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T
he question of displacement of governments are using or threatening to globalisation. These questions can be pro-
farming communities to acquire use a colonial Land Acquisition Act, which perly addressed only if one revalues and
land for industrialisation has allows the government to acquire “for expands the concepts of rent4 and primi-
assumed great political significance, public purpose”2 any land, on payment of tive capital accumulation.
primarily because of the strong resistance “compensation”, even though the owner It is often said, and quite validly, that
offered by these communities at Singur in may not be willing to part with the plot. there is a great gulf between the imperi-
West Bengal and Ghaziabad in UP. Land The acquired land is then handed over to alism of today and that of Lenin’s time.
acquisition has become a prime objective the enterprise at a subsidised rate. That is, But this statement often implies that the
of the state governments, as they clamber global capital has to pay just a fraction of significance of the state has diminished
over each other to seek the graces of global even the meagre compensation that is given greatly in this new era of globalisation. It
capital.1 Following in the true tradition of to the peasants. is true that the flexibility of the state,
the distributors of grace, global capital This is just the beginning of this new particularly in economic matters, is being
doles out the goodies to those who offer phase of capitalist expansion. Critics of gradually eroded, especially in the poor
the best tributes in terms of tax exemp- this policy argue that the compensation countries, through the process of liberali-
tions, subsidised provision of natural re- being offered is not “adequate”; that those sation. But this does not mean that the need
sources like land and water, and the like. who are not landowners but depend on for state power has been exhausted.
The idea of special economic zones (SEZs) agriculture for their livelihood are not One of the characteristics that differen-
suits this particular need of governments compensated; that agricultural production tiate this age of imperialism from its
and of global capital. The SEZs are ter- will go down as the proposed SEZs or immediate predecessor (that is the period
ritories demarcated by the state govern- industrial estates are largely located on extending right up to the 1960s and 1970s
ments with the concurrence of the central prime agricultural land; that the tax of the last century) is its immense depen-
government. Enterprises located in these exemptions offered to enterprises located dence on state power for rewriting eco-
territories are exempted from customs in SEZs together with the loss of water nomic laws and for their harsh implemen-
duties, income and excise taxes. They are cess and other payments, which the dis- tation. In the previous period – which used
also enticed with other privileges like free placed farmers used to make, cause heavy to be called the period of neo-imperialism
or subsidised water supply, subsidised elec- revenue losses to the state governments; – imperialist capital’s open and observ-
tricity supply and, most importantly, with that severe ecological damage will occur able reliance on the state was not the order
the promise that the right of the labourers where the SEZ is located on what was of the day. While in the present era laws,
to associate in trade unions will be sus- originally forest land. The governments of regulations, and even principles of juris-
pended. The areas where the SEZs are the states are impervious to such argu- prudence are being grossly altered with
located are usually chosen by some global ments, whatever the colour of the party impunity to facilitate imperialist plunder.
enterprise or a fraction of global capital. in power in the state. They are also equally In this overt fight the international eco-
The concerned state government then ready to use force to break up farmers’ nomic organisations play a stellar and
acquires the land from the farmers against resistance. This raises the obvious ques- crucial role, but it is only through state
payment of some meagre compensation. tion: why are the state governments bent power, acting at the behest of global