t n e m p lo e v e D ss Le d an - L tion na lie A ’s n e m o W Balaji Pandey 3 Introduction Women’s Alienation Land Less Development Balaji Pandey © Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, 2009 The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect those of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung. ISBN: 81-7440-066-4 Design and printing: New Concept Information Systems Pvt. Ltd. Email: [email protected] Acknowledgements We are grateful to Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, India office, for its collaboration to make this study possible. We would also like to express our thanks to Damyanty Sridharan, Senior Adviser FES, for her cooperation in this endeavour. Our sincere thanks to Dr. Ram Dayal Munda, Prof. Ramesh Saran and Dayamani Barla in Jharkhand; Ilina Sen, and Shashi Behen in Chhattisgarh and Prof. Asha Hans and Amrita Patel in Orissa for their support in conducting case studies and also for helping us in identifying areas for field study. Our special thanks are due to Ginny Srivastava, Kanchan Mathur, Virendra Vidrohi, Ashok Mathur, Bhanwar Singh, Dr. K.N. Joshi in Rajasthan and Awadhesh Kaushal, Hem Gairola, Sreedhar, Dr. Dinesh Pratap Singh, and Pushpa Chauhan in Uttarakhand for their valuable discussion and consultation with our study team. We are also indebted to the displaced women activists who are leading various struggles against land alienation for allowing us to study the processes and strategies they adopted to continue the struggle. We are also indebted to the women victims alienated from their land in Dhinkli Gram Panchayat of Udaipur for sharing their traumatic experience and ongoing struggles for protecting their land. Study Team Balaji Pandey Jagabandhu Das Suresh Sahu Santosh Kiro Jitendra Chahar Raghu Tewari iv Foreword Projects varying from multi-purpose dams, reservoirs, power plants or any other industries have led to large-scale displacement, destruction of livelihood, cultures and also the physical environment. While local communities were adversely affected, the issue of women in such situations has never been considered. Women are the worst victims of displacement. They have no property rights on the land which provides their livelihood and thus they are not entitled to compensation when this land is no longer within their reach. Although women have participated in large numbers in the protest movements against the development projects inducing displacement, yet they have not been equal beneficiaries in the rehabilitation packages. The visible effect of this has been migration, violence and trafficking, disruption of culture, values and social practices. In this context, it is very crucial to raise questions of equity, fairness, justice and equality before the law and in practice in the matter of distribution of benefits and burdens. Some projects like the Narmada Valley Project have received national and international attention due to sustained efforts of dedicated women and men and organisations. However, there are innumerous Narmadas which need similar attention. The present study is one such attempt to do so. Its main objectives are to document land alienation processes in the states of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, Rajasthan and Uttrakhand , and its impact on women’s livelihood. It highlights organised and peaceful efforts by women to resist land grabbing (own as well as common property) and assesses what coping mechanisms women have adopted for survival. v In order to facilitate the discussion on crucial issues related to the development process in India, the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung publishes a series of books and papers of which this publication is a part. The Friedrich- Ebert-Stiftung (FES) is a non-profit, NGO supported by the Government of Germany. Aiming at the strengthening of democratic structures, the FES promotes training and policy oriented research programmes in Germany and in cooperation with partner organisations - in more than 100 countries across the world. The India office of FES works with policy makers, academic and research organisations, trade unions, and NGOs. Within the overall gender approach the Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality Project of the FES aims at the economic and political empowerment of women. Facilitating workshops and round tables, action based research and publications are an integral part of this work. Damyanty Sridharan Senior Adviser Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung India Office vi Contents Acknowledgements iii Foreword v Introduction 1 Impact of Aggressive Growth 13 Organised Response 34 Process of Land Alienation 65 Jharkhand 65 Chhattisgarh 70 Orissa 77 Uttarakhand 85 Rajasthan 101 Summary, Conclusion and Recommendations 123 Select Bibliography 131 Selected FES Publications 140 vii Introduction Government machinery under the In this era of globalisation, aggressive liberalised economy since the early economic growth and development, 1990s, has become increasingly a minister in the Rajasthan insensitive to the interests of the government has aptly said: ‘rapid poor and powerless, as also to basic industrialisation is the stated priority humanitarian values. For over a and the Governments are committed decade-and-a-half the government to provide an environment that is has been pushing the agenda of business friendly and enabling in the corporate sector, resulting nature. Our focus on three core in unprecedented trauma to the requisite components viz., roads, peasantry and other marginalised power and skilled human resources people depending on land and will ensure that investors get a highly natural resources, including conducive atmosphere for setting up forests and water, for survival. The their ventures across Rajasthan.’ liberal grant of mining leases to international and national corporate The onset of globalisation and the giants in the mineral rich states of opening up of world markets have Orissa, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, led to a greater demand on resources. together constitute 145 memoranda India’s liberalisation policy and open of understanding (MoUs). Similarly, market reforms have meant a growth in agriculturally advanced regions opportunity on the one hand and of the country such as West Bengal, a cause for greater marginalisation Punjab, Haryana, and western Uttar of the poor on the other. So-called Pradesh a large number of special “development projects” such as economic zones (SEZs) are being setting up industries, mines, dams, created, misinterpreting the ‘public and shopping malls have induced purpose’ provision in the Land large-scale displacement not only Acquisition Act. in India, but all over the world. 1 Women’s Alienation Thousands of acres of land have growth and development, has taken been taken away, in the name away whatever control women had of “development”, from people over traditional occupations and totally dependent on it for their also deprived them of upcoming livelihood. Rehabilitation plans (on better avenues of employment. At paper) are shown to the displaced the same time, these policies have people. Policies are there to provide affected a shift in agriculture from agricultural land or replace the food to cash crops which involve livelihood of those displaced by large high capital inputs such as power, projects. However, these policies water, chemicals and fertilisers, and are meant to ensure the large-scale have prevented women from their transfer of lands to private companies role in the means of production. In and corporate bodies. The policies the near future there will be further are the means to legitimise this possibility of extreme food scarcity resource alienation and to strengthen and cutbacks on women’s labour. corporate control over land. While The ruthless exploitation of resources the policy grapples with and has led to increasing inequalities articulates these most germane issues between regions, between men and of the displacement and rehabilitation women, increased feminisation of process, it provides no mechanism poverty and ecological degradation. or framework to either assess the necessity of displacement, or to Agricultural reforms introduced identify or compensate the ousted in the name of increasing food with livelihood. What is the reality of production and minimising price the compensation framework? Does risks for farmers, are actually it ensure that the ousted will actually aimed at destroying the production receive agricultural land? Or is the capacity of farmland and will lead to concern about the non-viability of further marginalisation of farming cash as a compensation instrument communities. Encouraging contract merely rhetorical? farming, future trading in agriculture commodities, land leasing, forming The New Economic Policy (NEP) land-sharing companies, direct adopted by the Government of India procurement of farm commodities by in 1991, which targets aggressive amending the Agriculture Production 2 Introduction Minimum Cost (APMC) Act will only farmers who leased them and move deprive the majority of farmers of to another fertile piece of land. even subsistence agriculture. This has been the global experience so far. Contract farming has, therefore, become the new agricultural A Planning Commission study mantra. Not realising that private has shown that 73 per cent of companies enter agriculture solely cultivable land in the country is with the profit motive, these owned by 23.6 per cent of the companies, if the global experience population. An increasing number is any indication, bank upon still of farmers are being displaced more intensive farming practices, through