Disputed Industries and Discontented land losers

While shuffling for some serious topics to write on, an obituary to the Raigarh stint seemed like a perfect choice; but then I felt apt to share my perspective on a theme that has excited me even before I joined IAS.

The theme wherein the richest are pitted against the poorest and the way the government (or the officers concerned) orients itself makes the difference between a violent conflict and a win win situation...It's the theme that Raigarh district offered lots of insights into.. .The theme of Industrial Disputes^*1…

Raigarh: an Industrial (Dispute?) district 

When the people, as a collective, have grudges and misgivings against an industry that’s setup in their backyard they often resort to a confrontationist mode wherein obstruction to the industry’s operations is the usual first step.

This is also a pre-conceived methodology to involve the district administration, as any such obstruction is bound to be illegal and is usually accompanied with acts of violence against persons and properties.

In my one year's Raigarh stint, I handled 1 such long drawn dispute as the concerned Tehsildar, 3 more as the concerned SDM and a few others  I witnessed as Assistant Collector. Two of them were against public sector companies, the rest against large private firms. Almost every dispute had land losers in the forefront and in all the disputes employment to the locals was one of the key demands. The cries of "company management" being irresponsive to justify the coercive step were also common to all. 

Every industrial dispute has a core of either a genuine grudge or a deep reaching misconception; this usually forms the bulk of the demands that are projected to the people (and most importantly, the media).

Outside the core, the bulk of a dispute is created and governed by commercial-political interests. The triggering factor for a dispute is usually an astonishingly small action by the company (eg. Firing a few local contractors for Non-performance or not yielding to demands of villagers for a special bathing tank)

The usual way to deal with such situations is to first address the triggering factors. Since these are the easiest for the company to commit to, with little administrative pressure the protestors' genuine immediate demands can be acceded to.

The second step is to focus on the other persistent set of demands and separate the genuine grudges from the artificial ones; the leaders of such protests are usually seeking to push in one of their personal agenda in the garb of public demand, it becomes important to separate these threads.

The next step is to analyse what kind of commitment can be legally extracted from the company regarding the genuine concerns and meeting common ground on the same.

The final step is to tell the free riders and nuisance creators, who have by now hijacked the negotiation and the protests, to back off and let the company do its work as it won’t be able to share its profits till it makes it. Needless to say, all these steps are to be kept completely transparent and at no point should the fairness of the governmental authority be made questionable.

This algorithm has stood the test of time (only a year, and still evolving) for me and has created a win-win situation for the aggrieved villagers/land losers and the company. Yet each such dispute throws its own idiosyncrasy that makes for a nice story ... It is these unique experiences that compelled me to write this post.

*1 – “Industrial Disputes”, for the purpose of this blog post, refers to any law and order situation centring an industrial unit

Cartelisation using Government Mediation

A unique industrial dispute started in the supply chain of a prominent mining public sector company in Raigarh. The transporters of raw material went on protests against entry of "outsiders" in the transporting business. Things took a nasty turn when they started obstructing supplies (through voluntary and coerced support from fellow transporters) and sought administrative intervention/ mediation to pressurise the concerned company to not give business to those "outsiders".

Despite the precedents that mildly supported their demand for administrative intervention, such issues were left up to the company to decide.

The administration has no mandate to decide who is "outsider", given the fact that those protesting were all first generation Chhattisgarh migrants. Notwithstanding the protestors ' efforts to involve some "Professional Agitators"^*2, common sense prevailed and it died its natural death. After all, commercial vested interests alone cannot carry out an agitation if the administration and police are fair and non- partisan.

*2 - “Professional Agitators” refers to people who earn their living out of protests and demonstrations. Raigarh, being an industrial district, has dozens of them. They can be found in every drama involving any industry, their noise volumes being inversely proportional to how well they are "managed" by the concerned entity)

The Land Scam and the Clean Up

 Another idiosyncrasy was shown by a Maha-Ratna public sector company wherein the hundreds of hectares of land that it acquired were done in a way to cost the company a few hundred crore rupees extra. It was done through what we later found out to be a major land scam that involved company officials as well as lower levels of revenue administration.

The land losers who actively participated in the scam were rewarded many folds and so were the brokers.  When the district administration took cognizance of the misdeeds and worked overtime to reverse the damage done by conducting a thorough investigation, the commercial interests of many were hit. 

The resulting protests were started in the garb of developmental issues yet the root cause (which they were foolish enough to mention in writing) was the investigation into the land scam. They wanted immediate call back of the same. Normally protests like these, with no moral authority whatsoever, don’t deter companies.

However the fact that arguably every employee of the concerned company itself took active/passive part in the scam, made the company management's own moral position dicey. 

Political Hijacking Eventual Fizzling

The dispute that touched me the most was built around the most genuine concern of all- employment of one family member of a land loser to be given by the company which acquired its land within 2 years of taking possession.

As discussed before, its triggering factor was alleged firing of 25 land loser employees by the company management without giving due reason.

However the company had nearly 190 such land losers and it had given employment to only 45. I found the dispute to be a meaningful opportunity for the administration to make the company commit to employing all the 190 odd people. 

To cut a long story short, the issue soon saw involvement of the "professional agitators", active honourable political post holders and even wannabe youth leaders. With the effect that genuine and artificial issues got mixed up to an extent that was irreparable (who would teach the difference between legal mandate and a moral mandate to an emotive crowd of 300 odd people stuffed in a meeting hall?).

I felt let down because just when the company was made to came forward to give everything that it could, the "public mood" shifted to the more short term and impossible demands, leading to an entire change of focus and an amorphous end of the agitations.

Dramas and Disputes

Agreed, a lot of it is drama. 

Agreed, the front actors are usually crooks. 

Agreed, the commercial vested interest dominates the negotiations.

Yet, when I visited the villages that were affected by the concerned companies, there was a genuine grievance that I could sense in the quietest individuals. Who would usually be standing on the side lines with a perplexed  look  while the "leaders" demanded and approach me at the end with folded hands and a withered piece of paper, asking for a perfectly legal claim which should have been theirs months ago.

It always made one ask, yes we can solve these dramatic problems but why give a chance for the genuine grudge to arise?

In today's date, land matters the most. Hence our policies pertaining to its acquisition and rehabilitation matter. What matters more is their implementation - land scams during acquisition and percolation of land brokers that rob the real owners off their rehabilitation rights needs to be stopped.

District administration in Raigarh has taken suo motu cognizance of illegal land transfers and passed orders of revenue recovery in the tune of tens of crores. All the SDMs are being instructed to conduct gram sabhas in areas where land is going to be acquired in near future so as to make people aware of the rehabilitation benefits and in turn deter the land mafia that acts on the information asymmetry. I hope this trend continues here and elsewhere.

I have learnt from my mentor over the last year that a rich man in India will get its work done through the government through one way or another, it's the poor that we (in the IAS) need to proactively work for. In these Industrial disputes where the rich were pitted against the poorest, the side the Government (or I) was on was never in question. Instead of treating the protestors as criminal breachers of peace, we treated them like aware citizenry whose lawful demands we will ensure to meet.

These disputes provided an opportunity for me to negotiate on the behalf of those who would otherwise just hope to be heard and let go. I, like all the other anonymous bureaucrats, will soon be forgotten forever, yet the warmth/appreciation I felt from the genuine protestors and the memory of their contentment on being heard and addressed to, are going to stay with me..

PS: A Demi- Official obituary to Raigarh stint might still follow ;-) 

PPS: All views expressed here are purely personal and have no connection with those of the Government. This post has been carefully modified to fit into the ambit of freedom of speech permitted to officers under the Rule 6 and Rule 7 of All India Service (Conduct) Rules, 1968.