For 8-year-old Rakesh Bardhan, it is protest time.
Decked out in a black T-shirt and a matching handkerchief wrapped around his head, he is off to join hundreds of farmers, laborers and fishermen standing between a generations-old way of life and India’s biggest single foreign direct investment. Local people are protesting the planned construction of a $12 billion steel mill by South Korea’s Posco in the poor eastern state of Orissa.
“If the company wants to set up its project, let them first kill us,” Bardhan shouts over the speeches and slogans blaring out from loudspeakers to rows of protesters behind him.
“If our land goes, everything will go. We will not get food, clothes or education.”
The Posco protests are another storm warning in an environment growing increasingly hostile to what many Indians see as a nexus of corrupt politicians and businessmen profiting from kickbacks and forced land acquisition as foreign firms vie for a place in the Indian market. How the standoff plays out will be closely watched at home and abroad for signs of how relations are changing between investors, the government and Indians affected by big projects.
Farmers accuse the Orissa state government of being in cahoots with big business to trick them out of land their families have held for generations. They believe their best shot at a decent life is holding on to their farm incomes, and accuse police of beating up villagers and burning crops to force them to leave.
Many say India urgently needs more Poscos — foreign companies pouring cash into one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, revamping rusty infrastructure and providing thousands of new manufacturing jobs for a population of 1.2 billion people. But the project has endured years of delays due to protests at the site as farmers, backed by activist groups and left-wing political parties, refuse to give up their land.
After weeks of agitation in which women and children like Bardhan formed human rings to block police, the state government was forced to suspend its land acquisition on Tuesday.
Only half of the 1,600 hectares of land needed for the site have been acquired, though it was due to start pumping out 4 million metric tons of steel a year by 2011.
The project is a barometer for India’s investment climate, as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s federal government walks a tightrope between cultivating economic development and sustaining the livelihoods of the world’s biggest number of poor, many of whom form his party’s core vote.
Foreign direct investment is key to providing the billions of dollars worth of new highways, ports and industrial plants India needs to maintain economic growth as it grapples with high inflation, rising interest rates and dampened investor confidence.
FDI fell 28.5 percent to $19.4 billion in 2010/11, the last fiscal year that ended in March, as foreign investors shunned India over policy paralysis from a series of corruption cases, regulatory hurdles and lack of reform. Rival emerging giant China, by contrast, has seen booming FDI, with inflows up 23.4 percent year-on-year in the first five months of 2011 to $48 billion.
With a quarter of its 42 million people illiterate and 40 percent of infants malnourished, Orissa needs investment.
Its roads are bumpy, and power cuts are common. Though rich in minerals such as bauxite and iron ore, wealth has not trickled down enough to millions of poor and tribal people, fueling a Maoist insurgency across the state.
Orissa wants to use part of the land acquired from the landholders for Posco to build a new port, but the protesters do not understand why it cannot be built elsewhere, or even done without.
The state government says its compensation package is one of the best in India: thousands of dollars in cash and a job for at least one member of each displaced family. Pro-Posco activists say the mill will tackle youth unemployment.
But the protesters are still not convinced.
Sisir Mohapatra, secretary of one of the activist groups, says similar promises were made for other projects that never materialized. “We don’t have any faith in the government,” he says, adding that the mill should be moved to less fertile land.
The state government, which alleges children were forced to lie on the baking hot ground to act as human shields, says the project will continue, and that construction work has started on already acquired land.
“The government is committed to do this peacefully,” said Vikas Saran, Posco’s India vice president, who is based in Delhi. “We are committed to this project. No force, nothing is being used. That is what I have heard. So it is all politically motivated, nothing else.”
A new federal land acquisition law is due to be introduced in July’s parliament session, but the activists have vowed to dig in until Posco withdraws.
Decked out in a black T-shirt and a matching handkerchief wrapped around his head, he is off to join hundreds of farmers, laborers and fishermen standing between a generations-old way of life and India’s biggest single foreign direct investment. Local people are protesting the planned construction of a $12 billion steel mill by South Korea’s Posco in the poor eastern state of Orissa.
“If the company wants to set up its project, let them first kill us,” Bardhan shouts over the speeches and slogans blaring out from loudspeakers to rows of protesters behind him.
“If our land goes, everything will go. We will not get food, clothes or education.”
The Posco protests are another storm warning in an environment growing increasingly hostile to what many Indians see as a nexus of corrupt politicians and businessmen profiting from kickbacks and forced land acquisition as foreign firms vie for a place in the Indian market. How the standoff plays out will be closely watched at home and abroad for signs of how relations are changing between investors, the government and Indians affected by big projects.
Farmers accuse the Orissa state government of being in cahoots with big business to trick them out of land their families have held for generations. They believe their best shot at a decent life is holding on to their farm incomes, and accuse police of beating up villagers and burning crops to force them to leave.
Many say India urgently needs more Poscos — foreign companies pouring cash into one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, revamping rusty infrastructure and providing thousands of new manufacturing jobs for a population of 1.2 billion people. But the project has endured years of delays due to protests at the site as farmers, backed by activist groups and left-wing political parties, refuse to give up their land.
After weeks of agitation in which women and children like Bardhan formed human rings to block police, the state government was forced to suspend its land acquisition on Tuesday.
Only half of the 1,600 hectares of land needed for the site have been acquired, though it was due to start pumping out 4 million metric tons of steel a year by 2011.
The project is a barometer for India’s investment climate, as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s federal government walks a tightrope between cultivating economic development and sustaining the livelihoods of the world’s biggest number of poor, many of whom form his party’s core vote.
Foreign direct investment is key to providing the billions of dollars worth of new highways, ports and industrial plants India needs to maintain economic growth as it grapples with high inflation, rising interest rates and dampened investor confidence.
FDI fell 28.5 percent to $19.4 billion in 2010/11, the last fiscal year that ended in March, as foreign investors shunned India over policy paralysis from a series of corruption cases, regulatory hurdles and lack of reform. Rival emerging giant China, by contrast, has seen booming FDI, with inflows up 23.4 percent year-on-year in the first five months of 2011 to $48 billion.
With a quarter of its 42 million people illiterate and 40 percent of infants malnourished, Orissa needs investment.
Its roads are bumpy, and power cuts are common. Though rich in minerals such as bauxite and iron ore, wealth has not trickled down enough to millions of poor and tribal people, fueling a Maoist insurgency across the state.
Orissa wants to use part of the land acquired from the landholders for Posco to build a new port, but the protesters do not understand why it cannot be built elsewhere, or even done without.
The state government says its compensation package is one of the best in India: thousands of dollars in cash and a job for at least one member of each displaced family. Pro-Posco activists say the mill will tackle youth unemployment.
But the protesters are still not convinced.
Sisir Mohapatra, secretary of one of the activist groups, says similar promises were made for other projects that never materialized. “We don’t have any faith in the government,” he says, adding that the mill should be moved to less fertile land.
The state government, which alleges children were forced to lie on the baking hot ground to act as human shields, says the project will continue, and that construction work has started on already acquired land.
“The government is committed to do this peacefully,” said Vikas Saran, Posco’s India vice president, who is based in Delhi. “We are committed to this project. No force, nothing is being used. That is what I have heard. So it is all politically motivated, nothing else.”
A new federal land acquisition law is due to be introduced in July’s parliament session, but the activists have vowed to dig in until Posco withdraws.
No comments:
Post a Comment