Edited by two well-known scholars of development-induced involuntary displacement in India, this book brings together fourteen well researched and relevant essays by academics, researchers and practitioners with extensive first-hand knowledge and experience of the resettlement and rehabilitation (R&R) process in India.

This book offers a unique theory of dislocation in the form of primitive accumulation. It develops a framework that offers alternative avenues to rethinking dislocation and resettlement, and indeed the very idea of development.

This volume takes a fresh look at the land question in India. Instead of re-engaging in the rich transition debate in which the transformation of agriculture is seen as a necessary historical step to usher in dynamic capitalist (or socialist) development, this collection critically examines the centrality of land in contemporary development discourse in India. Consequently, the focus is on the role of the state in pushing a process of dispossession of peasants through direct expropriation for developmental purposes such as acquisition of land by (local) states for infrastructure development and to support accumulation strategies of private business through industrialization. Land in India is sought for non-agricultural purposes such as purchasing land to reduce risk and real estate development. Land is also central to tribal communities (adivasis), whose livelihoods depend on it and on a moral economy that is independent of any price-driven markets. Adivasis tend to hold on to such property, not as individual owners for profit, but for collective security and to protect a way of life. Thus land, notwithstanding its role in the accumulation process, has been, and continues to be, a turbulent arena in which classes, castes, and communities are in conflict with each other, with the state, and with capital, jockeying to determine the terms and conditions of land transactions or their prevention, through both market and non-market mechanisms. The volume goes beyond the traditional political economy of the agrarian transition question, and deals with, inter alia, distributional conflicts arising from acquisition of land by the state for capital accumulation on the one hand and its commodification on the other. It provides new analytical insights into the land acquisition processes, their legal-institutional and ethical implications, and the multifaceted regional diversity of acquisition experiences in India.

This book is all about the nexus of “state, development intervention and the development community” where the main objective of the development intervention is to enhance the revenue of the State’s economy. The institutional parameters are instrumental in this success. However, these mechanisms are limited to few stages of development, giving very little space to the development communities. This book is intended to present the contemporary research outcomes on the cross-cutting theme of development induced displacement. Please note: This title is co-published with Aakar Books, New Delhi. Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Maldives and Sri Lanka.

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. In India, informal estimates of involuntary resettlement are estimated to be around 50 million people over the last five decades, and three-fourths of those displaced still face an uncertain future. Growing public concern over the long-term consequences of this has led to greater scrutiny of the rehabilitation and resettlement process, particularly for large development projects. 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. The book combines a theoretical analysis of the proposed regulatory framework with detailed case studies that examine the application of these norms in specific geographic contexts across the country. It brings together contributory analysis by some of the country’s most engaged administrators, academics, and activists in the field, and is a useful contribution to Development Studies.

In the last 30 years, Delhi, the capital of India, has displaced over 1.5 million poor people. Resettlement and welfare services are available-but exclusively so, as the city deems much of the population ineligible for civic benefits. The Right to Be Counted examines how Delhi's urban poor, in an effort to gain visibility from the local state, incrementally stake their claims to a house and life in the city. Contributing to debates about the contradictions of state governmentality and the citizenship projects of the poor in Delhi, this book explores social suffering, logistics, and the logic of political mobilizations that emanate from processes of displacement and resettlement. Sanjeev Routray draws upon fieldwork conducted in various low-income neighborhoods throughout the 2010s to describe the process of claims-making as an attempt by the political community of the poor to assert its existence and numerical strength, and demonstrates how this struggle to be counted constitutes the systematic, protracted, and incremental political process by which the poor claim their substantive entitlements and become entrenched in the city. Analyzing various social, political, and economic relationships, as well as kinship networks and solidarity linkages across the political and social spectrum, this book traces the ways the poor work to gain a foothold in Delhi and establish agency for themselves.

The social, economic and political contexts in which development projects in India are implemented, and consequences to people displaced by such projects, are analyzed in this book. Development, displacement, resettlement and rehabilitation processes related to three major reservoir bases' irrigation and power projects, and three major industrial projects are studied. The role of the State, international agencies and the private industrial sector in promoting development and managing rehabilitation of the displaced people is assessed, and the author proposes a framework for a comprehensive policy on development, displacement and rehabilitation.