Industrialisation, Development and Displacement in India: A Study about Odisha

Abstract

The growing awareness among the communities who face displacement has given rise to a wide range of protest movements all over the country. Through struggles in Nandigram and Singur of West Bengal Kalinganagar and Paradip of Odisha or the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh people are asserting the need to both democratize the model as well as to seek alternative to them. The protest movement has not only created national awareness of the problem but also has raised question of equity, fairness, justice and equality before law in the matter of distribution of benefits and burdens. Though the process of acquisition of land for setting up mining, irrigation, transportation and other mega projects (mostly in the public sector) is not new, the intensity of adverse effects was never comprehended in the past as it is today. The problem of displacement and resistance is result of present development pattern followed by Indian state.

In the present days the project affected people are no longer in a mood to suffer displacement along with its concomitant attributes like occupational degeneration, social disorientation, pauperization, loss in dignity and often getting cheated of the compensation amount, which serve to make the experience a trauma. This has given rise to protest movements, marked by growing militancy. An interesting feature of the growing protest movement has been the creation of a national awareness of the problem. Also protest movements of the displaced have played a major role in displacement becoming a key issue in the debate on development.

So this study deals with the issue of industrialisation, development and displacement caused by industrial projects, which affects large number of people and the resistance offered by people to this development-induced-displacement in Odisha. It also tries to analyze the role of government in the process.