After Displacement: Vernacular Modernity in the Quest for Viable Resettlement in Rural Western India

Presenter:

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Abstract

The existing literature on forced displacement due to industrial projects in general and dams in particular is either silent about what happens after displacement or, when it does touch on resettlement, it is to highlight its complete failure where the fabric of socio-economic life of the displaced groups is irreparably damaged. Even when the affected groups do organize themselves, it is to oppose their forced displacement and it is this opposition that holds the key to preventing their impoverishment that ensues in the wake of project getting completed. This paper instead shows how peasant groups in Maharashtra, India have successfully mobilized for framing and implementation of resettlement policies linked to large dams in a struggle that spans half and century and remains active in the present.