exempt projects related to defence, rural housing and power, along with industrial corridors, from the requirement that 80 percent of the affected landowners must agree to a sale.
It also does away with the need for a “social impact assessment” to find out how many people would be affected by the loss of land. The BJP says these rules are restrictive and deter the investment needed to fuel India’s growth.
“To be able to push the manufacturing sector, you need land,” party spokesman G.V.L. Narasimha Rao told AFP.
“And that land can come only from the existing land available... Industries can’t come up in (a) vacuum.”
Critics, however, say India’s development should not come at the cost of its poorest.
“The government thinks it owns the resources. This is wrong,” said Sanjay Parikh, an expert on land and environmental laws.
“Resources ultimately belong to the people. The land must remain with the farmers.”
Modi recently used his monthly radio show to appeal to farmers not to oppose the bill, repeatedly assuring them that acquiring their land would be a “last resort”.
But the unpopular bill has given a boost to the ailing Congress party, whose vice-president Rahul Gandhi this week returned from a sabbatical of nearly two months to lead Sunday’s protest.
Bhupender Rawat, from the non-profit National Alliance for People’s Movements, believes the land bill could inflict serious political damage on the BJP government.
“Farmers are not fools, they can see what Modi is trying to do,” he told AFP.
“Modi has been going abroad and telling investors: ‘Come to India, we will give you cheap land and labour’.
The farmers are feeling cheated, and rightly so.”
Many have good reason to be sceptical about the government’s assurances.
Baljeet Singh, another Kanjhawla farmer, said the government forcibly acquired the deeds to his land in 2005, but had yet to take possession of it or provide adequate compensation.
“We thought Modi’s government would address our problems, that is why we voted for him. But look what he is doing. We will not back him again,” said the 70-year-old as he smoked a hookah pipe.