Contested acres

With the lease of five acres of panchayat land in Gurgaon for an eye hospital coming under the scrutiny of the Punjab and Haryana high court,Congress spokespersons have been urgently drafted for firefighting. The hospital is to be run on a no-profit-no-loss basis by the Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust,and parties opposed to the Congress have lost little opportunity to draw its first family into the direct line of political combat. On Wednesday,the Rajya Sabha had to be adjourned when BJP MPs brought up the issue. The BSP,meanwhile,has seized the chance to fling back at the Congress charges of disrespect for farmers similar to those levelled against the Uttar Pradesh government by Rahul Gandhi. With the Gurgaon matter in court,the facts of the case will be out. But the incident underlines yet again the absence of a middle ground in our politics on issues related to land acquisition and development.

The perils of this reflexive politicisation of land should be obvious. Land is a state subject. And in the absence of an updated land acquisition legislation,administrations are still groping for an ideal mechanism to find an appropriate value for acquisition,with incremental,and varying,degrees of inventiveness. Where a politics of responsible engagement is needed to craft solutions in a market of spiralling prices,in state after state,it is becoming the default posture of political parties to level blanket charges of corruption. This has squeezed out the space for debate,nuance and informed contestation. This is leading to,if it has not already,an administrative paralysis in matters related to land.

That would be a dangerous status quo — land is required for almost every development need,urban expansion,infrastructure development,public goods,industrialisation. As importantly,farmers are not resisting changed land use — they are asking,very legitimately,for a proper compensation package. Politics needs to engage with issues of land — the manner and modalities of acquisition,the uses for which it is acquired,as well as the transaction between the state,the original landowner and the new holder. But it must do so in a constructive manner,forging a consensus through negotiation and shared experience. It is unfortunate that the Centre has held back from introducing the land acquisition bill early enough in the monsoon session of Parliament. Nonetheless,that must not detain the Centre from initiating moves to extract the issue from the current politics of accusation and denial.