Displacement and the Law

Usha Ramanathan The paradigm of development that has found favour with planners makes displacement of large numbers of people, even whole communities, an unavoidable event. The utilitarian principle of maximum happiness for the maximum numbers has been invoked to lend respectability to making the lives of communities into a cost in the public interest The law is ill-equipped to counter this attitude and in fact abets it by lending the force of state power.