IMPACT OF DISPLACEMENT THROUGH THE FRAMEWORK OF SOCIAL JUSTICE: AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSIGHT

The development induced displacement has come to acquire special significance due to the rapid race for development in increasingly changing world. In the line of development, numerous urban development and hydroelectric projects as well as the industries have been set up in India; which finally led to the displacement of more than 60 million people but surprisingly very few of them have been resettled and rehabilitated successfully. Even after more than a half century of independence, not enough attention has been paid to the costs paid to the rights of displaced people in terms of social justice and the resultant degradation in the lives of people, not to mention the increasing disempowerment and impoverishment of the poor. In an effort to better understand the plight of those displaced by development projects, this paper attempts to look into the issue of displacement on the broader canvas of social justice through anthropological inquiry.