Arunachal Pradesh is mulling a land use policy that will disempower tribal traditional institutions from effectively intervening to check erroneous decisions, write Suroj Gogoi and Prasenjit Biswas

The implications of the land use policy in the North-eastern states have been a mixed bag of anxieties and disadvantages for many an indigenous community. For example, the Mizoram government&’s new land use policy claims at putting an end to wasteful shifting cultivation. This reflects a poor understanding of sustainability and the ecological niche created by different groups, such as Chakmas, engaged in shifting cultivation. Niche, in terms of self-sufficiency in production of rice and vegetables, has been grossly undermined. Apart from these, large tracts of forest land have been earmarked for dams all over Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram. The  area of submergence from the proposed dams in Mizoram will, on a modest estimate, be almost 50 per cent of its habitable area.
The story is even more disastrous in the case of Arunachal Pradesh. Construction of dams, now in progress in the state, will shrink the land holdings of at least 26 different tribes. This will strengthen the argument that land for resettlement of refugees and those displaced from dam sites is scanty.
Arunachal&’s land use policy, called “integrated socio-economic programme”, based on Mizoram&’s New Land Use Policy, also aims at ending shifting cultivation. This will affect major tribes like Apatanis, Adis and Nyishis. In the background of the tirade against shifting cultivation are the Arunachal Pradesh Soil and Water Conservation Act, 1991, and Land Resettlement and Records Act, 2000, that aim to turn any uninhabited and unused land into government property. Further, the government can bring that deserted land that becomes degraded after shifting cultivation under the purview of soil conservation. This kind of a naturalistic policy, without taking into account the interests of the people, will only create “developmental refugees”.
Loss of habitable spaces will leave the so-called “refugees,” such as Chakmas and Hajongs, to struggle for survival. Moreover, there are many informal labourers from indigenous and non-indigenous communities who work in different areas of Arunachal and do not own any property. They are mere migrants who live on informal contracts with the locals, leaving them in a situation of uncertainty of the new land arrangements.
Major dams now being built in Arunachal will submerge large areas and may cause an inter-ethnic conflict as new boundaries will have to be redrawn in a different manner. For example, the loss of land to Adis, due to the Upper Siang stage-II as well as Lower Siang stage-I, has threatened to displace them. The Dibang Valley project at Etalin has already displaced some Idu-Mishmi families.
The case of Apatanis in Papum Pare district is telling evidence of how such dam projects displace the indigenous communities and also affect inter-ethnic relations. Indeed, Arunachal Pradesh is mulling a policy of land use that would disempower tribal traditional institutions such as the Kebang of Adis from effectively intervening in decisions related to the use of water and land resources. For example, the Lower Demwe project will  significantly alter the flow of water in the Dibru river and affect the livelihood, flora and fauna and fragile eco-system in the Dibru-Saikhowa region. One can put this in comparative light by bringing in the case of dam building in Meghalaya. Dispur&’s decision to construct a dam for a two-MW hydel project on the Khri river — it originates from the West Khasi hills and flows into Assam — is likely to displace about 10,000 inhabitants of 26 villages. Such an inevitable process of displacement will only harm inter-community and inter-ethnic relations.
Protests against the construction of a dam on a tributary of the Simsang river is also based on similar apprehensions about displacement. The local communities can see the deleterious effect of such a dam-building exercise in their lives and immediate surroundings. They get into an unbecoming relationship of antagonism with the state as well as with “others” that later invariably turns into a major showdown. Development projects in its apparent productive benefits only pits one against the other that sharpens existing ethnic boundaries and exclusive claims over habitat and resources.
This picture of adversity has led the governments in the region to frame land use policies that allows unstinted right over the eminent domain by turning it into government property. The right of people to decide development projects has not been given its place within the framework of development decisions taken by the state in collaboration with private players. The absence of a legislative and constitutional framework to ensure the right of communities to pursue their own livelihood in their own habitat has resulted in several irreconcilable social and political conflicts between communities. The latter are continuously redefining and redrawing internal boundaries across which there are a large number of unsettled claims and counter-claims. Most importantly, the state, in terms of making an overarching developmental model, turns people into secondary players by giving them some benefits and then point to a bigger design of taking over natural resources. Such a sthological approach to development serves merely to stoke deceit.
These are now more than evident, while blessings are seen only in a nexus between the contractor-babu-businessmen-politician that runs the economy by putting stakeholders at the receiving end.

Suraj Gogoi is a Research Assistant at TISS, Mumbai, and Prasenjit Biswas teaches Philosophy at NEHU, Shillong