Development by Dispossession by Prof. Amit Bhaduri. PDF
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SRSC Public Lecture Series No. 1 1 SRSC Public Lecture Series No. 1 : April 2015 DEVELOPMENT BY DISPOSSESSION Amit Bhaduri S. R. Sankaran Chair (Rural Labour) NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT AND PANCHAYATI RAJ (Ministry of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, Government of India) RAJENDRANAGAR, HYDERABAD - 500 030. www.nird.gov.in Development by Dispossession 2 Amit Kundu © National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj April, 2015 Published by S. R. Sankaran Chair (Rural Labour) NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT AND PANCHAYATI RAJ Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India Rajendranagar, Hyderabad - 500 030. India Telephone : 040 - 24008473 www.nird.org.in Printed at : VAISHNAVI LASER GRAPHICS, Ph. 040 - 27552178 Development by Dispossession SRSC Public Lecture Series No. 1 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This is a Public Lecture, given by Professor Amit Bhaduri at S. R. Sankaran Chair (Rural Labour), National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj (NIRD&PR), Rajendranagar, Hyderabad on 15th April, 2015. We are grateful to Prof. Amit Bhaduri for accepting our invitation and agreeing to deliver the public lecture. We are thankful to Prof. S.K. Rao, (Ex. Director General, Administrative Staff College of India, Hyderabad) for presiding over the lecture. We are also thankful to NIRD&PR Authorities and Prof. R. Radhakrishna, Chairman, Advisory Committee, S.R.Sankaran Chair for facilitating in organising and publishing the lecture. - S.R.Sankaran Chair Development by Dispossession 4 Amit Kundu Note: A mathematical model with a more precise analysis is available for the interested reader by writing to the author and would soon be published in a standard journal. Development by Dispossession SDRevSeCl oPpumbelinct Lbeyc tDuisrpeo Ssesersiesiso nNo. 1 5 DEVELOPMENT BY DISPOSSESSION* Amit Bhaduri One of the main reasons for my they are an intersection set of everything coming to National Institute of Rural put together. Now this is the problem of Development and Panchayati Raj land acquisition. This is a problem of how (NIRD&PR) is, of course, Kailash Sarap you deal with natural resources and who is an old student of mine and we growth in this country; how you deal have kept in touch on and off, as also with various marginalized groups in this Shri Sankaran. When he said he was country; how you deal with women’s inviting from Sankaran Chair, I said I questions in this country; and how you would definitely come. I did not know deal with linguistic divisions in this Shri S. R. Sankaran well personally, but it country. But many of these dimensions I is quite clear that he was a very special was not aware of. I don’t think anybody kind of person. The second reason is, would be aware of by reading books. I although Prof. Saraf said, I am mostly think you simply become aware of real known for my rather formal academic life problems by travelling to different work, this is not quite true in terms of parts of the country. Some of this I my interest, because my interest always originally thought I would try to put has been society, not even economics. together in a short note/paper, a diary- Most of the time, I have tried to like in my earlier book as well. I never understand society’s problems actually thought of writing a paper, because my at ground level, travelling and talking clarity was much less and now also I to persons. And I have done it twice in realize, in many ways, I am not very clear, my life, once in the context of rural credit but gradually I realize, a picture emerges and related problems during the 1970’s in my mind, which many of us know, but and the other time recently, in the many of us don’t either know it fully or context of land acquisition particularly do not want to say it openly, I do know that is going on during last 10 to 12 years. what it is. Either there is a conspiracy of Most of the real life problems are not silence about the obvious among problems in economics, not problems in academics or, there is a certain kind of politics, not problems in sociology; but vested interest. So, this is a paper on * Public Lecture, given at S. R. Sankaran Chair (Rural Labour), National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj (NIRD&PR), Rajendranagar, Hyderabad. Development by Dispossession 2 6 AAmmit itB hKuadnudrui development by dispossession, a term I That is, the natural resources like land, have used. Development by labour, water and land based natural dispossession is basically, as the term resources. I am leaving out the sky based suggests, dispossessing the poor to natural resources, since they are too develop the country in a certain way. It modern for me. All these natural is a story with various links. It is not resources including labour constitute the related to just one particular academic primary inputs. If you take out all the discipline, for it cannot be. Now let me complexities of the internal system there start from something and this is the only still exists a relationship between the part which might sound a little bit two primary input components i.e., land technical, but I think it is necessary. and labour. Capital is not one of them, because it is produced by the people. Basically you can think of an economy as a very large system of Now let us come to the main part interconnected production, that is not of the story. Suppose there is a natural only market in terms of exchange, but part of the economy. Let me take a very also interconnected production. You simple arithmetical example where you require steel to produce coal; you do not have to be anything - economists, require coal to produce steel. Some mathematicians, sociologists, historians other product requires something else. - to talk about. Suppose there are 10 You require bauxite to produce energy people employed in this natural and, energy to produce bauxite. Thus, economy as simple agricultural workers, there is a tremendous amount of earning their livelihood. interconnected simultaneity. Now this, Suppose these 10 people produce among economists, is known as input- two units of output each. That means 10 output analysis and, can be expressed in people produce 20 units of output. You simplified mathematical terms. When decide to displace these people and now done, it becomes a very large we have displaced them and destroyed simultaneous system, but this is where their livelihood and, in turn, we destroy the story starts and though not 20 units of output. Against this, you take discussed in this paper, it is there on the these people out and, out of them you back of my mind. give employment to some in a modern If you think of an economy as coal industry. In simple terms, you call it the producing steel, steel producing coal, corporate sector, which is a large railways taking transport, and put them organized sector. You are taking away 10 all in a complex as a break form. Some people’s livelihood and have employed two things do not fit in are what only four people. We all know that some economists, and biologists and what people will find employment when they everybody else call the primary input. are displaced and the rest will not. Now Development by Dispossession SSRRSSCC PPuubblliicc LLeeccttuurree SSeerriieess NNoo.. 11 73 comes the first thing which you may not in the whole organized industrial sector, have quite thought of it in this way. you are producing six units of output. These four people, who are given You employ four people now in the employment in the corporate sector, corporate sector, not 10. You are taking have a much higher productivity. In some away 10 people’s livelihood and have other papers, not only me, but also employed four people. What do you get? others, who have worked in this area, say 4 x 6 = 24, so you lost 20 and got back about this. You see, if you take modern 24, you get a growth rate of 20%. This is industry, it produces much more than what the story of growth with what you produce in agriculture at unemployment in a nutshell is all about. current prices. TATAs, to give you one of I mean you can have an enormous my favourite examples, between 1993 statistics base, but unless you know the and 2003, because I have studied the fundamentals, you do not know what Singur case very closely. Tata steel you are looking for. increased its value of output by five times in a decade. This is not my The story can be enriched with real statistics, but given by Financial Times, statistics, but you have to know what the London statistics for a consultant. They basic is. Basically, what you do is, you reduced the number of workers by half. take out a number of people and give So, in effect, in 10 years, they have jobs to only a fraction of them, yet they increased their output by 10 times i.e., produce much more. So you have a fair 1000%. Now this kind of productivity output growth, but there is a growth is what you can achieve if you simultaneous deterioration in the could transfer people from a very employment situation, so far as only this backward nature of agriculture with a example is concerned. And this is the low productivity to a highly organised story of jobless growth. This is not only modern sector. This is what Prime the story of India but also of China and Ministers and many of state Chief to some extent, of Brazil. This is the story Ministers would all say that, for growth, also, to some extent, of Europe today, we require this kind of labour transfer, i.e. whether you have high or low growth and it is not untrue because, this kind of rate, you witness some growth in output labour transfer will increase output but virtually with no growth in jobs. The tremendously. economic connection that economists If we go back to the example, only are used to automatically think of does with four people, you lose 20 units of not exist any longer and it exists much output, but even if you are producing less if you have displacement and taking only 3 times more, which is much less away people from their original less than the average of the corporate sector, productive occupations! Development by Dispossession 4 8 AAmmit itB hKuadnudrui Although many questions arise, I resources to support the corporate will deal here only with two questions. sector’s enormous productivity. From One is what happens to those people this arise two basic problems which the who do not find jobs after they are Indian economy may have to grapple displaced. And the second is to increase with in various forms and I hasten to add productivity, you not only need people here, I would say very soon, Indian to be employed in modern industry, but politics and ordinary Indians would face. also you require various other inputs for And these two problems are: first you production which you do not require in create output, but you do not create simple agriculture. Even to produce a enough employment. But actually in this cup of coffee, if you go to a Mall, with particular example, in the context of coffee comes air conditioning, filtered displacement, you create water, plastic cup, electricity. And this unemployment because, only a few you can calculate its economics. One of people can get absorbed again. Others the great achievements of Leontief as an have to find employment in some other economist, was precisely producing a way. The second thing is, they produce computable scheme for explaining more output that requires more natural directly and indirectly how much of resources, the reason being that they are various inputs are going into the highly natural resource-intensive production of such a cup of coffee. And industries and so on. And, very often, this is how we make a cup of coffee so superficially, you cannot see much much more expensive in a Mall with deeper. For example, once I was asked various indirect inputs as compared to to give a lecture to an audience what we have in a street side dhaba in constituting of industrial workers. I was terms of input use. And when you have asked how are you saying this professor? it in country side or village dhaba/shop, This is not true. Look at these high rise it can cost you much less, because it is apartments, they occupy so little space mostly from nature. So you not only have and so little land is needed, yet they unemployment, but also a second accommodate so many people. On the problem. And this is a problem on the other hand, look at villages, places where implications of which, I have been there are mines, or the place I (i.e. the working on with a biologist, Madhav concerned industrial worker) come from Gadgil, for the last few years. We that is, Bihar, so much space is required together have tried to see how much of to accommodate a few people. What economics and biology, i.e. artificial one forgets here is that each high rise production and its support from nature building requires electricity, water, steel, can fit in a story of sustainable growth. iron and other inputs. If you calculate the Thus you have the other problem i.e. you chain of costs, you will see that it works have to have the required natural out to much more. I do not know if Development by Dispossession
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