Land pooling policy: Back to the drawing board for Punjab govt

PUSHED to the brink, the Punjab government has withdrawn its contentious land pooling policy. The writing was on the wall after the Punjab and Haryana High Court ordered an interim stay on the policy last week. As Opposition parties and farmer organisations stepped up protests, the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) did a U-turn in a bid to prevent the situation from spinning out of control. With barely a year and a half to go for the Assembly elections, AAP just could not afford to upset the state’s farming community, a key vote bank that doesn’t shy away from confronting the powers that be in Chandigarh or Delhi.

At the outset, the Bhagwant Mann government had claimed that the policy was ‘farmer-friendly’ and meant for planned as well as sustainable urban development. However, the assurance that it was a voluntary scheme and there would be no forcible acquisition of land failed to allay the doubts and fears of landowners. The impression gained ground that Punjab’s fertile land was being handed over to land sharks with the government’s support. Questions were also raised about the hasty notification of the policy without conducting an assessment to gauge its social and environmental impact.

Mann should have drawn a lesson from the fiasco of the three Central farm laws. Dubbed as ‘pro-farmer’ by the Modi dispensation, the laws had been opposed tooth and nail by farmers from North India, particularly Punjab. They were repealed after a year-long agitation that claimed the lives of over 700 protesters. The saving grace for AAP is that it did not defend the indefensible for too long. The way forward should be to take all stakeholders on board before framing any land-related policy. Despite its climbdown, it will be tough for AAP to regain the trust of Punjab’s farmers, even as the Opposition seems to have wrested the initiative this time. The state government has its work cut out amid kisan unions’ grouse that it has not done enough to press the Centre over their key demands, including a legal guarantee for MSP.

Editorials