The Devil in the Details: SEZs and State Restructuring in India Anant Maringanti National University of Singapore group of middle class activists organized under the banner of Goa Bachao Andolan (Save Goa Campaign) succeeded in forcing the Government of Goa, a small western Indian state, to rescind all SEZ proposals. 3 As SEZs appear set to become fash points for conficts between rural poor and state administrations both the Central and the State governments are attempting to tweak the antiquated Land Acquisition Act 1894 to minimize the state’s coercive role, while at the same time developing more attractive relief and rehabilitation packages for displaced populations. As India emerges as a competitor to China in the global economy, these developments have attracted the attention of economists and policy analysts. However, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the political implications of these militant oppositions to SEZs. It was the nature of this terrain and the challenges that it poses for activists, researchers, political parties and policy makers that came into sharp focus at a one-day conference in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India on March 11 th , 2008. The conference calling for repeal of the Special Economic Zones Act 2005 of Government of India was organized by the Andhra Pradesh Human Rights Forum. 4 It had three main components: (1) a critique of SEZs as national policy by activist researchers; (2) testimonies by activists in Andhra Pradesh, the state with the second highest number of proposed Special Economic Zones in India; and (3) delineating the strategies of the successful campaign in Goa. The goal of this review is to place the common thread running through all three – ‘displacement and land acquisition’ -- in the broader context of the experience of state restructuring andigram is a cluster of villages in West Bengal, India. The area attracted world media’s attention in March 2007 when the local administration attempted to force their way in to villages from which they had been expelled three months earlier. Organized by a local alliance of political parties, Muslim clerics and Civil Liberties activists, under the banner of Bhumi Ucched Pratirodh Committee (Anti Land Acquisition Committee), hundreds of subsistence and marginal farmers had dug up the roads leading to the village and barricaded themselves inside. The villagers resorted to these extreme measures as a protest against a government proposal to acquire land for a planned petrochemical hub. 1 The resultant standoff between the Left Front-led government and the villagers lasted 10 months. Intermittent skirmishes between supporters and opponents of the proposed project, and police and Communist cadres’ organized assaults on the villages to retake control, resulted in the death of scores of villagers. 2 The government and the ruling party managed through concerted action to retake control in November 2007, but the victory was pyrrhic. The Government of West Bengal has had to publicly undertake to abandon the proposed land acquisition, while the Left Front which exercised some restraint on the centrist Indian National Congress Party, is now on much weaker grounds. Nandigram is merely the most dramatic manifestation of opposition to India’s latest stratagem for rapid economic growth – creation of hundreds of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) all over the country. Protests against SEZs are reported from other states as well -- Haryana, Maharashtra, Orissa and Karnataka topping the list. Earlier this year, a small but committed N 1 For a detailed timeline up to the beginning of the protests See http:// www.telegraphindia.com/1070117/asp/bengal/story_7273023.asp and for a fact fnding report by an independent citizens group see http:// sanhati.com/news/519/ 2 While accusations and counter accusations continued through out the year between the disputing parties, it is diffcult to determine the exact number of deaths. State offcials reportedly put the death toll over 11 months was put at 32 in mid November, according to India Abroad News