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This chapter narrates brief case histories of four of the most contentious and widely-reported land acquisition disputes: Nandigram, Singur, Maha Mumbai, and Vedanta. The purpose is to get past the vast amounts of misinformation and motivated information generated by agents in the acquisition process and identify the key events, actors, and themes. The focus is to understand the roles played by the new agents in acquisition: civil society organizations and political parties. The chapter concludes with a discussion of a paradox (that the most serious conflicts are over private-sector projects though it is the state that is responsible for the overwhelming majority of land acquisition and displacement) and a policy (the Special Economic Zone [SEZ] policy that was the likely catalyst for turning simmering discontent into widespread conflict).

Chapter 5 describes how the Left upped the ante following the announcement of the Indo-US bilateral 123 agreement and successfully prevented the UPA from moving forward with the agreement until November 2007. A key question arises as to why the Left suddenly turned around to allow the UPA to proceed with the nuclear deal in mid-November 2007. The chapter delves into the political situation in the Left’s bastion of West Bengal during the September–November period and shows how the fear of adverse political fallout from a botched up police operation to resolve a festering land acquisition conflict in Nandigram ahead of crucial village body elections caused the Left to reverse course on the nuclear deal. The evidence indicates that the Left’s concession was only temporary and was designed to prevent an alliance between the Congress and the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC), the Left’s regional rival ahead of village body elections.

The political scene of West Bengal has witnessed a distinct wave of Paribartan (change) since the closing period of the last decade. Beginning with the 15th Lok Sabha Election 2009 followed by the state Assembly Election in 2011, the gradual ascendance of the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) in the political centre stage of West Bengal has ended the more than thirty years of continued rule of the Left Front (LF) spearheaded by the Communist Party of India (Marxist). This chapter attempts to analyse the socio-political determinants of such a turnaround, exploring the social base of the LF and scrutinizing the policies of the LF government. The analysis shows that the LF, increasingly detached from its ideological standpoint, has undertaken certain policies which have contributed to the erosion of its much proclaimed social constituency. Finally, an effort has been made to locate the possible implications and concerns for democracy and democratic institutions in India.

This chapter analyses key differences in how the state governments of West Bengal and Orissa have gone about implementing India’s SEZ policy, the nature and outcome of anti-SEZ movements in these two states, and the policy revisions that each state has chosen to pursue. In particular, the chapter seeks to explain why protestors succeeded in thwarting the establishment of a chemical-sector SEZ in Nandigram, West Bengal, while activists opposing the POSCO iron-and-steel SEZ in Orissa had been unable to do so. It is tempting to attribute these differential outcomes to developmental difference or the relative endowments of civil society in the two states. This chapter argues, however, that the divergent results may reflect two fundamental political differences between West Bengal and Orissa: the responsiveness of their respective state governments to protest movements, and the patterns of party competition around which democratic competition is structured.

The epic journey of the Land Acquisition Act, 2013 is the subject matter of this chapter. The chapter traces the travails of the 1894 Act through the various challenges including the Narmada Bachao agitation and various SEZ acquisitions in the early 2000s till the four separate and more recent agitations that set the stage for work on new legislation—Nandigram and Singur in West Bengal, Maha Mumbai SEZ in Maharashtra and POSCO acquisition in Odisha. The UPA’s 2004 Rehabilitation and Resettlement (R&R) policy was revised in a 2007 Bill, largely as per NAC recommendations, that however lapsed in 2009. During UPA-II, fresh trouble erupted in Bhatta Parsaul in UP and the government elevated Jairam Ramesh to fast pace the passage of the new law. After much contentious negotiation the Act came into being in 2013. The movement reflects a combination of Punctuated Equilibrium Framework and Advocacy Coalition Framework.