 | | Photo courtesy Michelle Arevalo-Carpenter |
IAP Research Fellow and Rotary World Peace Fellow Michelle Arevalo-Carpenter reflects on her experiences living and conducting research in rural India. Her letter was also published in the Wall Street Journal India.
Tuesday 7 July 2009
By Michelle Arevalo-Carpenter
As a Latin American
traveling through tiny villages in rural Himachal Pradesh, I can't help but
feel that I've been immersed in Macondo, the enchanted town depicted in Gabriel
Garcia Marquez's canonical fiction One Hundred Years of Solitude. The book
documents the town's journey from poverty to wealth to poverty brought on by a
cycle of foreign investment and large-scale development. When I hear of one Himachali villager paying another 1000
rupees to tie his shoe after receiving cash for his land, I have an overwhelming sensation that the denouement
will be reached within the next few chapters.
Nevertheless, as tempting as
it is to see my observations and conversations about rural India through the
lens of an obvious cliché, I realize that,
like Garcia Marquez's work, the stories I
found in my recent visit to the Jagat Sukh and Prini villages comprise dynamic
layers of a complicated whole that involves advances and setbacks, human rights
and human development, change and resistance. There are no clear protagonists
or antagonists, but there are plenty of opportunists seeking fortunes and
sooth-sayers predicting destruction.
My mission in staying among
villagers when I visited the two locations in June was to assess whether the
International Finance Corporation's Performance Standard on involuntary
resettlement and land acquisition is adequately addressing the needs of
affected populations. These standards are to be implemented by the private
entity borrowing funds from IFC, in this case, AD Hydro Power Ltd, a company
that in 2005 began construction of a hydroelectric project by diverting streams
from the Allain and Duhangan rivers. Staying at a small family-owned guesthouse
in Jagat Sukh I had the privilege of discussing locals' thoughts on this
infrastructure project in confidence over warm chai. The overall impression
villagers have about it is both negative and apprehensive.
There is no doubt that
positive development changes have come to Jagat Sukh and Prini villages in Himachal
Pradesh in the recent years since construction began: employment and wages are
higher, water now gushes from taps, convenience shops have a constant flow of
costumers, Prini and Hamta are now accessible through paved roads, several new
homes have been built and many more have been renovated or expanded. Why then,
are so many villagers unhappy with the recent developments? Even as the
villages experience the best of days of the construction boom, disappointment
looms.
“First came the
road,” says Raman, a local in Prini, as he recounts the town's recent
history vis-a-vis AD Hydro Power Ltd, known locally as The Company.
“Then, people sold their land”. With the construction of a road to
the village in 2005 came complex land acquisition negotiations with local
proprietors , mostly subsistence farmers who depend on their land for their
livelihoods.
On the surface all seems
fine, as the villagers received cash compensation above market price. Still,
none felt they had the option not to sell, and few were prepared to make the
transition from subsistence farmers to overnight capital investors.
Although no-one sold their
entire landholdings, most of the sellers will see their agricultural outputs
and source of income dry up in the long term. This is partly due to the
villagers' inability to turn the cash compensation they received into a
substantive source of income. “Most people took their money and rushed to
buy fancy cars, build extensions on their homes and decorate their
housefronts” claims Sumer, a young man from Jagat Sukh, “only a few
bought land elsewhere, farther away, where the price is cheaper for fertile
plots.”
Another villager interrupts
to vividly recount how immediately after receiving compensation, a man paid one
of his friends 1000 rupees to tie his shoe. “Standard of living has
certainly improved, but the village values have declined terribly,” said
the 62 year old man, who has lived in the area since birth.
The minder of the Jagat Sukh
temple has her own prediction on the future of the village: “Those people
are foolish [by selling their land],” she claims, “what will be
left for their children once the money runs out? Will they feed them an old
car?”
As project construction
nears completion at the end of 2009, villagers are beginning to wonder what
will happen after the bonanza for contractors ends. “I am happy with the
project”, says another man, whose sons work as contractors for ADHPL,
“but their work won't last forever, and now it will be impossible for me
to convince them to go back to agriculture.” The case of these two
workers feeds into a larger phenomenon, as a member of the Kullu District Fruit
Grower's association describes: “Every year, hundreds of agricultural
workers leave the land, we think its a consequence of difficult conditions,
worse climatic conditions, generational differences and a push for large-scale
agriculture.”
This is not the first time a
large infrastructure development project has side effects on the sustainability
of local community development- and the international community is well aware
of this. Academics have provided ample proof that large-scale infrastructure
projects,while often fomenting development lead to the impoverishment of the
populations that give up their land and livelihood for them. Professors Hari
Mohan Mathur and Michael Cernea's several empirical studies, as well as a 2003
Brookings-SAIS report on development-induced displacement, outline the
devastating long-term effect these projects have on rural and tribal people,
including assetlessness, unemployment, debt-bondage, hunger, and cultural
disintegration.
As a response to the
overwhelming evidence on these negative impacts, the World Bank Group,
including its International Finance Corporation, developed mechanisms,
principles and safeguards to mitigate these risks. Of particular interest to
the people of Prini and Jagat Sukh, are the safeguards related to displacement,
land acquisition and resettlement, which I am now analyzing. According to this
standard, The Company must disclose to the communities the long term effects of
the project, mitigate any problems and offer a variety of land compensation
options, prioritizing land-for-land compensation when the affected populations
have land-based livelihoods. Further, the standards encourage the company or
the country to share the benefits derived from the project on a sustainable
basis.
ADHPL feels it has done its
part for the development of the villages. Aside from the benefits derived by
the mere existence of the project, such as road access and job creation, the
company has allocated 1.5% of the total project budget to local area
development fund, to be administered through the Panchayat and a committee of
local Pradhans. Among other initiatives, it has supported local schools, buildings
and events.
Clearly, sustained rural
community development is about much more than mere cash transfers and funding
local government: there is a need to strengthen the democratic structures at
the grassroots level and enable civil society to play a role in holding local
authorities accountable for administering local development funds. It would be
simplistic to think that only villagers that have not received a contract with
the company oppose the project, but most inhabitants are unhappy with the management
of the local area development fund, as they have seen Pradhans and their main
contacts and relatives become rich through the assignation of development
contracts. Given this type of access to resources, the local area development
fund may in fact be creating previously non-existent inequalities in these
villages as well as entrenching power in a few hands.
In contrast to Garcia
Marquez's Macondo, whose inhabitants are eventually doomed by the forces of
progress that take a live of their own, rural India has a unique opportunity to
invoke authorship in writing its next chapters, yet it may wish to seek lessons
on plot construction from 20th century Latin American fiction.
Learn more...
Read Michelle's letter on the Wall Street Journal India's website.
Read reflections from IAP's other research fellow, Emily Joiner, about her experiences in Peru. | 
