Discuss the debate on displacement and large dams.

 The government of India has tried to rescue the situation by its rehabilitation package, although there was no national level policy for resettlement and rehabilitation till 2004. In February 2004 the central government promulgated the National Rehabilitation Policy for the Project Displaced Persons. Even before that certain states such as Karnataka, Maharashtra, Punjab and Madhya Pradesh have evolved state-level policies on resettlement and rehabilitation. Most rehabilitation efforts have been to provide alternative land titles to the evictees or compensate them in cash. As for the monetary compensation, the evictees are forced to go through the arduous bureaucratic procedures to procure what is rightfully their due. The land in the case of the Sardar Sarovar Project had been assessed according to old land records, which under-price its present value. Often, the land provided by the government has been of poor quality. The evictees are required to produce land deeds, which many don’t possess. Compensation through cash has also not been an appropriate form of compensation, as it has been observed that the beneficiaries often spend the money on short-term requirements and are left without money and are homeless in a matter of a few months of rehabilitation.

In cases of rehabilitation through alternative land titles, the problem faced by the government has been of locating land to settle the displaced. Large parts of forest of other areas have been cut down to distribute land to the displaced, as is evident in Nandurbar district of Maharashtra. The rehabilitated population in Nandurbar have still not received formal, registered copies of the land they have been settled on. The forests have been encroached upon by the rehabilitated population, much to the resentment of the local tribes who derive large part of their sustenance from the forests. There is a direct relation between environment destruction and the impoverishment of the evictees. For one, both are victims of dam projects. Secondly and most importantly, forests are the alternative lifelines of the rural poor. Much of the subsistence is derived from forest products. Forests also help them pull through the seasonal lean period, as they make do with fruits, herbs, green leaves and game available in the forests. This fact has not been given serious thought while considering the issue of rehabilitation. Growing tensions between the rehabilitated population and the local tribes has become a cause for concern. 40% of the forest in Nandurbar has been declared as degraded. The policy of ‘land-forland’ is based on the premise that there is excess public land available for distribution among the evictees, which is questionable. The land available most often than not is poor quality land or non-cultivable. This premise also reveals the linear perception of livelihood options. As illustrated above, livelihood includes a host of economic activities (as quite often, land holdings are small) and there is no one activity from which livelihood is derived. Compensation of land then is only a partial remuneration of the losses incurred by the evictees. Ideally the replacement of the livelihood lost only can provide any kind of relief to the displaced people. Neither the National Policy nor the State policies/laws have provision for this.

The debate on large dams has focused on displacement and its effect on the ecology and human beings. Large dams however represent a larger purpose or vision of society. They were considered as symbols of a modern, progressive world. They demonstrated the capacity of human intelligence and ingenuity to tap and use natural resources for human advancement. They stood for the ability of modern science and technology to overcome the constraints of nature for the benefit of humankind. The issue, which is equally important and often overlooked, is as to what is the type of society that was and is sought to be ‘displaced’ by this modern vision of progress and development. Also, who are the people most adversely affected by this displacement? As mentioned earlier, the peoples and communities who are displaced through development programmes live on the margins of society such as tribes, pastoralists and subsistence agriculturists. These groups have inhabited forests and survived in the fringes of the mainstream civilisation for centuries. The benefits of development programmes rarely accrue to them. Although monetary compensation is provided to them (the evaluation of loss is yet again a contentious issue), scant attention is given to their customs and traditions while rehabilitating them. The rehabilitation policies reveal intolerance to cultural and social issues. The displaced are a ‘number’ among the large mass to be rehabilitated.

The reasoning that has predominated the issue of rehabilitation of displaced persons is largely economic. Economic issues are supposed to be survival issues, while the destruction of culture is considered as secondary. Economic and cultural rehabilitation are seen as distinct from each other. In most traditional, agricultural societies, it is difficult to separate the two. Economic skills are disseminated through cultural practices and the process of socialisation, while culture is renewed and reinstated in society in the process of economic production. Needless to say, almost all festivals and ritual functions in traditional societies mark different stages of work over the various seasons in the year. In such a scenario, the prioritisation of the economic over the cultural aspect of life demonstrates the secularisation and modernisation of life evident in modern industrial society. Displacement through large dams then has not just meant moving people from one place to another, but has also entailed destroying an entire way of life built over generations, economic and cultural skills accumulated through ages to survive in, often, the harshest of environmental conditions.

In an unrelenting effort to find solutions to the problem of poverty, the development planners have evolved projects involving unimaginable expenses, encouraged investments in agricultural and industrial production, which has created drought-like conditions in many parts of the country as well as increased economic inequality. Thus in a quest to dispel poverty, poor are displaced and rendered homeless. In an attempt to deal with the drought-like conditions and the crisis of water for drinking and irrigation, they have acquiesced to destroy existing natural resources to create new ones. This circuitous attempt at development or the pursuance of modern development that aggravates the resource crisis while simultaneously addressing the problem by further exploiting existing resources has caused greater harm than gain. It has proved to be unsustainable, both in terms of environmental consequences and as a model for alleviating poverty. Rather, it has come to symbolise a politics of development that is highly materialistic and aggressive, catering to the needs of a select population.

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