Globalization, Displacement and the Livelihood Issues of Tribal and Agriculture Dependent Poor People:The Case of Mineral-based Industries in India
Abstract
This essay contends that the economic liberalization, privatization and globalization (LPG) model of development in India is virtually depriving the tribal peopl and other agriculture dependent poor people of their traditional means of sustainable livelihood by promoting the unregulated growth of mineral-based industries in the tribal regions of India. In the name of modernization and the country’s economic development, the elites in India are taking over the life sustaining resources of the poor and pushing them into a further marginalized state of living as a result of displacing them from their land and homes. Such development serves the interests of these elites while it impoverishes the tribal people and poor peasants in these regions who are dependent on the life sustaining resources of the ecosystems in which they live. The mining and other industries that are taking over the resources of the ecosystems of these tribal people and poor peasants fail to provide them with an improved and sustainable means of making a living. The very nature of the present development paradigm does not provide for the absorption of these poor people into the organized non-farm sector economy by either developing their skills or providing them with technical education.