Contemporary Development Discourse in Northeast India and its Impact on the Tribal Communities

Introducing ‘Northeast’

Northeast India, comprising eight states and stretching across more than 5,000 km of international border, is a region renowned for its remarkable natural and sociocultural diversity. The region is geologically highly fragile and straddles two global biodiversity hotspots: the Himalayas and Indo-Burma. Geographically, it is divided into plains and hills, characterised by considerable diversity in terms of resource endowments, sociocultural life, and socio-economic development. Its inhabitants, comprising both tribes and non-tribes, exhibit significant variations in their ways of life. The tribal (Scheduled Tribe) population in the region stands at 27.7% of its total population (Census of India, 2011). The states also vary in terms of their share of the ST population ranging from Mizoram’s 94.4% to Assam’s 12.4%. However, at 3.9 million, Assam’s share of ST population stands at approximately 30% of total ST population of northeast India. ¹ While prominent tribes like the Naga, Bodo, Khasi, Garo, Mizo, Mising and Tripuri boast populations exceeding half a million, numerous smaller tribes have populations ranging from a few thousand to just a few hundred individuals (Blackburn & Opgenort, 2010, p. 62; Sango, 2023). The tribes are divided into the ‘plains tribe’ inhabiting mainly the Brahmaputra and the Barak valleys, and the ‘hill tribes’ inhabiting the hill regions surrounding the valleys. However, many tribes inhabit both the plains as well as the hills.

The northeastern states’ economies remain largely underdeveloped and agrarian, with a significant majority of both tribal and non-tribal populations relying on natural resource-based livelihoods for their survival. Shifting cultivation (jhum), a traditional land-use practice prevalent in the hill states, plays a vital role in preserving agricultural biodiversity and ensuring food security, making it a crucial component of the region’s ecosystem. The Brahmaputra and the Barak rivers, along with their tributaries, serve as the vital lifeline for communities inhabiting their fertile floodplains, supporting their livelihoods and way of life.

It may be mentioned that on account of the history of protective isolation in the hill areas of the region, the ownership and management of much of the land of the hill tribes ‘belongs to the community rather than the individual. Each single strip of land…belongs to one clan or the other. Land is reserved for jhum cultivation by each community, and communities have a mutual understanding about the boundaries of their own jhum land’ (Sharma & Borgohain, 2019, p. 17). The traditional clan leaders distribute land to individuals as per their needs.

The industrial sector in the northeast remains underdeveloped, with its roots tracing back to the colonial era. In Assam, industries emerged around tea, oil and timber, but their extractive nature has hindered the state’s development. Similarly, other states in the region have relied heavily on timber, ² except Meghalaya, where coal and limestone mining also play a significant role. However, the exploitative nature of these industries has sparked concerns in recent years, ³ highlighting the need to address the human, social and environmental costs associated with their operations. For example, the dangerous practice of rat hole mining of coal in the state was banned by the National Green Tribunal in 2014 because of its unscientific and dangerous nature though the practice continues, reportedly with state support (Choubey, 2023).

Since India’s independence, northeast India has witnessed a succession of ethnic insurgencies, fuelled by a deep-seated sense of economic exploitation and political marginalisation by the Indian state. However, the Indian state’s response has been largely militaristic. The atmosphere of violence, perpetuated by both insurgent groups and counter-insurgency operations, has been extensively documented by scholars (Fernandes, 2004; Kikon, 2005). As an effective tool to counter armed struggle among the Mizo and the Naga societies, the Indian state resorted to the grouping of the existing remote villages which often involved their burning down and resettlement of the villagers in the areas with easy access, mainly along the main roads, to the security forces. It is this repressive and disjunctive process that is behind Mizoram becoming one of the most urbanised states in India (Sundar, 2011, pp. 47–57).

Becoming a Frontier

Historically, the northeastern region had been a continental crossroads and groups from different sides had crisscrossed the region or settled here. Further, in pre-colonial times, the inhabitants in the hills (tribes) and the plains (tribes as well as non-tribes) shared a relationship of mutual dependence. The foothills served as strategic passages for communities engaging in trade and commerce beyond their habitats (Barpujari, 1993, p. 113). However, the British annexation of Assam in 1826 changed all that. Gradually, it extended to the entire northeastern region bringing about drastic changes in the society, polity and economy of the region with the advent of new colonial institutions and capitalist enterprises (Guha, 1988). The immediate objective of the colonialists was to establish effective military and political control over the Assam valley and then extend its control to the surrounding hills turning much of the region into a security buffer against Burma and China (Sharma, 2012b, p. 194). This gradually led to the political reorganisation of the region producing new concepts of boundary and territoriality. The region lost its geo-political centrality and became a part of British India as a frontier.

Since the early 1870s, the colonial regime introduced a plethora of restrictive regulations ending with the provisions of excluded areas (roughly present-day Nagaland, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh and the Dima Hasao district of Assam) and partially excluded areas (present-day Meghalaya and the parts of Karbi Anglong district of Assam) in the Government of India Act 1935. The excluded areas were kept outside the direct administrative control of the British where the hill tribes were allowed to govern themselves as per their traditional governance system. The same was partially applied in the partially excluded areas. However, both areas were kept as their zone of influence by the British recognising their strategic importance as a buffer zone. These measures allowed the British to control the movement of people between the hills and the plains stifling the traditional community relations, although ostensibly it aimed at protecting the hill tribes from the plainsmen (Reid, 1944, p. 18). These legislations proved enervating for the hill tribes which made them fully dependent on the supplies facilitated by the British. Insofar as partially excluded areas like Meghalaya are concerned, the British entry into its Khasi hills marked the beginning of land privatisation, as they entered 100-year leases with prominent clans, paying them annual revenue (Mukhim, 2009, p. 48) unleashing a process of commercialisation of land, which in turn exacerbated socio-economic inequalities within the Khasi society.

Further, the advent of tea plantations in the Assam foothills since the mid-19th century significantly altered the traditional hill–plain dynamics. These plantations encroached upon existing forest commons used by both the hill tribes and communities in the plains, stifled the traditional routes connecting hill tribes with the plains and the traditional complementary source of livelihood of these communities (Sharma, 2017). The Bengal Forest Act of 1865 further monopolised common resources, depriving communities of access (Saikia, 2011, pp. 51–57). While Assam was a land-abundant region when the British arrived (Butler, 1855, p. 23), the colonial enterprises around tea, oil, coal and timber sparked a massive influx of migrants to Assam, drastically altering its demographic landscape (Sharma, 2012a). This had a devastating impact on indigenous communities, particularly the plain tribes, by constraining their access to land and livelihood.

Becoming a Resource Frontier

While the region has been a security frontier since colonial rule, after India’s independence, the creation of (east) Pakistan (later Bangladesh) and then the Indo-China war of 1962 further perpetuated the Indian state’s security-centric perspective towards the region. However, there is a critical difference between the approaches of the colonial state and that of the postcolonial Indian state towards the region. The British had no necessity of nation-building in the region, which is why it could allow large tracts of the hill areas to remain outside its direct administrative control as ‘excluded’ or ‘un-administered’ areas. However, India being a nation-state requires that, unlike the colonial state, its physical and cultural presence expand to every part of the frontier region (Sharma, 2020, p. 51).

Consequently, since the late 1950s, the postcolonial Indian state endeavoured to consolidate its presence in the hill states by establishing political institutions, expanding education, promoting Hindi and disseminating Hinduism. While previously Indian state was indifferent to making heavy investments in the northeast, after the Indo-China war of 1962, it became imperative to bolster its presence in the region, especially AP, by building new physical infrastructure. The acceleration of this process since the 2000s was driven by the Indian state’s embrace of neoliberal policies, initiated in the early 1990s, which led to a surge in investments from both public and private sectors in the region, particularly in AP, a territory claimed by China. The recent big push for building infrastructure such as roads, bridges and hydel projects in the region is but a manifestation of the Indian state’s new developmentalism that seems to be deeply informed by security concerns (Sharma, 2018, p. 319).

What is disturbing is that the development agenda in the region, especially in the hill states, hardly seems to have taken cognizance of the social, cultural and environmental specificities of the tribes and their habitats. The Nehruvian state’s declared policy, enshrined in Nehru’s ‘Tribal Panchsheel’ and elaborated in his Foreword to the second edition of A Philosophy for NEFA (Elwin, 1958), which emphasised allowing tribal people to ‘develop along the lines of their own genius’, has been long abandoned. As a result, the traditional land ownership system in tribal societies, their socio-economic backbone, is undergoing a rapid transformation in the last few decades. Various development projects, urbanisation and the expansion of cash crop plantations are contributing to this phenomenon resulting in increasing privatisation and commercialisation of tribal community land. While the state has been the main perpetrator of this process, the emerging tribal elites including politicians, bureaucrats, contractors and businessmen, are also engaged in large-scale usurpation of the community land for various purposes, especially for cash crop plantations (D’Costa & Chakraborty, 2017). Thus, in every tribal state in the region, one witnesses the accumulation of large amounts of clan or community land in the hands of a few tribal elites, which is not permissible under the tribal customary law. Consequently, ordinary community members are being relegated to the status of wage labourers and even bonded labourers in these plantations. Elaborating this in the context of the Khasi society of Meghalaya, Mukhim argues how the traditional Khasi village chiefs, who are invariably men, in collaboration with other members of the village councils are involved in the surreptitious conversion of a large amount of community land, mostly forest land, to their names. Thus, the community land has today shrunk considerably or is non-existent (Mukhim, 2009, p. 50).

In other cases, although the tribal community land formally remains with the community, such land would be leased out for a long period to non-tribal businessmen or industrialists vesting the effective control of such land in the latter. The recent land settlement act in AP which seeks to enable the indigenous tribesmen of the state to lease out land to outsiders for up to sixty-six years, in the name of development, accentuates the process of tribal land alienation in the state (Sharma & Borgohain, 2019).

In the plains of Assam, besides flood and erosion, land acquisition by the state for various development projects has been the most important reason for tribal land alienation. As most of the tribal communities in the state, as in the hills, do not possess documents of land ownership (patta), they are not even entitled to government compensation for the loss of their traditional land and habitat (Sharma, 2001). Thus, in the absence of any state policy for rehabilitation, many tribal people in the state are victims of development-induced displacement. A study on development-induced displacement in Assam during 1947–2000 finds that 19.1 lakh persons lost 14.1 lakh acres of land for various government projects during the period (Fernandes & Bharali, 2011). The affected largely comprised of tribal communities. This has happened extensively in the protected Tribal Belts and Blocks in the Assam plains which were created mainly for the protection of the land rights of the tribal people. Many distressed tribal people in these protected areas also resort to selling off their land to non-tribal people by using informal mechanisms to address immediate economic troubles even if such a sale is illegal. Merely having formal protective land rights does not necessarily guarantee the tribes’ protection of their land and habitat in a political economy that incentivises commercialisation (Barkataki & Sharma, 2023).

The new developmentalism unfolding in the region has all the bearings of a resource frontier, the key feature of which is turning the natural endowment of the region into resources and its appropriation (Karlsson, 2023, p. 383). This implies that the northeastern region has become a provider of its resources which have been newly ‘disengaged’ from its local ownership and made available to the global markets. While some segments of the tribal communities in the region have benefitted from this development agenda, the overall social and environmental costs of this which include mining, logging, monocultural plantations and the damming of rivers are considerably huge (Karlsson, 2023, p. 386).

The following sections explore how the Indian state’s development agenda has played out in the region in recent times. Three key areas have been identified to illustrate its tangible and potential effects on the region at large and the tribal communities particularly.

Building Infrastructure

While the various state-initiated development projects have been the single most destabilising factor for the tribal societies in the northeast, especially in the plains, after independence, in recent times, the big infrastructure projects such as bridge and highway construction, military enclaves, hydel projects and so on in the hills have put considerable pressure on the tribal land, especially on jhum cultivation. The latter covers a large tract of land and the taking over of such land for the projects evidently shorten the jhum cycle and enhance the pressure on the surrounding areas, adversely affecting not only the livelihoods of jhum-dependent communities but also their social structure and the existing ecosystem.

In that context, India’s 1998 policy to build 168 dams in northeast India, especially AP, sparked widespread debates and resistance. Environmentalists, social scientists and local communities feared the impact on the fragile Eastern Himalayan region, citing past dam-related displacement experiences like Kaptai and Gumti dams that submerged tribal homelands and forced migrations (Vagholikar & Das, 2010). In recent years, excess water releases from Assam’s hydel projects, including Ranganadi and several other smaller projects, have already devastated local communities, causing flooding, crop destruction and resource depletion (Sharma, 2018, p. 322). Upstream forest degradation exacerbates the issue, displacing millions, including tribal communities, and forcing youth to migrate to other Indian states as daily wage earners due to lack of alternative livelihoods (Muktiar & Sharma, 2019, p. 309).

While proponents of large dams in AP argue that the region’s sparse population will result in minimal displacement, this logic is flawed when considering the broader implications. For instance, jhum cultivation, a traditional practice, requires vast tracts of land. The acquisition of such land for hydel projects and related activities has already strained the availability of land for jhumming, threatening the livelihoods and food security of jhum-dependent communities. Furthermore, the population of most tribes in the state is alarmingly small, making them vulnerable to even slight disruptions. The ‘minimal displacement’ argument rings hollow when considering the proposed seventeen large dams in the Dibang valley of eastern AP, which would displace the entire Idu Mishmi tribe, numbering barely 10,000 (Vagholikar & Das, 2010, p. 7). It may be reiterated that several tribes in AP have populations of less than 1,000 (Sangno, 2023), making them extremely vulnerable to displacement and cultural erosion. Further, various long-term development projects in AP have already attracted large-scale influx of migrant labourers posing a substantial threat to the existing demographic landscape and resources in the state (Sharma, 2018, p. 324).

Despite fervent opposition from communities in Assam, AP, Sikkim and Manipur, the Indian state remains resolute in its pursuit of hydel projects. In a bid to override protests, it has taken steps to expedite the construction of dams and other infrastructure projects, undermining existing safeguards by either repealing or diluting them. The government’s rationale for pursuing large-scale infrastructure development, including hydel projects in AP, is rooted in the notion of countering China’s aggressive infrastructure expansion in Tibet. A key argument advanced by the government is the principle of ‘first users’ right’, which posits that by constructing dams on transnational rivers in AP, India can establish prior use and thereby prevent China from building upstream projects that might impact India’s future water usage. However, this argument is predicated on the Helsinki Rules of 1966, which have not been universally adopted as law. Consequently, the claim that dams in AP can be used to pre-empt Chinese attempts to disrupt water flow into downstream areas of northeast India is fundamentally flawed (Sharma, 2018, p. 329).

The construction of highways and roadways is a significant aspect of the new mega-infrastructure development in the region. In AP, for instance, the 1,840-km long trans-Arunachal highway, which connects all districts, is a notable project. Additionally, seven strategic artery roads along the Indo-China border and two more connecting to the Indo-Bhutan and Indo-Myanmar borders are underway (Das, 2008). While these developments are often viewed through the lens of techno-nationalism, it is essential to recognise the role of local agents in perpetuating hierarchy, class inequality and social disruption (Heslop & Murton, 2021). The benefits of development are not evenly distributed, as evident in AP, where many ordinary tribal people are losing their land, while tribal elites negotiate for higher cash compensation for giving away land.

Pushing Cash Crop Cultivation

The aggressive expansion of cash crop plantation such as tea, timber, rubber, palm, coffee and so on in the last couple of decades is leading to increasing privatisation and commercialisation of tribal community land as the latter is being converted into privately controlled property. As a result, in every tribal state in the region, one witnesses accumulation of large acreage of clan or community land in the hands of a few tribal elites, which is not permissible under the tribal customary law. The ordinary members of the community—the equal shareholders of the community land—are now becoming wage labourers, and in some cases even bonded labourers, on these plantations (Sharma & Borgohain, 2019, p. 18).

Simultaneously, the state and the tribal elites are also engaged in a concerted campaign against jhum and for cash crop cultivation for some time now. Although the government’s argument has been that jhum is environmentally unsustainable, this campaign is aimed mainly at promoting individual ownership rights in the traditional tribal community land (Choudhury, 2012). Interestingly, even public sector financial institutions offer loans to the tribal entrepreneurs for cash crop, using community land as collateral, which can lead to land seizure if loans default. This contradicts the constitutional mandate to protect tribal land (Sharma & Borgohain, 2019, p. 18). Evidently, the main objective behind such a process is commoditising tribal land. The Arunachal Pradesh (Land Settlement and Records) (Amendment) Act, 2018, allows indigenous tribes to lease out land to outsiders up to sixty-six years posing to accentuate the process of tribal land alienation in the state (Sharma and Borgohain, 2019). This process is already widespread in other states, such as Assam and Meghalaya, where non-tribal businessmen have set up factories and commercial enterprises on leased tribal land.

In the background of this, the recent aggressive propaganda of the governments, both union as well as the state governments from the northeast, for palm oil cultivation has generated a new debate in the region. It is pointed out that oil palm cultivation is a water guzzler when compared to traditional crops, leading to local water scarcity and soil degradation. Oil palm plantations have the lowest biodiversity indices, and their expansion is often accompanied by widespread forest loss (Rajshekhar, 2024).

The palm oil plantation began in Mizoram in 2004. Subsequently, other states such as Assam and AP have also witnessed its cultivation in some areas. However, the negative implications of palm oil cultivation in Indonesia, the fiasco in Mizoram, human–elephant conflict in Assam, its potential threat to biodiversity and the fertility of the soil and so on have triggered an uproar in the region in recent times. However, the GoI has already targeted the northeast for this purpose to fulfil its goal under national edible oil mission–oil palm. Huge acreage of land in Assam, AP, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura has been assessed to be potential land under palm oil cultivation ⁴ for which private companies will also be given the land.

In some cases, this has already happened. The concerned state governments have been propagating how this will bring about development undermining the apprehensions against it. One study points out that palm oil concessions have been handed out to companies like Patanjali and 3F Oil Palm. Patanjali has been given nine districts in AP and set a target of scaling oil palm to 40,000 ha by 2027. However, much of such land is unclassed state forest—or de facto community forest (Rajshekhar, 2024).

Thus, the tribal elites who have already amassed community land are putting their land into palm oil. In fact, the tribal political elites in the northeastern states have already begun claiming community land as government land and begun pushing policies for land-titling. In 2018, the Arunachal government kicked off this process (Sharma & Borgohain, 2019). Mizoram has been running schemes like the New Land Use Policy to wean people off jhum farming (Rajshekhar, 2024).

In the context of such a campaign for cash crop plantation and infrastructure building in the region, the recent amendments to the Forest (Conservation) Act 1980 hold significance. The new Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act, 2023, can easily facilitate the clearing of vast forest areas for cash crop plantations like palm oil and for building any infrastructure. In fact, the provision of the Act allows the diversion of existing forest land for roads, railway lines or ‘strategic linear projects of national importance and concerning national security’ within 100 km of India’s international borders or lines of control. However, this provision puts the entire northeastern region, surrounded by international borders, under serious threat of ecological devastation. Significantly, the Mizoram Assembly adopted a unanimous resolution opposing the new Act ‘to protect the rights and interest of the people of Mizoram’ (Bijoy, 2023). Naga Hohos, the apex body of different Naga tribes also opposed the Act and pushed the Nagaland State Assembly which too opposed it (Yhoshu, 2023).

Urbanisation

The new development agenda is also witnessed in the process of urbanisation in the region which is a new but rapidly advancing trend with distinct characteristics of its own. In the 1970s, the establishment of new capital of Assam in Guwahati led to the acquisition of land from the South Kamrup Tribal Belt, displacing tribal communities from their agricultural land and habitat. With new infrastructure coming up, nearby Bodo-Kachari and Karbi tribes saw their community resources—including water bodies, grazing land and forests—appropriated by the state without compensation or rehabilitation. Forced to sell their land to non-tribal settlers for survival, most tribal people left their traditional habitats for uncertain futures, leaving only a few tribal hamlets in Guwahati today.

It may be noted that the ‘urban’ classification may obscure the true extent of urban growth in the northeast, as this ‘carries additional significance given that land laws, which protect indigenous and tribal communities, are often non-applicable to designated municipal areas’ (McDuie-Ra, 2017, p. 30). Further, urbanisation in Mizoram and Nagaland has a clear connection to counter-insurgency strategies against Mizo and Naga armed rebels. Many new urban centres in AP have developed around army settlements. McDuie-Ra and Lai (2019) observe that the ‘land being classified as “urban” is expanding (in the region), creating new opportunities for developers and capitalists from within the region and beyond, and existing urban areas are becoming denser, more diverse, and more “developed”’.

Aizawl, the capital city of Mizoram, was established as a colonial military outpost in the late 19th century. An insurgency led by Mizo National Front and counter-insurgency operations during 1966–1986 led to large-scale migration into the city triggered by a 1967 order of the Indian government that involved ‘forcibly grouping villages into smaller concentrations’ (Sundar, 2011, p. 50). Some of these settlements became new urban centres. The grouping and urbanisation eventually destroyed the old land allocation system in these centres, with the village council president selling land titles to rich people from Aizawl (Sundar, 2011, p. 51). Groupings had a debilitating effect on the Mizo traditional village economy based mainly on jhum cultivation on community land, traditional chieftainship, clan and kinship systems and the traditional social structure in general.

Subsequently, more people migrated to Aizawl for employment and other amenities making the city today home to 27% of the total population of Mizoram, though it occupies only 0.6% of the state’s total geographical area. This has put tremendous pressure on the land, economy and physical infrastructure of the city (Saitluanga, 2018, pp. 3–4). The serious consequences of this have been witnessed in recent times in recurrent landslides and mudslides (Hazarika, 2024). In Nagaland’s Mokokchung district, villages were burnt to enforce grouping, altering the settlement pattern from scattered hillside homes to linear roadside settlements (Sundar, 2011, p. 51). Some of these settlements gradually evolved into semi-urban centres.

Kikon and Mcdui-Ra (2021) show how militarism and capitalism are enmeshed in the process of urbanisation in Dimapur, the biggest city in Nagaland. Using the framework of ‘frontier urbanism’, characterised by the construction boom, militarisation, and the experiences of unemployment and marginalisation (Kikon & Mcdui-Ra, 2020, p. 5), they recount how in the last two decades in Nagaland saw significant changes, starting with the 1997 Indo-Naga ceasefire, followed by peace processes, development programmes and economic initiatives promoting ‘progress’. However, this period also witnessed rising unemployment, land alienation, out-migration and a surge in mega-construction projects, including malls, housing and highways, driven by lucrative business deals (Kikon & Mcdui-Ra, 2020, p. 6).

In AP, most of the urban centres are functionally administrative and military in nature as the state has a strategic location bounded by international border (Mandal, 2009, p. 338). Many military personnel were deputed mainly for military purposes in the border districts of the state after Indo-China war in 1962 (Mandal, 2009, p. 339). These military camps have a considerable impact on the surrounding social and demographic landscapes. The small local tribal communities have become increasingly dependent on the supplies of food and other necessities from the military. Some of them have already lost or are on the verge of losing their languages ⁵ due to the growing influence of Hindi.

What has caused more concern in recent years is the way the Indian state has pushed for rapid urbanisation in the region through a series of infrastructure projects. Many of these projects, not limited to urbanisation alone, have been funded by international development and financial agencies. Indeed, the process of urbanisation in the region seems to be emulating the same linear model of development from the Global North and the Indian metropolises, in synergy with neoliberalism. This process of adopting standardised planning practices largely undermines the unique land relations and social systems of the protected indigenous communities in the region (Sharma & Borgohain, 2019).

In that context, it may be mentioned that the Smart City Mission launched by GoI in 2015 with the objective of upgradation of 100 select Indian cities into smart cities as per the established international standards today comprise ten cities from northeast India including hill state capitals like Aizawl, Itanagar, Shillong, Gangtok and Kohima. However, McDuie-Ra and Lai (2019, pp. 68–69) argue that the smart city bids from northeast India perpetuate dependency on conventional infrastructure, state-led development and centre–state patronage (McDuie-Ra & Lai, 2019). These projects accelerate integration into the national territory, opening avenues for the neoliberal economy and rapid growth in peripheral urban areas, characteristic of the latest neoliberalisation shift (Peck, 2013).

Conclusion

India’s developmentalist agenda has severely impacted the northeastern region, causing extensive loss of forests, wetlands, rivers and hills. The tribal communities are at the receiving end of this as such ecological damage has a profound bearing on their habitat, livelihood and culture. The fragile eastern Himalayas, and indeed the entire Himalayan region, is reeling from the ravages of ‘development obsession’ driven by resource extraction, as landslides, floods, erosion and sandcasting lay waste to newly built infrastructures. The devastating glacial lake burst in Sikkim (Upadhyay, 2023) and mudslides in Haflong (Ravi, 2022) are two such recent cases that caught wider attention because of the enormous scale of the destruction.

In recent times, there has been considerable emphasis on issuing land titles in states like AP where previously only land possession certificates were issued to the indigenous people and the outsiders were not allowed to possess land in the state. The Land Settlement Act of 2018 will change that. This trend poses to extend to other northeastern tribal states. The main objective of such land titling evidently is to privatise and commoditise tribal community land. This is also behind the campaign against jhum and cash crop cultivation. Interestingly, one major reason for titling has been cited by the government has been to enable tribal people to mortgage land to secure loans from banks and other financial institutions for entrepreneurial activities. However, this also creates the risk of tribal people losing their land if they default on the loans.

In recent decades, millions of youths, a large segment of them tribal, have migrated from the region to more developed Indian states and metropolises in search of employment. Driven by unproductive agriculture, displacement and conflict, these rural migrants, unskilled and semi-literate, often take on informal sector jobs such as security guards, construction workers, plantation labourers, restaurant attendants and hospitality staff. The working conditions are frequently uncertain and dehumanising. Although many return home after a few years, most are forced to migrate again due to the absence of alternative livelihood opportunities (Muktiar & Sharma, 2019). The present trend of development poses to further add to their woes.

The recent developments indicate that the region is increasingly becoming a ‘recourse frontier’, transforming environmental, economic and developmental interests. Resource mobilisation redefines spaces and relationships, bringing economic gains for some, but often depriving others, highlighting the uneven distribution of benefits and costs (Sharma & Banerjee, 2020, p. 1). However, ‘with the escalating climate change, it becomes increasingly clear that the extractive path is a dead end’ (Karlsson, 2023, p. 386). The region’s ecological fragility demands a more inclusive, sustainable and responsible approach to development, one that prioritises environmental conservation and community well-being over resource extraction and exploitation.