Atithee wrote:
Prasen, rarely have I heard that anyone anywhere felt that they got what they deserved for their piece of land. In my experience, people get a just amount but they feel cheated because they feel they deserved a premium because they start feeling the real worth of the land is based on the intended project rather than without the project.
There is a difference between thinking that they did not get what they deserved and refusing to move. I repeat my question, if they were given enough money such that they could buy a similar plot elsewhere, would they have gone hungry, agitated and committed suicide? People are not that insane.
Some of these guys do not want to be menial workers in an industry. Why should they be forced to change their vocation? They were poor but they were happy. You are uprooting their lives altogether. The cost of industrialization is being forced onto one village. Why should that happen? Would you like it if I said that we need to raise money for some project and I want to tax only your town selectively because I damn well can do it? You have no choice. What would you do? Would you not protest?
There were several things wrong in my opinion.
First, the government has no business grabbing land for private industry. Let the private industry buy land at market prices. The landowners know that if they ask for too much then the company will go elsewhere. Would the company have to pay a premium? Sure, a little bit. But, why should the farmers be paid much less instead? If you want the land, you should bend over backwards, not I who owns the land. The price should be decided by mutual agreement between the seller and the buyer and not by an intermediary behemoth with guns. Isn't that what your capitalist system teaches you?
I am all for a free-market system and not for a blatantly pro-corporate system. There is a difference.
Here, the government should have tried to setup a free market. Even if they used eminent domain, which imho tampers with a free market, they should have said that this is land for an industrial project. Then, asked several companies to bid in a free and transparent manner on what they want to pay (i.e., introduce competition among the buyers) and not only got Tata in for a sweetheart deal. Then, ask the village (as a whole, because there will be dissenters in every village and you cannot get any industrial land if you have to convince each and every farmer in a village) to accept the bid or reject it. That is how the price should have been set, not fixed by the government at a low price. If the companies want the land, they should have paid (a fair price). In a single bidder with guns system, it is almost guaranteed that the farmers did not get fair market price.