Land Acquisition and Compensation in India: Mysteries of Valuation

302 Pages·2020·3.32 MB·English

by  Sattwick Dey Biswas

Land Acquisition
and Compensation
in India
Mysteries of Valuation
SATTWICK DEY BISWAS
Land Acquisition and Compensation in India
“Karl Polanyi called labor a fictitious commodity. Land is even more problematic.
Land is mere imagined latency expressed along a continuum of contending dreams.
How could land possibly have a single value to a diverse community of dreamers?
Sattwick Dey Biswas sheds important light on the meaning of land in two expro-
priation cases in West Bengal, India. The empirical research is exemplary, the theo-
retical ground is well developed, and the findings are robust. The value of a parcel
of land is not discovered. Rather, that value is created as various contending mean-
ings of land are expressed, debated, and finally resolved.”
—Daniel W. Bromley, Anderson-Bascom Professor of Applied Economics
(Emeritus), University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA
“This book is an incisive analysis of the multiple uses and values of land in contem-
porary India. Rooted in a careful reading of classical theories of value and valua-
tion, Dey Biswas guides us closer to an understanding of why the vexed problem
of land dispossession and displacement refuses to go away. Readers interested in
the ongoing land grab in the global south and their associated conflicts would do
well to consult this thought-provoking book.”
—Kenneth Bo Nielsen, Associate Professor, Department of Social Anthropology,
The Centre for Development and the Environment, Oslo University, Norway and
Coordinator, Norwegian Network of Asian Studies
“This book combines deeper reflections on the theories of property valuation and
social question with two exciting cases of land acquisition in India. The book is a
marvellous exposition that valuation as frame provides the most worthwhile lens
for a public policy scholar.”
—Sony Pellissery, Executive Director, Institute of Public Policy (NLSIU),
Bangalore, India
“This book explores valuation of land from a theoretical perspective with empirical
evidence from a case study analysis in India. One of the strongest points of the
book is that it recaps the theoretical development of value and valuation in great
detail and therewith provides a comprehensive and almost exhaustive theoretical
framework on valuation–starting from Adam Smith to more recent approaches of
plural land values. An important book for everyone who is concerned with land
markets, land appraisal and land economics!”
—Thomas Hartmann, Associate Professor, Environmental Science, Wageningen
University, The Netherlands
“Sattwick Dey Biswas’s important book constructs a bridge between usually dis-
connected areas of knowledge: law of expropriation (compulsory purchase), gen-
erations of philosophy of land and economics, and the often-enigmatic practices of
the land valuators. Dr Dey Biswas merges together a set of complex concepts with
Ben Davy’s exciting “plural values of land”. Through a brilliant research method,
he then succeeds in operationalizing these concepts into a tool to gauge the opin-
ions of stakeholders in real-life expropriation cases in India. The book is intellectu-
ally challenging – as it should be – but is also very well written. The mystery of
valuation may never be solved, but this book certainly lays out the path in the right
direction.”
—Professor Rachelle Alterman, Technion–Israel Institute of Technology and
Founding President – International Academic Association on Planning,
Law and Property Rights
Sattwick Dey Biswas
Land Acquisition and
Compensation in
India
Mysteries of Valuation
Sattwick Dey Biswas
Institute of Public Policy
National Law School of India University
Bengaluru, India
ISBN 978-3-030-29480-9 ISBN 978-3-030-29481-6 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29481-6
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A ’ N
uthor s ote
This book draws from the author’s dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of
the requirements for the degree of Doctor rerum politicarum (Dr. rer. pol.) at
School of Spatial Planning, TU Dortmund University, Germany
School of Spatial Planning Sattwick Dey Biswas
TU Dortmund University
Dortmund, Germany
Institute of Public Policy
National Law School of India University
Bengaluru, India
v
A
ckNowledgemeNt
I am indebted to several people for their support and assistance over the
course of the writing of this thesis. I am thankful to Benjamin Davy who
always provided valuable and critical feedback and challenged me in every
step of my writing. He has also kept his faith in this Social Work and Social
Policy student who has dared to write on the political economy of land at
the School of Spatial Planning, TU Dortmund University. I am also grate-
ful to Thomas Hartmann, the first reviewer of the work, for guiding me in
very “crucial” moments of writing. Without his constant support, it was
not possible to finish the project.
I am indebted to the Editor, Alina Yurova, and the Editorial Assistant,
Mary Fata, for their editorial help, keen insight, and ongoing support in
bringing ‘the mysteries of valuation’ to life. It is because of Alina’s trust in
this novice writer and Mary’s constant support that I have managed to
publish it. Rachel Moore and Ms. Sudha Soundarrajan (and her team)
were extremely patient with my errors during the production of the book.
I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their time, atten-
tion, and constructive feedback.
In the rest of the acknowledgements, whenever more than one name
will be mentioned, the appearance will follow the alphabetical order of the
first name and without academic or honorary titles. Also, in the absence of
an appropriate English word, throughout the writing, I could not indicate
the third gender in the appropriate places along with ‘he’ and ‘she’. At
various stages of writing this, Amitabh Mukherjee, Anna Rodermund, Jan
Russell, Subin Sundar Raj, and Roberto Casablanca managed to share
their valuable time in correcting my grammatical mistakes and I am grateful
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
to them. The final proofreading is done by Jan Russell, for which I am in
debt. Any remaining errors are mine.
Doctoral study is a journey, and it took time to get admission and a lot
more to produce this work. It was in Bali, Indonesia, that I had my first
international exposure, which was facilitated by the late David S. Kung, a
nomad and amateur cultural anthropologist. With his encouragement, I
became curious about land and cultural plurality, and even more so after
interacting with Avi Hazuria, Ayu Ratna, Komang Ayu, Betty W., Claire
Dassonval, Gary Howlett, Gotardo Egidia, Jan Russell, Sonia Cazzanello,
and my friends in Bali. Upon my return to Santiniketan, India, where I
grew up from the age of six, some of my professors at the Social Work
Department at Visva-Bharati, such as Ashok Kr. Sarkar, Debatosh Sinha,
Kumkum Bhattacharya, Paramita Roy, and Prashanta Kr. Ghosh contin-
ued to encourage me to push my limits. During this time, Manohar Power,
Vishanthie Swapoul, and Lena Dominelli reminded me about dignity and
human rights issues in land.
The opportunity to thoroughly investigate land issues came under the
guidance of Sony Pellissery, who took on this unworthy Social Work grad-
uate as a research assistant at the Institute of Rural Management Anand
(IRMA), India. During the year that I stayed at IRMA (Institute of Rural
Management Anand), I learned a lot through my work and through infor-
mal discussions with Ajit Choudhury, Anand Venkatesh, Debashish Maitra,
Partha Sarathi Roy, Prakash Moirangthem, Ravikiran Naik, Satyendra
Nath Mishra, and Sudipa Sarkar. Till today, Debashish, Satyen, and Sudipa
discuss economic theories with me whenever I contact them.
I thank the Norwegian Quota Scholarship for fully funding my
Master of International Social Welfare and Health Policy (MIS) at Oslo
Metropolitan University. I was fortunate to learn a great many things
from Einar Overbye, Erika Gubrium, Ivar Lødemel, and Ivan Harsløf
at Oslo Metropolitan University, with appropriate support from Anne
Marie Møgster and Stuart Arthur Deakin. I wrote my master thesis with
Benjamin Davy and became an informal part of the FLOOR (Financial
Assistance (Social Cash Transfers), Land Policy, and Global Social Rights)1
team at TU Dortmund University, Germany, via Skype. Some of the team
members were Astrid Maurer, Heinz Kobs, Jackline Kabahinda, Melanie
Halfter, Michael Kolocek, Nadine Preuss, Sepideh Abaii, and Yitu Yang,
with appropriate support from Susanne Syska. Also, email communications
with Benjamin Lockwood, Gemma Burgess, Joseph Persky, Robin Burgess,
Daniel W. Bromley, and Mercedes Stickler were particularly helpful.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ix
My earlier understanding of economic theory was further nurtured by
Kaushik Basu, theories of political economy by Haragopal G., and legal
theories by Chiradeep Basak, Subin Sundar Raj, Saika Sabbir, Saumya
Uma, Vanishree Radhakrishna, and Vikram Raghavan. On the other hand,
the Poverty and Shame project gave me the opportunity to interact with
and learn from Robert Walker, Elaine Chase, Lichao Yang, Leah Johnston,
Aline Gubrium, and Grace Bantebya, along with Heidi Bergsli and Biju
A. The support from Shashikala, G. Lakshmi, and Nagesh should be
acknowledged.
At the Chair of Bodenpolitik, Bodenmanagement, Kommunales
Vermessungswesen,2 I reunited with the members of the former FLOOR
team plus Julija Bakunowitsch. At the school of spatial planning, I am
thankful to Christoph Kohlmeyer, Franziska Sielker, Genet Alem, Ludger
Basten, Sabine Baumgart, Teresa Elizabeth Sprague, and Wolfgang Scholz.
Thanks, Michael, for over a hundred lunches at the ‘mensa’ and our
thoughtful discussions. I discussed my research issues with a number of
individuals at various stages of this research, some of whose names should
be indicated here: Barbara Harris-White, Bertold Bongardt, Christopher
John Webster, Erika Gubrium, Gabriel Cleopas Shamboo, Jilan Hosni,
Indranil Sarkar, Ivan Harslf, Ivar Lødemel, Kaushik Basu, Kenneth Bo
Nielsen, Nalinava Sengupta, Paramita Roy, Ric Paris, Roberto Casablanca,
Sattwati De Biswas, Satyendra Nath Mishra, Sony Pellissery, Subin Sundar
Raj, Sudipa Sarkar, Sugata Goswami, Tanima Sengupta, Rachelle Alterman,
Ram Singh, Vikram Raghavan, and Yoram Barzel. I also thank participants
of South Asia Across the Nordic Region 2018 (Oslo), PLPR 2017 (Hong
Kong), PLPR-SARC 2015 (Bangalore), and Land and Poverty 2015
(Washington DC) for their valuable feedback on my work.
Due to confidentiality agreements, I could not include all the names of
the generous individuals who ensured access to data at the grassroots level.
Without their cooperation, I would not have managed to collect the data
required for this study. I can only mention Abinandan Sen, Biswajit
Ganguli, Tapan Kumar Maiti, and Ranjan Chatterjee, who assisted me in
navigating the bureaucracy and reaching the data collection area. Also, the
members of Institutional Strengthening of Gram Panchayats (ISGP)
Program II such as Ananya Chowdhury, Arijit Roy, Chandan Maji, Sandip
Sarkar, Suvajit Sural, and Gourav Ghosh. Many representatives of human
rights groups shared their deep knowledge and experiences of land issues;
I can only indicate Ujjaini Halim, but also thank those others who wish to
keep their identities confidential.
x ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I should also mention a few other names from Santiniketan, India, such
as Avik Ghosh, Suprio Tagore, and Susobhan Adhikary, along with Amitab
Mukherjee, Gargi Ghosh, Kishor Bhattacharya, Mousumi Aadhikary,
Pulak Dutta, Rati Basu, Sonali Majumdar, Subhra Tagore, Subhrangsu
Sen, and Sugata Hazra. The support I received at various stages of my life
from Arabinduda, (late) Shivaditya Sen, Shantabhanu Sen, and other
members of the Pratichi Trust, Santiniketan, should also be acknowl-
edged. I would like to thank Rinson Jose, Sayannita Mallik, Susanta
Bhattacharya Zoheath Tsh. Lepcha, and Partha Sarathi Mondal for giving
me confidence and support in the difficult times. Canara Bank, Jadavpur,
provided much needed educational loan to meet the funding gap for
this project.
I will fondly remember my wonderful flatmates, Andrzej Czeremanski
and Michael Naebert, for giving me their time, space, and listening to me,
along with Chloe, Basheer, Saptarshi, Sudipa, Rinson, Tatijana, and
Dortmunder Philharmoniker. I am grateful to Doris Bongardt and
Manfred Harm for the care that they have shown to me and for sharing
their deep knowledge about Germany. I am lucky to be hosted by you!
Finally, to Anna, Avikda, Ayan, Esmeralda, Lars, Linnéa, Monimala,
Subin, and my family: thanks for the life force!
Dortmund, 2019 Sattwick Dey Biswas
Notes
1. More at http://www.floorgroup.raumplanung.tu-dortmund.de/joomla/
index.php
2. More at http://www.bbv.raumplanung.tu-dortmund.de/