Masters of mankind: Negotiations,local powers and assessments for land acquisition for industrialisation in West Bengal

Introduction

Land acquisitions for industrialisation are considered one of the most dividing socio-political phenomena in the modern world (Borras and Franco, 2012; Bunkus and Theesfeld, 2019; Chakravorty, 2013; Pellissery and Dey Biswas, 2012). Around the world, state governments continue to facilitate large-scale land acquisitions actively or passively. Resistance against arbitrary land acquisition is also growing throughout the world. Many studies have extensively documented (in)famous land acquisition cases, including but not restricted to social, cultural, ecological and economic consequences. Studies focusing on opposition to expropriation have uncovered the underlying reasons driving both individuals whose land has been expropriated to rebel and the broader population, extending beyond property rights holders, to mobilise against expropriation. These anti-land acquisition movements have warned us not to apply an “exclusionary” understanding of private property in the land but rather to view it as shared property of society (Needham et al., 2018). For the dispossessed, land has plural values and plural meanings (Dey Biswas, 2020a, 2020b, 2020c). Supported by the state laws and the enormous power that exclusionary private property rights convey, private property owners at the grassroots level play an enormous role in the success or the failure of an arbitrary expropriation.

Individuals or groups with such enormous power influence the social, political and procedural policies applied or in practice during an expropriation process. Elites often possess the ability to manipulate laws, and the institutional foundations play a pivotal role in shaping the diverse results of grassroots mobilisation efforts aimed at countering such elite manipulation, which can extend to the justice system (See Franco, 2008 for Philippines; Strezhnev et al., 2019 for United States, Australia and India; Pistor, 2019 for asset, value and particularly property in land laws (p. 23–47); Holston (1991) for land laws and litigation in Brazil). The power, influence and tendency of the elites in a given society are timeless (via a group of core institutions of private law, contract, property, collateral, trust, corporate, and bankruptcy law; Pistor, 2019) and tend to imitate Smith’s understanding of the masters of mankind. Among the many ways in which the wealthy class exerts influence locally is via manipulation of the “assessment” process (Enríquez-de-Salamanca, 2018). This assessment process includes the social, economic and ecological impact of an expropriation. As the states heavily depend on the results of the assessment process, the property owners hold the key to expropriation approval.

The power of the propertied class was central to the writing of Enlightenment philosophers. In the 18th century, Adam Smith, the father of modern economics, observed the power of existing capitalists (property owners/merchants) on economy and land issues. While describing the feudal relationships between lord and serf, Smith observed, “All for ourselves and nothing for other people seems ... have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.” Even though centuries have passed and in India, the relationship between property owners and sharecroppers does not follow the typical exploitative condition of 18th-century serfdom, the “masters of mankind” or ‘master of universe’ sentiment continues to be a philosophy of the propertied class. The power of legal ownership encourages property owners to imitate what Adam Smith called “the vile maxim of the masters of mankind”.

In this paper, I investigate the role of the “power” of the propertied class in manipulating impact assessments in practice as an imitation of the vile maxim. As if the principles that constitute the maxim are also applied during impact assessment in practice (henceforth assessment in practice). I empirically test this assumption with the two land acquisition cases, i.e. Salboni and Singur, West Bengal, India. The empirical data was collected between December 2016 and June 2017. It includes ethnographic and qualitative data from the case study areas and interviews with stakeholders at the state level. To further explore the scope and the limitations of the ethnographic part of the research, please explore Dey Biswas (2023).

The paper is divided into four sections. After the introduction, the second section explores the theoretical foundation of the vile maxim of the masters of the universe, its theoretical assumptions, and the methodological choices it makes. The third section details the empirical context, and the last section presents the conclusion of the paper.

Masters of mankind

Smith’s seminal book The Nature and The Causes of The Wealth of The Nations, hence forth WN (1776/1981), discusses the foundations of political economy. Smith is a dedicated humanist and a crude classical liberal to others. Smith did not just offer insights into how political-economic systems operate and their flaws; he frequently provided guidance on ways to enhance them. Smith was impressed by the importance of town commerce to the development of the country (ibid, p. 411). He identified three possible ways in which the wealth and improvements generated by the towns contribute to the improvement in the cultivation in the rural areas.

Firstly, the towns provide the market for crude agricultural products, thus encouraging farming and improvements in farming. The existence of such markets benefits not only the producing villages but also other villages where the producing villages have business dealings. As a result, these associated villages benefit from the market links. Crude products can be transported cheaply to the towns, and the merchants of the towns are happy to pay producers more. Secondly, the wealth generated by the people of the towns, mainly the merchants, is used to buy often less-utilised land in the rural areas. The business community, driven by their aspiration to achieve a higher economic status or to be called “gentlemen”, put in their utmost effort to enhance the land and transform it into a profitable enterprise. Also, the constant interest in profit-making contributes to developing profitable projects and further developing rural areas.

Thirdly, manufacturing and business contribute to order and better government, which in turn leads to liberty and security for the people (ibid, p. 412). At the same time, this expectation or assumption could not find empirical support when Smith explored the demise of feudal government in Spain and Portugal. He observed that the new system is not creating anything better (ibid, I.xi.n. x & ibid 412 footnote 4). The new forms of government were found to be more successful in ensuring liberty in society (ibid, footnote 4). Given Smith’s inability to furnish a concrete instance wherein this liberty yielded fresh models of governance, one might infer that this concept was more of an anticipation held by Smith and his peers rather than a tangible reality (ibid, footnote p. 412). In this context, Smith touched upon the relation between the power of the superior and the dependence. The merchants tend to command more surplus wealth when used to sustain people or the loyalty of army men in the case of a king (LJ (B) zt, 5I, I59, ed. Carman x6, 35, H6; or WN, 1776/1981 p. 413). Does the principle which buys loyalties for merchants from the towns and kings also apply to rural elites (we come to that later)? Smith saw that more farmers “… consumed the produce of the land, as the price of their subordination, not as the reward of their industry in making it produce” (p. 141; Principles, i. 240, ed. Skinner i. 208).

The supreme owners and authority of the land, the Kings, turned out to be less powerful than the immediate retainers or landlords who were the masters over the farmers and producers of the land (LJ (A) i. 128 and LJ (B) 51). Smith did not believe such practices directly resulted from the feudal laws at the time. Instead, he believed that they may have been enacted in order to temper the eminent authority of a wealthy class. Feudal laws formalised the rights and duties of the Kings to even the smallest property owners. It strengthened the authority of the kings but failed to improve governance “because it could not alter sufficiently that state of property and manners from which the disorders arose” (1776/1981: p. 417). Weak heads of state and strong local lords continued to govern but failed to control the power and violent tendencies of the locals. Even though the violence and uninvited wars and conflicts started by the local lords continued, commerce continued to flourish (1776/1981: p. 418). The business communities reaped the benefits and applied the ‘vile maxim of the master of mankind’.

All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind. As soon, therefore, as they could find a method of consuming the whole value of their rents themselves, they had no disposition to share them with any other persons (p. 418).

By abandoning directly retaining subordinates like the feudal propertied class, the new propertied class found a new purpose for their surplus wealth created by commerce with faraway places. With the facilitation of commerce and consumption of high-priced commodities, merchants and manufacturers could support more people in society than otherwise. This new socio-economic class developed land, and tenants, in turn, maintained skilled producers. When the new class spends something, the expense travels farther than the feudal class. With this newly developed mechanism of wealth and power, they became the masters of mankind by sustaining more people than feudal lords. These masters of mankind were not always super-rich merchants but people with small or big properties who wished to improve upon their properties and exert direct influence on the economy (1776/1981 p. 423). Soon, these groups of people gained more power than kings and merchants. They are known as “the masters of the universe” in modern times. These masters of mankind or the universe played an active role in safeguarding their interests in the case study areas during the assessment of the project, land acquisition and award of compensation in practice. With the two land acquisition case study areas, this paper attempts to capture the power of the masters in the assessment process.

With this background, I have considered two land expropriation case studies located in West Bengal state in India, Salboni (22. 57°. N 87. 30°. E) and Singur (22. 84°. N 88. 21°. E) as a source of empirical data. Land acquisition in these two cases has produced strikingly opposite outcomes, even when the exact assessment mechanisms were applied via the Land Acquisition Act 1894. In the case of Singur, an anti-land acquisition movement ended with TATA’s aim to build the world’s cheapest car (details of Singur case in Nielsen, 2018). In the case of Salboni, the land assessment and acquisition at the state and local levels received positive support. JSW (Jindal South West) company, for which the state acquired the land, awarded a special compensation package to the affected population and state-provided regular compensation. These two cases were selected because they are located in a similar socio-cultural and political context and have produced entirely different post-land acquisition outcomes. These selection criteria have allowed me to theoretically exclude all other factors and explore the link between the masters of mankind and manipulated assessment. The selection of cases enabled me to exclude all other factors and then isolate and study the “assessment” process (Flyvbjerg, 2006).

I gathered data over 8 months, from November 2016 to June 2017, by residing on-site to gain a richer ethnographic understanding of the cases at hand. I have been in direct conversation with the participants using a two-pronged approach: I first conducted in-depth one-on-one interviews that typically span one to 2 hours with 15 individuals who had experienced land expropriation. Secondly, I also engaged in in-depth one-on-one interviews of similar duration with stakeholders, comprising 15 representatives from each of the chosen cases, namely Salboni and Singur (See Table 1). The sample is representative of population distribution from different caste groups (Scheduled Caste & Scheduled Tribe and Unreserved Category). Half of the participants for the interviews were men, and the rest were female (no claimed third-gender participants). ¹ These stakeholders represented a diverse range, including government officials, local political representatives, industry members, and others involved in the expropriation process. This segment yielded a comprehensive dataset from 60 one-on-one interviews, each lasting 60 to 120 min.

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Table 1.

Composition of participants: Individual interviews.

Sl no	Category	Male	Female	Total
1	Sample size	30	30	60
2	Salboni	15	15	30
3	Singur	15	15	30
4	SC (Scheduled caste)	10	10	20
5	ST (Scheduled tribe)	4	4	8
6	Subject to expropriation	15	15	30
7	Stakeholders	15	15	30
8	Representatives of industry	3	2	5
9	Political representatives	5	5	10
10	Public servants	5	5	10
11	Civil society	2	3	5

In addition to these individual interviews, I had initially planned for four Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) based on the data collection design (from each case study area, one with the individuals whose land was expropriated and one with the stakeholder, including ordinary citizens and state officials). However, I ended up conducting six FGDs. The deviation from the initial plan was due to some hesitance observed among the district and community government officials and rural community members when it came to sharing their opinions in a group setting. Therefore, I had to conduct separate FGDs with the government officials for each case study area (see Table 2 for more details).

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Table 2.

Composition of participants: Focus group discussions.

Sl no	Category	Salboni	Singur	Total
1	Number of focus group discussion (FGDs)	3	3	6
2	No of FGDs with individuals whose land was expropriated	1	1	2
3	No of FGDs with the stakeholder	1	1	2
4	No of FGDs with government officials	1	1	2
5	SC (Scheduled tribe)	18	12	20
6	Subject to expropriation	16	20	28
7	Stakeholders	12	8	20
8	Representatives of industry	0	0	0
9	Political representatives	14	14	28
10	Public servants	8	13	21
11	Civil society	3	7	10

These FGDs were strategically conducted at the end of each data collection phase at specific case study areas. This approach allowed for a deep understanding of the participants’ responses, which had been gathered during individual interviews. It also facilitated cross-examining the information obtained during these individual interviews within the group setting. Due to strong resistance, I could not maintain gender parity when selecting participants for the group discussion.

For participant selection in the individual interviews, I employed a multifaceted approach. This involved building rapport with community resource persons and implementing snowball sampling techniques, drawing participants from Upper Caste, Scheduled Caste, and Scheduled Tribe backgrounds. Efforts were made to maintain a balanced representation of higher and lower castes, gender, and age groups. By the conclusion of the interviews and FGDs, the data had reached a point of saturation, as indicated by the criteria outlined by Fusch and Ness (2015). The FGD guidelines followed the checklist developed by Hennink (2014: pp. 44–74). The FGDs fostered open debates, enabling participants to discuss and challenge each other’s ideas freely. This approach uncovered fresh perspectives and revealed differences not seen in individual interviews. It also exposed misconceptions shared during those interviews.

Throughout the investigative process, I deployed a meticulously crafted set of semi-structured, in-depth interview questions to elicit responses, which could later be categorised under various emerging themes, such as valuation, assessment, manipulation, and negotiation. I aimed to capture detailed descriptions and reflections on the lived experiences of the participants of the study (Rapley, 2004). In formulating questions, I remained attuned to Descartes’ recognition of the “creative aspect of language use” and its relevance to understanding everyday language. Additionally, I considered Chomsky’s insights into the innovative nature of language without inherent restrictions (Chomsky, 1982).

Responses to these inquiries often took the form of hypothetical scenarios, with participants framing their answers in the third person. For instance, “Suppose one wants to sell his land” was preferred over “When I wanted to sell my land.” This phenomenon can be contextualised as a figure of speech commonly employed in rural West Bengal, India, and was particularly relevant to explore land, caste, power and manipulated assessment.

The primary objective was to prompt respondents to reflect upon their responses and anchor them in social realities as much as possible. Maintaining confidentiality and anonymity was paramount, given the cultural and sensitive context surrounding the case study areas, which revolved around land acquisition-related conflicts. All the quoted names are pseudonyms (popular first names in West Bengal). I have collected the caste background of the participants of the study and used it in thematic analysis. The questions had to be asked in a non-threatening way, and therefore, instead of asking, “Did you manipulate the rule to get better compensation?” I asked, “Do you know someone who manipulated the rules? You do not have to tell me the name.” Such framing of questioning facilitates open discussions about controversial and astute negotiation techniques. In the follow-up questions, depending on the openness of the respondents, I asked more specific questions. Participants were often encouraged to imagine hypothetical situations related to land ownership, land deals, assessment, different role-playing (as state officials, industrialists and political leaders) and land acquisition processes. This approach fostered a safe space where participants felt comfortable describing and discussing such topics. Consequently, the respondents’ answers were shaped by their own experiences as well as those of others they had encountered throughout their lifetime. The scope and limitations of hypothetical questions and their applicability in different contexts and subjects were explored by Herskovits (1950) and Speer (2012). For the use of hypothetical situations in hypothetical stimulus–response research, readers can refer to Mikhail (2011).

Responses were further probed with “why” and “how” questions to ensure their grounding in reality and to mitigate imaginative or exaggerated responses (Sutton and Austin, 2015). In cases where respondents appeared to exaggerate, I either informed them of my extensive empirical experience in the region’s land issues or subtly conveyed scepticism about their answers. Responses that contradict established literature were cross-verified with multiple respondents. Because of the way questions were asked and answers were given figuratively, the responses may suggest that all participants were landowners; the selection process was designed to represent the diverse composition of the sample, ensuring a comprehensive exploration of the subject matter.

I conducted a thematic analysis of the transcribed data to understand how the vile maxim of the masters of mankind operates in assessment during expropriation (Mason, 2002). This involved categorising the data into main themes. I did not limit the analysis to predefined themes but allowed new issues to emerge from the interviews. My analytical process combined both inductive and deductive techniques, as described by Jevons (1871/1888), and Mayring (2000), but the overall framework was deductive, driven by theoretical thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006: p. 12).

The deductive aspect was guided by theoretical interests, aligning with the research’s theoretical and epistemological foundations. Meanwhile, the inductive approach allowed themes unrelated to specific interview questions to surface, akin to grounded theory (Braun and Clarke, 2006: p. 12). This dual approach aimed to avoid forcing data into preconceived codes.

During the investigation, unexpected sub-themes emerged, demonstrating the value of the inductive approach. Key research themes encompassed land relationships, land attributes, land value, valuation procedures, caste, power, assessment, treatment by bureaucracy, and defining adequacy. To capture the data’s essence, I employed two levels of coding. Initially, I used the broad themes as high-level codes, with sub-codes to capture details through emerging sub-themes. Importantly, I only used codes that organically arose from the data; if participants didn’t express a specific idea, no code was generated for it. For instance, under the code ‘Caste and Land,’ 22 participants mentioned that ‘Land is Power,’ while others did not. If there was no mention of ‘no’ indication regarding the relationship between land and power, no ‘no’ code was applied. This methodology demonstrates the interplay of inductive logic within a broad deductive thematic framework. To analyse the data, I used The R package for Qualitative Data Analysis, known as RQDA, which builds upon the R programming language developed by Huang (2016).

Being a native Bengali who was raised in West Bengal, belonging to a lower middle-class school teachers’ family, belonging to the upper caste but not the highest caste, whose ancestors were landlords (during the British period) and lost all land during the abolition of Zamindari system in India (before Operation Borga), I might have many biases like any other human being, and more so considering my background and the topic that I have investigated.

The biases are kept at bay with the help of extensive training and exposure to conducting qualitative and ethnographic work in India and Indonesia, 5 years of formal training in fieldwork activities in different parts of India, and 4 years of working in qualitative research before starting this project. During this research, I framed the qualitative interview and FGD guidelines, which were vetted by a group of scholars who were based in German and Indian universities. The German university’s internal regulation fulfilled the ethical parts of the interview questions. The interactions with the study participants were audio-recorded and transcribed. Two independent (thematic) coders vetted the transcription and thematic analysis to ensure that my coding was impartial. I tried to the best of my abilities to follow the time-tested and established methodology to reduce my personal biases during the framing process, planning methodology, execution, analysis and interpretation of data. On ethical aspects, I have managed to maintain the confidentiality and anonymity of the participants of the study (see earlier paragraphs on anonymity), maintain gender and caste parity in individual interviews, use a non-threatening approach in questioning and during discussion, and use hypothetical scenarios when complicated issues were discussed.

The empirical context

The influence of wealthy locals, along with caste, was often ignored in the literature on West Bengal’s socio-politics. It is assumed that the political revolution of the left parties in the 1970s in the state has made social identity-based discrimination meaningless. Similarly, the rural elite, mostly landlords or moneylenders, have lost their economic and political upper hand with the arrival of left parties in the state. The effective implementation of the “West Bengal Land Reform Act 1955” ensured that most landowners had more than specific areas, and the rest of the land belonged to the tiller. The apparent success of land reform in India has many caveats (Herring, 2008).

Agrarian land reforms in India trace their origins to the 1931 Karachi Resolution of the Indian National Congress, advocating “Land to the tiller and power to the people” (Herring, 1988). However, as India moved towards independence, regional variations in land reform policies became significant, impacting the caste-class power balance, a key driver of poverty alleviation across states (Appu, 1997; Trivedi, 2022; Singh, 2014). In policy circles, there was a shift from “peasantry” to “farmers” as the ideal. Peasantry implied social subordination, limited market involvement, and susceptibility to non-market exploitation, while farmers embodied a more empowered, market-oriented vision. These reforms aimed to rectify dependency relations incompatible with democracy (Herring, 2008). Ceiling limits on land holdings and tenancy abolition were mechanisms to reduce social control. The logic assumed limited land, the detriment of dependency, and the inefficiency of extensive land holdings in impoverished agriculture. Despite the merits of agrarian reform in growth and social justice, the “political impossibility theorem” often prevails, deeming it unfeasible. Land’s centrality in agrarian systems, coupled with complex power dynamics at all political levels, makes reform challenging.

With an apparent success in land reform (Bandyopadhyay, 2003; Bardhan et al., 2014; Basu, 2008; Hanstad and Nielsen, 2004), when documented by the Bengali intelligentsia, Bengal suffered from collective amnesia on the power of local and relatively less flashy brethren of the urban elite and the success of land reform (Mallick, 1992). The reforms, if not totally altered land, caste and the power of the rural elites in rural West Bengal, we cannot ignore the positive impact on the lives of the poorest of the poor (Harriss, 1993, 2013). The collective amnesia on the power of the “masters of mankind”, as Adam Smith termed it, did not escape completely unnoticed. Neale’s classic chapter, “Land is to Rule” (1979), demonstrates feudal control over land by a few. Neale argued that Englishmen were ready to trade in more power for money.

In contrast, pre-British Indians were interested in trading more money or goods for power (Neale, 1979: p. 8). After all, (hu)men with power can do anything, especially on matters of land and economic system which heavily relied on land (p. 15). Thorner (1956) found that post-colonial rural West Bengal has a feudalism termed ‘the depressor’. In simpler terms, ‘the depressor’ signifies a set of arrangements in agrarian society. These arrangements allowed landlords to profit by extracting rents, charging excessive interest, and making gains through speculative trading at the expense of the majority of peasants. This system not only discouraged investments in technological advancements that could enhance productivity but also ensured that poverty remained widespread and persistent.

Jairus Banaji (1977) contended that Indian agriculture had embraced capitalist elements long before the mid-twentieth century. This acknowledgement, however, did not negate the presence of ‘pre-capitalist’ forms of labour exploitation within the system. Simultaneously, scholars like Amit Bhaduri expanded upon concepts of agrarian relationships, drawing parallels with the work of Thorner (1956). Bhaduri’s work, particularly his 1973 theory of ‘semi-feudalism,’ offered a more robust theoretical foundation. This perspective strengthened the argument that power dynamics within the agrarian sector were obstructing the transition towards a more productive form of capitalist agriculture. Harriss (2013) researched land, caste and local power in India, particularly in West Bengal and concluded, ‘landed power remains a major factor in Indian politics and society.’

Later, scholars pointed out the power and wealth of the rural elite (Such as Ruud, 1999). Against these scholarly works, the prevailing public and popular discourse suggests that Bengali society stands out due to the absence of “masters of mankind” and caste discrimination. However, it was not until nearly two decades later that social scientists recognised the non-exceptional nature of Bengali society regarding caste issues (Chandra and Nielsen, 2012; Chandra et al., 2016). The Bengali intelligentsia also had to take notice of this fact again (Chatterjee, 2012).

In the post-colonial development in India, even when land redistribution was considered one of the proclaimed ideas of independent India, caste interplay with propertied wealth continued to hold roots in rural India (Srinivas, 1960). For West Bengal, Rudd (2003: p. 6) described how the power of caste and wealth operates in rural India. Rudd identified that even back in 1960, just after independence, a particular group of castes enjoyed a privileged position in society even with the emergence of electoral democracy. Although lower castes have a numerically large majority in a democracy, they have not been universally successful in electoral democracy. In many places, the former dominant caste group maintained its hegemony through new activities “from business to electoral politics”. As a result, village factions played an influential role in holding their groups together through patron-cline relationships, sometimes via “kinship or caste, credit or labour, or through the mere expectation of future patronage” (ibid).

The patron-client relationship in rural (West) Bengal is not exceptional. Clientelism is a universal phenomenon, and human society has practised it regardless of the place and the time. Scholars have often struggled with the definition of this term, let alone universally accept such a definition. Hicken (2011) has attempted to summarise the key elements of clientelist relationships as “dyadic relationships, contingency, hierarchy, and iteration” (Hicken, 2011: p. 290). As a result of Bengal’s caste system, which follows multiple production modes, such clientelist practices continue, and the masters of mankind continue to dominate socio-economics. Chandra et al. (2016) described these phenomena with different narratives. Whatever era or disciplinary lens is considered, a tiny minority of opulent people have exercised significant hegemony over the majority. This is a classic example that not only captures the power of the masters of mankind but also demonstrates ancient Aristotelian fear of democracy. ² In West Bengal, the dominant elite (as Chandra et al. describe them) or the masters of mankind (if we borrow Smith’s understanding of the world), employs several tactics on the macro level to ensure that lower caste individuals do not rise to power, authority and respect in society.

“A wide variety of governance strategies such as the stereotyping of lower castes and indigenous peoples, determining the settlement estimations of refugee populations from the east during and just after Partition, and their mastery of electoral strategies in independent India maintained their dominance” (Chandra et al., 2016: p. xii)

In Bengali society, such groups of people are considered ‘gentlemen’ or bhodrolok, and they have a common feature that they are very distant from manual work in their lives. This distance from manual work can be attributed to an undeclared caste practice, which was at some point stratified based on how close or far one lived from manual work. “Caste in West Bengal, … has overt and covert aspects. On the one hand, there is the obvious issue of upper-caste dominance in the domain of formal politics despite the sway of communism for over three decades. On the other hand, there are hidden, often insidious ways in which a modern caste society has flourished since colonial times and shaped academic, journalistic and popular understandings of Bengali society, culture, history, and politics” (Chandra et al., 2016: p. 1). These features of the society in West Bengal are quite visible in Nielsen’s extensive ethnographic study in Singur at the height of the anti-land acquisition movement (2018, 2019). Nielsen’s research on land acquisition inadvertently captured how caste and clientelism significantly shaped the anti-land acquisition movement and its trajectory.

Nielsen (2019) has captured how the caste and social capitals of the dominant caste or influential individuals (a.k.a. in Smithian terms, the masters of mankind) have attempted to manipulate the land acquisition process. In doing so, they have targeted Dalits, or formally untouchables, residing in Nadipapa, one area in Singur where land was acquired. Even within the anti-land acquisition movement, there was a clear caste-based hierarchy. As will be shown, in Singur, it was locally dominant owner-cultivators from intermediate caste backgrounds who were movement leaders. In contrast, landless Dalit labourers were largely absent from the leadership and relegated to “foot soldier” (ibid, p. 2). Thus, it is indicative of the power and exploitation (the vile maxim) of “locally dominant owner-cultivators from intermediate caste backgrounds” (ibid).

In the literature review provided, an endeavour is made to draw parallels between contemporary authors in post-independent India who often employ diverse languages, terminologies, and variables yet arrive at conclusions reminiscent of Adam Smith’s concept known as the “vile maxim of the masters of mankind,” even though Smith’s maxim was penned in the 18th century, in the same breath he claimed that it seems true “in every age of the world” (1776/1981: p. 418). This concept appears to persist, reflecting underlying principles that governed feudal England in a society where multiple modes of production coexist within the framework of the caste system (for a comprehensive understanding of multiple modes of production, see Kosambi, 1954).

Adam Smith’s significance in the modern world is well-established. For instance, Samuelson (1977) found vindication of Smith’s work in several fundamental economic theories, including but not restricted to demand-supply equilibrium. Bassiry and Jones (1993) claimed that Smith provides the best possible criticism (more appropriate than Marx’s) from a moral point of view about contemporary capitalism, considering the concentration of wealth and power in the contemporary world. Sen (2010) has harnessed Smith’s work to construct a “realisation-focused and comparative approach to evaluation.” Persky (1989) has reinterpreted Smith’s notion of the “invisible hand” to challenge the idea of libertarian economic equilibrium without external intervention. Chomsky (1993, 2017) has utilised Smith’s “vile maxim” to illustrate how contemporary trade agreements like NAFTA, which belong to the 21st century and not the 18th, are wielded by powerful entities to “keep the public ‘in its place’” (p. 412). Furthermore, Mazzucato (2019) has employed Smith’s ideas to frame the modern digital platform economy as “Digital Feudalism.”

For the Indian context, Thomas (2019) has demonstrated how Smith’s idea on ‘subsistence wages’ and education can potentially help India frame its public policy against uncontrolled market forces. Dey Biswas (2021) has demonstrated how the riches and poverty of those who demand dictate the value of land in terms of price. Similarly, with the help of empirical data, this paper seeks to forge a link between Smith’s concept of the “vile maxim” and the interplay of caste, land, wealth, loyalty, and manipulated assessment that favours the masters of mankind in rural West Bengal, India. This empirical investigation serves as a test case to determine whether Smith’s maxim applies to all human societies, much like his concepts of use value and exchange value and the division of labour, which were developed in the 18th century and applied in economics discipline without considerations of geography, race, or nation-state boundaries. Limitations arise because Smith’s analysis did not encompass the intricate caste system present in India and the subcontinent. Nevertheless, he delved into the dynamics of power, wealth, and exploitation. This presents us with an opportunity to examine the applicability of the vile maxim even within the complexities of a caste-based society. In this context, Smith may not provide insights into the caste system itself, but rather its manifestation in the context of wealth, power, and manipulation during assessments.

With this empirical background, I have attempted to juxtapose two features of human society in West Bengal. The first one is a feature where the master of mankind continues to hold significant influence in grassroots socio-politics. The second one involves social identity-based discrimination, i.e. the caste system and its contribution to the sustenance of the power of the masters of mankind at the local level. With this understanding of two determinant features of human society, I will examine how the masters of mankind influence impact assessment for large-scale projects and the land acquisition processes. I consider the case of Singur and Salboni as land acquisition case studies to understand and interpret the scale of grassroots manipulations.

Masters of manipulation

The manipulation at the grassroots level by the masters of mankind takes place via multiple means. Regardless of the means, the masters predominantly rely on social identity-based superiority, such as caste and wealth. These work in tandem to empower each other and effectively create a self-sustaining loop of manipulation. Centuries of caste dominance in the society have contributed to the accumulation of wealth and clever investment of accumulated wealth, which is relatively far greater than the majority of the rural community in West Bengal, thus solidifying wealth and power. The latter two have established a clientelist society where critical parts of society are manipulated to extract maximum benefit during the expropriation of land.

In this section, I will present empirical evidence to describe its mechanism. In the context of impact assessment during the land acquisition and subsequent process, this section is subdivided into three subsections. The first subsection discusses the relationship between caste, land and wealth. The second subsection deals with how caste nurtures loyalty in rural society. The third subjection describes how caste manipulates assessment.

Caste, land and wealth

The relationship between caste and wealth has been well-established in the literature. Kosambi (1954), along with Ambedkar, was among the first few to establish the process of accumulation of wealth and caste. Kosambi syntheses Hegelian and Marxian economic class with social identity-based discrimination. “Caste is class at primitive level of production, a religious method of forming social consciousness in such a manner that the primary producer is deprived of his surplus with the minimum coercion’ (Kosambi, 1954: p. 14). Over time, the existing research has demonstrated the relationship between caste and emancipation (Ambedkar, 1936/2014), caste, land ownership and control (Basu et al., 2016; Singh, 2014), caste and political movement (Levien, 2018; Nielsen, 2018; Nielsen et al., 2020), poverty, shame and caste/social identity-based discrimination (Pellissery and Mathew, 2014; Walker et al., 2013), and caste and politics (Dreze and Sen, 2014; Ingole, 2021). Important for this context, Nielsen (2018) has convincingly documented the influence of caste in the anti-land acquisition movement.

This empirical research has documented how the caste system has enabled the accumulation of wealth in land. The relationship between the land and higher caste is peculiar, and often, the participants of the study struggled to explain and legitimise their claim. Mr Saiket, a resident of Singur, explained the relationship between caste and land ³ in the following way;

Some of them used to be known as blacksmiths, someone was a potter, someone was barber, some of them were from Bughdi caste, some of them were from Khatriya (warrior caste), and some of them were from the priestly caste, like we are priestly caste people, for people like us it is difficult to personally farm on the land. The problem is here...we produce with the help of other’s labour...since our caste people are not farmers, how can I know how my ancestors managed to get the land? I have no idea about this.

During the thousands of years of caste practice, how the higher caste Brahmins in the locality have managed to accumulate so much is beyond the scope of this research (for more, please see Thapar, 2002; Habib, 1963/2015). In the last century, the mechanism was mostly by impossible mortgage arrangements. The arrangements include exuberant interest on the debt and make sure indebted farmers will never manage to repay and thus recover his/her land. During an FGD, Mr Partha explained, a resident of the Singur area, ‘those days’ in Singur;

“During that time, the whole population was not getting enough food, and people of this locality took that opportunity to profit. You had to mortgage your land, etc. People of Brahmin para took the opportunity to accumulate extra wealth.”

These examples of accumulation of land and wealth over generations and the result of earning the status of employers rather than employees create elements of multiple modes of production (Kosambi, 1954).

Caste and loyalty

Accumulation of wealth results in the concentration of power and the nourishment of loyalty. The higher caste population in both Salboni areas have used their Zamindari land rights to buy loyalties of the dispossessed and also used the hardworking lower caste workforce to generate surplus wealth. Mr Bhobotosh, a resident of Salboni, unknowingly describes an association between caste, wealth accumulation and loyalty.

You have to look at who is buying, who is selling, and who is telling you these things. You will never find land with Dule and Bagdi, the Scheduled Caste people. The Scheduled Tribe (indigenous) people do not own any land either, even though few indigenous people reside in our locality. Their existence can be found in the history of the Hooghly district. Our villages develop in such a way that there are (always) some lower caste people who take care of the property. You see, someone is called Bagdi. It means `borgi` or robbers. At the same time, you will see many Bagdi hamlets, especially near those with much land and property. The reason is that rich and high caste people will invite such Bagdi people to reside nearby to ensure that these people will take care of my land. The same Bagdi people will rob other villages or places or travellers, but they will protect my area and take care of my land. Because they have been given part of my land to use, rice to eat, and wine to drink, they will protect my land, my crops, and my property. Also, they can do farming very well since they are quite hardworking. Every zamindar used to deal with these people similarly!

Adam Smith’s masters of mankind became masters in India by using a combination of their superior caste affiliation, which historically monopolised and legitimised land ownership and by establishing loyalty-based modes of production. Even though caste superiority has weakened its brutal monopolistic behaviour, wealth and power still exert considerable influence over the livelihood of the lower caste population (Dreze and Sen, 2014; Harriss-White and Michelutt, 2019; Pellissery and Mathew, 2014). In Singur, the caste relationship has changed over time, and the lower caste population has used their hard work and incremental wealth accumulation to gain more control over land. Mr Bholanath described the process in the following way;

As you will see, there are special hamlets, and people are divided according to caste according to the hamlets. Here, only Brahmins are living. There are Dom and Mahishya hamlets, Ghosh hamlets, and milkmen hamlets. There are Dule hamlets and Bagdi hamlets, muchi (cobbler caste) and methor (sweeper caste) hamlets in faraway places. Who are these people? Are they very important, like in earlier times, most of the wealthier families used to own land? They could not keep all the land because they could not take care of so much land. They sold their land one by one. Dule and Bagdi, who are Mahisya and Goyala, are usually the ones who sell land. Mahiswa-goyala is a sub-caste. People of this sub-caste are very hardworking. If they can buy 5–10 katha of land, they will give full time to it and earn good money. In this sense, they will say that we visit our land daily. But I cannot say the same.

Mr Bholanath’s statement uses caste as a lens for social identity-based discrimination. It also attempts to describe and rationalise the power of caste as the master rule of mankind.

A caste already has legitimacy as the most dominant group in society based on its position in terms of caste. This exclusivity and accumulated wealth yield a concentration of power in society in Singur and beyond. High castes hold superior positions in the bureaucracy and decision-making. The existing literature has already documented how caste affiliation influences the treatment of service receivers by the bureaucracy in India (Banerjee and Duflo, 2011; Dreze and Sen, 2014; Pellissery and Mathew, 2014). In Singur, the participants of the study indicated many times how caste and loyalty to caste groups dictate access to welfare services. The participants of the higher caste hamlet accused the Gram Panchayat presenter of favouring only his caste people and lower caste workers in Majipara, and they were receiving government grants to build houses, old age, window, and disability pensions, highly subsidising ration cards (to access the Public Distribution System), small loans through Self-Help Groups, and other benefits. These participants, who believe that the lower caste population is reaping the benefits of all state welfare schemes via caste affiliation, did not want to acknowledge the existence or the necessity of protective discrimination in the country.

In the Singur, participants of the study from the lower caste made it clear that the Panchayat Pradhan, who leads the Gram Panchayet (the lowest strata of the three tire Panchayati Raj system), was a member of the higher caste. They asserted that the speedy land acquisition in Singur was orchestrated to favour the Panchayat Pradhan’s caste, his own group. Most of the acquired land was owned by high-caste people who were mostly not living in the area. Many of them had left for nearby cities or Calcutta or even abroad. The (relatively) lower caste farmers, mainly mahisya caste and jele (fishermen) communities, were farming on the land with or without a formal contract. The higher caste landowners used their caste links with the Panchayet Pradhan and the higher bureaucracy to accept the state-provided compensation and give up their land in secrecy. There were two significant consequences of these decisions. First, the owners did not have to share the compensation amount with the sharecroppers. The minority of the sharecroppers who had legal documents to prove that they were indeed sharecroppers were agitated. But for those without any official papers, there was no place to seek help or assistance. From the project assessment phases itself, the Panchayet Pradhan informed the communist party-led democratically elected government in West Bengal of the popularity of the land acquisition drive with the help of consent from the high caste (often absentee) landowners. The state continued to receive misinformation in the initial stage, and later, the success or failure of the land acquisition became a prestige issue.

Caste and manipulated assessment

In this subsection, I present two prominent themes that came out during this empirical investigation. The first theme describes how caste affiliation is considered a measure of the reliability of a source in assessment. The second theme presents how the bureaucrats manage the laws and implementation to manipulate the assessment.

Reliability of source and assessment

In the case of Singur, the relatively higher caste dominated the Panchayati Raj institution when land was first acquired. For example, one of the Panchayet Pradhans of the area, who belongs to the highest caste, was one of the persons who was able to inform (then) the ruling party about the realities of the ground during the assessment, land acquisition and anti-land acquisition movement. The ex-Gram Pradhan still believes that it was an illegitimate anti-land acquisition movement. Most of the landowners have given consent, and only those who used to work on the land as labourers (note; not sharecroppers) were against this land acquisition. According to his claim, working in the factory areas as tea stall owners and as domestic help in the housing complexes to be built was equally dignified and income-generating to farming in the field. When this researcher asked if he would have seen his family members working in these professions, the answer Mr Samiran gave was;

People work according to their qualifications, mentality, their education and skills. ⁴ If my family’s situation becomes such that the women in our family need to do that kind of work, then why not? Money is Goodness Lakhmi, and there is no harm in doing hard work for money. But, the lower caste people traditionally do these kinds of work. I will not advise anyone from my caste to do such things. What happened in Singur is politics. Our (state) side did nothing wrong. The lower caste people did not own any land, but illegitimately blocked a large project and ruined the future of generations in Singur. You can ask why not share some compensation for the landless and why the land records were not up-to-date. These questions are fine, but this is not the responsibility of the state. The state did not ask you to sharecrop without legal documents. We did not want to know how the owners of the land would informally share the compensation with the sharecropper. This is between the owner and the sharecropper, their interpersonal relationship.

Samiran’s understanding of the whole situation in Singur, from the assessment to compensation, is based on a few underlying reasons. The first is the blurred lines between the state and the ruling party. Since the elected representative of the Panchayat maintained a second and arguably more powerful channel for communication between the ruling party heads at the state level and the state government heads, the bureaucracy was in a difficult position in implementing rules of assessment and land acquisition. As well as dealing with the higher authority of the bureaucracy, the bureaucracy had to deal with the political communication channels that nourished the top lawmakers. This was where a different picture of realities in Singur was projected to the leadership. For example, there is a great deal of disagreement between the lower bureaucracy, higher bureaucracy, local political leadership of the (then) ruling party and the heads of the state/province on the categorisation of the soul quality (high to low fertility) and couture of the land (higher land and lower land).

The acquisition based on old maps and an un-updated land registration system is complicated for two reasons. First, because the last physical survey of the land was conducted about 50 years ago, the present position of the land in terms of quality and couture is not updated on the state land registry. Irrigation canals and the Kolkata-Durgapur Expressway have been two significant developments. These two processes have ensured that the couture of the land has drastically changed, and the fertility of the land has changed, too. Those who protested against the land compensation package have alleged that higher caste individuals with high fertility and favourable couture land, considered best for agriculture in the 1950s-60s were given better composition. We also learn from Mr Mahadev, one of the local firebrand politicians and the right-hand man of the now dominant Member of (State) Parliament, that by utilising caste connections, the higher caste population ensured that their land was recorded as high-quality regardless of its status. Moreover, the assessment process was complicated because people of higher castes dominated the Panchayats and State.

Management of law

The bureaucracy was more interested in maintaining documents and fulfilling the documentary needs of the assessment and compensation process. During the interview and group discussion with the district-level officials at the land acquisition department, both in Singur and Salboni, I found the participants were more interested in indicating how they have all fulfilled the requirements laid down by the law and that they have not violated any procedure demanded by the higher authority. When asked about the valuation problem, the officials responsible for the case of Singur took out the Status Report on Singur (Government of West Bengal, 2006) and started to read parts of it. Their collective claim, except for a few officials, is that the grievance is purely political. The bureaucracy did not commit any procedural injustice during the assessment and compensation. The official documentation showing the process of land acquisition can be found in West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation Limited (WBIDC) (2006) “Status report on Singur, Calcutta, Government of West Benga”. The reason is unknown; the document cannot be accessed online anymore. Documents that the government of West Bengal once hosted are only accessible to those who have previously downloaded them; this author can supply the same.

According to the participants of the study, the JSW project in Salboni was approved by Gram Sabha very quickly because of generous compensation, failing agriculture due to climate and soil fertility in the area and the enticement of future employment opportunities via industrialisation in the area. The projected benefits considered during the assessment have not yet materialised. The question remains whether these promises were cleverly used to manipulate the assessment or if the failure to meet these promises is an act of god.

Secondly, there is a sophisticated worldview that relates caste and occupation under a religious logic - i.e. wealth associated with income protects an individual from the pollution of one set of work over another. Despite this, the population remains involved in the project. The third is the role of the state in performance assessment. The leader belonging to the high caste does not believe that the responsibility of the state is to correct any wrongs in social relationships or contracts. Such avoidance is a perverse application of the Coase theorem. The following response given by Mr Bhattacharya, a resident of Singur, indicates the connection between caste and the distribution of welfare and this belief that the leader has—that his job is not to correct social stratification.

The responsibility of the panchayet is to take care of roads, culverts, water bodies and see street lights are working and later, 100 days job-guarantee programme was added, but the Panchayet or us as leaders’ responsibility is not to explore how two individuals are making any deals. If one agrees to work for another person, even for free, which we often do in the villages, sometimes as a sign of respect, other times because we have a good relationship. Similarly, if a particular caste population in my area owns a lot of land, then it is not my responsibility to ensure redistribution. There is another department for that, but even that department is not doing its job, or the landlord is using different means to continue to own a large area of land. Even when I see everything, I am not supposed to do anything. The same is true for any version of contracts with sharecroppers. As a leader, I cannot dictate the terms of all these contracts between caste people.

In Salboni, most of the land was already under government control since it was a fodder farm under the Department of Animal Husbandry. This study lacks empirical evidence for the impact assessment during acquisition for this case since it was done about a decade before the researcher visited the area. None of the documents is available online, and the district officials stone-walled the attempt to locate hard copies with the district administration. The Special Land Acquisition Officer feared possible reparation if these documents became public and hostile to any academic or other kind of enquiry. Further, the successful acquisition and a new factory under construction made it difficult for the researcher to encourage the participants to revisit the wrongs of a decade ago.

Conclusion

This paper delves into the practical aspects of assessment by examining two land acquisition case studies in West Bengal, India. Through these cases, it sheds light on several crucial facets of the assessment process. First and foremost, it underscores the enduring influence of the caste system in Indian society. This deep-rooted social hierarchy continues to exert a significant impact on various aspects of life, including land acquisition and compensation assessments. Secondly, the paper highlights how caste affiliations can pave the way for the concentration of wealth, ultimately leading to the consolidation of power and influence. These three elements—caste, wealth, and power—wield considerable sway over the assessment process in the context of land acquisition.

Even in the contemporary era, it is evident that individuals akin to what Smith referred to as the “masters of mankind” or “masters of the universe” retain their ability to shape and manipulate the assessment process. This phenomenon aligns with the observations made in existing literature, which has consistently documented similar dynamics. In the intricate tapestry of Indian rural society, these masters often act as the architects, framing the rules using a combination of identity-based social stratifications and the influence of wealth. The paper illustrates, through the lens of the two case studies, the specific approach these influential figures employ to manipulate both the process and the outcomes. Their key strategy revolves around the meticulous management of written documents.

These masters have discerned that official documentation carries more weight than mere spoken complaints or anecdotal or “unofficial” evidence. Consequently, the assessment process in India is steadily becoming more formalised, to the extent that it predominantly favours individuals with the right connections, substantial wealth, formidable power, and a skilful mastery of document handling. This formalisation often results in a one-size-fits-all approach, driven by frequently manufactured documents and substantial manipulation of laws and everyday procedures. Paradoxically, rather than serving as a tool for equitable assessment, this approach perpetuates the concentration of wealth, power, and manipulation, exacerbating the existing disparities in society.