Modi Govt faces challenge of reassuring rural opinion on Land Bill

The Congress sold UPA's 2013 land acquisition law, telling farmers their land could no longer be taken away without their consent, as was happening since the British enacted the 1894 Act. And it is panning PM Narendra Modi's Act underlining that land can again be acquired irrespective of owners' wishes. Eager to push the legislation stuck in Parliament for over seven months, Modi's challenge lies in allaying fears that the 2015 law sets India back to 1894. And, that has made the political management of the controversial law a hot-button issue.

What makes it politically touchy is its potential as a weapon to mobilize, given the target constituency of a vast rural populace with special sensitivity for land.

Congress has played its cards shrewdly since Modi embarked on liberalizing the 2013 law to make acquisitions business-friendly. By raising the pitch over removal of the 'consent clause' and 'social-impact assessment', the party sought to paint the proposed legislation anti-farmer and politically risky for those wanting to support it.

The results are evident from the wide array of the political class ranged against the law, with even BJP allies seeking cover with pro-forma protests. As the LS showed, only BJP MPs were left to defend the law as an industrializing, job-creating venture.

In essence, it is a clash of conflicting visions. Modi is confident easier acquisitions would take job-intensive industries to rural India and help farmers crying under the oppressive weight of fragmenting landholdings and unprofitable agriculture. He has cited demands for amendment from Congress CMs to undercut the offensive of their party.

But Congress argues it's just as reformist in character as BJP but land is an "inexhaustible" asset which cannot be replaced by money, and which an owner should have complete right over. "Buy land, why acquire?" is its mantra.

For Modi, a tireless campaigner with popular appeal, the task is to convince the rural population about the law's virtues. The fresh spin of Modi's ministers and organizational managers that "not an inch of land would be acquired to favour private industries and taken primarily for hospitals, irrigation, schools" has met with scepticism but is a political tack worth a try.?