Estimating that a huge 4.48 lakh people were displaced in India due to internal conflicts and violence in India last year, a new report, jointly prepared by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) and the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) has said that there are 7.96 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the country.

The report points out that it was displacement caused by violent secessionist movements has primarily been associated with the National Socialist Council of Nagaland and the Assam movement, as well as the ongoing war between militants and the state in Kashmir”, the report states, “Identity-based autonomy movements have also caused displacement in many parts of India, including the states of Telangana and Assam.”

The report does not rate communal and caste conflicts to have led to large-scale displacements. It says, “Localised inter-communal violence between Hindus and Muslims, for example in Gujarat, has resulted in smaller-scale displacement, as have caste disputes in states such as Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.”

It is developmental  projects that are the cause of largescale displacement, “as part of India’s rapid development and industrialization”, the report, which is titled “Global Report on Internal Displacement”, says, “The large-scale acquisition of land and the eviction and displacement of tens of millions of people over the past decades, not only for the purpose of building dams, mines and industrial plants, but also for other objectives such as urban renewal and environmental conservation.”

Especially singling out “the most controversial cases is the Sardar Sarovar dam”, the report states, “Approved in 1984, the project had displaced an estimated 350,000 people in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra by 2015.”