'Development-Related Displacement'.Dear DRD
MAGINE THE entire population of the continent of Australia 1 turned out of their homes—eighteen million people losing their lands, evicted from their houses. Deprived of livelihood and income, they face penury. As their families split up and spread Out, their community bonds crumble. Cut off from their most vital resources, those uprooted are then robbed of their history, traditions and culture. Maybe even forced to adopt an alien diet. Higher rates of disease and mortality pursue the dispossessed. So do Iower rates of earnings and education. Also, growing joblessness, discrimination and inferbr social status. Oddly, it all happens in the name of development. And the victims are described as beneficiaries. Sounds too far-fetched even as fiction? lt's happened in India, where in the period 1951-90, over 21.6 million people suffered preciselythat fate—displaced by just dams and canals alone. Add mining that has dispossessed 2.1 million people and you have the population of Canada. Further,, industries, thermal plants, sanctuarjes and defence installations have thrown at least 2.4 million Other human beings out of their homes. That's around twenty-six million Indians. These are bottomline figures. The government accepts a national figure of over fifteen million (up to 1985) arising from 'development-related displacement'. That's the jargon for people Iosing their homes and lands to projects they may never have asked for. The projects that uprooted these twenty-six million Indians make up a list that is by no means complete. Thousands of less known schemes and the people displaced by them remain uncounted. Also, many projects—big and small—causing forced evictions, came after 1985 The draft of the government's 'National Policy for Rehabilitation' admits that almost 75 per cent of those displaced since 1951 'were still awaiting rehabilitation'. (After forty-five
MAGINE THE entire population of the continent of Australia 1 turned out of their homes—eighteen million people losing their lands, evicted from their houses. Deprived of livelihood and income, they face penury. As their families split up and spread Out, their community bonds crumble. Cut off from their most vital resources, those uprooted are then robbed of their history, traditions and culture. Maybe even forced to adopt an alien diet. Higher rates of disease and mortality pursue the dispossessed. So do Iower rates of earnings and education. Also, growing joblessness, discrimination and inferbr social status. Oddly, it all happens in the name of development. And the victims are described as beneficiaries. Sounds too far-fetched even as fiction? lt's happened in India, where in the period 1951-90, over 21.6 million people suffered preciselythat fate—displaced by just dams and canals alone. Add mining that has dispossessed 2.1 million people and you have the population of Canada. Further,, industries, thermal plants, sanctuarjes and defence installations have thrown at least 2.4 million Other human beings out of their homes. That's around twenty-six million Indians. These are bottomline figures. The government accepts a national figure of over fifteen million (up to 1985) arising from 'development-related displacement'. That's the jargon for people Iosing their homes and lands to projects they may never have asked for. The projects that uprooted these twenty-six million Indians make up a list that is by no means complete. Thousands of less known schemes and the people displaced by them remain uncounted. Also, many projects—big and small—causing forced evictions, came after 1985 The draft of the government's 'National Policy for Rehabilitation' admits that almost 75 per cent of those displaced since 1951 'were still awaiting rehabilitation'. (After forty-five
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