Ashok Lahiri: That old majority rule

What Condorcet has to say about the land acquisition Act

One of the controversial aspects of The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 relates to the consent clause. When for public purpose and the land will be directly controlled by the government, no consent of the landowner is required for compulsory acquisition. But when for private companies, the consent of at least 80 per cent of the project-affected households (PAH) needs to be obtained. For public-private partnerships (PPPs), consent is required from 70 per cent. Is 70 or 80 per cent too high or too low? Why not 100 per cent or a simple majority?

There are two different perspectives on democracy - procedural and epistemic. A "procedural democrat" wants the system to be fair. How can you acquire land enjoyed by a family for long without its consent? But even the fairness argument recognises that there may be others who want the area to develop, infrastructure to be improved and industries to be set up for generating income and employment. A fair balance needs to be struck between those in agreement with the land acquisition and those against it. Thus, even procedural democrats would not insist on consent of 100 per cent.

The "epistemic democrats" believe that voters will pursue their individual good through the political process, and that the summation of these individual pursuits will further the collective welfare. A famous quote from E B White is, "Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half the people are right more than half the time."

Is a private or a PPP project for which land is being acquired good for the community of affected people? There may be several arguments in favour, for example, better employment opportunities and living conditions. Arguments against, for example, may be that it will disrupt the traditional way of life and community cohesion. There is rampant corruption, and once the land is handed over, whether the project developer will honour the commitments she has made before the acquisition is suspect. Who is right: those in favour or those against? The majority may be wrong. But a cognitive failure contaminating the intuition of a rational majority more than the intuition of a rational minority is a hard case to argue.

A simple majority rule of consent from the PAH for compulsory acquisition of land for private and PPP projects appears to make sense. The argument seems to be particularly strong with everyone, not only rich landowners, entitled to vote for and against acquisition.

Way back in 1785, the French philosopher and mathematician Marquis de Condorcet propounded the famous "Jury Theorem" that can shed light on the issue. The problem of choice in a democratic set-up can be solved by a simple majority rule, particularly when the choice is between two alternatives: for example, to acquire compulsorily - yes and no. One of these two is optimal, but we know not which for sure. Though any single voter - in this case, the PAH - may not know the "optimal", we need to assume that the average voter is more likely to choose the optimal answer than the wrong one. What Condorcet proved more than two and a quarter centuries ago is that if the voters choose independently, the choice with the most votes is likely to be the "correct" decision.

What will happen if we insist on much more than a simple majority for going with "yes"? Take the case of a jury. The choice is between sentencing a person accused of a crime guilty or not guilty. There are two mistakes to be avoided - pronouncing guilty when she is not, or acquitting when she is guilty. If we go by unanimity, we will minimise the risk of pronouncing guilty when she is not. With a majority rule, the jury is likely to minimise the risk of acquitting when she is guilty.

Condorcet's Jury Theorem appears to apply to land acquisition because it is safe to assume that every participant in the consent process agrees about the objective - development, growth, employment generation and poverty alleviation. They may have different views about the process of achieving it. Increasing the proportion of consent beyond a simple majority will only minimise the risk of destabilising the status quo when acquisition may not deliver the desired result. But clearly what is more important is to maximise the likelihood of going ahead with projects when it is indeed in the interest of the people. Risk aversion is not the right recipe for rapid development.

Old Condorcet's Jury Theorem is not valid if some of the assumptions do not hold. For example, there may be tactical voting, or the choice not really about whether to acquire or not, but what to do after acquisition or how to acquire. But The Right to Fair Compensation Act does not throw any light on why it has departed from the simple and elegant majority rule.

One of the reasons for insisting on the 70-80 per cent consent clause may have been about "correctness" of the acquisition from a moral or natural justice point of view. Majority may acquiesce to compulsory land acquisition, but a minority's religious or emotional sentiments may be affected and some very persuasive arguments may be marshalled why compulsory acquisition violates natural justice. But, by that argument, compulsory acquisition should be allowed only if no one objects. And if everyone agrees, there is no need for compulsory acquisition to begin with! The current consent clause appears to have been more about valence and safeguarding the status quo than a clearly argued case. High time it is substituted by a rule of simple majority.

The writer is an economist