ABSTRACT
Involuntary land acquisition and the compulsory displacement of communities for a larger ‘public purpose’ centrally capture the quandary of ‘development’ in the modern Indian state. Nominally, this quandary speaks to the need to balance the interests of the majority while protecting the rights of the minority. More fundamentally, however, the process calls into question the determination of who is called upon by the state to make the involuntary sacrifice, and who are the beneficiaries of these sacrifices for the ‘public purpose’.
