Role of Political and Civil Society in Kalinga Nagar Resistance Movement in Odisha, India

The presence of neoliberal developmentalism is insidious and ubiquitous, and it has naturalized displacement. Odisha, a resource-rich state, has also experienced developmental discontent in the form of displacement, everyday tyranny, resistance, and dispossession. Displacement causes widespread multiple discontent among the local affected people, and it is being resisted in local place-based struggles in Odisha. These kinds of local place-based struggles give birth to many political societies, where they play multiple roles in the struggle. Besides, the resistance has sought the support and solidarity of civil society. The article is based on ethnographic fieldwork carried out in the Kalinga Nagar Industrial Complex in Odisha, followed by interviews and group discussions with affected and displaced people, civil and political society members, government and industry officials, and other members involved in the movement. Secondary sources of data were collected from newspaper reports, government documents, movement letters, leaflets, pamphlets, booklets, leaders’ affidavits, police FIRs, and personal diaries of leaders. Drawing from Partha Chatterjee’s concepts of political society and civil society, the article locates the roles of political and civil societies in the resistance movement. The article discusses the emergence of political clientelism as an essential element in political society, which also delimited the space of civil society in the resistance movement.