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The Macro-Costs of Forced Displacement of the Farmers in India: A Micro-Level Study

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Abstract

The impoverishment risks caused by big industrial projects in India have led to widespread landlessness and food insecurity among poor farmers. Under the provisions of a regime of monetary compensation that dates back to the colonial era, the farmers obtain and utilise compensation money in a manner that generally does not help them rebuild their household economies. This article presents the results of a micro-level study of land dispossession in West Bengal carried out during the period of communist government that coincided with a more general liberalisation. The findings of the study reveal that land acquisition by big industrial projects has caused landlessness and household-level food insecurity among poor farmers and has also endangered recent land reform initiatives more generally. In particular, in the absence of the benefit-sharing principles, the proposed Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation Bill 2011 clearly seems inadequate to reconstructing the damaged livelihood of project-affected farmers described in the article. The insights from this study are relevant to hundreds of similar cases all over India.

Abstract

Les risques d’appauvrissement que les grands projets industriels en Inde représentent pour les fermiers pauvres comportent en particulier le danger d’insécurité alimentaire et celui de se voir privés de terre. Le système de compensation monétaire datant de l’époque coloniale ne permet pas aux fermiers d’utiliser leurs indemnités de manière à reconstruire leurs économies ménagères. Cet article présente les résultats d’une étude micro-économique de la confiscation de terres au Bengale occidental, entreprise pendant la période de gouvernement communiste dans un contexte plus large de libéralisation économique. Les résultats de l’étude révèlent que l’acquisition de terres par de grands projets industriels a généré une grande insécurité alimentaire au niveau des ménages de fermiers pauvres, mais a aussi compromis les processus récent de réforme agraire au Bengale. En particulier, l’absence de principes de partage des bénéfices semble rendre inadéquat le projet de loi de 2011 relatif à l’acquisition et le réaménagement des terres, en tout cas par rapport au rétablissement des moyens de subsistance des familles de fermiers pauvres décrites dans cet article. Cette situation est aussi pertinente aux centaines d’autres cas similaires en Inde.

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Acknowledgements

I am greatly indebted to the anonymous reviewers of EJDR who successively read the first and the revised drafts of the article and provided useful suggestions towards its improvement.

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  1. Vidyasagar University, Midnapore, India

    Abhijit Guha

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Guha, A. The Macro-Costs of Forced Displacement of the Farmers in India: A Micro-Level Study. Eur J Dev Res 25, 797–814 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1057/ejdr.2012.37

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