INDIA

‘All Youth Are Equal?’: Animal Farm, CJP and New Nationalism

Atman Shah | 04 Jul 2026

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The CJP protests are a unique way of expressing dissent that mixes humour with sharp political criticism to highlight the disparity between political promises and lived realities.

Image Courtesy: AISA Facebook

Young Indians calling themselves ‘cockroaches’ are asking an unfashionable question in today’s India: in a democracy, does the government owe its youth answers, or only slogans?

The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) started with a courtroom remark and an Instagram post, but it quickly became a symbol of wider frustration among young people in India. The term ‘cockroaches,’ first used as an insult for unemployed youth, was taken up as a shared identity. The question, “What if all cockroaches came together?” turned into a movement with millions of followers, organised protests, and a unique way of expressing dissent that mixes humour with sharp political criticism.

What began as an internet meme now serves as a pointed response to a government that wants to appear strong but often seems defensive when questioned by those it has not managed to employ, protect, or treat fairly.

In George Orwell’s Animal Farm, the animals on Manor Farm start by demanding something basic: respect for their labour and a say in how their world is run. Over time, their revolution is hollowed out by a small group of pigs who master language, spin, and selective memory. The story is not simply about dictatorship. It is about how power justifies itself while quietly rewriting the rules.

The CJP moment invites us to read India’s youth politics through this lens. If the older language of protest was ideological, Left versus Right, secular versus communal, the new language is practical: paper leaks, re-exams, coaching debt, and the mental health toll of repeated failure in systems young people did not design but must survive.

This change has sparked a strong, defensive response from groups who see themselves as protectors of the ‘national interest.’ So-called nationalist commentators and social media influencers have quickly called CJP anti-national, foreign-funded, or accused them of being part of a Deep State plot against the government. We have seen this before.

In Orwell’s Animal Farm, any animal that questions the pigs is called a traitor or a fool. Today, whenever a group of angry young people steps outside the limits of respectful patriotism, they are shown as leading a hostile narrative war. The message to the public is clear: ignore what these groups say and focus instead on who might be influencing them.

The concerns raised by CJP supporters are not unusual. They want to know why high-stakes entrance exams still leak, why students are blamed for failures rather than institutions, and why a government that talks about ‘Amrit Kaal’ cannot ensure a fair and transparent selection process. Their demands are not radical; they want things to work properly. The movement’s satire is more about highlighting problems than causing trouble. It shows that the agreement between India’s youth and the State is breaking down, not because of big ideas, but because everyday governance is falling short.

Animal Farm’s warning remains highly relevant. Orwell critiques not only authoritarianism but also the manipulation of language that enables injustice to be justified as a necessity and to be reframed as a privilege, even as a sacrifice. The statement, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others,” highlights how language can prompt citizens to question their own sense of fairness.

When unemployed graduates are advised to be patient and patriotic by individuals whose own children are exempt from poorly administered examinations, they encounter a subtler manifestation of this logic. In such contexts, inequality is reframed as virtue, and those who highlight disparities are accused of undermining national unity.

Critics often attack such movements for inconsistency, dismiss them as ‘internet drama,’ or attempt to co-opt or discredit them by evaluating them solely in terms of conventional political parties. However, this perspective overlooks a crucial issue. A bigger question is why so many young Indians find more genuine emotion in a cockroach meme than in the official stories of empowerment that surround them.

In a democracy that emphasises its electoral magnitude and stability, the true measure of its strength lies not solely in the conduct of elections but in its response to the challenging questions posed by the most marginalised. When dissent is consistently policed, and every protest is characterised as a law-and-order issue or attributed to external conspiracies, the State may achieve temporary control but will raise lasting cynicism. This approach implies that young people are valued more as voters than as active citizens between elections.

Drawing on the allegory in Animal Farm, where the distinction between oppressor and oppressed becomes blurred, and language fails to capture injustice, there is a risk of creating a political environment in which injustice cannot be discussed openly.

However, the CJP moment indicates that Indian youth have not reached this point; through humour, memes, and symbolic expression, they continue to highlight the disparity between political promises and lived realities. A confident democracy would answer that issue not by crushing the ‘cockroaches’ but by repairing the cracks that drove them into the open.

The writer is Assistant Professor of Economics, St. Xavier’s College (Autonomous), Ahmedabad. The views are personal. Email: atman.shah@sxca.edu.in

 INDIA

Social Work, Conversions and NGOs

Ram Puniyani | 08 Jul 2026

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RSS bugbear of forced conversion to Christianity are belied by Census data.

NGOs are much in the news these days for various reasons. From the ramparts of Red Fort, RSS Pracharak Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared that RSS is the biggest NGO of the world. Incidentally, there is a noteworthy aspect of this NGO – it is a non-registered organization, supposed to be doing cultural work. On this count, Priyank Kharge, home minister of Karnataka, called for registration of RSS. The RSS denied that and said that it is just a group of individuals. Fair enough, but what about the massive funds it is receiving?

At another level, recently in the parliament, the Home Ministry moved and got passed an amendment to the Foreign Contributions Regulation Act (FCRA), and Rules thereunder, which seek to restrict the activities of NGO’s receiving foreign funds. The ruling party’s basic intention and propaganda is that forcible conversions are being done particularly by Christian NGOs. In their understanding, the conversion to Christianity is forcible, their running of education and health facilities is an allurement to convert the people to Christianity. How much of this is true?

While we have article 25 in our Constitution which guarantees the citizens the fundamental right to freely practice, profess, and propagate their religion, those in power assert that this article gives us the right to practice, preach and propagate our religion but it does not give the right to convert another person. The understanding of Hindu nationalists is that the efforts of missionaries are due to allurement or force, they deny the agency of those who want to convert themselves. It seems there are no ground level studies to tell us how many of those studying in Christian mission schools convert to that religion. There is also no data how many of Dalits/Adivasis convert to Christianity because of allurement or force.

Population Numbers Give Different Picture

Christianity in India is a very old religion. It came here with the arrival of St. Thomas, according to one version, in 52 CE. He started building of churches and many of the locals took to it. A look at the statistics will tell us that the trajectory of growth of this religion in India has been slow one. As per the last census data (2011), Christians made up 2.30% of the total population. As per previous Censuses, their share in population was: 1971-2.60%, 1981-2.44%, 1991-2.34% and 2001-2.30%. Thus, during a period when lots of noise is being made about forcible conversion, the population census data tells a different story.

Despite this data, the propaganda about forcible conversion and also conversion through allurement has been intense leading to horrific violence. The most ghastly of this violence took place in Keonjhar, Orissa in 1999 when Pastor Graham Steward Staines was burnt alive. The main instigator of this violence was Dara Singh aka Rajendra Singh Pal of Bajrang Dal, who is undergoing life imprisonment. This horrific murder was called by the then President of India K. R. Narayanan as a barbaric act that belonged "...to the world's inventory of black deeds." Wadhva Commission was appointed in the wake of this tragedy. The commission stated that “that the Pastor had not been doing the work of conversion; he was involved in serving the leprosy patients”.

What is remarkable is that as per the report, there was no substantial increase in the percentage of Christian population in the area. The report states, “Keonjhar district had a total population of 15.30 lakh. Out of them, 14.93 lakh were Hindus. Christians, mostly tribals, were 4,707. According to the 1991 census, there were already 4,112 Christians in the district. Thus, there was an increase of only 595 in the Christian population”. This increase is not statistically significant.

Then we witnessed intense activities in Dangs (Gujarat) and Kandhamal (Orissa). Many from VHP, Swami Aseemanand, Swami Laxmananand had set up their Ashrams in these areas. These areas also witnessed intense violence, culminating in the tragic Kandhamal Violence of 2008. Now, as an offshoot of this propaganda Christian pastors working in remote areas are facing scattered sub-radar violence. Their prayer meetings are labelled as meant for doing conversion work and attacked.

Niyogi Committee Report (1956)

One of the major ideologues of BJP/RSS, Ram Madhav in his article (Indian Express June 27, 2026) supporting the new FCRA modifications reminds that Niyogi Committee had already opined restrictions on Missionaries. Nehru Government decided not to implement its recommendations. Further, Madhav says that now it is Modi who is implementing those recommendations. What were Niyogi committee’s recommendations?

The Niyogi Committee Report on Christian Missionary Activities (1956) investigated controversial religious proselytization in India. It concluded that conversions were largely driven by inducements like education and medical care, warning that foreign missionary networks sought to create a separate Christian state within India.

Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's government effectively rejected the Niyogi Committee Report (1956) because its proposed restrictions which conflicted with the newly formed Constitution, particularly the fundamental right to propagate religion. Nehru viewed the report's recommendations as a threat to religious freedom.

Mahatma Gandhi on Conversion

Madhav points out that Gandhi was against proselytization. It is true; but he was not against freedom of religion. Now freedom of religion is primarily presented and propagated as proselytization. What Gandhi said was not against the practice of religion in any way. In an interview (The Hindu, 22 March 1931), Gandhi apparently stated that if in a self-governing India, missionaries kept 'proselytizing by means of medical aid, education etc., I would certainly ask them to withdraw. Every nation's religion is as good as any other. Certainly, India's religions are adequate for her people. We need no converting spirituality.' This is the first part of the quote and the lines that follow give the totally opposite idea — the ideas which Gandhi held. Gandhi goes on to write: 'This is what the reporter has put in my mouth... All that I can say is that it is a travesty of what I have always said and held.”

He goes on to explain: “I am, then, not against conversion… Every nation considers its own faith to be as good as that of any other. Certainly, the great faiths held by the people of India are adequate for her people…” And then he goes on to list the faiths of India: “Apart from Christianity and Judaism, Hinduism and its offshoots, Islam and Zoroastrianism are living faiths.” (Gandhi's Collected Works, Volume XLVI p. 27-28)

For the ilk of Madhav, Christianity is a foreign religion spread by force and allurement. This basic understanding of theirs’ is a seriously flawed one.

The writer is a human rights activist, who taught at IIT Bombay. The views are personal.

 INDIA

As fragmented farms become harder to cultivate, Uttarakhand farmers look to land consolidation

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Small, scattered plots have made mechanisation difficult and crop protection costly, pushing many villagers to support a voluntary consolidation programme.

Agriculture field at Kamanda Palla village in Pauri Garhwal, Uttarakhand (Photo - Inder Bisht, 101Reporters)

Noida, Uttar Pradesh: Gopal Negi, in his 40s, has to lug a power tiller across the more than a dozen plots he owns in Kamanda Palla village in Pauri Garhwal district, with each field at least 300 metres apart.

 For Negi, the inconvenience outweighs the value of irrigated land. He told 101Reporters he would gladly exchange his distant irrigated plots even for non-irrigated land if they were adjacent to his other fields.

 His predicament reflects a broader challenge confronting farmers in Uttarakhand’s hills. Buffeted by frequent wildlife raids and the impracticality of fragmented landholdings, residents of the state’s depopulated villages have begun warming to the idea of government-led land consolidation.

 Championed by social activist Ganesh Gareeb from the 1980s to the early 2000s, the concept aims to improve agricultural efficiency by merging scattered land parcels and redistributing them into larger, contiguous holdings.

 Only Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh have implemented land consolidation in India, with the latter continuing a process that began in the 1950s.

 Successive governments in the newly formed state of Uttarakhand also sought to translate the idea into policy during the 2000s, said Dehradun-based activist Kapil Dobhal. However, progress was hampered by inaccurate land records and resistance from villagers.

 At the heart of that resistance is the redistribution of ancestral holdings, a deeply sensitive issue in communities where families have cultivated the same plots for generations. Many fear they could be allotted less fertile land or fields located farther from their homes, undermining support for the process.

 Yet the growing practical difficulties of farming in the hills are prompting some communities to reconsider. 

Challenges of fragmented landholdings

The disadvantages of fragmented landholdings extend well beyond the inconvenience of distance. Villagers said scattered farms also make mechanised farming inefficient.

 To reduce dependence on animal-drawn farming, the government has promoted two-wheel walking tractors, or power tillers, through a subsidy of Rs 60,000, said Chaman Negi, an electrician in Roorkee who visits his village every two months to tend his fields. Unlike bullock-drawn farming, the machines need only one operator, and in villages hollowed out by migration, many households have adopted them to cope with labour shortages. But Negi said the tillers are often underused because fragmented holdings make them cumbersome to move between fields, and repair services are hard to find nearby.

 Fragmentation also makes it harder to guard crops from wildlife. For the past three years, herds of elephants — moving in from the buffer zone of the Corbett Tiger Reserve along a nearby seasonal river — have crossed the village almost nightly, raiding paddy and wheat, the region's main crops, Negi said. Villagers burst firecrackers to drive them off, but the animals rarely return to the same field twice, so keeping watch is a losing battle. "We can't put up a machaan (watchtower) in every field," Negi said. "If our landholdings were consolidated, we could deploy firecrackers and other deterrents collectively." Some villagers said they would also risk growing crops elephants find less appealing — if only their holdings were larger.

 The toll of repeated crop losses has pushed a steady stream of residents out of the village. Mahavir Rawat, 42, moved to Noida five years ago after wildlife incursions made farming unviable, a problem which worsened, he said, as neighbouring families left and their abandoned fields stopped buffering his own. "Earlier, our fields were surrounded by cultivated plots, so animals raided those first," he said. "As more families left, the animals began targeting what was left." A consolidated holding, he said, would let him fence his land effectively, and maybe offer enough of an incentive to return. 

Similar problem, higher up

The push for land consolidation is gaining ground in villages higher up in the Himalayas too, where wildlife damage now threatens medicinal-plant cultivation, one of the few livelihoods that has drawn people back to their native villages.

 For years, residents of Ghes village in Chamoli district earned good incomes growing medicinal herbs like kutki (Picrorhiza kurroa) on scattered plots and wild animals mostly left the crop alone, so cultivation expanded steadily. That changed with the arrival of a beetle locally called gubraila, which in turn draws wild boar. Pesticides are banned in medicinal-plant farming, so farmers have had no way to contain the infestation — boars digging for the beetles often uproot entire plants.

 "I saw nearly a 90 percent decline in kutki production this year," said Mohan Bisht, who returned from Dehradun to take up medicinal-plant cultivation. "Earlier I harvested nearly 100 kilograms of dried kutki annually. This year it's collapsed to 10 kilograms."

 The losses threaten to reverse the modest gains the crop had made in slowing migration. "Several cultivators based in Delhi and Dehradun own fields here and travel back periodically to tend them," said Prakash Singh. "But if this continues, they may lose interest." Like farmers in the lower villages, residents here believe consolidation would let them protect larger, contiguous holdings from wildlife and expand cultivation. "Consolidated land parcels would also let us scale up production," Bisht said. 

Mismatch

Despite growing interest, translating the idea into practice remains a formidable challenge. A law enabling land consolidation in Uttarakhand was enacted in 2016, but implementation has stalled. Updating land records is a critical prerequisite, officials said and the state's mountainous terrain has complicated efforts to map holdings accurately.

 "Outdated land records continue to list multiple owners for ancestral holdings," said State Land Consolidation Officer Sunil Kumar Anil. Surveys are hampered by difficult access, ridges and valleys that obstruct sightlines, irregular plot boundaries from terraced farming, and landslides and erosion that render old maps and boundary markers unreliable. Jai Negi of GIC Survey, which conducted one such exercise, said the technology available at the time made things worse: dense vegetation kept drones from capturing exact coordinates, and many traditional boundary markers had simply disappeared.

 Technical hurdles are only part of the problem, officials and advocates said; building public trust matters just as much. "Several governments considered the idea but did not take enough steps to promote it and educate people about its benefits," said activist Dobhal. "As a result, many villagers either remained unaware of it or opposed it."

 After years of limited progress, the Uttarakhand government approved a voluntary land-consolidation program for the state's mountainous regions in May 2026. The initiative will cover 275 villages across 11 hill districts over five years, with five villages taken up annually in each district. To limit conflict, only villages free of major land disputes are eligible, and each must either have at least 10 hectares available for consolidation or written consent from at least 25 landowners.

 "There are multiple challenges in carrying out land consolidation in the mountainous parts of the state," says Naresh Durgapal, joint director of Uttarakhand's Consolidation Department. "Apart from the small size of land parcels, they are often jointly owned by multiple people." Known locally as gol khata, such joint holdings are recorded as a single undivided property shared by several owners, requiring every co-owner's consent for any sale or transfer — and with boundaries and usage rights often poorly defined, disputes are common. Large-scale migration compounds the problem, Durgapal says, since tracking down all co-owners for consent can be difficult.

 To address this, the state has launched a pilot survey in five villages. "Latest scientific tools such as drones and GPS are being used for aerial surveys, followed by ground verification," says Anup Singh of the Uttarakhand Board of Revenue, who is leading the project — a marked improvement, he says, over traditional chain surveying, which is prone to error on uneven terrain. Based on the results, the exercise will be expanded statewide. "The last land settlement in Uttarakhand was conducted in 1960. Since then, significant physical changes have taken place," said Sunil Rawat, a revenue sub-inspector in Pauri Garhwal. "There is a clear need to update land records to obtain an accurate picture of current landholdings."

 The limitations of smaller fixes

 Not everyone is convinced consolidation alone can address the deeper structural problems facing Uttarakhand's rural economy. Dehradun-based rural development specialist BP Maithani argues it may improve farm management and help farmers protect crops from wildlife, but is unlikely to transform agricultural incomes on its own. "The average agricultural holding in Uttarakhand is about 20 nali [roughly one acre]," he says. "Even after consolidation, most holdings would remain too small to support viable commercial agriculture."

Instead, Maithani advocates land-pooling — combining individual holdings into larger, contiguous parcels suited to commercial-scale farming, with farmers as shareholders and a farmer-producer company managing cultivation and marketing. Such a model could enable mechanisation, cut production costs and improve market access, he said, but it would need substantial upfront investment and a five-to-six-year gestation period before returns materialise. For most villagers, though, the immediate appeal isn't commercial-scale farming — it's making agriculture manageable again. Whether through consolidation or the more ambitious land-pooling Maithani proposes, many in Uttarakhand's hills see bringing fragmented fields together as essential to sustaining agriculture, protecting crops, and holding on to a foothold in their ancestral villages.

(Inder Bisht is a freelance journalist and a member of 101Reporters, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters.) 

 INDIA

The Other Kerala Story: Development, Displacement & People Forgotten by Progress

Shirin Akhter | 29 Jun 2026

A detailed study of the CIAL project examines how large infrastructure projects transform the lives of those displaced by them.

Image Courtesy: Facebook/CIAL

Kerala occupies a distinctive place in India’s development imagination. Celebrated for its achievements in literacy, health, social reform and welfare provision, it has often been presented as a model of development with equity. The Kerala Model challenged the conventional wisdom that rapid economic growth must precede social progress. Kerala’s achievements are undeniable. However, the experiences of those who have borne the costs of development projects undertaken in the name of growth, connectivity and modernisation remain less visible.

It is this less visible side of Kerala’s development story that forms the subject of T.V. Aneesh’s Experiencing Development in Kerala: Narrations of Accumulation, Dispossession and Rehabilitation. Through a detailed study of the Cochin International Airport (CIAL) project, Aneesh examines how large infrastructure projects transform the lives of those displaced by them. The questions raised by the book extend far beyond Kerala. At a time when governments increasingly pursue growth through airports, highways, industrial corridors and urban redevelopment projects, public debate tends to focus on investment, employment and infrastructure creation, while the social costs of displacement receive far less attention.

The book rests on a substantial empirical foundation. Drawing upon household surveys, interviews and focus-group discussions conducted among displaced families, it documents the experiences of more than 200 respondents affected by the airport project. Several chapters analyse livelihood outcomes for 165 respondents who participated in rehabilitation-linked employment schemes.

In paying particular attention to women and Dalit communities, the study goes beyond being an aggregate account of displacement, it examines how social inequalities shape the experience of dispossession.

The study reinforces the fact that land is not merely a productive asset that may be monetised and replaced, land embodies livelihood, security, social status, identity and community. Land is the basis of informal rural economy that is built around cultivation, livestock rearing, common resources, neighbourhood cooperation and multiple supplementary sources of income. Therefore, while compensation may be able to reimburse the market value of land, it fails to reconstruct the economic and social structures that are destroyed with dispossession of land.

A substantial body of research on development-induced displacement in India has documented how the social costs of development extend far beyond the market value of acquired land. Walter Fernandes’ studies of displacement associated with dams, mines and industrial projects in eastern and central India during the 1980s and 1990s highlighted the inadequacy of rehabilitation and the disproportionate burden borne by marginalised communities. S. Parasuraman’s work on development-induced displacement in the 1990s similarly demonstrated how livelihood loss and social dislocation frequently persisted long after formal resettlement had been completed.

Amita Baviskar’s seminal study of the Narmada Valley (In the Belly of the River, 1995) drew attention to the ways in which development projects disrupt not merely economic activity but entire social and cultural worlds. The erosion of livelihoods, weakening of community networks and uneven rehabilitation outcomes observed in the CIAL project echo concerns repeatedly raised by the literature. However, the significance of this book lies in showing how these processes unfold within Kerala, a state more commonly associated with social development and democratic mobilisation than with displacement and dispossession.

The lives documented by the book reveal that the families who once relied on a combination of agriculture, livestock, seasonal work and community-based support systems found themselves pushed towards insecure wage labour and greater dependence on markets. Agricultural production declined after displacement. Livestock ownership fell sharply. Access to common spaces was lost. Informal support networks weakened. The loss was not confined to land titles, it extended to the broader social economy that had previously provided a measure of economic security and resilience.

The evidence on employment generation under the rehabilitation package reveals that while airport-related employment opportunities were created, many of the displaced entered contractual, temporary or low-paid forms of work. Permanent and secure employment remained limited. What emerges from Aneesh’s analysis is not a restoration of livelihoods but a transition from relatively autonomous land-based livelihoods to dependence on precarious, informal, wage labour. The book identifies a process of proletarianisation accompanying displacement.

The book also demonstrates that displacement does not affect everyone uniformly, existing inequalities often magnify its consequences. The chapters on women are amongst the strongest in the book. The data shows that displacement disrupted not only livelihoods but also the social networks, support systems and routines that structured everyday life. Women frequently reported heightened insecurity, increased domestic burdens, psychological stress and exclusion from decision-making processes. Employment opportunities generated through rehabilitation often reproduced existing gender hierarchies, concentrating women in low-paid and insecure occupations.

Similarly, the discussion of Dalit experiences reveals how displacement intersects with historical patterns of caste-based marginalisation. Dalit households entered the development process from positions already shaped by unequal access to land, resources and opportunities. Rehabilitation did not erase these inequalities. In many cases, it reproduced them in new, magnified forms. Clearly showing that technocratic approaches that evaluate rehabilitation solely through compensation packages while ignoring the structural inequalities that shape people’s lives are flawed.

The significance of the CIAL experience, however, extends beyond the displaced households themselves. It also raises important questions about Kerala’s political trajectory. Unlike many Indian states, Kerala has a long history of land reforms, strong trade unions, active civil society organisations and alternating governments led by the Left Democratic Front (LDF) and the United Democratic Front (UDF). One might, therefore, expect development-induced displacement to be subject to greater democratic scrutiny and political contestation.

The history of the airport project complicates such assumptions. The project enjoyed support across political regimes and gradually came to symbolise Kerala’s aspirations for modernisation, investment and global connectivity. Opposition to land acquisition emerged, but it never evolved into a sustained mass movement comparable to the anti-displacement struggles witnessed in Narmada, Singur or Nandigram. Over time, resistance shifted from opposing acquisition itself to negotiating compensation and rehabilitation.

One of the more interesting implications of the study is that despite the alternation of power between the UDF and the LDF, the broad developmental consensus surrounding the airport project remained remarkably stable. The book suggests that developmental consensus can sometimes prove as effective as coercion in marginalising dissent. Once the airport came to symbolise modernisation, employment and regional progress, opposition to displacement increasingly risked being portrayed as opposition to development itself.

This helps explain why resistance remained localised despite the significant social costs documented by the study. The benefits of the project were widely dispersed across society in the form of improved connectivity, investment and economic opportunities, while the costs were concentrated among a relatively small group of displaced households. At the same time, compensation and rehabilitation shifted the terrain of struggle from opposing acquisition itself to negotiating the terms on which displacement would occur. What began as resistance gradually evolved into a demand for better rehabilitation.

The book, therefore, invites reflection on the broader relationship between development and democracy. The displaced communities organised, protested, negotiated and sought better terms of rehabilitation. Yet their ability to influence the larger developmental trajectory remained limited.

The CIAL experience suggests that democratic participation often operates within parameters already established by a broader political consensus regarding what constitutes development and who must bear its costs. Similar tensions continue to shape contemporary conflicts over land acquisition across India.

To be fair, neither the book nor the experience it documents lends itself to a simple opposition between development and displacement. The airport has undoubtedly contributed to Kerala’s connectivity, investment and economic growth. The issue, therefore, is not whether infrastructure projects should be undertaken, but how their costs and benefits are distributed.

A development process can claim legitimacy only when those who bear its immediate costs are able to share meaningfully in its benefits. The challenge is not to choose between development and justice, but to ensure that development does not impose disproportionate burdens upon a small group while its gains are enjoyed by society at large. Compensation alone cannot satisfy this requirement if it merely offsets losses without creating opportunities to participate in the gains generated by development.

The book is considerably stronger on dispossession than on accumulation. We learn a great deal about those who lost land and livelihoods, but comparatively less about the distribution of benefits generated by the airport itself. CIAL has undoubtedly become one of Kerala’s most significant economic assets, contributing to connectivity, tourism, trade and employment. It would be important to find out more systematically how these gains were distributed and whether subsequent generations of displaced households experienced upward mobility through education, migration or integration into the regional economy.

This limitation, however, does not diminish the book’s central achievement. It succeeds in challenging the tendency to evaluate development exclusively through aggregate indicators and demonstrates that beneath every large infrastructure project lies a complex terrain of social costs, unequal burdens and contested notions of justice. The Kerala celebrated in policy documents and development textbooks is real. It is a story of literacy, public health, social reform and democratic mobilisation.

But there is another Kerala story as well, one inhabited by displaced farmers, insecure workers, marginalised women and Dalit communities struggling to rebuild lives disrupted by projects undertaken in the name of progress.

The significance of Experiencing Development in Kerala lies not in demonstrating that development produces winners and losers, such a proposition is hardly controversial, the significance lies in showing how those losses are experienced, distributed and even rendered invisible. The airport that emerged from the CIAL project is undoubtedly an important economic asset. Yet the experiences documented in this book remind us that development cannot be evaluated solely through infrastructure created, investment attracted or passengers handled. It must also be judged by what happens to those who surrender land, livelihoods and community in its name. Any serious assessment of the Kerala Model must make room for both stories.

The writer is Associate Professor at Zakir Husain Delhi College, University of Delhi. The views are personal.

 INDIA

How Renewable Energy is Squeezing Achla's Camels, Women and Sacred Forest

Somrita Ghosh | 10 Jul 2026

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In Rajasthan's 625-year-old community-conserved sacred forest solar and wind projects are shrinking grazing land and affecting the lives of the Rabari community.

Jaisalmer, Rajasthan: On a hot summer evening, Jora Ram Devasi (74) walks across the barren Oran near his home in Achla village in Rajasthan's Jaisalmer district, where his camels are grazing. Orans are community-conserved sacred forests that have sustained desert villages for centuries, providing pasture, food, water and shelter for wildlife. As he reaches the grazing ground, he looks up at the tall wind turbines spread across miles of the landscape.

"There was a time when the land had no borders, no fencing… just long stretches of golden land with bushes, shrubs and herb trees. Now it's all factories, and our land, our home, is just a drop in the ocean," he said, arranging fodder for the 15-20 camel calves around him. 

"One could once walk to Bikaner, Jodhpur or Barmer through the Orans. We walked three or four days with camels for trading, crossing one region after another. The land was open for all, with no restrictions."

Achla falls within the Degrai Oran, about 625 years old and one of roughly 25,000 Orans across Rajasthan. It is also among the largest, spanning nearly 60,000 bighas (more than 37,000 acres), and is worshipped by around 24 villages as the seat of the deity Deg Rai Mata.

Environmentalist and Jaisalmer-based farmer Parth Jagani, who works on Oran conservation, traces its origins to the reign of King Rawal Jaisal, founder of Jaisalmer, who granted the land to Bhati Rajputs, Bishnois and Rabari communities in recognition of their role in defending the kingdom. Village custom has since prohibited tree-felling, hunting and pollution of water bodies within the Oran. During a visit to one such lake, 101Reporters found it clean, with no plastic or garbage in sight. For generations, villagers have stored rainwater, maintained the landscape and grazed their livestock here, while species such as the endangered Great Indian Bustard, nilgai, deer and peacocks have also made the Oran their home.

Shrinking grazing land

Achla has around 120 families. About 30-35 have members serving in the Indian Air Force, while the rest depend primarily on livestock.

Jora Ram belongs to the Rabari community, an indigenous semi-nomadic pastoral group spread across Rajasthan and Gujarat whose lives have long revolved around camel herding. A decade ago he owned nearly 300 camels. Today he has around 50.

"Because of the growing number of solar and wind projects inside the Oran, the grazing land available for animals and villagers has shrunk. There's almost no grass or pasture left because whatever remains has been overgrazed. The camels now survive on raw berries, which causes fatal skin diseases and eventually kills them. Fodder is too costly for us to afford, so they don't survive for long."

Fencing, project boundaries and overhead power lines have compounded the problem. Camels, traditionally left to graze on their own, are increasingly dying from electrocution or suffering deep injuries after getting caught in fencing.

Teejo Devi, 65, who owns two camels and a few goats, says her animals have always returned home on their own by evening.

"It's not possible for me to accompany them at this age, especially during summer. Every evening my heart skips a beat if they don't return on time."

She has already lost one camel and a head of cattle. 

Women bear the burden

The impact extends well beyond livestock. Women in Rabari households are responsible for cooking and other domestic work, and camel milk ghee has traditionally been their primary cooking fat. With fewer camels, many households now buy cow's milk, increasing their monthly expenses.

"We also have to walk miles now to collect ker, sangri, neem and other wild berries for daily consumption. During the peak summer months, it's almost impossible to walk for hours just to gather vegetables. Many of the trees are now inside land taken over by renewable energy companies."

"The temperature has risen too. Jaisalmer has always been hot, but over the past five or six years it has become even hotter. Water bodies are drying up faster and water tankers are very costly. Our daily struggle for even basic needs is increasing," said Devki (21), who stopped studying after high school.

Beyond subsistence, the Oran has also been central to women's autonomy. Collecting ker and sangri has traditionally offered a rare opportunity to step outside the home, spend time together and share concerns away from domestic responsibilities. That connection to the land prompted women from Achla to write to the Prime Minister last year, highlighting the threat to the Oran.

According to Teju Devasi, Union Culture and Tourism Minister and Jodhpur MP Gajendra Singh Shekhawat later sent his aides to meet villagers at Tanot Mata Temple, assuring them that the matter would be addressed. Since then, some solar transmission lines have been removed while others have been shifted underground to reduce risks to livestock, though villagers say nothing has been done to prevent further diversion of Oran land.

Uncertain future

Employment has done little to compensate for what villagers say they have lost. According to Teeju Devasi (26), a private school teacher, older renewable energy projects had promised local employment, but newer projects make no such commitments. Around 12–15 families now have men employed in low-paying jobs at nearby plants.

"Most of the employees are from Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar or Jharkhand. People in our community aren't highly educated, so getting good jobs is difficult. Those who do work earn only Rs 16,000 to Rs 18,000 a month. We also don't prefer moving out of the village for education. Ultimately, we remain dependent on livestock."

Projects operating around the Degrai Oran include those of NTPC, ReNew Power, NALCO, Sembcorp, Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy, KC Construction and Engineering, Adani Hybrid 2A Camp Ltd and Eden.

No legal recognition

Much of the Degrai Oran remains unregistered. With no private ownership recorded, most of the land falls under the forest department by default, while only small portions used for cultivation appear in revenue records.

"The only thing in our hands is to ask the government not to reduce the Oran further. This is our home and our ancestors' legacy. We worship local deities, the khejri tree is a goddess to us, and we eat the kair and sangri it produces. This isn't agricultural land, so our food comes mainly from bushes and shrubs."

"Only 4,000 hectares are officially recorded as Oran in revenue records. The remaining 6,000-8,000 hectares are still classified as wasteland," said Teju Devasi.

In December 2024, the Supreme Court recognised Orans as forests under the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, and directed the Rajasthan government to map them comprehensively because many had never been formally recorded as forests.

Meanwhile, the decline in camel herds extends well beyond Achla. Earlier this year, the Rajasthan High Court noted that the state's camel population has more than halved since the camel protection law was enacted. Official figures presented before the court showed camel numbers dropping from around 7.5 lakh in 2004 to 3.26 lakh in 2015, before falling further to 2.13 lakh within four years and to nearly 1.5 lakh by 2021.

"There has been a decline in both the number of camel herders and the camel population, and local herders no longer travel outside the region," Jagani said. 

"The government gives financial assistance when a camel calf is born, but for rearing an animal like a camel, this amount is a drop in the ocean. With corporate companies moving in, pasture has become scarce. Even the Degrai Oran no longer has enough forage for grazing, and there is no government arrangement for camel fodder."

He added that memorandums seeking official registration of Orans have been submitted from the district administration up to the Chief Minister.

Fight for Oran

"A decade ago, when the state government began allotting Oran land to renewable energy companies for windmills, we protested and stopped them. But the protest lost momentum and the companies eventually moved in," said Jora Ram.

A few years ago he approached Jagani and other conservationists, eventually leading to a larger movement this year. Around 200 residents from western Rajasthan undertook a 725-km march from Tanot Mata Temple to Jaipur, demanding that no more Oran land be diverted for renewable energy projects. The marchers say state officials did not meet them and their demands remain unresolved. Jagani has since begun restoring grasslands on nearby barren land to create fresh pasture for camels.

Mureed Khan, Achla's sarpanch, disputes claims of irregular allotment of Oran land, saying existing khasra records have been respected. He does, however, acknowledge the decline in camel numbers.

"People are no longer interested in buying camels. They've become a liability rather than an asset. Maintenance costs are high and locals can't afford them. It's true that solar installations and power lines are killing camels. If an animal is injured, owners often don't spend money treating it, and it dies."

RN Mehrotra, former head of the Rajasthan Forest Department, says Orans are among the Thar Desert's most valuable community-conserved ecosystems.

"Unless a project is for defence or of extreme importance, it shouldn't encroach upon Orans. These are the rarest form of forest—small islands in the desert—and the basic life-support system for these villages. If the forest disappears, the village disappears with it. No village economy in the desert survives without livestock, and livestock survives on the forest."

"The government has generally not disturbed Orans, but private agencies are increasingly finding ways to move in."

The Rajasthan revenue department was sent an official query on the allotment of Oran land. It had not responded at the time of publication. Its response will be incorporated if and when it is received.

Somrita Ghosh is a freelance journalist and a member of 101Reporters, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters.