The consensual politics of development: a case study of hydropower development in the eastern Himalayan region of India

cg.contributor.affiliationInternational Water Management Instituteen
cg.coverage.countryIndia
cg.coverage.iso3166-alpha2IN
cg.coverage.regionAsia
cg.coverage.regionSouthern Asia
cg.identifier.urlhttp://www.nepalpolicynet.com/new/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/5_Joshi-et-al-2019.pdfen
cg.isijournalISI Journalen
cg.issn2565-5124en
cg.journalNew Angle: Nepal Journal of Social Science and Public Policyen
cg.reviewStatusPeer Reviewen
dc.contributor.authorJoshi, Deepaen
dc.contributor.authorPlatteeuw, J.en
dc.contributor.authorTeoh, J.en
dc.date.accessioned2020-06-01T08:15:25Zen
dc.date.available2020-06-01T08:15:25Zen
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10568/108360
dc.titleThe consensual politics of development: a case study of hydropower development in the eastern Himalayan region of Indiaen
dcterms.abstractCriticism and contestation of large dam projects have a long, strong history in India. In this paper, we analyze diverse civil-society responses to large dam projects in the Eastern Himalaya region of India, which has in the past decades been presented as a clean, green, climate-mitigating way of generating energy, but critiqued for its adverse impacts more recently. We draw our findings primarily based on interviews with NGOs involved in environmental and/or water issues in Darjeeling, interviews with those involved in a local people’s movement ‘Affected Citizens of Teesta’, and participatory research over the course of three years between 2015 and 2018. Our findings show how doing development for the state, the market and/or donor organizations compromises the ability of NGOs in the Darjeeling region to hold these actors accountable for social and environmental excesses. In the same region, dam projects in North Sikkim led to a local people’s movement, where expressions of indigeneity, identity and place were used to critique and contest the State’s agenda of development, in ways that were symptomatically different to NGOs tied down by relations of developmental bureaucracy. Our findings reveal how the incursion of State authority, presence and power in civil-society undermines the civil society mandate of transformative social change, and additionally, how the geographical, political, institutional and identity-based divides that fragment diverse civil-society institutions and actors make it challenging to counter the increasingly consensual politics of environmental governance.en
dcterms.accessRightsOpen Access
dcterms.bibliographicCitationJoshi, Deepa; Platteeuw, J.; Teoh, J. 2019. The consensual politics of development: a case study of hydropower development in the eastern Himalayan region of India. New Angle: Nepal Journal of Social Science and Public Policy, 5(1):74-98. (Special issue: Water Security and Inclusive Water Governance in the Himalayas)en
dcterms.extent5(1):74-98. (Special issue: Water Security and Inclusive Water Governance in the Himalayas)en
dcterms.issued2019-12-01
dcterms.languageen
dcterms.licenseCopyrighted; all rights reserved
dcterms.subjecthydropoweren
dcterms.subjectdevelopment projectsen
dcterms.subjectpolitical aspectsen
dcterms.subjectnongovernmental organizationsen
dcterms.subjectcivil society organizationsen
dcterms.subjectstate interventionen
dcterms.subjectclimate change mitigationen
dcterms.subjectpoliciesen
dcterms.subjectdamsen
dcterms.subjectsocial aspectsen
dcterms.subjectcase studiesen
dcterms.typeJournal Article

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