A Hydrologically Fractured State? Nation-Building, the Hirakud Dam and Societal Divisions in Eastern India

Abstract

This article analyses how long-running, multilayered conflicts over water at the Hirakud dam underpin present-day societal divisions in Odisha state. There are four unresolved conflicts over this dam in the state: movements against displacement, movements for rehabilitation, struggles between agricultural and industrial water users, and, finally, disputes between federal states. These have generated societal ruptures from the announcement of the dam in 1946 to the present day. We argue that understanding the confluence and ingrained, overlapping character of these conflicts provide important vantage points for understanding the present uneasy constitution of subregional state fabrication in Odisha.

Keywords:

• Big dams
• Hirakud dam
• identity formation
• India
• nation-building
• state fabrication
• water conflict

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Rohan D’Souza, Drowned and Dammed: Colonial Capitalism and Flood Control in Eastern India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2006), Chap. 1.

2. Jonathan Parry and Christian Struempell, ‘On the Desecration of Nehru’s “Temples”: Bhilai and Rourkela Compared’, in Economic & Political Weekly, Vol. 43, no. 19 (2008), p. 47.

3. D’Souza, Drowned and Dammed; and Arun Kumar, Dams and Development in India (Jaipur: Rawat Publications, 2016), Chap. 2.

4. See, for example, Sanjeev Khagram, Dams and Development: Transnational Struggles for Water and Power (Ithaca, NY/London: Cornell University Press, 2004); and S. Parasuraman, The Development Dilemma: Displacement in India (New Delhi: Springer, 2016).

5. Majed Akhter, ‘Infrastructure Nation: State Space, Hegemony, and Hydraulic Regionalism in Pakistan’, in Antipode, Vol. 47, no. 4 (2015), p. 850.

6. Government of India, Mahanadi Valley Development: Hirakud Dam Project, Vol. I—Report (Simla: Central Waterways Irrigation and Navigation Commission, 1947).

7. Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge, 2006), p. 48.

8. Georgina Drew, River Dialogues: Hindu Faith and the Political Ecology of Dams on the Sacred Ganga (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2017), pp. 3–6; and Khagram, Dams and Development.

9. Biksham Gujja, K.J. Joy, Suhas Paranjape, Vinod Goud and Shruti Vispute, ‘“Million Revolts” in the Making’, in Economic & Political Weekly, Vol. 41, no. 7 (2006), pp. 570–4; and K.J. Joy, Biksham Gujja, Suhas Paranjape, Vinod Goud and Shruti Vispute (eds), Water Conflicts in India: A Million Revolts in the Making (New Delhi: Routledge, 2008), Chap. 2.

10. Literary sources, especially in Indian languages, have generally not been used to understand processes of development and state-making. In this piece, we use autobiographies such as those by the writer Surendra Mohanty and the bureaucrat Bharat Chandra Nayak to understand the politics of development. Similarly, we draw on material from Odia-language journals such as The Samadrusti and Anwesha to foreground local, vernacular articulations of development politics.

11. Sailen Routray, ‘Engaging the “Long 1980s”: On the Emergence of the Mission Mode of State-Fabrication in India’, in History and Sociology of South Asia, Vol. 7, no. 2 (2013), pp. 133–40.

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16. Swyngedouw, Liquid Power, p. 1.

17. Ibid., p. 4.

18. See, for example, Gilbert M. Joseph and Daniel Nugent, ‘Popular Culture and State Formation in Revolutionary Mexico’, in Gilbert M. Joseph and Daniel Nugent (eds), Everyday Forms of State Formation: Revolution and the Negotiation of Rule in Modern Mexico (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1994), pp. 13–23; Christian Krohn-Hansen and Knut G. Nustad, ‘Introduction’, in Christian Krohn-Hansen and Knut G. Nustad (eds), State Formation: Anthropological Perspectives (London: Pluto Press, 2005), pp. 23–6; and Derek Sayer, ‘Everyday Forms of State Formation: Some Dissident Remarks on “Hegemony”’, in Gilbert M. Joseph and Daniel Nugent (eds), Everyday Forms of State Formation: Revolution and the Negotiation of Rule in Modern Mexico (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1994), pp. 367–9.

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20. Routray, ‘Engaging the “Long 1980s”’.

21. Butler, Gender Trouble, pp. 45–50.

22. Judith Butler, ‘Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory’, in Theatre Journal, Vol. 40, no. 4 (1988), p. 528.

23. Butler, Gender Trouble, pp. 45–50.

24. Sailen Routray, Everyday State and Politics in India: Government in the Backyard in Kalahandi (London: Routledge, 2018).

25. Chris J. Fuller and Veronique Bénéï, The Everyday State and Society in Modern India (London: Hurst, 2001); Grace Carswell, Thomas Chambers and Geert De Neve, ‘Waiting for the State: Gender, Citizenship and Everyday Encounters with Bureaucracy in India’, in Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, Vol. 37, no. 4 (2019), pp. 597–616; and Stuart Corbridge, Glyn Williams, Manoj Srivastava and Rene Véron, Seeing the State: Governance and Governmentality in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 87–94.

26. D’Souza, Drowned and Dammed, Chap. 1; and Nayak, Dams and Development in India.

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33. Much of western Odisha was part of the colonial Central Provinces, whereas the coast was part of the Bengal and Madras presidencies. Coastal Odisha land was settled as ryotwari with direct farmer ownership of land, whereas much of western Odisha was under indirect zamindari, or even princely feudal, rule. See Bijay Chandra Rath, Land System in the Native States of Orissa (Cuttack: Arya Prakashan, 1995).

34. Government of India, Mahanadi Valley Development: Hirakud Dam Project, Vol. I—Report.

35. Laxman K. Mahapatra, ‘Rehabilitation of Tribals Affected by Major Dams and Other Projects in Orissa’, in A.P. Fernandes (ed.), Report on Workshop on Rehabilitation of Persons Displaced by Development Projects (Bangalore: Institute for Social and Economic Change, 1990); Arun Kumar Nayak, ‘Big Dams and Protests in India: A Study of Hirakud Dam’, in Economic & Political Weekly, Vol. 45, no. 2 (2010), pp. 69–70; and Philip Viegas, ‘The Hirakud Dam Oustees: Thirty Years After’, in Enakshi Ganguly Thukral (ed.), Big Dams, Displaced People: Rivers of Sorrow, Rivers of Change (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1992), pp. 44–50.

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37. Pranab Choudhury, Jinda Sandbhor and Priyabrata Satapathy, Floods, Fields and Factories: Towards Resolving Conflicts around Hirakud Dam (Pune: Forum for Policy Dialogue on Water Conflicts in India, 2012), p. iv.

38. Koshal is the western and south-western region of Odisha where a form of the Odia language called Koshali is spoken. Demands for a separate state have been made for several decades based on economic underdevelopment and a unique cultural identity.

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41. Bharat Chandra Nayak, Mora Purbasmruti Katha (The Story of My Extant Memories) (Cuttack: Agraduta, 2014).

42. Nayak, ‘Big Dams and Protests in India’.

43. The Eastern States Union was a union of princely states formed immediately after India became independent on 15 August 1947. It consisted of most of the princely states of the Orissa Tributary States and Chhattisgarh States Agency and was an attempt by the erstwhile princely rulers to hold on to power. The Union was dissolved in 1948.

44. Surendra Mohanty, Patha O Pruthibi(The Road and the World) (Cuttack: Friends Publishers, 2008).

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46. Nigam, ‘Hirakud Bandha Birodhi Aandolana (The Struggle against the Hirakud Dam)’, in Anwesha, Vol. 1, no. 2 (2017), pp. 75–90.

47. Nayak, ‘Big Dams and Protests in India’.

48. Routray, ‘Engaging the “Long 1980s”’.

49. Routray, Everyday State and Politics in India.

50. Government of India, Mahanadi Valley Development: Hirakud Dam Project, Vol. I—Report.

51. Nayak, ‘Big Dams and Protests in India’.

52. Bikash Pati and Manas Biswal, ‘Hirakud Dam: Fifty Mournful Years’, in Dams, Rivers & People, Vol. 7, no. 5 (June–Aug. 2009), p. 7.

53. Khagram, Dams and Development, pp. 101–3.

54. This situation tragically continues in relation to displacement-causing projects throughout India today. See, for example, Hari Mohan Mathur, Displacement and Resettlement in India: The Human Cost of Development (New Delhi: Routledge, 2013); and Rajkishor Meher, ‘Globalization, Displacement and the Livelihood Issues of Tribal and Agriculture Dependent Poor People: The Case of Mineral-Based Industries in India’, in Journal of Developing Societies, Vol. 25, no. 4 (2009), pp. 457–60; and Parasuraman, The Development Dilemma, pp. 7–9.

55. Centre for Science and Environment, State of India’s Environment: The Citizen’s Fifth Report (New Delhi: Centre for Science and Environment, 1999).

56. Max Martin, ‘Out of Mind and Sight’, in Down to Earth, Vol. 6, no. 11 (1997), p. 57.

57. Vasundhara, The Forest Rights Act and the Issues of Displacement in Odisha (Bhubaneswar: Vasundhara, 2016), p. 14.

58. Fernandes, cited in Michael M. Cernea, ‘Foreword: State Legislation Facing Involuntary Resettlement: Comparing the Thinking in China and India on Development-Displacement’, in Florence Padovani (ed.), Development-Induced Displacement in India and China: A Comparative Look at the Burdens of Growth (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2016), p. xii.

59. Thanks to one of the anonymous reviewers who pointed to a conflict not discussed here, namely the allocation of water along irrigation canals. Farmers at different parts of the canals have from time to time agitated about uneven water distribution at Hirakud, as for other canals across India. ‘No Water at Tail-End of Canal, Farmers Block Highway’, The Times of India (13 May 2018) [https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ludhiana/no-water-at-tail-end-of-canal-farmers-block-highway/articleshow/64142111.cms, accessed 6 Feb. 2019]. Urban water is another smaller and yet important use of dam water expected to grow in the future. Craig Dsouza, Abraham Samuel, Sarita Bhagat and K.J. Joy, Water Allocations and Use in the Mahanadi River Basin: A Study of the Agricultural and Industrial Sectors (Pune: Forum for Policy Dialogue on Water Conflicts in India, 2017), p. 1.

60. Atul Kohli, Democracy and Development in India: From Socialism to Pro-Business (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 12–8.

61. Felix Padel and Samarendra Das, Out of This Earth: East India Adivasis and the Aluminium Cartel (New Delhi: Orient Blackswan, 2010), pp. 77–80.

62. Dsouza, Samuel, Bhagat and Joy, Water Allocations and Use in the Mahanadi River Basin, pp. 62–3.

63. Pranab R. Choudhury, Jinda Sandbhor and Bhupesh C. Sahoo, ‘Water Conflicts around Hirakud Dam’, in Pranab R. Choudhury, Bhupesh C. Sahoo, Jinda Sandbhor, Suhas Paranjpye, K.J. Joy and Shruti Vispute (eds), Water Conflicts in Odisha: A Compendium of Case Studies (Pune: Forum for Policy Dialogue on Water Conflicts in India, 2012), pp. 7–15.

64. Padhi, ‘Reflections on the Politics of Conflicts over Hirakud Waters’.

65. ‘Hirakud ru 59 Silpaku 35.41 Ghanaphut pani deba pain rajya sarakara chuktibaddha (The State Government Has Signed Agreements to Provide 35.41 Cubic Feet of Hirakud Waters to 59 Industries)’, The Samaya (Bhubaneswar) (17 Dec. 2007).

66. ‘Rajya sarakaranka birodhare Congress ra aswamedha jagyan (Great Campaign by Congress against the State Government)’, The Sambad (Bhubaneswar) (2 Dec. 2007).

67. ‘Silpayana biruddhare manaba srunkhala (Human Chain against Industrialisation)’, The Samaya (Bhubaneswar) (25 Oct. 2007).

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