WHERE IS JUSTICE? Displaced People’s Voices from Odisha

DescriptionBased on a series of Public Hearings on Displacement in Odisha held between 2018 and 2020 across towns near major industrial and infrastructural projects, this volume presents analytical documentation of people’s voices, sharing their experiences, grievances, and demands expressed before an independent jury of experts, activists, and human rights defenders. They reveal long- pending, unfulfilled assurances of rehabilitation and compensation from the large national projects such as Hirakud Dam and Rourkela Steel Plant, people being displaced multiple times and unimaginable hardships faced by the displaced, mostly Adivasis in many projects. Many new projects follow the same logic with similar consequences despite several legal guarantees during the past decade.Besides being testimonies given in a democratic space, the book critically engages with three intensifying trends in contemporary India and Odisha: the expansion of large-scale projects causing displacement and environmental destruction, the erosion of democratic and participatory governance, and the criminalization of dissent in a fast shrinking civic space.Through firsthand narratives, expert observations, and case analyses, this report exposes the human cost of development and highlights the urgent need for justice-oriented policies that respect constitutional rights, environmental sustainability, and the dignity of marginalized communities. For that purpose, it makes a fervent plea for a statutory National Commission for the Rights of the Displaced.Manoranjan Mohanty, formerly Professor of Political Science at the University of Delhi and Founder-President of Gabeshana Chakra, Odisha, is currently Distinguished Professor at the Council for Social Development. He has been a part of many research and social action initiatives on human rights, state, social movements and comparative development issues. Prafulla Samantara is a prominent environmental activist of India who has been on the forefront of the movements to protect rights to land and livelihood especially of the indigenous and the marginalized communities. He is the National Convenor of Lok Shakti Abhiyan and a leading member of the National Alliance of People’s Movements. His role in the historic Niyamgiri movement, which protected tribal lands from mining, earned him the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2017.Golak Bihari Nath is a retired Principal and an eminent educationist from Odisha. An economist and a public intellectual, he has made significant contributions to the field of higher education, social development and issues of agricultural development. During the past several decades, Dr. Nath has been on the forefront of many democratic rights initiatives to protect the constitutional rights of the marginalisad sections.Sandeep Kumar Pattnaik is a public policy expert from Odisha with a strong research focus on land rights, tribal governance, and environmental justice. His work emphasizes on empowering marginalized communities through evidence-based policy interventions. He specializes in democratic decentralization and community-led development, bringing extensive experience in analyzing and advocating policies that strengthen democratic self-governance of Panchayats, participatory planning, gender equity and social justice.