ABSTRACT
In a media interview, P. Chidambaram, India’s Finance Minister at the time and a leading architect of the country’s economic reforms since the early 1990s, was asked about the state’s controversial acquisition of farmland for the creation of Special Economic Zones. He responded that “in India there is a sacred bond that binds the tiller with the land,” yet added, “Should so many people depend on land? No country can aff ord to have 65 percent of its working population dependent on land…. Th ey are not there as a matter of choice, they are there because they are not skilled to do anything else…” (Th e Sunday Express, 2007).
