Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
The Plunder of Land
While it was corruption and rape that brought the middle class onto the streets in 2011 and
2012, it was land that caused unrest throughout the 2000s when it became the country's
most sought after and controversial commodity. Land for real estate development and for
mining was the biggest creator of greed, corruption, crime and wealth. Newly rich politi-
cians, businessmen and bureaucrats cheated, bullied and swindled individuals and society
of the country's riches, grabbing natural resources at low prices and reaping rich rewards.
Land should be the source of economic growth for a country, and of increased wealth and
security for people both rich and poor. Instead, it became a symbol of much that is wrong
with India. In some states, it has been causing a high proportion of killings and criminal
cases - in Bihar, 50 per cent of murders and 70-75 per cent cases of criminal assault are
Raghuram Rajan has noted that 'the predominant sources of mega wealth in India today
are not the software billionaires who have made money the hard way'. Instead, he said in a
or to particular infrastructure permits or licences. In other words, proximity to the govern-
ment seems to be a big source of wealth. And that is worrisome because it means that those
who can access the government and manage it are far more powerful than ordinary busi-
nessmen. In the long run, this leads to a decay in the image of businessmen and the whole
free enterprise system. It doesn't show us in good light if we become a country of oligopol-
ies and oligarchs. Eventually, this could even impinge on democratic rights'.
3
In his book,
Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy
,
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Rajan suggested that 'the licence-permit raj' of the pre-1991 decades, which had allowed
well-connected manufacturing business houses to grab licences and squeeze out compet-
itors, had given way to the 'raj of the land mafia'. He was pointing out that success now
came not to the best real estate developers or the most socially and environmentally con-
scious mining companies, but to businessmen with contacts in government who could bribe
politicians and bureaucrats to hand over access to land for real estate development and ex-
ploitation of coal, iron ore and other minerals. 'Earlier, you had to navigate the government
for licences and permits Now you have to navigate the government for land, because in
many situations land titles are murky, and acquiring land is difficult,' he wrote.
These scams were made easy because environmental laws and regulations had been
breached on a massive scale, especially through thefirst decade of this century. The min-
