Lecture 42 of 86: Development, Displacement, and Rehabilitation (33 mins) | CUET (Common University Entrance Test) PG Social Work (HUQP21) | Complete Video Course 86 Lectures [43 hrs : 48 mins]

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Development

A multidimensional and a multisectoral process

Using the available resources to improve the quality of life of the target population.

It relates to the improvement in the life of humans, the betterment or improvement in society that brings good changed

Along with economic growth, political modernization, and social development also takes place.

Development requires a lot of projects

Dams

Buildings

Roads/bridges/Highways

Housing

Cutting forests

Schools, hospitals, secretariats etc

Displacement

Relocation from one place to another, mostly out of choice.

It can be internal or external.

Displacement can be driven human-caused or non-human factors for ex: environment disasters etc.

At mid-2023, the total number of forcibly displaced people was estimated to be 110 million, while the total population that UNHCR protects and/or assists stood at 110.8 million people.

Many reasons behind them: Wars, disasters, lack of resources, communal wars etc.

Challenges Faced by Displaced Persons: They can live under threat of physical attack, gender-based violence, and run the risk of being separated from family members.

They are frequently deprived of adequate shelter, food, and health services, and often lose their property, land, or their access to livelihoods.

Development induced Displacement

A process of forcing people to shift or migrate away by taking control of the private land, common property resources and habitation of people living in the vicinity of the natural resources by the state for sake of development of mining, hydroelectricity projects, National Parks, and sanctuaries etc.

The development projects deprive those affected of this basic right by affecting their livelihoods, they are basically impoverished and deprived of this basic right in the name of national development.

They are known as “Displaced Persons (DPs) and Project Affected Persons (PAPs) ”

The displacement is one problem, but not providing rehabilitation after displacing them is the wrong approach for any group of people.

Studies show that the strong (high caste, upper class families, especially men among them) become stronger while the weak and vulnerable (the poor, low castes, particularly women among them) get weaker and further marginalized in such process of development. (IGNOU)

Development induced Displacements

First displacement when Britishers ended the Mughal Rule and other important kingdoms, this led to impoverishment of people engaged in different professions.

Land settlement Acts and exploitation by British Authorities

Dadabhai Naoroji, also wrote about it, “estimated that 35 million people were deprived of their livelihood because of the British policies. These changes turned many landless agricultural labourers, mostly Dalits (Scheduled Castes) and other service groups, into cheap labor. They were deprived of their livelihood and consequently impoverished. At this stage, several lakhs of them were transported as indentured labor in slave-like conditions to plantations and mines in India and other British colonies (Sen, 1979).

The pattern of development which India followed Independence was also not balanced, that՚s why Gandhiji was always against the westernized model of development which came at the cost of exploitation of colonies.

But other political leaders supported the westernised model

Displacement was intensified after 1951 as five-year plans were formulated.

Priority was given to massive dams like Hirakud in Orissa, Nagarjuna Sagar and Tungabhadra in Andhra Pradesh, Bhakra Nangal in Himachal Pradesh, and Damodar Valley in Jharkhand.

India was thickly populated even that time, that is why the displacement rates were so high.

There was very less awareness, less recording of the data of displaced persons, most consist of consist of poor rural people like landless labourers and small or marginal farmers, so no power to raise voice.

Other types of Displacement

People, who are forced to move out of their habitat by wars and civil unrest, are known as refugees. UNHCR works for such issues.

Disaster refugees (Bhopal gas tragedy, Gujarat earthquake, Orissa super cyclone)

Process displaced persons (shoemakers because of rubber slippers and shoes, fishing men because of trawlers introduction)

Hence, the focus should be on “Minimization of displacement” and “Maximization of development”

Rehabilitation

Re + Habilitation (process aimed at helping people gain certain new skills, abilities, and knowledge)

The solution to displacement is Rehabilitation or Resettlement

Fernandes and Naik (1999), Rehabilitation involves replacing the lost economic assets, rebuilding the required infra, establishing community relations, that have been broken by displacement, addressing the psychological trauma of forced alienation from livelihood, etc.

NRRP 2004,2007, Most Recent one is The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation, and Resettlement Bill, 2013.