
The entire approach is just wrong. It is entirely unjust, anti-poor and is no measure of development. Progress must be measured by how we treat those who most need assistance: providing basic education, drinking water, affordable housing, reasonable job opportunities. The eradication of poverty is not achieved by the elimination of the poor. This is precisely what our SEZ laws do, for they force the poor out of their only means of sustenance, without alternative, and for a pittance.
Increasingly, this is a trend. Everywhere essential civic and social structures are being abandoned and allowed into private hands. Municipal schools make way for malls; public parks become private playgrounds.
It comes down to our definition of progress. Where we should be pursuing the greater common good, we are, instead, only promoting the lesser private bad.