Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Monday, September 3, 2012
Bhartiya kisan union on the Land Acquisition, Resettlement and Rehabilitation Bill (LARR) 2012
Bhartiya Kisan Union
Bhartiya
kisan union on the Land Acquisition, Resettlement
and Rehabilitation Bill (LARR) 2012
We
understand that the LARR bill has gone to a Group of Ministers after diluting
the recommendations of the Parliamentary Standing committee and allowing
acquisition of land for private industries. This is not acceptable to us.
Although the MoRD has accepted many suggestions from the people it is still
using the language of transparency and compensation to justify government using
its powers to take people's land in the name of public purpose and then handing
it over to private industries. Already the UPA government has proven itself to
be biased towards corporates as evident in its attempt to bring in FDI in
retail, the various scams benefiting private players such as 2G spectrum and
coal- gate. We cannot trust the government anymore and want to see a strict
land law that will prevent any possibility for profiteering millionaires to
grab peoples scarce resources.
We are
not shocked that the government is setting up a law to permanently establish
itself as the land broker for corporate players. Corporate profit is not public
purpose. Projects that are geared towards elite consumerism – even if PPP or
public are not “public purpose”. Steel plants, formula one race tracks and elite
housing complexes are not public purpose
but highly profitable ventures. Multi lane highways are not benefiting us- why
are no roads being built in the villages instead? We stress that local government – gram sabhas
and basti sabhas should give full consent to decide if a certain project is
public purpose or not- merely consulting them is not enough. Also all other
acts that deal with acquisition- such as mining, railways etc should be brought
under this one act. Hundreds of agricultural lands are tbeing acqiured and
converted under these acts.
As farmers we reiterate our concerns of who will feed the nation. Are we planning to kill our farmers or turn
them into unemployed or laborers and then import food from corporations abroad?
Is it sensible for our country to set up policies that will undercut our own
ability to feed ourselves? Why are we still a nation with the most shameful
hunger and farmer suicide statistics? It makes no rational sense to allow
government acquisition of any kind of agricultural land for industrial
purposes. Why is the government showing such desperation to industrialize and
not the same urgency to feed our people and stop farmer suicides? Agriculture cannot wait and industrialization needs to
wait!
Although
proper compensation is a very important issue for us, so is proper
rehabilitation. Waving money at farmers and then destroying their livelihoods
is not acceptable. Proper rehabilitation which means an alternate sustainable
livelihood and land for land must be provided. This too must be monitored and
implemented by the gram and basti panchayat.
Also those who have already suffered due to previous displacements and
not yet received rehabilitation must
receive it. The new law should apply to them all. We also demand that
all ongoing acquisitions be stopped unless and until the new law that reflects
peoples true development needs comes into being.
We cannot
accept the violent method in which governments have responded to our genuine
protests. Recently in MP the government arrested and jailed hundreds of farmers
that were legitimately trying to protect their livelihoods and lands. Instead
of entering into serious dialogues the government just lathi charged and jailed
us. We are not going to tolerate such an authoritarian attitude and
criminalization of our democratic right to protest.
We would
like to state that we are not against industrialization as many have tried to
portray us as backward and anti development. We are not against a development
or industrialization which will provide sustainable livelihoods to our people,
which will give us education, health and food in our communities or roads in
our villages. But we are definitely against such a development model which
prescribes rampant industrialization without considering the well being of the
masses and in fact causes inequality, dispossession and climate change. We
cannot discuss any land law without discussing its impact on overall
development – they both go hand in hand.
We will
be organizing a meet of many farmers organizations in Bangalore on 9 September
to further analyze this act and discuss our future course of action.
Signed
by:
Rakesh
tikait (Spoksman) Bhartiya kisan union
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