Economics and politics of resettlement in India/edited by Shobhita Jain and Madhu Bala

Many unresolved questions plague the emotive issue of population displacement caused by development projects. A focused analysis of the processes of resettlement and rehabilitation (R&R)-treated as the key issue in most debates over the politics of development and displacement-is of critical importance today. The struggle for all involved in R&R is finding a balance between the imperatives of development and the rights and needs of the displaced. In the face of an increasingly mobile population and the seemingly unstoppable forces of industrial and infrastructural growth across the developing world, and for a democratically negotiated professionally managed and overtly ethical R&R policy and practice is being felt all the more. Such a policy can be developed and perfected on the basis of constant inputs from the ground-level experiences of actual implementation. This, however, necessitates a bracketed, multi disciplinary and balanced research in the field of R&R policy and practice, one that would lead to informed criticism, analyses and theorization related to development-induced population displacement.

The present volume is a significant contribution in this direction. Edited by two well-known scholars of development-induced involuntary displacement in India, this volume brings together fourteen well researched and relevant essays by academics, researchers and practitioners with extensive first-hand knowledge and experience of the R&R processes in India. These essays provide valuable empirical and theoretical insights into R&R practices and experiences from a variety of developmental fields, including road projects, dams, mining, forests and farmlands.