SEZ civil unrest trends

alouise

Hi all, I was undecided about starting this as a new thread since the backlash against the Special Economic Zone policy is political, has been simmering away for a few years in various states and districts and would seem to be "none of our(IMers') business". Or at least to say, more the direct concern of NGO-ers dealing with the social consequences of SEZ land dispossessions and urban drift in poorer eastern states. Besides, mob protests and bandhs blocking roads and railway lines are hardly new in India. So there could be some complacency here as well, unless the violence directly affects the individual's own expat situation and/or travel plans. Otherwise, it's just another day in India: lots of poverty, large population pressures, heterogeneous culture bound for sectarian disputes, these things happen, take the good with the bad ....

Well, I was undecided until I read this seemingly innocuous report about the Tata Nano plant's forced relocation from Singur (West Bengal)
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/n...034618.sto ry
Thing is, the report also mentions ongoing SEZ fights in a few other places which makes it sound like the issue is not about to go away any time soon, and could become a rallying point for more frequent terrorism/civil strife, which could possibly have wider ramifications affecting IMers' choice of destinations within their favourite country.

This present situation is different, not just about dacoits and naxalites or even the latest bomb-making terrorists. In the SEZ battleground, it would seem foreign companies are becoming the new hated "landlords" . Previously, Bihar ruled as the Naxalite battleground against local landlords and their "private armies". The southern separation into the state of Jarkhand has since become troublesome (to put it mildly) for industrial and mining SEZ projects. But now the flashpoint is Orissa, which not so coincidentally happens to be a mess of civil unrest right now, so bad that the central government may step in any day now and take over .... presumably, as most foreign observers believe, to stop further violence against Christians (similarly in Karnataka). Yet others, including mainly Odishans, are inclined to attribute this mess to the Maoist rebel/ People's Army (or "Naxalites" for some conservatives in the Indian press). This view says that the Maoists have now succeeded in stirring up trouble in this state as part of their nationwide anti- globalisation fight (People's army now operates in 13 out of 28 states) which more specifically of late has waged SEZ land battles to halt the influx of foreign companies - ie. it was the People's army that claimed responsibility for the assassination of Hindu leader, Laxmanananda Saraswati, the event that ignited these recent "retribution attacks" on Christians by Hindu fundamentalists. It wasn't a religious assassination, it was a political one.

Meaning, parts of India are undergoing revolutionary social changes that may not be visitor-friendly. As a prospective visitor to Orissa and Andhra backwaters, it's been necessary to research this situation in some depth, and so far as gaining on the ground feedback from IM I've gathered that I must be heading off the beaten track. Is this because there's little interest for tourism (ie. poor infrastructure)or is it because there are places just like there are problems that we don't talk about?

So I am daring to start this thread in order to ask why don't we go there?

capt_mahajan

You might find the recent Raigad SEZ news of interest, too
http://www.ibnlive.com/news/farmers-...z/75173-3.html


Well, maybe we don't talk about them too much on IM, being a travel forum and all

But you are probably right. Urban India is not talking much about these problems- worse than that, actually. There is potential for some serious strife here.



Personally speaking, I dont find the Orissa or Andhra backwaters that interesting, so thats my reason

But if I did want to go there, safety would be a factor, wouldn't it? A few months ago I cancelled a family trip to a small sanctuary because the tourism folk told me that naxalites blew the solitary guest house up.

alouise

Was that in Jajpur or Kendrapara?

Nick-H

Well I never! A referendum soundly rejected an SEZ. Result? No more referendums on SEZs!

In my very meagre understanding (or misunderstanding!) an SEZ is a zone where goods (and services?) are produced specifically and only for export, and, on this understanding, companies doing business there are exempt from paying many local taxes and duties to India.

To me, this seems a fatally flawed concept. If a company can make money (and it's a non starter if it can't) it should pay tax. OK, I know my views are seen, these days with the contempt that used to be saved for the Red Flag, but there we go.

I don't think the Tata Nano plant was intended to be an SEZ as such, because the product is aimed at the Indian home market.

The major element in the Singur proceedings, seems to have been an agreement that was wrapped up between the state government and Tata with little or no consideration for the farmers, some of whom wanted to sell, many of whom did not.

By majority (maybe I mix with the wrong people) the attitudes I have met towards the affair are ---

--- It was agricultural land (actually it was good, fertile agricultural land but never mind) and the farmers should have been very happy to sell at agricultural rates, regardless of the industrial use; backward, evil farmers if they weren't.

--- Tata is one of India's best companies and whatever it does must be right; backward, evil farmers for getting in its way.

--- The whole affair has probably screwed up investment in Bengal; backward, evil farmers for having done this.

Well, this latter is probably true, but no-one seems to blame the state government who are surely responsible for the mess.

The heroes of the age are the wealthy and the industrialists: screw us, we'll love you more. Urban India is interested in The Great March of Progress. Progress, that is, for its own small minority.

To be fair, I am told that Tata plough a major part of their profits into the communities in which they operate. I've also heard of a titanium mine to be operated by the same company. A delegation of state politicians found the people to be greatly in favour of the destruction of their villages. Strangely, a delegation of journalists, who managed to get there the day before, found them utterly opposed.

To be fair again, I am sure that there are many areas where, at least in the long term, industrialisation may a boon. In the short term, illiterate farm labourers are not very good at getting factory jobs, and labour for these ventures is often imported, leaving the local people with nothing.

We have a thread on the curently-running situation in Orissa. I don't think it has so much to do with SEZs or industrialisation, as a long-running resentment between two communities which the safron mob have chosen to use as a bandwagon. Strangely, although the Maoists have more than once claimed responsibility for killing Laxmanananda Saraswati, people seem to have some trouble in believing them, which further muddies the waters of the anti-Christian 'backlash'.

Karnataka? How far can they go before it looses its sheen of modernisation?

Well, I doubt that many people want to visit Industrial India; from my tiny experience of Northern Chennai, it is about as unpleasant as most highly industrial places, and given lack of effective law enforcement, probably more polluted than many.

capt_mahajan

Raigadh is Maharashtra

nayan

I will not comment on the SEZs but I can definitely say something about the Nano.

It was totally a political game with very little to do with what the farmers actually felt about the issue.

The majority of the farmers gave up their land willingly in hope of the development(and eventually jobs due to the general development) that would come in the wake of the Nano factory. Tatas usually do a lot of development of the local area.... schools, hospitals etc.

A minority were holding out for a better package. This got politicized beyond a point of no return due to the need of face saving by mamata banerjee. This lady has done this kind of antics lots of times before. She starts a movement but then cannot control it anymore... things get out of hand and the whole purpose of the movement is defeated.

The farmers protesting the Nano factory never believed(or rather they were assured)that the Tatas will leave. Even today lots of those people are in a denial in Singur and think the newspaper reports of tata having moved to Gujarat are just a tactics by the state government and tata to pressurize them.

The only thing this Nano fiasco has acheived

1. Industrialization in WB is once again a distant dream.... I am from WB so this is just not of academic interest to me.

2. Mamata Banerjee has proved herself to be an incompetent fool(alienating the urban middle class from where her support originally came to cut into the CPM rural vote bank... she did not succeed with the rural idea... CPM is too strongly entranched in rural bengal. its almost impossible to survive in rural bengal by opposing the party) once more thus leaving CPM to win another term in office.... they have been a record 31 years in office now continiously.

alouise

Capt Mahajan, my mistake, I was reading your comment about the blown up guesthouse within the context you quoted and not thinking that you were referring to Raigad. I'd some time ago read somewhere about a bombed guesthouse in Jajpur, Orissa. Neighbouring Kendrapara has become a People's army stronghold according to the article mentioned (see link). True?

alouise

One of the aims of SEZs, from what I've read, is to attract foreign investment. This seems the case in Orissa,and northern coastal Andhra where there has been large-scale infrastructure development of ports (5 of them at last count?)down the coastline. Here the People's army have purportedly staged "democratic protests" (road blocks, bandhs etc)or collected payments from any foreign company venture already operating. So the industrialisation of this coastline has progressed at a slow pace.

Otherwise the Orissan and Andhran coastal areas remain predominently rural. There are also many ancient Buddhist and Jain monuments in those areas since the ports of the time linked maritime trade routes between Rome,Egypt, China and south-east asian countries, and from there the initial form of Buddhism, Hinayana, spread to the East. It is quite an important area, historically speaking.

alouise

Here is more information and analysis for anyone who has glanced this thread and wondered what this SEZ thing is about, and what it could possibly have to do with IMers' travels


SEZs: Stirring up a storm along the Indian coast

By Manshi Asher

http://infochangeindia.org/200707096...ian-coast.html

If anyone reads this analysis on the social and environmental impacts, which also covers the history of the SEZ policy, IMO it will prove rather enlightening.

capt_mahajan

Sorry, I was actually talking about Andhra Pradesh!

nayan

I think the captain is talking about the srisailam tiger reserve guest house. It was blown up by the naxalites 3-4 years ago. we too got this info when we were asking around for it.

capt_mahajan

Not Srisailam- but near Warrangal. Name slips my mind.

I stayed inside the forest reserve at Srisalam about 4 years ago- good place but basic (they were still setting up solar lighting and stuff). Impossible without own transport.

Nick-H

Thanks for the link, alouise.

It is depressing, though. Nobody in power seems to care about the huge, rural/farming/fishing/ordinary/etc people of India. They seem blind to everything that is not to do with industrialisation, development, and so on.

I had a boss once (an accountant himself) who used to say that the trouble with the world was that is was run by a bunch of bankers (Err... maybe you have to hear the way he said it).

alouise

Nick-H was that a w or a b? As for bankers and other Masters of the Universe, maybe not for much longer??