Sustainable Development via Big Dams: The Victimisation of Affected People

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it briefly analyses the consequences of state-led developmental projects, particularly big dams projects in the context of this present study, on the natural environment and the lives of people especially the ‘project-affected people' or ‘oustees' who are forced to displace from their ancestral land to make the way for so-called ‘national development'. Two, it aims to explore that to what extent the prevailing patterns of development as well as structural mechanisms like the newly enacted The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act 2013 (LARR Act) incorporates the interests of the oustees. For the purpose, the paper begins with a brief overview of the existing debates in the context of big dams in India as well the rationale given by the state and its critics which is followed by a discussion on a historical background of some such significant anti-dam movements in order to understand the dynamics of the state-society interaction. The paper then examines the contradictions embedded in the governmental structure in addressing the concern of the victims of big dams, and then, points out the ‘exclusive' and ‘exploitative' character of the development. Finally, against this background, the papers fleshes out how such large infrastructure projects are continued to denying social justice and equity to the victims of these projects and consequently, this political apathy has resulted into a further deepening of social and economic division between the ‘haves' and ‘have-nots'.