ABSTRACT
Conflicts andwars among humans and also natural calamities have been the cause of dislocation since time immemorial. However, the advent of ‘developmentconnected dislocation’ as a global phenomenon is relatively new, having gathered particular force since the advent of the industrial revolution. What is stunning about these forms of dislocation, economic or otherwise, is the momentous scale on which they appear. Because of its disturbing forms and its momentous scale, dislocation had come to occupy a central position in policy debates and in politics by the end of the twentieth century, and threatens to remain so in this century. However, it is also true that ‘while people pushed out of their homes by an earthquake or war may be favorably viewed by the media or international aid agencies, the victims of development-induced dislocation frequently win no such sympathy. This is so despite the fact that the negative effects of development-induced dislocation may be every bit as grave as those faced by people displaced by other forces’ (Robinson 2004). Why? The answer seems to reside in the positive value that is attached to
development-connected dislocation. While the term development started to be deployed in the 1940s, its genealogy can be traced to colonialism/‘the civilizing mission’ (Escobar 1995). From the colonial period to the post-colonial period, a belief has gathered strength that dislocation in the present era is paradoxically contributing to growth and to the ultimate development of society. This understanding of development-as-growth emanating out of initial moments of dislocation has reached the proportion of a consensus among the mainstream community of development thinkers including policy makers. At times, even activists structure their language of resistance over dislocation in terms of this consensus. Against this consensus, there have also been sceptics, who have argued against the positive value attributed to development-connected dislocation; they have also portrayed dislocation and, by default, development that causes dislocation as unethical and unjust. It is to this myriad, contested and divided space of development-connected dislocation that the book is dedicated. While the book focuses on the sources, forms, policies and solutions of
development-connected dislocation, it is worthwhile gauging its importance by briefly recognizing its scale. As is evident from the huge empirical literature that has surfaced, the scale of development-connected dislocation, in both
absolute and relative terms, is simply staggering (Fernandes and GangulyThukral 1989; Oliver-Smith 1991; Ganguly-Thukral 1992; McCully 1996; Stein 1998; Dwivedi 1999; Cernea 1999; Parasuraman 1999; Asif 2000). In the era of liberalization and globalization, the expansion of the private sector in a big way has not only increased demand for land, but has also changed somewhat the manner of its expropriation; there has been a further turn towards privatization of property – privatization of land, water bodies, forests, hills and mountains, and minerals deep inside ‘mother earth’. This means more dislocation in the livelihoods of those displaced and also a tectonic shift in the social landscape of affected societies. Here is a rough estimate. The World Commission on Dams (WCD) has
shown that, due to large dams alone:
nearly 40-80 million people have been displaced worldwide. In China alone by the late 1980s some 10.2 million people were officially recognized as ‘reservoir resettlers’. Unofficial estimates by Chinese scholars suggest that the actual number is much higher (China Report 1999). All these figures are at best only careful estimations and include mostly those whose homes and/or lands were flooded by water reservoirs; millions more are likely to have been displaced due to other aspects of dam projects such as canals, powerhouses, and associated compensatory measures such as nature reserves.
