It is a reversal of role for the ruling DMK. The party, which had opposed the acquisition of land for infrastructural projects and expansion of roads when it was in the Opposition, finds itself in an awkward position, facing challenges and opposition from owners of lands.
The DMK opposed the Centre’s Land Acquisition Bill in 2015 and organised Statewide protests. Likewise, incumbent Chief Minister M.K. Stalin, who was the Leader of the Opposition at that time, came out strongly against the Centre for its petition in the Supreme Court seeking early hearing of an appeal challenging the Madras High Court verdict quashing the land acquisition for the Chennai-Salem expressway project. He said the Centre and the State should drop their plan of implementing the project and make a transparent announcement in this regard. He also demanded consultations with farmers and the public, and find an alternative way to implement the project without impacting the environment.
After coming to power, the DMK said it was not against the Chennai-Salem greenfield corridor project as it was projected to be. State Highway Minister E.V. Velu said the DMK was particular that the concerns raised by the farmers should be addressed first before going ahead with acquiring land for the project.
It is not just the Chennai-Salem Expressway and the acquisition of land for Parandur Airport near Chennai. The DMK has also been criticised for keeping silent over the Neyveli Lignite Corporation’s (NLC) land acquisition for expansion.
When the villagers were up in arms against the Parandur airport, the then Industries Minister Thangam Thennarasu, who held talks with them, said villagers giving their land for the project would be compensated with an amount above the current market value. He also promised that the water bodies in the region would be protected and maintained by the government, and a high-level committee would be formed to monitor the water bodies and recommend maintenance measures. However, local villagers had then questioned what use would the water bodies be when the inhabitants are displaced.
Nonetheless Mr. Thennarasu in a way echoed the views of Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, who expressed his views on acquisition of land for industrial purposes in Singur and Nandigram in West Bengal.
Commenting on the practice of the government paying a price much higher than the value of the land in the free market, Mr. Sen had said in an interview to The Telegraph, “From that point of view, it was fair. Had there been no industry, they would have got the best value for the land. [Had the land not been taken for industry, the price they got would have been considered the best value].”
Interestingly, the DMK faced similar opposition in Tamil Nadu between 2006 and 2011 when it had plans to acquire lands for satellite towns and Special Economic Zones (SEZs). The PMK, then an ally of the DMK, was steadfast in its opposition to the acquisition of farmlands. It was then that DMK president and Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi published verbatim the interview of Amartya Sen with an introduction under his famous column, ‘Udanpirappukku Kaditham (Letter to the Partymen)‘
“While the compensation paid is greater than the value of the land seen as agricultural land, the compensation paid by the government is less than what the value would have been had it been free for competition with industries. If you are part of the market economy, then you have to take into account what the value of the land would have been had it been freely available for industry,” Mr. Sen had suggested.
While industries are the wheels of growth, the DMK should also keep in mind the message of its founder C. N. Annadurai on the growth of industry after he visited America and Japan in the 1960s. Regretting that the two five-year plans had not placed adequate thrust on agriculture, Annadurai in an interview to All India Radio (AIR) pointed out that America had first developed their agriculture and through it raised the prosperity of the rural parts. “When there is prosperity in the rural part, they were able to contribute, share and capital for various industries. That is how the industrial progress of America was achieved,” he had said.
Annadurai had also made an important observation about the poor quality of soil in India as it had been overused for more than 2,000 years, and the absence of perennial rivers, obviously conveying the message that we cannot afford to lose the existing wetlands.
