Accepted Panels

 States in the northeast have recently witnessed massive (un)natural hazards caused by human interventions— infrastructural projects from railways, roads, and dams. Recent tragedies across the states, particularly in Assam, Manipur, and Mizoram, are both alarming and a grim reminder of the perils and promise of development in this ecologically sensitive region. The paper introduces the idea of development-induced disasters to demonstrate how recent disasters are not ‘natural’ but an outcome of capital intrusions and are markedly distinct from past disasters experienced in the past in terms of how they are associated with development projects undertaken in the region. Development-induced disaster is used here to denote the specific form in which mega infrastructure projects in the region— dams, highways, railroads, and airports have produced new forms of vulnerability, dispossession, and violence in the region. Drawing upon recent incidents of disasters in the region, this paper notes that there is little way of protection for the local communities that will be impacted in the event of any development-induced disaster.