In Assam, thousands of families get uprooted not only on account of natural disasters, to which the State is vulnerable. The recurring conflicts between tribes (or communities) have, apart from claiming human lives, rendered people homeless, forcing a good number of them to seek shelter elsewhere. For instance, statistics show that as many as 3.14 lakh people — Bodos and Adivasis — were displaced as a result of ethnic clashes between the two groups in 1993, 1996, and 1998, and the evacuees had to live in sub-human conditions in makeshift relief camps. And a big chunk of them are yet to be rehabilitated.
There is the third type of displacement, the one imposed in the name of development. In the case of the other two — natural disasters and ethnic/communal clashes — data can be accessed without much difficulty. It is not so in the case of development-induced displacement. The reason is that, barring the major projects, nobody really keeps track of the various development schemes or maintains reliable data on the social cost they entail, in terms of land and livelihood lost by the displaced and project-affected persons.
The book under review, the outcome of a study undertaken by the North Eastern Social Research Centre (NESRC), presents the data related to development-induced displacement in Assam over the period 1947-2000. In 13 chapters, detailed information about the extent of land used and the number of persons deprived of sustenance by various projects under different categories — dams, mines, industries, power, transport, and so on — is provided.
Based on their study, Walter Fernandes and Gita Bharali place the extent of private land acquired for development projects at 14.1 lakh acres (which is about 8 per cent of the State's geographical area) and the number of persons displaced at 19.1 lakhs. But, according to official records, the figures are 3.91 lakh acres and 4.2 lakh people respectively.
The disparity in figures is attributable to the difference between the government and the authors in the criteria adopted for reckoning the land loss. The government took into account only such lands that were categorised as ‘revenue' and ‘forest'. But the study, as mentioned in the first chapter, included community-controlled land, forest and other assets — known as Common Property Resources (CPRs) — as well as private land taken away by a development project, while assessing the number of people displaced or affected by it. The authors argue that in respect of most projects only the ‘individual' land-losers are counted, while families who sustain themselves on the CPRs (on the basis of their customary) law are excluded. “Most such families have inhabited the CPRs for centuries but the individual-based laws of the country do not recognise their right over them. They are thus excluded from benefits like compensation when the project alienates their sustenance,” they observe.
Challenge
In a backward State like Assam, the challenge before development strategists is to strike a balance between development imperatives and the social cost any development venture entails. The chapter that documents the displacement-induced project in post-Independence Assam shows how Partition rendered the region landlocked and caused a huge development deficit on account of bottlenecks in transport and communication.
Lack of development is generally identified as a major cause for the social unrest and insurgency movements — some of them with a secessionist accent — that are plaguing the region. Not unoften these rebellious currents trigger conflicts, resulting in forced displacement of people. On the other hand, development projects — such as roads, railways, industries, power generation, defence cantonments, and administrative complexes — that require priority attention in a landlocked State like Assam necessarily involve large-scale land acquisition. This, in turn, sets off intense debate, with the issue of displacement becoming contentious. It is thus a paradoxical situation.
Academics and researchers interested in this area of study will find the book useful and the huge volume of data it provides are a veritable gold-mine for them to analyse, interpret and build upon. But one felt that some pointers or footnotes about the Gazette notifications and official files in the relevant chapters would have made reference much easier.
