Paradoxes of Development: Man, Dams, and Nature

Abstract Large-scale development projects foster humanity’s walk towards modernisation. Modernisation has begotten many new technologies that revolve around water and water resources, which promote development. The dam is one such example that has helped humanity thrive from the earliest of time, extending even to the Harappan civilisation. The importance of water and dams has influenced power dynamics throughout history. Currently, large dams are crucial in deciding the population's ecological and economic lifestyle. Past and recent research has shown that dams are beneficial in many ways, but are not completely innocuous. Moreover, the broader ramifications of these dams, such as many tribals or impecunious village communities having to migrate, cultures being debilitated, and making people vulnerable, question their rectitude. This paper investigates the benefit-cost ratio (BCR) of such large-scale projects meant for development, and tries to scrutinise how the idea of development by building dams can also be used to take domination over a population using references from texts such as Muktadhara by Rabindranath Tagore, “The Greater Common Good” by Arundhati Roy, and River of Stories by Orijit Sen to exhibit the after effects on the folks of the poorly planned structures. Keywords: Dam, Development, Displacement, Ecology, EcoMarxism