ACADEMIC

project on environmental scarcities, state capacity, & civil violence

CASE STUDY OF BIHAR, INDIA

by Thomas Homer-Dixon and Valerie Percival

Summary

Despite robust economic growth in the last few years, India is beset by a daunting combination of pressures. Population growth stubbornly remains around 2 percent; the country grows by 17 million people a year, which means its population doubles every 35 years. Demographers estimate that–even under the most optimistic estimates–India’s population will not stabilize below 1.7 billion. Cropland scarcity and degradation affect large areas of the country. While data on the state of India’s forests are of low quality, fuel-wood shortages, deforestation and desertification can be found over wide areas.

Resource scarcities in many rural areas, combined with inadequate opportunities for alternative employment, have produced rural-urban migration. The growth rate of India’s cities is nearly twice that of the country’s population. Their infrastructures are overtaxed: Delhi now has among the worst air pollution of any urban area in the world, power and water are regularly unavailable, garbage is left in the streets, and the sewage system can handle only a fraction of the city’s waste-water.

India’s recent urban violence was concentrated in the poorest slums. Moreover, it was not entirely communal violence: Hindus directed many of their attacks against recent Hindu migrants from rural areas. The rapidly growing urban population also leads to evermore competition for limited jobs in government and business. Attempts to hold a certain percentage of government jobs for lower castes have caused inter-caste conflict.

These pressures express themselves in a social environment already stressed by corruption and communal animosity. Political parties, including the Congress Party, increasingly promote the interests of only narrow sectors of society. The central government in Delhi and many state governments are widely perceived as incapable of meeting the society’s needs and have lost much of their legitimacy.