I am beginning to research a sideproject on what seems to be one of the most crucial issues for left politics in India: Special Economic Zones (SEZs) - formerly called Export Processing Zones - which are geographical regions established with reduced economic regulations (including lower labor, health, and environmental standards and reduced taxes), intended to entice foreign companies to invest capital in new factories within these zones. SEZs were first created in China (with the famous example of Shenzhen) and have since been established in Brazil, India, Iran, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, the Philippines, Poland, Russia, and Ukraine (see
this Wikipedia article for more info). SEZs seem to be a form of neo-colonialism; rather than colonizing nations taking over an entire country, now there is a kind of internal colonization where the multi-national corporations use their connections with the ruling elites in the big urban areas to secure the authority to exploit labor in territories (SEZs) within the poorer areas (some rural, some closer to cities, but always taking land away from poor, disempowered people). For a very good analysis of SEZs in India, see
this article by Jason Fults. He covers them up to a year ago, drawing on many articles in the excellent Indian environmental journal,
Down to Earth. I’m going to try to pick up where he left off by reading and writing on what has been happening with SEZs over the past year up to now. I’m guessing that the situation has only gotten worse, as I read of two major protests against SEZs in the past few weeks:
first, “thousands of farmers from 22 villages in Pen
taluka of Maharashtra’s Raigad district blocked the national highway from Mumbai to Goa on June 17 to protest the upcoming MahaMumbai” SEZ (this protest was organized by
The Peasants and Workers Party), and
second, just yesterday, over 1500 workers (organized by
the Communist Party of India) staged a demonstration in Hosur against an SEZ and they got arrested. (To be continued…)
