Introduction

The Special Economic Zones (SEZs) Act 2005 was approved by both houses of the Parliament of India in two days, with little discussion and zero dissent. Introduced as policy by the Hindu-nationalist Bhartiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in 2000, the SEZ Act was enacted by the centre-right Congress Party-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) which at the time was supported by the Communist Party of India (Marxist). Like Free Trade or Export Processing Zones (EPZs) in the Americas, South-East Asia or China, SEZs in India aimed at creating export-led enclave economies with tax and duty concessions. Ostensibly premised on the Chinese model (that comprises seven large state-owned SEZs with clearly-defined targeted incentives for industries), India's 2005 law went much further. Expanding the existing 11 EPZs model, it envisioned no ceilings on the numbers and sizes of SEZs; eschewed targeted incentives for blanket concessions; and its comprehensive scope included most economic activities—mining, agriculture, manufacturing and services. By April 2011, in six years, the Government of India (GoI) formally approved a whopping 584 SEZs (with 377 notified; GoI, 2011a). This number surprisingly rose from 366 formally approved (142 notified) in August 2007 (GoI, 2007; Table 10.1 and Map 10.1) – the ‘global financial meltdown’ did evidently little to dampen the enthusiasm for SEZs in India.

In stark contrast, in less than two years of enactment, tenacious resistance against SEZs erupted across the country from peasants’ and citizens’ groups, forcing the central and state governments to respond variously with violent repression, tactical reversal, negotiation and deference. In Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, West Bengal and Haryana, land and resource acquisition for SEZs emerged as a central contention between state forces, corporate developers and peasants’ and citizens’ groups. In the ensuing furor, in March 2007, 14 people died in police firing protesting land acquisition of 25,000 acres for Indonesian Salim SEZ in Nandigram in West Bengal. As violence escalated in November 2007 with an unclear number of additional people dead (accounts vary from 7 to 100), the state government eventually moved the SEZ out of the area. Similarly, under immense pressure from widespread protests by peasants’ and citizens’ groups, the Chief Minister of Goa announced a ‘new year gift’ to the people of Goa on 31st December 2007, and cancelled all 15 SEZs in the state.