Suchergebnisse

M. V. Nadkarni (Ed.), Socio-Economic Change and the Broad-Basing Process in India. London and New York: Routledge, First South Asia Edition, 2020, ₹995. (Page range not stated).

Development projects that involve displacement are currently a cause of growing concern everywhere. The worrisome aspect is that it is the poor who are hurt most in the process, becoming poorer than before. This paper, based on the author's experiences with people-displacing projects in Orissa, provides a vivid first hand account of sufferings of those who lose their lands and are forced to relocate. The consequences of displacement are particularly dire for tribal people, as they are deeply attached to their ancestral lands and find it virtually impossible to readjust in resettlement colonies thoughtlessly planned with no regard to their socio-cultural needs. As displacement, stimulated by the new industrial policy, is henceforth going to occur on an even bigger scale than before, it is important that resettlement and rehabilitation packages are so designed that they improve the lives, not impoverish the already poor people.

Compulsory land acquisition and involuntary displacement of communities for a larger public purpose captures the tension of development in the modern state, with the need to balance the interests of the majority while protecting the rights of the minority. This book examines a number of new policy formulations put in place at both the central and state levels looking at land acquisition procedures and norms for rehabilitation and resettlement of communities.