SEZ who?

Another day, another Special Economic Zone, another predictable pun - "Govt SEZ this is a sustainable business model" etc. This week, 14 villagers were killed in West Bengal (and we all know about government estimates... its probably four times that number) and thousands of women and children sustained bullet wounds.
No this isn't another rant against the government, nor is it a rant against corporates.
But I do maintain that India, in all its haste to become a global superpower, shouldn't compromise on core values.
Everyone I ask today about the SEZ issue, has something to say. "Its all for Economic Progress", or "Do you have a better solution?" or one govt. official said, "You don't focus on that, you focus on the number of jobs the SEZ will be creating".
They are all good arguments. Yes, economic progress is essential, because at the end of the day, it is only by progressing further that the people are going to benefit. Fine, the rich may get obscenely richer, but eventually, the benefits will trickle down, albeit in depressingly small drops. Every little helps.
The second point about whether or not I have a better solution is easily answered. Yes I do. Relocate the people. Give them market prices for their land, and find them jobs that renumerate at least as much as what they were getting before you turned up at their doorstep and told them to bugger off within 15 days. Let half the expenses of this process be born by the companies who would are being allotted that land, let the other half be born by the cream of Indian society who will indirectly benefit from the SEZ (suppliers, customers for the product, etc.) If these companies object and decide not to invest in India as a result of these conditions, then fine. They can bugger off to some other country where people don't mind people being treated like shit.
And the third point, is the most compelling argument. The number of jobs the SEZ creates. Lets take the Nokia factory for example. Today it employs four thousand people. Apart from that, after it has been set up, a lot of component suppliers have set up shop there, creating at least another four thousand jobs, if not more.
Maybe the 210 acres over which the factory has set up dislocated about 200 people (I don't know the actual number, it may be none at all, or it may be 5000). Haven't they more than made up for that by supplying 4000 direct and another 10000 indirect jobs?
I personally don't think so. I don't think its alright to dislocate 200 people and not compensate them adequately, even if you're creating twice as many jobs. That is like saying, I've saved the lives of a hundred people, surely i have the right to kill a few, even of they don't deserve it? The life and livelihood of people cannot be put on a balance sheet, in my opinion.

Everyone quotes China as a shining example as a country that has benefited from the SEZ model, but it only worked there because of the ruthlessness of the government, handing out eviction notices like pamphlets.
I feel that India shouldn't emulate this.
I believe - and this may sound a bit abstract, but stick with me - that it is not a sustainable business model. And I don't mean over 10 years or 20 or even 50 years - I mean over the ages. If you look at the great empires of the world - Rome, Britain, and now America, they are all empires that were watered by the blood of the people, and they are two powers that have waned, and one power that is waning.
Ill take the American example. It protects the rights of its people, it has one of the most flexible - and therefore effective - constitutions, and a fabulous economic system. Within U.S. of course. Outside of that, it has ignored all the dictums of the United Nations, butchered and pillaged oil rich nations (it comes to that, end of the day) and bullied every nation that it hasn't brutalised. The same rules that protect its people are completely abandoned when applied to foreign nationals (guantanamo bay, for example).
And lets not forget its agricultural economy was originally built on slavery.
And now it has a come a full circle, the nations that it bullied over the years are starting to get restless - just as it happened for UK, and just as it happened for Rome, and eventually, the downfall. Inevitable.
China, if, or rather, when, it becomes a superpower, could face an even bigger problem. Internal revolution. It has suppressed its people - especially its women - over the years in order to achieve the most out of them, and we haven't even begun talking about its foreign policy (remember Tibet?). China, for me, is a stick of dynamite - the fuse wire is very very long... it may be years before it explodes, but I think it will.
India is at the crossroads. We can sacrifice everything for economic progress, or we can build a sustainable - in every sense of the word - economy.
For that, we need to progress with caution, without taking away people's fundamental rights. In doing that, we may not catch up with China (since when did it become a competition, btw? aren't we all human beings who want a decent standard of life) anytime soon, and we may not become an instant superpower. But we will be a sustainable economy.

Anyways, out of the distant realms of the glorious future, to the present. I really think the issue of relocation is one of the biggest we are faced with. Every time the government says GDP growth is at 9%, there is an article on agitations against land allotment to counterbalance it. It's on a knife edge.

But there are some positive signs - the Tamil Nadu Government has disallowed the allotment of agricultural land, for which I salute them.
Of course, it means our airport modernisation project has been delayed yet again!
We may not have an airport like the one in Singapore or even Kuala Lumpur! Rich people have to sweat it out on the outside, or wait for 20 more minutes for land clearance... or worst of all, people who come from 'foreign' may get a bad impression of India.
Big fucking deal, if you ask me.
On the other hand, we have some hope that 'progress' doesn't mean that some people have to abandon their land, which they probably had for generations and become construction labourers, working in poor conditions, with inadequate safety regulations, and living a life they don't understand.