Can the Movement Against Hydropower Projects in Sikkim be Reactivated.pdf (original) (raw)
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The Anti-dam Movement in Sikkim: Resurgence of Lepcha and Bhutia Identity at Helm
Sikkim is a small Himalayan State which is located in India’s north-east region. Prior to its merger with India in 1975, Sikkim was under the Chogyal Dynasty formed in 1642 under the influence of Tibetan theocracy. Today, it is primarily constituted by the Lepchas, Bhutias and the Nepalese ethnic group. It also consists of people from the places like Bihar, Bengal, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and other places of India who are generally referred as “plainsmen” who migrated during the 1890s. In recent years Sikkim has witnessed a boom in terms of number of hydel power projects being build here to an extent that it is almost close in acquiring the title for having highest dam density in the world. This was part of the 50,000 MW Hydroelectric initiative launched by the Prime Minister of India in May, 2003 . But, the construction of power projects did not go all without opposition. The resistance have come primarily from the Lepcha and Bhutia community in Sikkim in three distinct phases. Though initially legitimized basing religion and culture, the movement as it progressed has been successful in revealing information and realities which may well serve in understanding and furthering the studies in development communication. Divided into four sections, this paper, first, gives the historical overview of anti-hydel movement in Sikkim. Second, it will then comprehend and contemplate the anti-hydel movement in Sikkim within the framework of the theory of social movement as proposed by Blumer. Third, the paper will discuss the socio-cultural, religious, political, economic and ecological foundations on which the anti-hydel discourse is being rationalized by activists in Sikkim. Further, the future implications of the movement on inter-ethnic relations among various ethnic groups in Sikkim will be assessed.
Dams have become political symbols of conquest of nature and representative of development in India. Impervious to the widespread critique of development through hydraulic gigantism, the planners in Sikkim have identified cascade development of the perennial river waters of Rangit and Teesta as the channel for modernising and developing its economy. This rhetoric has become questionable after three Lepcha youth affiliated to the Affected Citizens of the Teesta and the Concerned Lepchas of Sikkim, with the support of the Sangha of Dzongu, began an indefinite relay hungerstrike on 20 June 2007 in Gangtok to pressurise the government into revoking the power projects planned on the Teesta. The Lepcha activists' banner proclaiming, 'In the name of development, do not make us refugees in our own homeland', challenges the rhetoric of dams and democratic development in Sikkim. This paper presents an analysis of the contested formulations and perceptions of public interest and participatory development in Sikkim in order to reiterate the need of not ignoring but integrating culture in any project planning.
Water, 2019
In India's Eastern Himalayan State of Sikkim, the indigenous Bhutia communities, Lachungpas and Lachenpas, successfully contested all proposed hydropower projects and have managed to sustain an anti-dam opposition in their home regions, Lachung and Lachen. In this paper, we discuss this remarkable, un-researched, effective collective action against hydropower development, examining how identity and territory influence collective action through production, creation and application of vernacular knowledge systems. The role of the Dzumsa, a prevailing traditional system of self-governance among the Lachungpas and Lachenpas, has been central in their collective resistance against large dams in Lachung and Lachen. Our findings show that contrary to popular imageries, the Dzumsa is neither an egalitarian nor a democratic institution-rather, it is an exercise of an "agonistic unity". The Dzumsas operate as complex collectives, which serve to politicize identity, decision-making and place-based territoriality in their struggle against internal and external threats. Principles of a "vernacular statecraft" helped bringing the local communities together in imperfect unions to oppose modernist designs of hydropower development. However, while such vernacular institutions were able to construct a powerful local adversary to neoliberal agendas, they also pose high social, political and emotional risks to the few within the community, who chose not to align with the normative principles of the collective.
WATER FOR POWER: DEBATING NEW TRENDS OF WATER DEVELOPMENT IN THE SIKKIM HIMALAYA
Located in the Eastern Himalayas, Sikkim is repository of diverse Himalayan ecosystems and well endowed with water resources. Formerly, politically isolated and sheltered -Sikkim's water resources are increasingly identified as the key to unleashing the economic potential of this now, fast developing state in India. In an era of an increasing liberalization agenda fuelled by a vigorously promoted economic development in India, the state of Sikkim, seduced by Central Government directives and growth narratives has been promoting the construction of Hydel projects across the two major rivers in the region, the Teesta and Rangeet. While similar projects in the rest of India are hugely critiqued, geo-politics and ethnic strife in the region disable a coherent activist-academic-community voice and interaction in the Eastern Himalayas. A political and social isolation from mainstream India results in a relative inattention from environmental advocacy actors and lobbyists across India. In such a setting, opposition from local civil society institutions have had little success in halting or even questioning the development agenda of the water-driven economic growth charter of the State. Consequently, the State has completed the construction of several dams and some thirty dams are currently in the process of being constructed.
Hydropower development and the meaning of place. Multi-ethnic hydropower struggles in Sikkim, India
Academic research and media tend to emphasize the strong opposition to hydropower development in Sikkim, India, and position this as resistance to an environmentally-destructive, trans-local development, particularly by the culturally-rooted, ethnic minority Bhutia and Lepcha communities. There are several accounts of contesta-tions of hydropower development projects in India's Eastern Himalayan States – signifying robust and predictable indigenous people-place connections. Why then, was the implementation of the largest, Teesta Stage III Hydro Electric Project, located in Chungthang Gram Panchayat Unit in North Sikkim, in the heartland of the Bhutia-Lepcha region, not contested? In unraveling this anomaly, our focus is to understand how people-place connections are shaped and differentially experienced. Our findings are that hydropower development has elicited diverse responses locally, ranging from fierce contestation to indifference, to enthusiastic acceptance. The complexity and malleability of " place " and people's " sense of place " provide evidence that indigeneity does not always indicate resistance to large-scale project interventions. In ethnically and socio-politically fractured communities like Chungthang, trans-local developments can reinforce ethno-social divides and disparities, and realign traditional place-based ethno-centric solidarities along new politically-motivated lines. We argue that linear, one-dimensional views of local social coalescence around place belie more complex relations, which evolve dynamically in diverse socio-cultural and politico-economic contexts.
isara solutions, 2019
This study is a social critique of Indian developmental discourse, with reference to construction of large dams as an epitome of development. It will primarily interrogate Lower Subansiri Hydropower Project, constructed at the border area of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. Large dam construction in Northeast India have initiated serious debates in the civil society in matters relating to culture, environment and livelihood pattern, specifically for the people residing in the riparian areas. Despite mass resistance, significant drawbacks, both social and environmental; Indian government keeps pursuing such large infrastructural developmental projects and in fact circumventing various environmental policies which are the only democratic mechanism to protect the interest of the people. The study includes a multi-sited ethnographic account of the field of contestations; both, at the upstream and downstream villages along the riverbank of Subansiri. This paper establishes how the nexus between government and corporate lobbies legitimises such projects under the banner of ‘modernity’ to cater to the need of ever growing capitalist economy. Drawing from the nature of activism in anti-dam protest in Assam, the article argues the significance of civil society in providing the space for resistance and raising awareness to counter such developmental discourse.