Among several issues that Indian society confronts today, involuntary displacement of people by government due to taking away of their agricultural lands and other assets (homestead etc.) for development projects—both in public or private sectors—has emerged as one of the highly debated and disputed issue. Several of these development projects have faced stiff resistance and even violent agitations against the appropriation of affected people’s assets under the compulsive Land Acquisition Act, 1894. In the earlier decades (since India’s independence in 1947), government succeeded in acquiring vast lands from people for creating such infrastructure, irrigation, mining and heavy industry projects, mostly in the public sector, due to people’s ignorance of their rights, and also their faith in the political system. However, with the growing intensity of involuntary displacement and eroding ‘public interest’ in pushing industrial/mining projects by government, the affected people and civil society groups started challenging the ‘eminent domain’ used by a sovereign state in imposing developmentalism, without restoring meagre sources of sustenance of the affected people. This is now more relevant in the context of market-driven Indian economy, where government’s decision of approving over 400 ‘special economic zones’ (SEZs) has resulted in direct confrontation between the ‘shining India’ and highly vulnerable agrarian communities.
The present article presents a critique of over five decades of such involuntary displacement in India with its possible fallout on the role of state for ‘public cause’.
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