Does Land Redistribution Cause Violence? Evidence from West Bengal

The large number of highly publicized violent incidents in West Bengal during the Left government's rule has attracted a lot of academic attention. Most of the prevailing research work in this regard has employed case study methodologies to understand the major causes of violence in West Bengal. Many social scientists have concluded that the forced land acquisition policy of the Left government starting in early 1990s is the main cause for the violence. Given a dearth of empirical studies on the nature of violence in West Bengal, the main objective of this paper is to empirically determine whether land redistribution caused violence in West Bengal after the Left government began to acquire land after its New Industrial Policy was announced in early 1990s. Using district level riots data as a proxy for violence and district level beneficiaries (in terms of number and area redistributed) from land redistribution between the years 1995 and 2011,I employ quantile regressions and instrument variable methods to understand the linkages between riots and land redistribution after controlling for other structural ,political and spatial variables. I find that land redistribution does increase violence but has a different impact according to the intensity of riots.For example,the impact of land redistribution is significant on riots when the riots are too low or too high indicating a non linear relationship between Land redistribution and violence.This to my knowledge is the first study of land redistribution and violence in India.