KEY POINTS:
What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? The answer: a collision of cataclysmic proportions that leaves a trail of death and destruction in its wake.
Cut to Nandigram, a tiny village in West Bengal that turned into a war zone where villagers battled policemen two
weeks ago. By the time the hail of brickbats, bullets and teargas had ended, 14 people were dead and many hurt.
The death toll is bad enough, but much more is at stake in the fields of Nandigram. A few months ago the West Bengal Government zeroed in on the village near the coast as the site for a Special Economic Zone like the mammoth ones in China.
The sleepy hamlet would have been transformed into a multi-billion dollar chemical complex and township that would stretch over 4045ha.
The villagers, according to the Government blueprint, would be well compensated for their land and sent packing.
Unfortunately for the Government, the villagers of Nandigram said they didn't want the cash and would rather stay put.
They barricaded the roads into the area and refused to allow police and government representatives in.
Ironically, West Bengal is ruled by the communists who claim to have championed rural reform and the cause of the peasants.
Is the battle for Nandigram a taste of things to come? After years of bumbling along, India has finally moved into the corporate fast track.
But as its industrial giants get ready to expand at breakneck speed they all need land - thousands of hectares for chemical plants, automobile factories and gigantic steel mills.
The economic zones - which are the Government's way of borrowing a leaf from the Chinese book of growth - will also result in swathes of land being gobbled up in different parts of the country.
These large tax-free zones, according to the Government blueprint, would be giant townships with first-world infrastructure in the form of uninterrupted electricity and super-smooth roads and would kick-start India's export drive.
The problem is that India is a densely populated country and there aren't too many unoccupied rolling wide open spaces.
So you have tribes battling the police in Orissa, one of the country's most impoverished states in eastern India, where Korean steel giant Posco wants 1600ha to build a US$12 billion ($17 billion) steel plant in what will be the largest single investment into India.
The project is now six months behind schedule, even though the land earmarked for the project belongs to the Government.
Squatters who have been there for decades are fighting running battles to stay put.
Or look at Singur, also in West Bengal, where the Tata Group wants to build an automobile plant and which has also been the scene of pitched fights.
The Tatas ambitiously hope to produce the world's cheapest car at Singur that will retail for a super-cheap R100,000 ($3245).
The company had planned to hit the accelerator and have the car on the road by next year but its schedule could now be jeopardised by the land rows at Singur.
Return to Orissa, where land is needed for half-a-dozen huge projects - mostly steel plants - that are on the drawing board.
Here, too, the new projects have drawn blood. In January, 13 people were killed in clashes with police at Kalinga Nagar where India's oldest steelmaker, Tata Steel, aims to put up a plant.
In another part of the world - say China - the villagers in places like Nandigram and Kalinga Nagar would probably have been unceremoniously bulldozed out of the way to make way for the irresistible march of progress. But in India even the poorest villagers have one mighty weapon at their command - their vote.
That means Indian politicians have to tread with the utmost caution on close-to-the-bone issues such as land acquisition.
Most politicians are also only too aware that India's cracking 9 per cent growth rates have not yet changed life in rural India.
Land acquisition, as a result, has become a red-hot potato for politicians who don't dare displease their constituents.
Another problem is that India's top business houses have responded almost too enthusiastically to the economic zone scheme, raising suspicion that it's an ill-disguised land grab.
The Government has applications for almost 250 zones that would involve turning huge tracts of land around the country into gated business enclaves with middle-class townships attached.
Inevitably, the zone scheme has turned into a time-bomb for the political classes.
The scheme suffered a body blow when Sonia Gandhi, the Italian-born leader of the Congress Party, wrote to the Prime Minister warning him to tread cautiously.
Gandhi, who led her party to victory in 2004, is the person who calls the shots in her party even though she declined to become the Prime Minister at the time - a letter from her is nothing less than a command because she is unquestionably the most powerful politician in the country.
Will the land imbroglio put the brakes on India's growth story? Certainly, it's sending a tremor through Indian businessmen and foreign investors.
Late last week Posco was forced to deny rumours that it was pulling out of India and moving to Vietnam. But, says one foreign businessman: "We can't come to India and acquire land. The Government has to do that and hand it over to us."
The politicians, too, are caught in an unenviable bind. They know new factories will need to spread out into the countryside and that there is no alternative to moving out poor farmers.
Back in the 17th century the peasants were swept off their land in Britain when industrialisation got under way. But it isn't as easy as that in 21st century India, even if the peasantry is excruciatingly poor.
Nevertheless, industrialisation can't be stopped in its tracks and everyone is now looking for ways to move forward and avoid a huge clash between urban and rural India.
