Coping with Development Pathologies: Resistance to Displacement

Big Dam, Big Failures: A Study of the Canal Irrigation System and the Deprived Tail-End Farmers in the Hirakud Command Area of Orissa, India

“…Blaser et al, 2004;Cernea, 1996;CSE, 1985;Fernandes, 1994;Mahapatra, 1999;Mathur and Marsden, 1998;Meher, 2004Meher, , 2010Oommen, 2006;Taylor, 1995;and others). Fifty years on, it is now realized that one such mega project, the Hirakud Multipurpose Dam Project on the River Mahanadi in the state of Orissa, is a failure from the point of view of securing livelihood gains for the voiceless working poor and marginalized sections of the population.…”

“…Ephemeral gains of such mega-development projects and the enclave development model are evidenced by the immiserization and pauperization of the involuntarily displaced and projectaffected population, as revealed by the findings of many studies in different parts of India and other developing Third World countries (see e.g. Blaser et al, 2004;Cernea, 1996;CSE, 1985;Fernandes, 1994;Mahapatra, 1999;Mathur and Marsden, 1998;Meher, 2004Meher, , 2010Oommen, 2006;Taylor, 1995;and others). Fifty years on, it is now realized that one such mega project, the Hirakud Multipurpose Dam Project on the River Mahanadi in the state of Orissa, is a failure from the point of view of securing livelihood gains for the voiceless working poor and marginalized sections of the population.…”

Globalization, Displacement and the Livelihood Issues of Tribal and Agriculture Dependent Poor People

“…In the name of development and of civilizing, assimilating and mainstreaming the tribal people, the affl uent elites are evicting these poor people from their homes and land (Gadgil and Guha, 1995). Mega development projects like multipurpose river dams and large scale mining generate benefi ts for the few relatively better off sections of population while marginalizing and excluding the poorer tribal people (Oommen, 2004(Oommen, , 2006(Oommen, , 2008. The majority of the latter become the victims of development.…”

“…It is found that in large mining projects tribals lose their land not only to the project authorities, but also to non-tribal outsiders who converge on these areas and corner both land and the new economic opportunities in commerce and petty industry (Fernandes, 1994;Government of India, 2002: 458). Their status changes from self-sustaining members of their local ecosystem to ecological refugees who are forced into the slums of the large urban centres and urban-industrial towns created by the development pathologies of our time (Gadgil and Guha, 1995;Omvedt, 1993;Oommen, 2006).…”