Arun K Nayak | Tripura University (original) (raw)
Papers by Arun K Nayak
Journal of Developing Societies, 2015
The study of environmental movements has become one of the important discourses in academics and ... more The study of environmental movements has become one of the important discourses in academics and it has a number of aspects. This article investigates the determinant factors of success and failure of environmental movements in India based on a comparative analysis of the colonial regime, postindependence regime, and the more recent era of liberalization. During the colonial period, all the movements were suppressed by the authoritarian British regime except the movement in Kumaun and Garhwal, due to its strategic importance as a border region. Similarly, the democratic regime of India suppressed many movements in the early postindependence era. However, starting in the mid-1970s, environmental movements began to achieve some success, when these movements were supported by various national and international human rights groups, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and activists. The movements during the 1960s and 1970s were suppressed by the democratic state, because they did not h...
Economic & Political Weekly, 2010
Opposition to big dams has a long his-tory ever since their construction began in the ancient tim... more Opposition to big dams has a long his-tory ever since their construction began in the ancient times. But in recent years, this has come to command wider attention. In medieval England, boat-owners opposed millers blocking rivers to create millponds to turn their water wheels ...
Indian Journal of Public Administration, 2021
The present article has made a comparative study of Hirakud and Kaptai dams of India and Banglade... more The present article has made a comparative study of Hirakud and Kaptai dams of India and Bangladesh, respectively, to study the approach of governance of both countries in addressing the issue of displacement, resettlement and rehabilitation. It found that the civil-military regime of Bangladesh and the democratic regime of India are equally repressive in addressing the aforesaid issues. However, in the case of the Kaptai Dam, the whole episode of displacement led to arms conflicts, statelessness and insurgency in the state, while no such things were experienced in the case of the Hirakud Dam.
Jadavpur Journal of International Relations, 2019
Involuntary displacement caused by development projects has become a great concern in the present... more Involuntary displacement caused by development projects has become a great concern in the present era of the free market economy across the globe. There has been extensive research on involuntary displacement; however, it was confined to subjects like anthropology, sociology, and development studies earlier. However, after the 1990s, a very useful theoretical approach to human security is evolving in analyzing the effects of involuntary displacement caused by a number of reasons. Studying the case of the Kaptai Dam of Bangladesh, the study shows that it has brought a broad range of human insecurities into focus-like economic insecurity, food insecurity, health insecurity, environmental insecurity, community insecurity, personal insecurity, and political insecurity. Hence, the paper has suggested for the application of human security approach as a useful tool for researchers while studying the global problems of involuntary displacement.
Development of people’s rights in a representative democracy like India’s is a complex historical... more Development of people’s rights in a representative democracy like India’s is a complex historical process. It could be distinguished between two kinds of rights (customary and legal rights). The former refers to rights based on customs and rituals and the later refers to rights sanctioned by the state. Usually such rights are enshrined in the constitution. The anti-colonial struggle and the post-independence India opened up streams of democratic consciousness and it spread new visions of social transformations, giving concrete socio-economic content to the agenda of freedom struggle. Creative society thus emerged as a theatre of intense struggle between forces of freedom and forces of domination. Here, the paper has discussed about legal rights (in the context of modern nation states) especially with reference to the right to work in India through a case study of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).
Each year millions of people around the globe are forcefully displaced from their homes, lands an... more Each year millions of people around the globe are forcefully displaced from their homes, lands and livelihoods in order to make way for large-scale development projects. This has really been a great challenge for the nations to resettle and rehabilitate them and to mitigate their adverse impacts of involuntary displacements. A number of research have been conducted by various scholars with regard to such issues, and among them, Michael M. Cernea in his study has excellently mapped out the adverse impacts of involuntary displacement. His study says that the displaced people face a broad range of ‘impoverishment risks’ and ‘social exclusion’. But his study doesn’t explain the whole range of risks of the involuntary displaced people. The study on the displaced people of Kaptai dam, Bangladesh has shown that involuntary displacement not only leads to certain impoverishment risks and social exclusion, but also, it leads to loss of citizenship, statelessness and arms conflicts.
Journal of Developing Societies, 2015
The study of environmental movements has become one of the important discourses in academics and ... more The study of environmental movements has become one of the important discourses in academics and it has a number of aspects. This article investigates the determinant factors of success and failure of environmental movements in India based on a comparative analysis of the colonial regime, postindependence regime, and the more recent era of liberalization. During the colonial period, all the movements were suppressed by the authoritarian British regime except the movement in Kumaun and Garhwal, due to its strategic importance as a border
region. Similarly, the democratic regime of India suppressed many movements in the early postindependence era. However, starting in the mid-1970s, environmental movements began to achieve some success, when these movements were supported
by various national and international human rights groups, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and activists. The movements during the 1960s and 1970s were suppressed by the democratic state, because they did not have this kind of
support. The factors that were responsible for the success of the environmental movements in the late 1970s and 1980s have not produced as much success in the more recent era of liberalization. The rising nexus and collaboration between the
state and multinational corporations have led to the suppression of more recent environmental movements and those that have been successful have received strong
support from opposition political parties.
Keywords: environmental movements, ecological degradation
This paper explores the causal factors related to environment and security. An attempt has been m... more This paper explores the causal factors related to environment and security. An attempt has been made to identify the sources of environmental degradation in Bangladesh in general and Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) in particular. Homer-Dixon study on environment and security has put forward three causal factors of environmental degradation (increasing population growth, unequal distribution of lands and environmental changes), and it was successfully experimented by Alam in the case of Bangladesh. But the theory of Homer-Dixon (supply-induced scarcity, demand-induced scarcity and structural-induced scarcity) has proved to be insufficient in analyzing the causal factors of environmental degradation in the case of CHT. The empirical scrutiny shows that the non-market variables (religion, regime and nationalism) are the major causal factors of environmental degradation and conflicts in CHT.
In the early years of independence, criticisms were made that Indian political system or democrac... more In the early years of independence, criticisms were made that Indian political system or democracy would collapse sooner or later because of its diverse population and low per capita income. However, India proved wrong to its critics and shown to the world that democracy not only thrived and sustained but also deepening. Following the procedural view of democracy; India has achieved the goal of establishing democracy and has successfully completed its fourteenth Lok Sabha election without any hindrance. But, so far as substantive democracy and the trajectory of human development is concerned, some of these hopes and aspirations have been partly realized; other badly dashed. Although, India is among the top ten largest economies of the world, it ranks 134 among 187 countries in the Human Development Index (HDI). It shows that human development in India is far behind. Also, measuring the democratic performance of 167 countries, the study of Economist Intelligence Unit shows that India has not achieved the rank of ‘full democracy’; rather it is placed in the list of ‘flawed democracies’. It shows that India has underperformed in terms of governance, political participation and political culture.
Dams are claimed as symbols of development for their multipurpose utility and contribution to the... more Dams are claimed as symbols of development for their multipurpose utility and contribution to the welfare of mankind. But compulsory displacement caused by dams has raised major issues of social justice and equity. Contextualising the Rawls' general conception of justice and examining the case of the Hirakud dam, this study illustrates how the oustees not only lost their income and wealth but also social goods (liberty, opportunity and the very basis of their self-respect) raising the question of equality and justice. Initiatives to rehabilitate them by the Indian state of Odisha proved to be a total failure because of poor planning and a callous attitude. Better consultations and negotiations with the oustees could have mitigated the risk of their impoverishment; it can be argued that relocation would not have been involuntary. But the government did not consult those whose vital interests were at stake. They could have been resettled and rehabilitated in the irrigated area of the Hirakud dam and would not have lost their only source of income and their self-worth would have received a boost.
BISWAJIT GHOSH DEBNARAYANSARKAR ANUPAM HAZRA RANJIT SINGH GHUMAN P.S.RANGIAND M.S.SIDHU ARUNKUMAR... more BISWAJIT GHOSH DEBNARAYANSARKAR ANUPAM HAZRA RANJIT SINGH GHUMAN P.S.RANGIAND M.S.SIDHU ARUNKUMARNAYAK DONGJUCHOI BISW AJIT CHATTERJEE LOKRAJBARAL SNEHALATAPANDA MANJIT SHARMA Abstract: Irrigation is sustained by construction of dams and canal system in India.
Economic and Political Weekly, 2010
Books by Arun K Nayak
Dams are considered as agency of development for its contribution to flood management, hydropower... more Dams are considered as agency of development for its contribution to flood management, hydropower production, irrigation, navigation and supplying water for urban and industrial needs. While many have benefited from the services dams provide, but their construction has led to many significant social and human impacts, particularly in terms of environmental costs and human displacement. Compulsory displacement that occurs for development reasons, embody a perverse and intrinsic contradiction in the context of development and it raises the major issues of social justice and equity.
In this context, this book discusses on dams and its dynamics of development. Looking at the history of dam constructions in the world, although, numbers of dams were constructed in the past especially in the developed countries, the much popularity of Multipurpose River valley Development plan (MPRVD) took place in USA with the establishment of Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and this model was replicated by many nations of the world. Following the TVA model, dams were constructed on almost all the big rivers of the world. However, empirical studies have shown that many a projects have failed to fulfill their intended objectives. Thus, it raises the question of the rationality of TVA and its executions on other parts of the world.
It describes that the genesis of TVA in USA was connected to the particular socio-economic and political situations of 1930s. This period was marked by severe economic recessions and TVA was established in 1933 in order to immediate stimulation of employment in the region. The era was also marked by the rapid decline of the European colonial powers and the emergence of the United States of America as the new hub of capitalist dynamism. Many governments including India adopted MPRVD immediately during their post-colonial phase with the help of American experts for its construction to speed up their economic development. However, in reality, these projects remain far away from such intended development to fulfill. It can be said that, the MPRVD scheme was inextricably linked to the political economy of decolonization and nationalism rather than development. The integrated river basin management in India was largely promoted by many scientists, engineers and statesman, inspired by United States.
This book has vividly described the account of MPRVD on River Mahanadi (Hirakud dam). The empirical scrutiny has shown that, none of the objective of the dam was fulfilled even after its fifty years of completion. On the other, it has brought massive social misery by submerging 325 villages and displaced about 100,000 people. In spite of raising development in the region, it has now brought uneven development in the command area and several environmental consequences in the locality. Thus, conflicts are taking place among various stakeholders. The study shows that, the model of TVA was blindly executed on the river Mahanadi without understanding the local feasibility. Even, the proposition was opposed by an engineer (M.G. Rangaya) in his report; the government did not pay any attention to his suggestions. Although protests and movements were made by local people, it was suppressed in the name of nation building and nationalism in the early years of independence.
Journal of Developing Societies, 2015
The study of environmental movements has become one of the important discourses in academics and ... more The study of environmental movements has become one of the important discourses in academics and it has a number of aspects. This article investigates the determinant factors of success and failure of environmental movements in India based on a comparative analysis of the colonial regime, postindependence regime, and the more recent era of liberalization. During the colonial period, all the movements were suppressed by the authoritarian British regime except the movement in Kumaun and Garhwal, due to its strategic importance as a border region. Similarly, the democratic regime of India suppressed many movements in the early postindependence era. However, starting in the mid-1970s, environmental movements began to achieve some success, when these movements were supported by various national and international human rights groups, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and activists. The movements during the 1960s and 1970s were suppressed by the democratic state, because they did not h...
Economic & Political Weekly, 2010
Opposition to big dams has a long his-tory ever since their construction began in the ancient tim... more Opposition to big dams has a long his-tory ever since their construction began in the ancient times. But in recent years, this has come to command wider attention. In medieval England, boat-owners opposed millers blocking rivers to create millponds to turn their water wheels ...
Indian Journal of Public Administration, 2021
The present article has made a comparative study of Hirakud and Kaptai dams of India and Banglade... more The present article has made a comparative study of Hirakud and Kaptai dams of India and Bangladesh, respectively, to study the approach of governance of both countries in addressing the issue of displacement, resettlement and rehabilitation. It found that the civil-military regime of Bangladesh and the democratic regime of India are equally repressive in addressing the aforesaid issues. However, in the case of the Kaptai Dam, the whole episode of displacement led to arms conflicts, statelessness and insurgency in the state, while no such things were experienced in the case of the Hirakud Dam.
Jadavpur Journal of International Relations, 2019
Involuntary displacement caused by development projects has become a great concern in the present... more Involuntary displacement caused by development projects has become a great concern in the present era of the free market economy across the globe. There has been extensive research on involuntary displacement; however, it was confined to subjects like anthropology, sociology, and development studies earlier. However, after the 1990s, a very useful theoretical approach to human security is evolving in analyzing the effects of involuntary displacement caused by a number of reasons. Studying the case of the Kaptai Dam of Bangladesh, the study shows that it has brought a broad range of human insecurities into focus-like economic insecurity, food insecurity, health insecurity, environmental insecurity, community insecurity, personal insecurity, and political insecurity. Hence, the paper has suggested for the application of human security approach as a useful tool for researchers while studying the global problems of involuntary displacement.
Development of people’s rights in a representative democracy like India’s is a complex historical... more Development of people’s rights in a representative democracy like India’s is a complex historical process. It could be distinguished between two kinds of rights (customary and legal rights). The former refers to rights based on customs and rituals and the later refers to rights sanctioned by the state. Usually such rights are enshrined in the constitution. The anti-colonial struggle and the post-independence India opened up streams of democratic consciousness and it spread new visions of social transformations, giving concrete socio-economic content to the agenda of freedom struggle. Creative society thus emerged as a theatre of intense struggle between forces of freedom and forces of domination. Here, the paper has discussed about legal rights (in the context of modern nation states) especially with reference to the right to work in India through a case study of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).
Each year millions of people around the globe are forcefully displaced from their homes, lands an... more Each year millions of people around the globe are forcefully displaced from their homes, lands and livelihoods in order to make way for large-scale development projects. This has really been a great challenge for the nations to resettle and rehabilitate them and to mitigate their adverse impacts of involuntary displacements. A number of research have been conducted by various scholars with regard to such issues, and among them, Michael M. Cernea in his study has excellently mapped out the adverse impacts of involuntary displacement. His study says that the displaced people face a broad range of ‘impoverishment risks’ and ‘social exclusion’. But his study doesn’t explain the whole range of risks of the involuntary displaced people. The study on the displaced people of Kaptai dam, Bangladesh has shown that involuntary displacement not only leads to certain impoverishment risks and social exclusion, but also, it leads to loss of citizenship, statelessness and arms conflicts.
Journal of Developing Societies, 2015
The study of environmental movements has become one of the important discourses in academics and ... more The study of environmental movements has become one of the important discourses in academics and it has a number of aspects. This article investigates the determinant factors of success and failure of environmental movements in India based on a comparative analysis of the colonial regime, postindependence regime, and the more recent era of liberalization. During the colonial period, all the movements were suppressed by the authoritarian British regime except the movement in Kumaun and Garhwal, due to its strategic importance as a border
region. Similarly, the democratic regime of India suppressed many movements in the early postindependence era. However, starting in the mid-1970s, environmental movements began to achieve some success, when these movements were supported
by various national and international human rights groups, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and activists. The movements during the 1960s and 1970s were suppressed by the democratic state, because they did not have this kind of
support. The factors that were responsible for the success of the environmental movements in the late 1970s and 1980s have not produced as much success in the more recent era of liberalization. The rising nexus and collaboration between the
state and multinational corporations have led to the suppression of more recent environmental movements and those that have been successful have received strong
support from opposition political parties.
Keywords: environmental movements, ecological degradation
This paper explores the causal factors related to environment and security. An attempt has been m... more This paper explores the causal factors related to environment and security. An attempt has been made to identify the sources of environmental degradation in Bangladesh in general and Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) in particular. Homer-Dixon study on environment and security has put forward three causal factors of environmental degradation (increasing population growth, unequal distribution of lands and environmental changes), and it was successfully experimented by Alam in the case of Bangladesh. But the theory of Homer-Dixon (supply-induced scarcity, demand-induced scarcity and structural-induced scarcity) has proved to be insufficient in analyzing the causal factors of environmental degradation in the case of CHT. The empirical scrutiny shows that the non-market variables (religion, regime and nationalism) are the major causal factors of environmental degradation and conflicts in CHT.
In the early years of independence, criticisms were made that Indian political system or democrac... more In the early years of independence, criticisms were made that Indian political system or democracy would collapse sooner or later because of its diverse population and low per capita income. However, India proved wrong to its critics and shown to the world that democracy not only thrived and sustained but also deepening. Following the procedural view of democracy; India has achieved the goal of establishing democracy and has successfully completed its fourteenth Lok Sabha election without any hindrance. But, so far as substantive democracy and the trajectory of human development is concerned, some of these hopes and aspirations have been partly realized; other badly dashed. Although, India is among the top ten largest economies of the world, it ranks 134 among 187 countries in the Human Development Index (HDI). It shows that human development in India is far behind. Also, measuring the democratic performance of 167 countries, the study of Economist Intelligence Unit shows that India has not achieved the rank of ‘full democracy’; rather it is placed in the list of ‘flawed democracies’. It shows that India has underperformed in terms of governance, political participation and political culture.
Dams are claimed as symbols of development for their multipurpose utility and contribution to the... more Dams are claimed as symbols of development for their multipurpose utility and contribution to the welfare of mankind. But compulsory displacement caused by dams has raised major issues of social justice and equity. Contextualising the Rawls' general conception of justice and examining the case of the Hirakud dam, this study illustrates how the oustees not only lost their income and wealth but also social goods (liberty, opportunity and the very basis of their self-respect) raising the question of equality and justice. Initiatives to rehabilitate them by the Indian state of Odisha proved to be a total failure because of poor planning and a callous attitude. Better consultations and negotiations with the oustees could have mitigated the risk of their impoverishment; it can be argued that relocation would not have been involuntary. But the government did not consult those whose vital interests were at stake. They could have been resettled and rehabilitated in the irrigated area of the Hirakud dam and would not have lost their only source of income and their self-worth would have received a boost.
BISWAJIT GHOSH DEBNARAYANSARKAR ANUPAM HAZRA RANJIT SINGH GHUMAN P.S.RANGIAND M.S.SIDHU ARUNKUMAR... more BISWAJIT GHOSH DEBNARAYANSARKAR ANUPAM HAZRA RANJIT SINGH GHUMAN P.S.RANGIAND M.S.SIDHU ARUNKUMARNAYAK DONGJUCHOI BISW AJIT CHATTERJEE LOKRAJBARAL SNEHALATAPANDA MANJIT SHARMA Abstract: Irrigation is sustained by construction of dams and canal system in India.
Economic and Political Weekly, 2010
Dams are considered as agency of development for its contribution to flood management, hydropower... more Dams are considered as agency of development for its contribution to flood management, hydropower production, irrigation, navigation and supplying water for urban and industrial needs. While many have benefited from the services dams provide, but their construction has led to many significant social and human impacts, particularly in terms of environmental costs and human displacement. Compulsory displacement that occurs for development reasons, embody a perverse and intrinsic contradiction in the context of development and it raises the major issues of social justice and equity.
In this context, this book discusses on dams and its dynamics of development. Looking at the history of dam constructions in the world, although, numbers of dams were constructed in the past especially in the developed countries, the much popularity of Multipurpose River valley Development plan (MPRVD) took place in USA with the establishment of Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and this model was replicated by many nations of the world. Following the TVA model, dams were constructed on almost all the big rivers of the world. However, empirical studies have shown that many a projects have failed to fulfill their intended objectives. Thus, it raises the question of the rationality of TVA and its executions on other parts of the world.
It describes that the genesis of TVA in USA was connected to the particular socio-economic and political situations of 1930s. This period was marked by severe economic recessions and TVA was established in 1933 in order to immediate stimulation of employment in the region. The era was also marked by the rapid decline of the European colonial powers and the emergence of the United States of America as the new hub of capitalist dynamism. Many governments including India adopted MPRVD immediately during their post-colonial phase with the help of American experts for its construction to speed up their economic development. However, in reality, these projects remain far away from such intended development to fulfill. It can be said that, the MPRVD scheme was inextricably linked to the political economy of decolonization and nationalism rather than development. The integrated river basin management in India was largely promoted by many scientists, engineers and statesman, inspired by United States.
This book has vividly described the account of MPRVD on River Mahanadi (Hirakud dam). The empirical scrutiny has shown that, none of the objective of the dam was fulfilled even after its fifty years of completion. On the other, it has brought massive social misery by submerging 325 villages and displaced about 100,000 people. In spite of raising development in the region, it has now brought uneven development in the command area and several environmental consequences in the locality. Thus, conflicts are taking place among various stakeholders. The study shows that, the model of TVA was blindly executed on the river Mahanadi without understanding the local feasibility. Even, the proposition was opposed by an engineer (M.G. Rangaya) in his report; the government did not pay any attention to his suggestions. Although protests and movements were made by local people, it was suppressed in the name of nation building and nationalism in the early years of independence.