|
Archived Articles
Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.
He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.
In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.
Global Real Estate Project
|
 |
India: Clash for land
After the independence, India had a choice between what some developed countries in Europe did for centuries, and what it actually did, following its own specific way of progress. The choice was between moving large masses of peasants to the cities where they would work for capitalist (or state owned) industries; and keeping the peasants as longer as possible on the land. It was of historical coincidence that the major textile industries of colonial times remained in Pakistan after the partition. Without industrial base ready to take millions and to expand, and with strong sentiment of spiritual superiority over the West and its decadent materialism, the new independent India leaders opted for a model where hundreds of millions of small peasants will represent the social base of the political regime. This model is over now, in everything but in the name. India no longer claims to be superior to any other civilization, and given the accepted logic of economic development, it actually falls far behind many other civilizations, both from the West and from the East. Worse, the logic of development needs more and more land turned into industrial use (and waste), and millions of peasants moving to the cities, where there is still no big industry ready to absorb them in such huge numbers. Even worse, the process of land taking looks increasingly like the worst examples of land grabbing in the West (e.g. the liquidation of the commons in Britain in 17th and 18th centuries). The difference is that in pre-modern Britain we deal with unclear property claims and common ownership; in India now under pressure are the legal owners that just happen to live in a wrong place, a place for big investment, both public and private. Luckily for India, this clash over the land won't take the Chinese proportions, where officially there are more than 70,000 peasant riots each and every year. It seems that even one march of desperate and poor owners is sufficient in a country that possesses a rule of law system and a democratic government to make this issue a priority far before it growths out of control. Nevertheless, no matter how this system deals with such problems, objectively speaking, there will be losers, and the loss for some will mean abandonment of the land and moving toward marginal status in the booming cities.
India country profile: --------------------
See also the directory of companies providing real estate services in, and general real estate information of India and China.
|
See also:
