Revision summary
Indian planned development has routinely needed other people’s land. Narmada is the public case of dam as growth and as submergence. Adivasi policy debates show protection versus assimilation at the same sites. Displacement is inherent in this model, not in all possible development. Rights, consent and in-situ alternatives contest that inherence.
Model answer
Introduction
Development, as India practised it, has often meant moving people off land so that a dam, mine, mill, or city can stand. Displacement is therefore frequent in that idea. It is not a law of nature. It is a political choice about who counts as the public.
Body
Why the statement is strong
- Developmental planning treated national growth as a spatial project: reservoirs, steel towns, and highways need empty land that is never empty.
- Adivasi and peasant tracts become ‘sites’ because Ghurye-style assimilation and a weak property voice meet Elwin’s unprotected people.
- Narmada made the inherent link public: the dam was development; submergence was the same plan’s other face.
- Urban slum eviction and SEZ land are the city version of the same idea: improvement requires someone to leave.
Critical limit of ‘inherent’
- Not every idea of development requires dispossession. Land-saving industry, in-situ slum upgrading, and Forest Rights titles imagine growth with staying.
- What is inherent in Indian big-project development is a class-caste arithmetic: those with less honour and less paper title pay first.
- Desai would say displacement is inherent in this capitalist-state path, not in ‘development’ as human flourishing.
- Yogendra Singh’s modernization can include legal rights as heterogenetic tools against forced exit.
Who is moved
- Scheduled Tribes, Dalit labour, and women with no recorded title are over-represented among the displaced.
- Compensation cash without livelihood is not rehabilitation; reverse migration during COVID showed how thin urban alternatives are for the already uprooted.
Politics against inherence
- Movements, Gram Sabha consent under PESA, and court battles treat displacement as contestable, not as fate.
- If the idea of development is rewritten as social democracy, staying with resources becomes the test, which Ambedkar’s pairing of social and political democracy would support.
Verdict
- In the actually existing Indian developmental state, displacement has been structurally normal.
- The statement is critically true of that model, and false as a metaphysical claim about all possible development.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD DEV[Big-project development] --> LAND[Land for dam mine city] LAND --> DIS[Displacement] ALT[Rights in-situ FRA PESA] --> NOT[Not fate] DIS --> WHO[Adivasi Dalit untitled women]
Conclusion
Displacement is inherent in the Indian big-project idea of development because land is taken from the weak for a national surplus. It is not inherent in every meaning of development. The critical task is to change the idea so that growth does not require an exit.
Quick related
Students also ask
-
Rising 'ethnocentricism' is leading to conflict in our society. Assess this statement with appropriate reasons
Next question in the 2021 paper (Q7). View answer →
-
Can a dam ever not displace?
Hydrology needs land. The political question is consent, share of benefits, and whether that dam is necessary.
-
Is all migration displacement?
No. Circular labour migration can be chosen under constraint. Project eviction is coerced exit.
PYQ trend
When UPSC asked this
Related PYQs from other years, newest first. Open a question to read it.
-
2024 · Q3(c) · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
Education is a key to social development. Elucidate -
2024 · Q6(c) · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
Critically examine the relevance of development planning in India -
2021 · Q5(a) · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
Analyze the idea of developmental planning in India -
2021 · Q6(a) · Sociology GS 2 · 20 marks
Explain the sociological significance of the New Education Policy and its thrust on vocationalization and skill development -
2020 · Q6(a) · Sociology GS 2 · 20 marks
Discuss in detail the main issues of development planning in mixed economy like India -
2019 · Q6(a) · Sociology GS 2 · 20 marks
Examine the importance of Development Planning in India Mixed Economy, and analyze its problems and prospects -
2018 · Q6(a) · Sociology GS 2 · 20 marks
How do you relate the growth of development of metropoles and its impact on the mental and social life of people in India. -
2017 · Q5(b) · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
Write a note on Education and equality in India.
More from this paper
Q1(a) · UPSC Mains 2021 · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
Caste system studies in India have been dominated by the "book-view" initially, How did the entry of "field-view" bring about a balance in the study of Indian caste system? Discuss
Rural and Agrarian Social Structure
Book-view caste is textual hierarchy and purity ideology. Field-view caste is observed dominant caste, interaction, and split of class and power. Srinivas, Marriott, and Beteille corrected Indology without erasing texts. Balance means values plus village practice. Singh’s modernizing tradition needs both sources.
Q1(b) · UPSC Mains 2021 · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
What does Dr. B. R. Ambedkar mean by the concept of "Annihilation of caste" ?
Perspectives on the study of Indian society
Ambedkar’s annihilation is destruction of birth-based graded inequality. Temple and dining reform are not enough if scripture still ranks people. Intermarriage, equal law, education and power are the means. Sanskritization is mobility inside caste, not annihilation. Village harmony without equality is not his goal.
Q1(c) · UPSC Mains 2021 · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
Discuss different forms of kinship system in India
Caste System
Karve divided Indian kinship into regional zones, not one national family type. North India leans patrilineal, patrilocal and village-exogamous. South India more often permits close-kin and cross-cousin marriage. Matriliny exists in pockets and is not a footnote. Kinship carries caste endogamy and gender control.
Toppers' copies
Toppers' copies for this question will be uploaded soon.