REFUGEE WATCH
"A South Asian Journal on Forced Migration" - Issue NO.31
Relief to Rehabilitation: Towards Policy on Development Planning, Displacement & Rehabilitation by Madhuresh Kumar (*Programmes Coordinator with CACIM)
This essay is on one section of the internally displaced persons (IDPs) in India, who have been displaced due to specific developmental projects. They have been called variously as displaced persons (DPs), project affected persons (PAPs), developmental refugees, or at times even part of the broad category called environmental refugees. By and large international law has nothing to say on the victims of displacement (except some provisions on property rights of the indigenous people, etc.) who possibly constitute today the largest chunk of the forced migrants in the world. The Guiding Principles only distantly touch the question of developmental displacement. The Principles do not take in cognisance some of the root causes of violence induced displacement, for instance the fact that developmental displacement may finally result in large-scale violence, bitterness, hatred, and ethnic polarisation. The phenomenon of developmental displacement may not have been much noticed half a century ago, but certainly in the wake of globalisation in the last fifteen-twenty years its significance in terms of the rights of the victims of displacement and forced migration has increased greatly. Yet, development and developmental displacements are taking place; developmental displacement is a great tragedy unfolding worldwide before our eyes. In many cases this displacement is globalisation induced, yet global wealth, power, and resources perform almost no responsibility in confronting and mitigating the tragedy; and notwithstanding roles of UN agencies such as the UNDP, development and developmental displacements fall under national responsibility. How are nations and nations-states faring in discharge of this responsibility?
In this context, this essay attempts to delineate the patterns of displacement, resettlement, and rehabilitation in colonial and post-colonial India and traces the evolution of national rehabilitation policy. It seeks to study and present handling of displacement due to man made disasters through developmental projects in pre independence era, and show the colonial attitude to development, DPs and PAFs, which unfortunately continues till today, after 60 years of independence. The issues, debates and conflicts over the natural resources and the path of development that aim at benefiting the powerful and privileged have changed very little since then. We see in fact a heightened conflict over resources between people who own it and the private corporations and the state, which use the principle of eminent domain to claim everything in the name of public purpose or national interest. The essay tries to portray how case after case in each decade since independence promises of development, dignity and livelihood to those affected has been betrayed, except for the partition refugees who were treated very differently. B D Sharma, a foremost crusader for the rights of the displaced people calls it as one of the shining examples of unbroken history of broken promises in the national history of India. Divided in five parts, part one of the essay addresses the colonial history of displacement and loot of natural resources by the colonial government under the Land Acquisition Act and Forest Acquisition Act for various developmental projects and the timber needs of the Raj. Part two deals with the disasters created by the industries (Nehru called them the “modern temples of India”) in the early decades of independence and other continued disaster and betrayal of sufferings and sacrifices of PAFs in the name of national interest. Part three takes a look at the rehabilitation of the partition refugees, which stands in contrast with that of the developmental refugees Part four then discusses the evolution of the rehabilitation policies from post independence to subsequent decades, and a gradual shift in approach from compensation to rehabilitation. Part five concludes the paper and offers an insight into the continued lacunae in various policies and argues for an enactment on national development planning, displacement and rehabilitation.
1. The Pre-Independence Time
The principle of ‘eminent domain’, the bedrock of all the policies that ensure state control over natural resources and its usurpation has its legal root in colonial times. The destruction of natural resources in colonial times was a by-product of Britain’s own need fuelled largely by the Industrial Revolution. As a result by around 1860, Britain had emerged as the world leader in deforestation, devastating its own woods and forests of Ireland, South Africa, and north-eastern United States to draw timber for ship building, iron smelting and farming (Gadgil and Guha, 1992: 118). Due to increased expansion of the Railways network and the growing timber need[1] the Imperial Forest Department was formed in 1864, headed by Dietrich Brandis with the dual aim of checking deforestation, but at the same time bringing in effective legislation to assert legal ownership right of the state over forests and waste lands, leading to enactment of Indian Forest Act of 1865 replaced later in 1878. It is not that the complete control of the state was not challenged at that moment but the majority view favouring complete control of the state and denial of rights of the villagers held sway over the moderate views of Brandis. The Act was a comprehensive piece of legislation establishing the ‘rights’ of state and reducing those of the village communities to that of ‘privilege’ thereby severely limiting the rights to forest produce. Starting with meeting the needs of railway the Act later played a very crucial role in meeting the timber needs during two World wars.
As seen the Act largely benefited the colonial designs and went completely against the interests of the indigenous people, jhum cultivators, forest dwellers, settled cultivators, artisans and various others village communities. It was then in 1878 that Poona Sarvajanik Sabha anticipated the resulting alienation of the peasantry due to the Act and contested its excessive reliance on state control (Guha and Gadgil, 1992:144). This understanding resulted in protest in the form of non-payment of taxes, non-cooperation, giving false information or other peaceful means and the protest turned violent when all peaceful avenues failed. The attempted control of natural resources and abrogation of the traditional rights of villagers brings forth the conflict between the commercial interests of the state and the subsistence ethics of the peasant. Using the argument made by late E P Thomson in the case of food riots, we can say that if the customary use of the forest rested on a moral economy of provision, scientific forestry rested squarely on a political economy of profit (Guha and Gadgil 1992: 175)
It is also to be noted that at a conservative estimate 35 million persons were displaced due to planned destruction of Indian industries in the 19th century. By 1947 an estimated 16 million of people had been displaced only through the acquisition of 99,000 sq miles of forest with the help of 1878 Forest Act (Fernandes and Paranjpye 1997: 7-10). It is also to be noted that in the absence of any provision for the rehabilitation or compensation they were forced to simply move to other places or end as labourers in the plantation colonies, textile mills, and urban centres, something very much prevalent in today’s India too.
The British exploited the natural resources for constantly feeding their industries and maintaining consumption levels back home and to facilitate this process set up railways, textile mills, hydroelectric and irrigation projects on the lands of the Indian peasant and used the labour of Indians in the process ensuring destruction of the traditional artisans and their skills. However, one or two industrial conclaves of J N Tata and some others did develop in this time too. The British regime exploited sea coasts, forests, inland water bodies, grazing lands, farm lands, created environmentally non sustainable urban centres, and undermined the hitherto existing ecosystems, along with changing the political, social and economic structures. As the need for land grew they promulgated the Land Acquisition Act in 1894, further extending the eminent domain to all kinds of private land as well, which since then became the chief tool of acquiring land for all kinds of purposes.
Of significant interest in the current context of our discussion on development and displacement from that era is construction and opposition to the Mulshi Dam to be built by the Tatas near Poona in 1921. The opposition to the dam led by Senapati Bapat is also perhaps one of the few documented evidence of protest movement against the construction of a hydroelectric project in India. The stand taken at that point by those who resisted still remains valid and shows how the thinking on development has remained till date fundamentally biased. As quoted in (Gadgil and Guha 1995: 69) The Times of India in May 2 1921 edition published an account of the Mulshi Satyagraha[2] where the correspondent succinctly noted various positions and origins of the struggle:
1. A strong sense of wrong and deep feeling of resentment among the peasantry, whose lands were affected by the project, against the government for sanctioning the scheme without taking them in its confidence, that is without consent, knowledge or consultation of the peasant-owners of the land.
2. Suspicion and distrust of government and the company, due chiefly to the procedure of acquisition, as to the bona fide intentions toward giving full compensation, or equivalent amount and quality of land somewhere else, and other facilities enjoyed by them or necessary for fresh agriculture.
3. Reluctance to part with the land on account of its extreme productivity, natural facilities of irrigation, and nominal amount of land revenue.
4. Reluctance to part with the lands, ancestral homes, and traditional places of worship and see them submerged under water.
5. Natural reluctance in this class of peasantry to emigrate from one place to another.
On the other side the main claims of the project promoters were:
1. One and half lakh of electrical horse power would be created by the Mulshi Peta dam.
2. It would save 5,25,000 tons of coal every year. This quantity of coal at the then rate cost Rs. 18,300,000.
3. The saving of coal meant a corresponding saving of Rs. 10,750,000 worth of fuel to the mill industry of Bombay.
4. The quantity of coal saved on account of the scheme would have required 26,250 wagons for transport. These could be now utilised and saved for other public purposes.
5. Water once used could be directed for agricultural purposes after electrical power had been created.
6. Electricity thus created would give work to 300,000 labourers. If it was utilised for cotton mills, everyday 51 lakh yards of cotton would be manufactured.
7. The project electrification of the Bombay suburban railways lines would give to Bombay city much faster and most frequent trains, thus enabling the development of housing schemes in purer air and healthier circumstances.
This in a way represents the roots of the ideological conflicts or conflict over claims, which we witness even today, conflicts between the livelihood interest of the farmers and other communities to those of the needs of urban centres for power, and other resources. It also illustrates the fact that serving the needs of the urban centre is considered as part of the larger public purpose more than the livelihood needs of the villagers and other affected communities are considered from that angle. Till today things have not changed much. The Mulshi Satyagraha ended with the agitators being divided by the Tatas and the government with help of sahukars (local money lenders), but nevertheless the farmers got a better monetary compensation because of the Satyagraha.
2. The Post-Independence Euphoria
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, during the dedication of the Bhakra dam to the nation said on 22 October 1963, “Bhakra Nangal project is something tremendous, something stupendous, something which shakes you up when you see it, the new temple of resurgent India, is the symbol of India’s progress.” Bhakra is a legend, used and abused by the politicians, bureaucrats, judges, ordinary citizens, media, and many others to silence all opposition to the large dams in India. Built in the initial years of nationalistic euphoria and idealism of nation building, it was credited to be largely responsible for achieving self-sufficiency in the food grain production with Haryana and Punjab earning the distinction of being the granaries of nation. In April 2005, Manthan Adhyayan Kendra in a significant study however completely demystified the hallow around the Bhakra. The study said,
We found that as in the most other dam projects, the figures put forward for areas to be irrigated by the Bhakra project were highly aggregated. Indeed, even the areas that it could ultimately service, it was able to do so by virtually drying up the river and cutting off areas previously irrigated. The startling finding was that Bhakra did not add any new areas under irrigation – it only transferred or shifted the irrigation from one set of the areas to another – from areas that were already irrigated to other areas.
Further it added, “in other words, in the best analysis, the contribution of Bhakra to India’s food grains production and Punjab / Haryana’s agricultural prosperity has been limited, and no where near the perception. Bhakra happened to be in the right place, at the right time, and has been given the credit for things it never did.”
On the other hand if we look at the human cost, which went behind creating this myth then the findings are equally startling. Even in the 50 years after the process of displacement started people have not been fully rehabilitated, and remain unable to integrate in the new social milieu, they are called Bilaspuriyas in Hissar, Haryana where most of them were given semi-arid and bushy land. According to Bhakra Beas Management Board (BBMB), the Bhakra dam submerged 44,153 acres (17876 ha) of land due to which residents of 371 villages were displaced. BBMB further states that 7,206 families were affected comprising about 36,000 persons. But these counts are only for landowning families there are no figures available for those affected by the project in other ways. There was no uniform resettlement policy for the displaced and those displaced by the level of 1280 feet were given only cash compensation and those above 1280 feet up to 1700 feet were given an option for cash or land compensation. The policy was that no oustee would be given more than 25 acres of land, but also not less than his acquired holding, subject to his compensation amount being adequate to meet the cost. This was not thus exactly the land for land policy. Landless tenants were also declared eligible for the allotment of land equal to the extent of their submerged tenancy subject to a maximum of 5 acres. The price of the land was to be recovered in 20 equal half yearly instalments with a 5.25% interest. Similarly it was decided to allot half acre of land free of cost to each artisan and labourer of the rural area who did not own or cultivate land provided he shifted and settled to the Hissar district. The price of such land was recovered from the other oustees allotted lands through a 1% surcharge.
In the initial euphoria and faith in the nation building project the oustees cooperated at each and every step from land acquisition to the construction of the project. Oustees did not complain of any hardship due to inadequate resettlement plan, and treated it as a case of inexperience of the young nation in handling projects of this magnitude. However, as years have gone by, the experience of oustees suggests that it is not lack of learning or experience but the insensitivity of officials responsible for their plight. Today the third generation of the displaced has a growing sense of betrayal. The insensitivity is clearly visible in the way cost of the land allotted was recovered from the oustees themselves, and the sole reason of settling them in Hissar was the fact that the unarable land, covered with thick overgrowth in a semi arid zone was available cheaply.
Nehru had once said that the oustees were going to another land; and the government would will make such arrangements for them that they would forget their homeland…the government would give them water, school, electricity, roads. However, reality is something else, as one of the oustees says that when they went, there was not even drinking water, there was no electricity, they were shifted in 1956, but they got electricity only in 1972. In fact most of them received proprietary ownership only in 1980, which prevented them from taking any loan even till then. Those settled in Himachal Pradesh (HP) had no better luck; some of them got land by the HP government but mostly got cash compensation and were left to fend for themselves. Some of them decided to move to the upper height of the mountains adjacent to reservoir. But mostly they could never recover because the infrastructure in the region was completely disintegrated due to submergence and displacement. The biggest problem for these people continues to be that of drinking water. It is ironic that people displaced for such a huge reservoir, living on the banks of the same continue to suffer from serious drinking water problem. There are other cultural, social and emotional problems displaced communities face till now.
After 20 years of completion of the dam, the Government of India’s Rehabilitation Committee submitted its report in 1983. In it, it claimed to have rehabilitated all displaced families. However, in 1999 the Committee was called again to look in to the 3,000 applications, which were submitted claiming inadequate rehabilitation. Out of these, finally 787 were found to be valid by the committee without specifying any parameters, and of these only 153 families have been promised, land for lost land.
This is ironic for we all say that someone has to pay the price of development. The Bhakra people suffered willingly in the name of nation but even then they did not receive a honest deal. It was a breach of trust and an example for future.
There are numerous documented instances of failure of justice mechanisms and the inability of the government to resettle various project affected people across the country. Another instance is that of Jaikwadi Dam in Paithan, Maharashtra on Godavari River, completed in 1976 with a dam wall 10.2 Kms. long and a reservoir of 34,000 hectares. The project submerged 118 villages and 34,000 hectares of land and displaced 70,000 people. From the beginning there was no provision for any land based rehabilitation and each of them got compensation at a paltry rate of Rs. 700 and Rs. 1100 per acre only. Only few well off people from the region after fighting it out in the court got compensation close to Rs. 6,000 per acre; but large number of them got a sum which did not ensure even purchasing of some land for survival. The promised 4-acre land in the command area to be made available to the displaced people was also never made available to them. Another provision announced at the time of commencement of dam in 1965 that 5% of government jobs would be reserved for the dam-affected people in recruitment never actualised. After 30 years of the completion of the dam the displaced people are struggling for their rightful claim under the banner of Jaikwadi Prakalpagrasta Sangharsha Samiti (Jaikwadi Project Affected People’s Organisation) and Nisarga Mitra Mandal (Nature Friends’ Organisation). They petitioned the government on many occasions, held demonstrations, and took out rallies but the pleas fell on deaf ears.
The instance of Jaikwadi DPs is significant because Maharashtra is one of the first states, which which came up with a rehabilitation law in 1976 for the DPs by irrigation projects. The Act was amended in 1986, which received the presidential assent in 1989. It was considered a bold move in those times because as opposed to the Government of India, or other states which started working on a rehabilitation policy in 1990s due to various other factors, the Maharashtra law was solely guided by its own experience of constructing many big irrigation and power projects such as Koyna and other industrial and infrastructural projects. The Law had many flaws, to be discussed later, but nevertheless it was a beginning. However in spite of a law being in place and government showing its concern for the DPs the concrete experience was not substantially different.
The Continued Suffering
The experiences of deprivation after displacement and consequent struggles of DPs in Narmada, Koel Karo, Tehri, Rengali, Tawa, Indira Sagar, Kashipur, Kalinganagar and elsewhere in the country has gone a long way in broadening the discussions on development and contributed to the strengthening of the democratic and ethos in the country. One might not talk here of the Narmada Valley development project, comprising of 30 big, 135 medium size and 3,000 small dams over the Narmada and its tributaries referred as “one of the worst planned environmental disasters of the century”. The Narmada Bachao Andolan led the demand for adequate resettlement and rehabilitation. The Narmada case has been documented and discussed in many forums and on many pages. So we are leaving that out of the current discussion.[5]Even though the Central Water Commission brings out a detailed directory of the various power and irrigation projects but there is no information available about the numbers of DPs and PAFs. Whatever data there is, it exists mainly because of the efforts of the people’s movements, academics, and researchers. A peep in to the available data will give us a picture of the real victims of the development.
Table 1: A Conservative Estimate Of The Number Of Total Persons Displaced And Tribals Displaced By Developmental Schemes 1951-1990 In India (In Lakhs)
All displaced persons
Tribals displaced
Category of Projects
All DPs
DPs resettled
Backlog
Tribals
Resettled
Backlog
Dams
164.00
41.00
123.00
63.21
15.81
47.40
Mines
25.50
6.30
19.20
13.30
3.30
10.00
Industries
12.50
3.75
8.75
3.13
0.80
2.33
Wildlife sanctuaries
6.00
1.25
4.75
4.50
1.00
3.50
Others
5.00
1.50
3.50
1.25
0.25
1.00
Total
213.00
53.80
159.20
85.39
21.16
64.23
Source : Tribals displaced; the price of development, by Walter Fernandes, India Social Institute, New Delhi (Fernandes and Paranjpye 1997)
The data presented above is only till 1990; however the situation has not changed much in terms of continuance of displacement due to developmental projects, if only it has increased in this hyped up economic boom as never before, or in implementing rehabilitation programmes. The percentage of those rehabilitated is still as low as 25-30 percent of the total number of displaced population. A discussion in this context on the evolution of the rehabilitation policies in the country since independence would be of some significance to us.
However, before that as a study in contrast we can have brief look into government’s treatment of development refugees in colonial or post-colonial India in the wake of massive refugee influx in the aftermath of partition.
3. Resettling the Partition Refugees
Independence of India and Pakistan came at a great price, acknowledged as the largest mass migration in the recorded history; approximately 14 million people crossed over – roughly seven million from each side of the border; Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims in Punjab and Bengal.[6] It was not a normal case displacement of population from one’s homeland but created under special circumstances where there were no chances of going back. The government of India was faced with this problem when it had no experience of handling such a massive challenge and or the resources. However there was a political will that made it possible with the help of various non-governmental national and international agencies to provide a working level of resettlement and rehabilitation. The very fact that Nehru and others viewed the refugees as a critical component of nation building rather than a burden testifies to the will of the government in rehabilitating them. The following quotes are testimonies to this:
Sir, we may have to be grateful to the refugees for having drawn our attention to the urgency of the problem of planning for the development of this country, and perhaps future generations will acknowledge their gratitude to the so-called refugees for having furnished the manpower which is necessary for the purpose of developing the resources of the country as a whole.[7]
– K. C.Neogy, Minister for Relief and Rehabilitation
The problem was seen thus as a national tragedy, and this feeling was visible in the efforts at the level of centre as well as states, and among both governmental and non-governmental agencies. The refugees were welcomed with open arms as a result of which they quickly assimilated in the existing society in many ways. One of the reasons accounting for this response was the fact that they were seen as sons of soil who were coming back home from a land which no more belonged to them. As a matter of fact this attitude meant they were resettled not only in Punjab or Bengal but in other states also such as Delhi, Bihar, Orissa, Assam, Tripura. However, more important to our purpose here is the way the government understood the problem; for instance it did not view it as a problem of displacement only. The issue called for rehabilitation; this the government established the Rehabilitation and Development Board.
Talking of this Nehru said,
You will notice that we call it the ‘Rehabiliattion and Development Board’, meaning thereby that we are combining the two functions or rather, looking at the two problems – rehabilitation and development – together.[8]
– Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India
To quote Neogy again
Sir, what is meant by permanent rehabilitation? Permanent rehabilitation means creation of employment because it ultimately comes to that; creation of employment for millions of people at a time when production is admittedly at a dangerously low ebb, and when the volume of trade and commerce in the country is shrinking …
Sir, permanent rehabilitation can be achieved satisfactorily only as a feature of the general development of the country as a whole… it is simply impossible to think in terms of rehabilitating them without at the same time proceeding with measures which would lead to the development of the resources of the country as a whole.[9]
– K C Neogy
This approach mean that not only relief was offered to them but efforts were made to provide them land, compensate for lost property, recovering lost property in some cases, providing plots for houses, skills for gainful employment, helping find employment, provide loans for starting businesses, purchasing food, seeds, fodder, bullocks, psycho-social counselling and meeting other needs. In short attempts at making them stand on their own feet once again were undertaken. The state took on paternalistic role of caring for its citizens, especially women – widowed or abducted, infirm or old – for a longer time and turning them in to valuable citizens. The sincerity of efforts are visible in the fact that in final reckoning, the refugees in West received 24,48,830 standard acres in quasi-permanent settlement, in lieu of 39,35,131 standard acres left behind by them in West Punjab. The government devised a carefully planned system of allocating land for agriculture and or housing plots. There were separate departments created by the government to deal with specific needs of the refugees, and a number of Bills were introduced in the Parliament covering practically every aspect of refugee rehabilitation and rehabilitation – The Evacuee Property Act, 1947; the Finance Administration Bill, 1948 dealing with loans to small businesses and urban refugees; the Displaced persons (Institution of Suits Bill) August 1948; Resettlement of Displaced Persons (Land Acquisition) Bill, September 1948, Interim Compensation Scheme, 1953 and many others. In this endeavour the government got support from International Red Cross, UNICEF, Hindu Mahasabha, RSS, INA, All India Women’s Conference, YWCA, DAV College, St. John’s Ambulance, Ramakrishna Mission, Marwari Relief Society, National Council of Women and a large number of Ashrams and Deras.[10]
The overwhelming support from cross section of society also meant a different understanding and acceptance of the problem, which is in contrast to the way the problems of the DPs from developmental projects are handled. The enormity of problems has never been seen as a national tragedy but has always remained a local problem – that too of displaced people only. This is in contrast with the emotions one finds in the wake of disaster induced displacements, for instance, as witnessed after the earthquakes in Latur, Jammu and Kashmir, Bhuj or cyclones in Orissa or Tsunami in South India. It is ironical that these so-called development projects fail to provide for the development of those who pay for it.
4. Journey of a Policy
Displacement due to ‘development’ in India is not new, though resettlement and rehabilitation as a policy measure certainly is. The colonial period has produced a vast segment of displaced people. The forest resources, river systems and mineral base that attract the ‘developmental projects’ have already occasioned a ‘displaced’ segment of the Indian society. In the Indian context, it is of interest to note that most of the developmental projects are located in the most backward areas and populated by various small nationalities – otherwise called tribals. These segments, with the enactment of land settlement laws, forest laws and commercialisation of forest products and minerals, have undergone a metamorphosis, where the access of local population groups to the various natural resources are legally denied and these segments of population are treated as hostages in their own environment. The same fate has overtaken the poor peasantry, the artisan, groups and the traditional service groups. QUOTE “(Bharathi and Rao, 1999)”Any resistance to displacement is now treated as a ‘law and order’ problem, so there is often no question of a Relief and Rehabilitation (R & R) policy. Land in several places has been acquired by the use of the draconian provisions of the Land Acquisition Act 1894, which still continues, with some amendments in 1967 and 1984. It is now a weapon in the hands of independent Indian state for acquiring land from its citizens.
The situation just after independence was not much different. Independent India’s Nehruvian development model based on development of heavy industries[11] found a nationalistic fervour with planners and its privileged citizens. That there would be large-scale displacement was not a hidden fact and Nehru while speaking to displaced persons of Hirakund Dam in 1948, said, ‘If you are to suffer, you should suffer in the interest of the nation’. It was much more a matter of government’s largesse and R & R depended solely on the whims and fancies of the project authorities. Rehabilitation and resettlement as a term also did not exist in the government lexicon in those days; it was all a matter of dealing with displaced people – that too marked with callousness and insensitivity on the part of the administration.
In this period resettlement was undertaken on a case-to-case basis. To mention a few, there were projects like the Nagarjunasagar, Hirakund, Tungabhadra and Mayurakshi dams; the Rourkela, Bhilai and Bokaro steel plants, several defence establishments, coal mines, etc, which did offer resettlement to the displaced in the form of house sites. Only National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), and Coal India Limited (CIL), two government undertakings have formulated an R and R policy and have constituted R and R departments to administer it. In addition, resettlement colonies were demarcated near all their project sites to resettle the displaced QUOTE “(Asif, 2000)” As a result of this ad hoc approach, many of the displaced are left out of the process, and even though there is an absence of accurate national database studies on displacement, a study for 1951-1995 completed in six states and other researches show that their real number in the period 1947-2000 is probably around 60 millions QUOTE ” (Fernandes, 2004).
As mentioned before the state of Maharashtra was the first to enact a rehabilitation law in response to the demands of the DPs of a large number of dams constructed during the first five five-year plans. In fact in 1965 only the government officially accepted the need to rehabilitate DPs and declared that:
· The DPs will preferably be allocated land for cultivation
· A residential plot will be provided.
· A Gaothan (settlement) necessary for it is to be established.
· In the newly established Gaothans various civic facilities will be provided.
· All the expenditure incurred fort these rehabilitation measures should be met from the budget of the project.
It also admitted that independent machinery for rehabilitation was required and established the Rehabilitation Directorate at Sachivalaya to implement its policy. (Bhuskute: 1997).
The act was only applicable to the irrigation projects in Maharashtra and not to the inter-state projects but could be applied to others kinds of projects if government felt the need to do so. This however, did not mean that government recognised rehabilitation as a legal right of DPs. It remained enshrined in the language of the welfare and relief necessary to ensure timely implementation of the various developmental projects. We will take the problems of various legislations cumulatively in next section.
The agitation of DPs of Rengali dam in 1970s forced the government of Orissa to formulate a rehabilitation package and approach the resettlement issue in a systematic manner. These guidelines were then amended and applied for all medium and major irrigation projects in the state and promulgated through a Government Order on April 20 1977 (resolution no. 13169). A number of other government orders followed in 1978, 1989, 1990, and 1993. Finally in 1994 putting together all these orders, the main displacing agency, Department of Water resources, came with a comprehensive policy on resettlement and rehabilitation. Known as The Orissa Resettlement and Rehabilitation of Project Affected Persons Policy, 1994, it was promulgated on August 27, 1994. The government then again initiated discussion to address various problems in the policy and also extend it to other projects in the state. (Dey: 1997)
By 1980s a substantial awareness began to emerge out of these issues and experiences of the DPs. Unrest began to spread, and without tackling the unrest the governmental options of beginning new developmental projects were getting restricted. Even though the resettlement of the oustees had been the responsibility of the state governments and project authorities, in 1980 Government of India issued an order (No. 27/(9)/30-P.I. dated 19.05.1980) to all the State Governments that unless satisfactory safeguards were provided for protection of the interests of the oustees particularly the weaker sections, the Union Government might not accept the project for approval, since rehabilitation issues might hold up the progress of the project and result in excessive cost escalation (Verma 1997). Even though the order only reflected the concerns with regard to completion of the projects, it did mean that a little more attention was being paid now to the problems of the DPs.
It was also during 1980s that the World Bank, one of the major financiers of these big projects, issued its first R&R policy titled, “Social Issues Associated With Involuntary Resettlement In Bank Financed Projects”, which after subsequent revisions finally became a mandatory operational directive in 1990 to be taken seriously by the project holders and borrowers. This policy was based on the feedback from the field experiences and can be still described as one of the most effective ones framed as a major condition for financially assistance for any project that involves displacement, in Bank’s parlance ‘involuntary displacement’ (Paranjpye 1997). However, it has been pointed out now that in current neo-liberal era the Bank has now come to dilute its own provisions in order to facilitate quick clearance of the projects. The Bank’s guidelines have also been accepted and applied more or less in totality by the OECD countries for the developmental projects they finance.
With regard to the formulation of the rehabilitation policies, we should refer to the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) and Coal India Limited (CIL), two of the biggest public sector agencies, responsible for a large number of population displacements. Initially like any other agency they also considered displacement as a non-issue and not of much concern, and only paid cash compensation to DPs at the market rate. In some cases they also started the practice of giving jobs in category C and D to DPs and as a result their records have been somewhat better. For example as on September 1996, NTPC successful rehabilitated 10,342 families (40.5 per cent of the total displaced), 2,977 (11.6 percent) were given employment with NTPC, while another 4,321 were employed with other agencies working for NTPC, and 134 were issued contract licences. It also engaged in imparting vocational training in over 20 different trades to DPs (Paranjpye and Kewalramani 1997).
In case of Coal India Limited, all its activities were earlier guided by the Coal Bearing Areas (Acquisition and Development) Act, 1957 which was very much similar to the provisions of Land Acquisition Act 1894 and did not have much in way for the rights of those affected. However, the only concession has been the jobs offered to them in category C and D, and in some cases resettlement colonies being built by them.
With the opening of the Indian economy in 1991 there was a rush for investment in major infrastructure projects. It also led to heightened agitation by the people’s movements; there was increased awareness also; there was increasing pressure on the international financial institutions. All these led to a flurry of activities for R & R. Starting from the World Bank, other states and agencies such as Orissa (1994), Karnataka (1994), Rajasthan (1997), NTPC (1993), and CIL (1994, the Union Ministry of Water Resources (1994), Ministry of Rural development (1993 and 1994), all came out with policy statements on resettlement and rehabilitation. This was seen as happening especially due to two significant happenings. First, in the wake of the strident opposition from the Narmada Bachao Andolan and worldwide pressure, the World Bank also received negative reports from the Morse Committee about irregularities in the resettlement and rehabilitation procedures, and withdrew from the Sardar Sarovar Project. Second, as a result of the withdrawal of the World Bank, other lending institutions and governments became stricter about these issues and made instituting R & R measures a mandatory condition for the sanctioning of developmental loans. These conditions are very much visible in two of the clauses in the Government of India’s 1994 draft policy.
1.1) With the advent of the New Economic Policy, it is expected that there will be large scale investments, both on account of internal generation of the capital and increased inflow of foreign investments thereby creating and enhancing demand for land to be provided within a shorter time-span in an increasingly competitive market ruled economic structure.
2.2) An interesting feature of the growing protest movement has been the creation of a national awareness of the problem. The Press, the activists groups, the social workers and judiciary have combined together to not only educate the masses about the problem but also to the build-up by the political parties and even by the international organisations to give to it wider than national connotation. The international conference of nations on environment at Rio de Janeiro in 1992 has served sufficiently to internationalise the issue. The world financial institutions can go to the extent of withholding loan and aid so as to get fulfilment of the conditions for its ecological concerns (this was a reference to the Sardar Sarovar Project)
Another significant development in 1990s was the constitution of World Commission on Dams (WCD) comprising of all the stakeholders in the issue. It led to greater awareness on the issue of displacement, but government attitude hardened. Ramaswamy Iyer, former water resources secretary who has been involved with the whole process in some way or the other for past two decades notes recently,
In the earlier period (prior to 1998), a degree of enlightenment was gradually beginning to emerge; there was a growing awareness of environmental and displacement problems in the context of big projects; new guidelines started appearing; and as mentioned earlier, a debate began on a National Rehabilitation Policy. However, the appearance of the WCD changed all that. Official attitudes to the WCD were perhaps more hostile in India than anywhere else; and eventually the Government of India totally rejected the Report of the WCD (November 2000). There was a hardening of attitudes, a strident re-assertion of the engineering point of view and a down gradation of other concerns, and a volte face on our own principles and guidelines. Two decades of slow emergence of enlightened thinking were washed out in the flood of rhetoric against what was perceived as an international conspiracy to prevent India from developing. [Iyer 2007]
This signified governmental rejection in mid 1990s of all previous relevant discussions, which went down the drain, and the change in attitude led to a much watered down draft by the then National Democratic Alliance government in 2003.
At the national level, the first policy draft was prepared in 1985 by a committee appointed by the department of tribal welfare when it found that over 40 per cent of the DPs and PAFs in the period of 1951-1980 were indigenous people (Government of India 1985). The next draft came eight long years later in 1993 and the third in 1994 from the Ministry of Rural Development, in response to which the civil society alliance struggling for a national rehabilitation policy proposed its own draft to the Ministry in 1995. There was silence till 1998 when another draft came out, but the Ministry that prepared it also prepared amendments to the Land Acquisition Act (1894). The civil society alliance found about half of the policy provisions acceptable but thought that the amendments rejected all the principles enunciated in the draft policy. So they came together again to dialogue with the Ministry and work on alternatives. Many principles evolved out of this interaction.
A meeting convened by the Minister of Rural Development in January 1999 ended with an implicit unwritten understanding that a policy would be prepared first and that any amendments to the Land Acquisition Act would be based on the principles it enunciated. However, the subsequent draft policy prepared in 2003 by the then government completely ignored the whole process which had gone behind the work in 1990s QUOTE “(Fernandes, 2004)” Once again popular movements got together to draft a policy statement on ‘National Development Planning and Displacement’ and passed it to the government through the National Advisory Council. This draft has not been accepted completely by the Ministry of Rural Development but the 2006 draft based on which the UPA govt now intends to enact a Rehabilitation Act draws from it and presented it in Parliament recently in December 2007. It is an improvement over all the past policies; nevertheless problems persist.
5. Concluding Remarks
The recent decision of the government of India to finally move towards enactment of a National Rehabilitation Act rather than a policy is welcome, because it will provide the provisions the much needed teeth for implementation, and will enable the DPs to demand their due share. In the third section of this article we saw the gradual evolution from the principle of relief (in which the ideas of charity and relief are embedded) for the displaced to the realisation that displacement is a problem of development, and then finally to a recognition that rehabilitation is a due entitlement and a right of the displaced. There have been different critiques of the various policies enunciated by the government at different points of time offered by popular movements launched in protest of displacement, also by academics, researches and political parties. A discussion of these critiques will require a separate essay. But in any case, the government will have to take these in serious consideration.
But while concluding we can point out at least some of the continuing malaise in the various policies pursued by different agencies.
1) Each of the policies takes displacement as given and does not make it a priority to put the onus on the agencies concerned to find the least displacing measures, alternative projects, plans, measures, etc.
2) Problem always persists in determining the identity of the PAFs; and the policy never encompasses every person directly or indirectly affected by the project in the widest sense of the term.
3) Policies lack institutional mechanisms for strict implementation of the measures related to R & R.
4) Till today we do not have a definition or parameter to determine if a project being considered is of public interest or purpose.
5) There is no strict provision for time bound resettlement of DPs and PAFs from the time their land is taken till they are fully rehabilitated and if their economic status will better than or at par with their pre-displacement condition.
6) There is no limit to the amount of land to be acquired by an agency; as a result on several occasions agencies acquire excess land, which remains unutilised and later sold to private agencies for other purposes. But this excess land is never returned to those from whom land was acquired.
7) None of the policies recognises rehabilitation as a right of the displaced, and a provision under the natural justice of law.
8) The oustees, relevant popular organisations, or Gram Sabhas are never consulted when a project is planned, executed, or during the process of displacement or rehabilitation; they are never made participants in the benefits accruing from the particular projects.
9) Rehabilitation provisions are always meagre and never satisfactory in terms of restoring to the displaced their condition prior to displacement.
10) Last, but not the least, no policy till date has addressed the needs in retrospective manner, which is to say the needs of the DPs or PAFs, displaced due to projects planned prior to the enactment of that particular policy.
To conclude, it is time the government learn from its own experience of dealing with the partition refugees or the Tibetan refugees, and show necessary political will in rehabilitating DPs. One can only hope that the government of India will take various critiques into account and move ahead towards creating a National Policy on Development Planning, Displacement and Rehabilitation and not just a National Rehabilitation Policy.
[1] Each mile of railway construction requires 860 sleepers, each lasting between 12-14 years. In the 1870s it was calculated that well over a million sleepers were required annually. [Gadgil and Guha 1992 : 122, footnote]
[2] a little more detailed account is available in Bhuskute 1997.
[3] Much of the information presented here is based on the path breaking research done by Sripad Dharmadhikari and his team at Manthan Adhyayan Kendra in early 2000. See Manthan Adhyayan Kendra, 2005.
[4] For details see Vijay Diwan 2004
[5] See Sangvai 2000
[6] For a detailed account of the partition and related issues in East see Bose, 2000 also Das in Samaddar, ed; and in West see Bhasin and Menon; also Menon in Samaddar, ed. 2003
[7] Constituent Assembly of India (Legislative) Debates, Vol. I, February 3. Delhi : Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, 1948, p. 187. As quoted in Menon in Samaddar, ed. 2003
[8] Constituent Assembly of India (Legislative) Debates, Vol. I, February 3. Delhi : Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, 1948, p. 179. As quoted in Menon in Samaddar, ed. 2003
[9] Constituent Assemly Debates, Vol. III, 12 March 1948, p. 202. quoted in Menon in Samaddar, ed. 2003
[10] See Menon in Samaddar, ed 2003
[11] The best represented in Nehru’s oft quoted statement, ‘Dams are modern temples of India’.
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