Published Paper Details:

India's Journey from the colonial law of the Land Acquisition Act (LAA) enacted in 1894, to the enactment of Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (LARR) Act of 2013, has been an experience of understanding the development, displacement and redressal discourses of the multiple stakeholders including the Tribal communities. The process of Land acquisition in India was based on the LAA of 1894, which interpreted and aimed to utilize the forests and land resources for 'public good' and did not recognize the customary rights of tillers. It prescribed mere cash compensation to those who owned land titles through the legitimacy of the State. The Socio-anthropological discourse on the resources including land, cattle, mountains, hills and water bodies intertwined with the communities of the respective regions, was not provided any attention until the Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP) (initiated in 1961) built on Narmada River, in the state of Gujarat, which led to one of the first socio- environmental movements namely the Save Narmada Movement. The Development model incorporated in the economic policies in the first few decades of the post-independence period, focused largely on 'land' as a phenomenal economic utility tied to the dynamic market needs, and the relationships of the human communities with natural resources was not perceived as a natural customary right of people, by the political class, bureaucracy and the judiciary. Further, under the benign impact of globalization and liberalization from 1991, stress increased at the fault lines of the tribal belt, where large scale industrial projects and investments have been projected as economic and institutional necessities. The legal tangles with all possible complexities was experienced with the LAA of 1894, as it stipulated only individual landowners entitled for compensation in case of displacement, and all other customary owners of the land are classified as 'encroachers'. Also, it took an utilitarian approach with all the public resources such as bio-diversity parks, other natural resources, and land without titles, and ignored the anthropological and sociological realities of common land, water bodies, common land, grazing lands, mountains and hills, agrarian lands, stone quarries etc. as integrated part of socio-economic and religious lifeline of several communities including the Tribes of India. Some of the prominent socio-environmental movements namely the Save Narmada Movement against Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP) in Gujarat, the anti-Coco-Cola struggle in Kerala, contributed to the establishment of discourses in understanding the multidimensional, inherent and integrated relationships between land and communities, against the linear version of development necessitating displacements. The legal battles of various stakeholders associated with these socio-environmental movements, provided the impetus to change the LAA of 1894 and enact the LARR in 2013. The present paper focuses on the various aspects of historical and socio-legal journey from LAA of 1894 to the establishment LARR Act 2013 in the backdrop of Save Narmada Movement of Gujarat and anti-Coco-Cola struggle of Kerala that collectively helped the Indian academics, political class and importantly the judiciary in redefining the community-land relationships and resources. With the enactment of LARR Act of 2013, the possibilities of a dialogues between the stakeholders, land owners and the land acquirers has begun, as the LARR Act of 2013, has clearly provided the space at least in procedures Resettlement and Rehabilitation (R&R), Fair Compensation, Transparency, Consent, Social Impact Assessment and dispute resolution, which was not available earlier. But the LARR Act of 2013 also has witnessed several deficits in terms of operational reality such as Land use changes, delays in compensation, inadequate compensation etc., which provides the opportunity for the stake holders, academicians, legal fraternity and the political class to revisit and improvise the provisions of LARR Act of 2013 further, and also solve the operational challenges.