Is it poetic justice for the Tata Nano project to get booed out of West Bengal?
India suspended its property rights (part of fundamental rights and therefore right to life perhaps) a long time ago. The convoluted rent laws ensure that the owner and his progeny can never get back their property if the tenant and his progeny so desire. The government can acquire property (usually land from poor people) for any reason (not only roads, ports or defence), pay peanuts and get away with it. The Tata Nano project was a cronie venture between a communist state government and a high priest of private capital, the Tata group. The communist government would loot land from poor farmers and give it to their rich capitalist friends….of course all in the name of public good. Tata could have put up the project anywhere, but the land was being given cheap here, besides cheap labour in an educated population, so they greedily plumped for it. The fundamental question is why should a normal business project have to use the goverment’s blessings to buy assets which can be freely sour
