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T Balasubramania
Adityan
Founder &
Managing Trustee
Tamil Annai
Thamirabarani
Welfare Trust | T Chandrasekhar
Sharma
All India Coordinator
Tamil Annai
Tamirabarani
Welfare Trust |
On 28 June, 2007, a MOU was signed by the Government of Tamilnadu and Tatas for setting up a big industry for the manufacture of Titanium Dioxide at a cost of about Rs 2500 crore for which an extent of 9828 acres was to be acquired by the Government on behalf of Tatas. The Government deputed a team under the leadership of a Minister and it is understood that this team had recommended that a measly compensation of Rs 1.16 lakh per acre be paid to the land owners of the area.
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Telling Message in
Tamil Posters in
Sathankulam Area |
As there was a huge public outcry against this proposal for large scale acquisition of lands, several political parties also joined the fray and raised a strong objection to the land acquisition proceedings. Many political parties conducted public hearing and ascertained the views of the people regarding the Titanium Dioxide Project. In accordance with the known and established pattern in Tamilnadu politics, most of the opposition parties claim that the common people in Sathankulam are against this new project. As usual, the ruling party in Tamilnadu claims that the people of the area are whole-heartedly welcoming the project. As a free lance journalist, I have checked up the position in the field. The simple truth is the people of the area do not want to part with their valuable lands for a paltry sum fixed by the Government of Tamilnadu. They have become aware of the fact that Tatas (with the full knowledge and blessings of the Government of Tamilnadu) are going to make not less than Rs.500,000 crores after purchasing an extent of nearly 10,000 acres at a total cost of less than Rs 110 crore. More than 100,000 farmers will become landless refugees in their own native district. The calculated contempt for the landless poor by the Government of Tamilnadu on the one hand and callous corporate greed of corporate companies on the other would only lead to this avoidable disaster.
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Local protest
poster in Tamil |
Most of the political parties which raised a strong objection against the land acquisition proceedings have now turned silent. Most of the common people are alleging that this is part of an orchestrated conspiracy of silence. In this context, I am reminded of what Stanley Lane Poole, the distinguished historian of Medieval India wrote about
Allaudin Khilji who ruled from 1296 to 1316:
?Soon after he ascended the throne, Allaudin Khilji silenced all the troublesome Muslim Nobles by filling their open and greedy mouths with gold and precious objects?. Recently I spoke to a cross section of the people living in
Sathankulam area and they told me that the mouths of most of the troublesome politicians of Tamilnadu have perhaps been filled appropriately by the Tatas.
I was Collector of un-bifurcated Tirunelveli District from 1976 to 1978. I have visited most of the villages in Sathankulam area. The lands in this area are known in revenue records as ‘Theri Lands’. The Red Sand Dunes in the area, approximately more than 10,000 years old, attracted the attention of the British Archeologist, Geologist and Historical Research Scholar Bruce Foote (1834-1912) who is considered to be the founder of the study of prehistory of India. In his writings Bruce Foote had indirectly referred to the great potential of Theri lands for water conservation, multiple agricultural activities and mineral wealth.
The way in which the issue of compensation for the lands to be acquired in Sathankulam is being viewed by the Government and the Tatas might make it appear that the Theri belt in Sathankulam is a barren, uncultivable terrain. This is not the truth. The Theri lands have very good reserve of subsoil water in large quantity. Untold mineral wealth lies hidden in the area. The Red Sand Dunes in these Theri lands have functioned as natural barriers against sea erosion and tsunami for centuries. Mangoes, Coconuts, Palmyra, Cashew, Drumsticks, Plantains, etc. are cultivated in large quantities and exported to other States in India and countries abroad. ?Kuthiraimozhi Theri? is protected as Social Forest and this clearly shows that the remaining portions of the Theri can also be developed along the same lines as ‘social forests’. If the Tatas go through this project, it is feared that more than one lakh of persons would get uprooted from Sathankulam and they would be displaced from their valuable possession and livelihood. It is also feared that if the soil gets raped through an indiscriminate exploitation of its mineral resources, it would become useless, comparable only to the arid dessert lands of Saudi Arabia.
Land occupies a pride of place among the Pancha Bhoodas. It is rightly so. For any activity?industrial, agricultural, structural?land is the most basic and important requirement. That is why the ancient Hindu Rulers of India and even the British regime in the 19th and 20th centuries, attached a great importance to land administration. The Revenue Standing Orders (Bible for Revenue Department) have classified the land into various strata and allotted each area for a specific usage. As long as the land is used for its allotted activity, no conflict of interest arises. Even the ‘minor’ change of classification of a small extent of land used to be resisted loudly by the Government before independence since the total supply of land is given and fixed and does not increase in extent over time. On the contrary today, valuable agricultural land share is sought to be converted into various non-agricultural uses and as a result the total area of agricultural land which used to be about 43 per cent in the 1960s has already been reduced to 37 per cent now. Annual food production has gone down to 61 lakh tons now from a level of 76 lakh tons three years ago. Now 77 per cent of the agriculturists own lands below the extent of 4 hectares only. This equitable distribution of land has been achieved through the effective implementation of land reforms. The beneficial impact of land reforms?land going to the tiller of the soil?is now being sought to be reversed by the Government by making over large extents of land in Sathankulam area to private Corporate Companies to amass wealth and landed properties in the name of State-aided Industrialisation. Industries are welcome, but not at the cost of small farmers whose livelihood could be at stake.
I spoke to more than 100 small farmers in the area. They are determined to strict their lands and they are in no mood to part with their landed property. They told me in Tamil ?Thai Nilathai Kappom!? (We will safeguard the lands we owe to our mother). Seeing their passionate attachment to their ancestral lands, I am reminded of the beautiful words of that great American economist Henry George: (1839 ? 1897), a great champion of the cause of the small man behind the plough, in this context: ?Land is necessary to all production, no matter what be the kind or form; land is the standing-place, the workshop, the storehouse of labor; it is to the human being the only means by which he can obtain access to the material universe or utilize its powers. Without land man cannot exist. To whom the ownership of land is given, to him is given the virtual ownership of the men who must live upon it. It is this power that gives land its value; this is the power that enables the owner of valuable land to reap where he has not sown ? to appropriate to his self the wealth which he has had no share in producing. Rent is always the devourer of wages?. I am of the view that this project will destroy the lives of the people in the area for ever.
I had a long discussion with T Balasubramania Adityan, Founder and Managing Trustee of Tamil Annai Thamirabarani Welfare Trust and T Chandrasejhar Sharma, All India Co-ordinator of Tamil Annai Thamirabarani Welfare Trust. Both of them have launched a public movement to protect the THERI LANDS in Sathankulam area in Toothukkudi Dist.
Thinking of the wretched plight of the small farmers in Sathankulam area and the darker future that awaits them, I am reminded of the following evocative lines of poetry of Edwin Markham (1852-1940), from his great poem: THE MAN WITH THE HOE
Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground
The emptiness of ages in his face,
And on his back the burden of the world?.
Plundered, profaned and disinherited,
Cries Make right the immemorial infamies,
Perfidious wrongs, immedicable woes?
Protests to the Judges of the World,
A protest that is also prophecy.
(to be continued)
(The writer is a retired IAS officer)
e-mail the writer at vsundaram@newstodaynet.com
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