Violent transitions: towards a political ecology of coal and hydropower in India

Abstract

The concept of just transition is often defined as a process of including particular kinds of fossil fuel workers in the transition towards low-carbon energy. Missing from such liberal framings of just transitions is an engagement with how the extraction of both fossil fuels and low-carbon energy is contingent upon state violence and the expropriation of Indigenous and frontline communities’ lands. In contrast to liberal framings of just transition that focus on the inclusion of fossil fuel workers as stakeholders, this article calls for an investigation of ‘violent transitions’, which refers to the ways in which the expansion of fossil fuel and low-carbon energy infrastructures are predicated upon direct state-sanctioned violence–including the criminalization of dissent, protests, and mass mobilization through police violence and arrests–to facilitate processes of land expropriation. Drawing upon a comparative analysis of 121 coal and hydropower projects in India, the article argues that both coal and hydropower energy transitions are characterized by significant state-sanctioned violence. Such historical injustices must be redressed and repaired in India’s emergent just transition policy frameworks.