Interrogating Development: State, Displacement and Popular Resistance in North East India

This book, the first in a series on the North-East, focuses on development-induced displacement of population in the region in the post-colonial period. Despite state-sponsored development initiatives, the North East still remains highly underdeveloped and politically disturbed. Various development projects initiated by the state led to massive displacement of population within the region, which has virtually gone unnoticed. The author has made use of extensive empirical data to document this massive displacement.

Recently, the Government of India had decided to construct 145 mega dams to tap the hydroelectric potential of the region in order to convert the North- East into India′s power house. Fearing negative effects like massive displacement of population, environmental degradation and the erosion of the rich biodiversity of the region, people at the grassroots level have built up resistance movements against such mega projects. This is a significant shift in the politics of the region, which had been ethnocentric so far. Emergence of popular resistance outside the conventional party system, based on new political cleavages is strengthening the democratic consciousness of the people living in these areas, which marks a significant shift in the politics of the region.