Tag Archives: Land

The protests against the Ken-Betwa Link Project in Madhya Pradesh emerged from long-standing concerns about the displacement of affected communities and the manner in which one of India’s largest river-linking schemes was being implemented. The Union and Madhya Pradesh governments have presented the Ken-Betwa Link Project as a nationally significant initiative to address chronic water scarcity in the drought-prone Bundelkhand region, arguing that it would strengthen irrigation while improving drinking water availability and power generation. Adivasis in the region have challenged this developmentalist narrative that is often built by ignoring the costs of implementation, which tramples their constitutional rights and livelihoods. The latest phase of the movement began on 3 July 2026 along the Barana River near Kupi village in Chhatarpur district and became one of the most visible mobilisations against the project. Protesters combined forms of civil disobedience with demands that rehabilitation be carried out according to the spirit of the law.

Led largely by Adivasi women and project-affected families, the agitation centred on the Ken-Betwa Link Project as well as the Majhgaon and Runjh irrigation projects. Protesters organised a series of symbolic demonstrations including jal satyagraha (standing in water as a form of protest), chita andolan (lying on funeral pyres) and a symbolic faansi satyagraha, presenting them as expressions of communities being pushed towards “social death” through displacement. Movement leader Amit Bhatnagar also undertook an indefinite hunger strike that lasted nearly two weeks until the protests were forcefully cleared. Protest leaders have maintained that authorities should implement the projects in accordance with existing laws governing land acquisition and environmental protection while respecting the constitutional rights of affected communities which prioritize rehabilitation. The administration has also failed to honour assurances reportedly made during discussions held in April 2026 before the protests came to this intense point. Bhatnagar has pointed to a ₹400-crore corruption scandal linked to the project, which shows massive irregularities in land acquisition and rehabilitation.

Displacement in this case has extended far beyond the loss of land. The affected families stand to lose access to forests, access to water resources, livelihood opportunities and more. Some residents have faced false criminal cases, illegal evictions, electricity disconnections and the demolition of schools as intimidation tactics and extra-legal punishment for participating in the protests. In this context, the protests called for transparent identification of all project-affected families and insisted that rehabilitation precede any displacement. The protests were also occurring within broader demands for an end to coercive administrative practices, especially when it comes to extractive displacement under the banner of development, conveniently marketed as pro-people and welfarist. Given the history of these practices, the movement is not simply a dispute over compensation but one in the long line of political struggles for democratic accountability and constitutional protections for Adivasi and rural communities.

Before dawn on 19 July 2026, a large police contingent cleared the protest site, citing public safety concerns because demonstrators were gathered beneath an under-construction bridge and along the river. While  the administration has rejected allegations of wrongdoing and maintained that all legal procedures were being followed, multiple videos show the heavy-handed use of violence in ending the protests. Authorities stated that protesters were transported back to their villages rather than arrested. Bhatnagar was taken to hospital after his health deteriorated during the prolonged fast. However, this is a clear sign of forcible suppression of the movement, with protestors alleging mass detentions and the use of force to prevent Bhatnagar from addressing the media.

The agitation reflects wider debates surrounding the Ken-Betwa Link Project. As India’s first river-linking project under the National Perspective Plan, it occupies a central place in the government’s broader river interlinking agenda, with an estimated cost of ₹44,605 crore. Environmental groups, hydrologists and rural and Adivasi communities who have been affected have questioned the project’s ecological viability. They dispute the assumption that the Ken basin has surplus water and warn of its impact on forests and the Panna Tiger Reserve. Extensive deforestation and inadequate rehabilitation weaken the project’s developmental claims, while many have already pointed to decentralised water conservation which offers less destructive alternatives that states are reluctant to explore.

The legal framework governing such projects already recognises that displacement extends beyond the acquisition of privately owned land. The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 (LARR Act) defines project-affected families and provides for rehabilitation and resettlement alongside compensation. Apart from the generic failure of implementation in the Ken-Batwa case, the statutory application has repeatedly been criticised for excluding people whose livelihoods depend on forests, rivers and other common resources or who lack formal land titles, leaving many of those most affected outside its protections. This accountability gap is underscored by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs’ press release, “Rehabilitation of Displaced Tribals” (31 July 2025), which stated that the Union government does not centrally maintain data on displaced or project-affected families, even as it continues to promote large infrastructure projects across the country.

But it is clear that the questions raised here cannot be answered simply by demanding due process in compensatory practices. For decades, scholars of displacement, including Walter Fernandes, have argued that the framework governing displacement requires a more expansive rethinking. Yet policy institutions have largely failed to address these concerns, while successive governments have continued to pursue different forms of displacement through both public and private infrastructure initiatives. Fernandes argues that compensation cannot be confined to the market value of acquired land because displacement disrupts livelihoods rather than simply transferring property. He contends that rehabilitation should recognise all project-affected persons, including those dependent on common resources without formal legal ownership, and enable them to rebuild their lives instead of treating compensation as a one-time financial payment.

Although legislation such as the LARR Act is frequently criticised by corporate interests as placing excessive constraints on land acquisition, the Ken-Betwa experience suggests a different problem. Since the introduction of the Act, human right activists have pointed to the limited procedural and substantive protections that the Act provides. But even the minimal formal recognition and rights seem to be rendered ineffective when the state itself becomes the principal agent of acquisition. As Sanjoy Chakravorty argues in his formulation of the “taking state”, the concentration of acquisition powers within the state enables it to overcome legal safeguards through administrative practice. The struggle over Ken-Betwa is therefore also a struggle over whether constitutional and statutory protections can meaningfully constrain state-led development when the communities bearing its costs are Adivasi and rural populations.

The July protests also represent more than a local struggle over rehabilitation. They also highlight a wider contest over how large infrastructure projects should proceed when they affect the rights of tribal communities and fragile ecosystems. Not only is the Indian state continuously engaged in authoritarian extractivism, but has effectively framed its biddings under the PR of welfare while continuously trampling the civil liberties and the right to dissent of people affected. The events unfolding at Ken-Betwa over the last few days reaffirm that struggles against displacement cannot be left to affected communities alone, but require broader democratic solidarity across movements.

Paresh Hate is a Bahujan queer researcher, writer, documenter and activist and the Lead Content Manager at Dalit Voice.

The demand to remove Christian Adivasis from the Scheduled Tribe list has moved from the margins of Hindutva advocacy toward the centre of national politics. On May 24, around 50,000 tribal persons gathered at Delhi’s Red Fort for a rally organised by the RSS-linked Janjati Suraksha Manch (JSM), where speakers called for the de-listing of Christian Adivasis from the Scheduled Tribe category. The presence of Union Home Minister Amit Shah transformed the event from an organisational mobilisation into a signal of political endorsement.

What was presented as a defence of tribal culture carries wider political implications. The campaign serves two connected functions. It assists the incorporation of tribal populations into a Hindutva political framework by constructing Christianity as a threat to tribal identity. At the same time, it weakens forms of Adivasi politics that have historically centred on land, forests, resources, self-governance and autonomy. The controversy over de-listing therefore reaches far beyond reservations. It concerns who gets to define Adivasi identity and what kinds of political claims can be made in its name.

This is not a new conflict. For decades, organisations associated with the Sangh Parivar have attempted to reshape the political vocabulary through which tribal communities are understood. The preference for the term “Vanvasi” over “Adivasi” is part of that project. Naming is never a neutral exercise. The term “Adivasi” became associated with political movements that understood tribal communities as possessing distinct histories, social formations and relationships to territory that cannot be reduced to the categories of the postcolonial Indian state. It also came to be linked with struggles over land, autonomy, self-representation and cultural rights. “Vanvasi,” by contrast, has been promoted by RSS-affiliated organisations as part of an effort to situate tribal communities within a broader Hindu civilisational framework. The dispute over terminology concerns who has the authority to define tribal identity and whether tribal politics will be articulated through its own historical experiences and political demands or incorporated into a larger majoritarian narrative.

The de-listing campaign emerges from this history. It seeks to make religious affiliation increasingly central to the way tribal identity is understood and recognised. Its supporters argue that conversion to Christianity severs individuals from tribal traditions and therefore undermines the basis on which constitutional protections were granted. Yet once religious affiliation becomes the basis for determining who is a legitimate member of the political community, the implications extend well beyond Christianity.

Across central and eastern India, the strongest currents within Adivasi politics have historically developed around struggles over land, displacement, mining, forests and self-governance. Whether in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha or Maharashtra, tribal movements have repeatedly confronted state institutions, extractive industries and dominant social groups over control of territory and resources. Opposition to mining projects and industrial land acquisition, struggles over the implementation of the Forest Rights Act and PESA, demands for a separate Sarna religious code, and movements against displacement have all shaped contemporary Adivasi politics. These mobilisations have generally been organised around questions of land, governance, cultural recognition and collective rights. The Fifth Schedule, PESA, forest rights legislation and movements against displacement emerged from these material struggles. They did not emerge from divisions between Christian and non-Christian Adivasis.

That is precisely what makes the current campaign politically consequential. It redirects attention away from conflicts over land, extraction and governance and toward conflicts within Adivasi communities themselves. Christian Adivasis become a separate political category whose claims can be isolated from those of the wider community. Such divisions weaken collective mobilisation against displacement, mining expansion, land alienation and other forms of dispossession. They also benefit those who have long sought a more fragmented and manageable Adivasi politics, whether in the service of electoral consolidation or the continued extraction of resources from tribal regions.

These concerns have been repeatedly voiced by Adivasi organisations across Jharkhand. More than one hundred tribal leaders, academics, activists and community organisations called for a boycott of the Delhi conclave before it took place. Their objections reflected a broader pattern. Campaigns around de-listing receive substantial organisational energy and political support, while struggles over land alienation, mining expansion, displacement and forest rights rarely attract comparable urgency from the same actors. That contrast raises an obvious question: why are religious differences within Adivasi communities relevant at all while ongoing conflicts over land, forests and resources are not?

The campaign also seeks to alter the constitutional terms through which tribal identity is recognised. Scheduled Tribe recognition was never designed as a reward for adherence to a particular religion. Article 342 contains no religious qualification, and Adivasi status does not disappear because an individual changes faith.

The constitutional histories of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes are different, but neither category was originally conceived as contingent on religious affiliation. Dalit Christians and Dalit Muslims continue to challenge their exclusion from Scheduled Caste status on the grounds that caste oppression survives conversion. Rather than correcting that injustice, the demand to de-list Christian Adivasis seeks to extend a similar logic of religious exclusion into a constitutional category where it has historically had no place. Recent judicial and political developments have made such efforts appear increasingly plausible, contributing to a broader perception that protections available to historically oppressed communities are open to reinterpretation through the language of religious belonging.

The de-listing campaign also reveals the conditions under which Hindutva is prepared to recognise tribal distinctiveness. Organisations associated with the Sangh Parivar have long sought to incorporate Adivasi communities into a broader Hindu civilisational framework while simultaneously acknowledging them as culturally distinct. The demand to remove Christian Adivasis from the Scheduled Tribe list narrows the space for that distinctiveness. Tribal identity remains legitimate so long as it can be accommodated within a majoritarian political project; conversion is treated as a point at which recognition becomes conditional.

Christianity has undoubtedly transformed many tribal societies over the past century, as have education, migration, urbanisation and countless other social processes. Those transformations do not erase histories of marginalisation, nor do they justify making religious affiliation the basis of constitutional recognition.

At stake in the controversy is more than the status of Christian Adivasis alone. The demand seeks to normalise the idea that constitutional protections can be conditioned by religious affiliation and that communities historically recognised because of marginalisation can be reorganised through the language of religious belonging. The immediate target may be Christian Adivasis, but the wider effect is the weakening of political traditions organised around land, resources, self-governance and collective rights. In regions where Adivasi communities continue to confront displacement, mining expansion and the erosion of democratic control over local resources, such fragmentation serves interests far more powerful than the communities being asked to embrace it.

Paresh Hate is a Bahujan queer researcher, writer, documenter and activist and the Lead Content Manager at Dalit Voice.