Farmers protest against forcible acquiring of their land by the State

40,000 farmers from 45 villages in the Pen-Panvel-Uran belt of Raigad District of Maharashta converged on Belapur in Navi Mumbai on September 20 to protest against the forcible acquiring of their lands by the state for the purpose of setting up Special Economic Zones.

The memorandum served by the Raigad farmers to the Maharashtra Government on September 20, 2006 included the following demands:

• The notices served to them under the Act must be withdrawn and the relevant denotification declared by the government.
• Permanently cancel the Navi Mumbai and Maha Mumbai SEZs.
• Government officials will not be allowed to enter villages until the notices for acquiring land are withdrawn.

On September 26, 2006, farmers in Singur, West Bengal protested against their lands being handed over to Tata Motors. The West Bengal police ferociously attacked and dispersed the protestors. 20,000 small farmers are affected.

Farmers in Ghaziabad have been waging a militant struggle against 2500 acres of fertile land being handed over by the state government to Reliance.

As the UPA government at the center as well as various state government's, have gone on a spree to forcibly acquire land of farmers at dirt cheap prices to hand it over to Indian and foreign multinationals as areas called SEZ's, protests are developing all across the country.

Meanwhile, even while Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, as well as political leaders of various bourgeois parties are making out they are concerned about the fate of farmers whose lands are being forcibly acquired for SEZ's, on September 28, the UPA government gave approval to 18 more SEZ's accross the country, bringing the total number of approvals of SEZ's to 181. The immediate target of the government is to set up at least 300 SEZ's accross the country.

There is a rat race amongst state governments to attract Indian and foreign capital into their states at the expense of farmers' livelihood, by offering them attractive packages in the name of SEZ's. The government also gave in-principle approval to 13 more SEZ's. This includes the one for South Korean Multinational POSCO to set up a multi product SEZ in Orissa's Jagatsinghpur District in an area of over 1600 hectares of tribal land. It may be noted that the POSCO proposal has been widely opposed by the people of Orissa ever since it came to light some months back.

Maharashtra is one of the states that tops the country, after Andhra Pradesh in the number of SEZ's being proposed. 49 SEZ's are being planned spread over 13 districts of Maharashtra.

Just across the creek from Mumbai, Mukesh Ambani has got the go-ahead to develop 35,000 acres for the SEZs. Apart from about 3 lakh farmers, saltpan owners and workers as well as fishermen will lose their livelihood.

3000 acres of rice land of farmers in Alibag is under threat. The villagers of Gulani near Pune who are fighting against the SEZ of Bharat Forge have declared, "We will give our lives if necessary, but we will give not even an inch of our land to the SEZ." 7500 hectares of land in Rajgurunagar taluka of Pune district are under threat from Bharat Forge. In Pune district, 3000 acres of the land from 9 villages near the famous 2000 year old Karla caves are under threat from an SEZ of Mahindra and Mahindra. The villagers are organizing their united fighting front under the leadership of Mata Ekvira Zamin Bachao Andolan.

Lakhs of villagers from Thane, Pune, Nashik, Raigad, Sindhudurg, Kolhapur, Solapur, Latur, Nanded, Aurangabad, Yavatmal, Chandrapur, Nagpur, etc are going to be affected and have declared they will fight for their rights.

Special Economic Zones is a method adopted by the big capitalists and their governments to step up the plunder of our people and our land. This is an all-sided attack on our people:

1.The farmers are being forced to part with their land. Not only do they lose their livelihood, but they do not even get the market price of their land. They are given no alternate source of livelihood or rehabilitation.

2.The capitalists are being provided unprecedented benefits in the form of tax cuts and other support.

3.The rights that workers have won through generations of hard struggles will be taken away in these zones. There will be no limit on the exploitation of workers. There will be no safety or environmental regulations.

4.This will badly affect the workers who work outside the SEZ too, since their maliks will do everything they can either to shift into the SEZ, close the factory or get similar benefits where they are.

The scale of this assault can be gauged from the following - By mid 2006, 140.000 acres of land had been acquired for SEZs all over the country. By the year-end, this figure is likely to reach 2 lakh acres.

The Compulsory Land Acquisition Act was passed by the British imperialists in 1894. It is this fascist law which is being used by the big bourgeoisie and its state to deprive the farmers of their livelihood and assist the Indian and foreign monopolies to grow at the fastest possible rate.

As the farmers, tribal people and fisherfolk step up their struggle against the forcible expropriation of their source of livelihood for setting up SEZ's, they need to raise the demand for the abrogation of this colonial and imperialist act from the Statute Books. Simultaneously, farmers must unite with the working class and fight for establishing the rule of workers and peasants, a state which will guarantee the livelihood and rights of farmers, and not the maximum profits of Indian and foreign multinationals.