Deliberating Development in India’s Forests Consent, Mining and the Making of the Deliberative State Arpitha Kodiveri Thesis submitted for assessment with a view to obtaining the degree of Doctor of Laws of the European University Institute Florence, 08 July 2021 European University Institute Department of Law Deliberating Development in India’s Forests Consent, Mining and the Making of the Deliberative State Arpitha Kodiveri Thesis submitted for assessment with a view to obtaining the degree of Doctor of Laws of the European University Institute Examining Board Prof. Peter Drahos, EUI Prof. Joanne Scott, EUI Prof. B.S Chimni, Jindal Global Law School Prof. César Rodríguez-Garavito, NYU School of Law © Arpitha Kodiveri, 2021 No part of this thesis may be copied, reproduced or transmitted without prior permission of the author Researcher declaration to accompany the submission of written work Department of Law – LL.M. and Ph.D. Programmes I Arpitha Kodiveri certify that I am the author of the work Deliberating Development in India’s Forests I have presented for examination for the Ph.D. at the European University Institute. 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Signature and date: 14/06/2021 CONTENTS Thesis Summary ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….5 List of Abbreviations…………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 6 Glossary of Hindi Terms and Phrases……………………………………………………………………………………7 Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..8 1. Deliberating Development an Introduction……………………………………………………………….11 Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………11 Methodology ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….14 Relationship between the state and forest-dwelling community: Is there possibility for repair?...............................................................................................................................27 Argument and Outline of the Thesis ……………………………………………………………………………33 2. Regimes of dispossession, Self-determination and the Emergence of the Consent Provision in India's Forest Laws………………………………………………………………………………...40 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….40 Forest Laws in the Colonial Period………………………………………………………………………………..42 Making of Forest Laws and Scheduled Areas in Independent India……………………………….51 Glimmer of Hope: The Recognition of the Rights of Forest-Dwelling communities…….. .57 The Regime of Dispossession in Forest Areas and the recognition of the Right to Self- Determination………………………………………………………………………………………………………………60 The Forest Rights Act,2006 (FRA)………………………………………………………………………………….65 The Emergence of the Consent Provision……………………………………………………………………..70 Consent, The Right to Self-determination and Shared Sovereignty ………………………………83 Deliberative reconciliation of laws………………………………………………………………………………..88 3. Deliberative Democracy and Citizenship in India……………………………………………………….. 94 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….94 Deliberative Democracy in India…………………………………………………………………………………..96 Deliberative Democracy and the State in India’s Forests…………………………………………….100 Citizenship and It’s Practices in India’s Forests……………………………………………………………103 1 Jurisprudence and legal approaches to repair the relationship between forest-dwelling communities and the state in India's Forests………………………………………………………………109 Theories of Deliberative Democracy, Governance, and Systems as the Normative Ideal: Its contours and applicability to forest governance in India………………………………………..115 4. Multiple Modalities of the State……………………………………………………………………………..124 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..124 The State as Operating in Modalities…………………………………………………………………………..125 Brief Description of the Modalities of the State………………………………………………………….129 5. The Mechanics Of The Non-Deliberative State: Pro-Business Bureaucracy, Discretionary Power, And The Deliberative Reimagination Of The Consent Provision…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………139 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..139 Mechanics of the Consent Provision……………………………………………………………………………140 Discretionary Power…………………………………………………………………………………………………...150 Paper State and Exercise of Discretionary Power in the Three Mining Sites………………..152 Discretionary power in the eventual decision arrived at, the Gram Sabha resolution and the non-deliberative state…………………………………………………………………………………………..161 Exercise of Discretionary Power in restricting the applicability of the FRA………………….163 Deliberative Governance and The Reimagination Of the Consent Provision……………….168 6. Recognition, Redistribution and the Selectively Deliberative State………………………….176 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..176 Recognition, Redistribution, and the Forest Rights Act,2006………………………………………178 Divide by Legal Design…………………………………………………………………………………………………183 Divide between the understanding of justice………………………………………………………………190 Recognition, Redistribution and Legal Mobilization…………………………………………………….196 Discursive Pluralism, Networks of Participation, and Inclusion……………………………………202 Deliberative Loop of the Regulatory Convening or Bhaitak…………………………………………207 7. Constraining The Capacity To Aspire And Capability Deprivation In India's Forests…211 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..211 Development, Capabilities and the Capacity to Aspire………………………………………………..213 The Development Predicament in India’s Forests…………………………………………………….…216 Constraining the Capacity to Aspire and Capability Deprivation in India’s Forests………219 2 The Deliberative State…………………………………………………………………………………………227 8. Negotiating Compensation in the Informal: Dalal’s and the Social License to Operate (SLO)…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….…236 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..236 Consent and the Social License to Operate…………………………………………………………………237 The Dalal………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….…240 The Playbook of Strategies to Obtain an SLO: How Dalal’s Operate………………………….…248 Bargaining, Negotiations and the SLO…………………………………………………………………………258 9. Complicated Dance with the Law: Strategies of Legal Mobilisation and the Selectively Deliberative State in the Three Mining Sites……………………………………………………………257 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..…257 Legal Mobilisation in the three contested sites: Repertoires of Legal resistance…………259 Legal Strategies in Withholding Consent…………………………………………………………………….260 Redistributive Claims and Legal Mobilisation in Coal Mining Areas and Other Mining Sites……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………282 Legal Forums and Deliberative Decision-making…………………………………………………………287 10. Jurisdictional Leapfrogging ………………………………………………………………………………….…294 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..294 Jurisdictional Leapfrogging and the Non-deliberative state…………………………………………296 International legal instruments Involved……………………………………………………………….……299 The Boomerang Effect …………………………………………………………………………………..…………..305 The Risk of Disinvestment…………………………………………………………………………………………..322 11. The Making Of A Deliberative State In India's Forests……………………………………………..326 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..…326 Reimagining the Relationship Between the State and Forest-Dwelling Communities: Listening to The Jurisprudence From Below……………………………………………………………..…328 The Building Blocks of the Deliberative State ………………………………………………………..……332 The Working Agreement ……………………………………………………………………………………………340 References……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………343 List of Tables and Figures………………………………………………………………………………………………355 3 4 THESIS SUMMARY Deliberating Development in India’s Forests is a thesis that examines how India’s forest laws and the right to free, prior, and informed consent or consent provision of forest-dwelling communities has shaped the relationship between the state and forest-dwelling communities in extractive frontiers. The relationship between the state and forest-dwelling communities is tenuous as land in forest areas is acquired based on the Doctrine of Eminent Domain for extractive industries. Through extensive fieldwork in three mining sites in the eastern state of Odisha, this thesis offers an analysis of how the consent provision is implemented and how the relationship between the state and the forest-dwelling citizen is mediated by the pro- business bureaucracy as one of competing sovereignties. The forest-dwelling communities describe that the state operates in multiple modalities in India’s forests to enable extraction and realize its pro-business ambitions. Drawing from interviews with forest-dwelling communities and their aspirational legal interpretation of the consent provision the thesis makes an argument for the state to operate in a deliberative mode in India’s forests supported by a