Land acquisition and public interest litigation in India

This chapter aims to explore the potential impact of the application of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) in Gujarat, India, through the analysis of the Mumbai–Ahmedabad High-Speed Train Project case. India is an interesting case in this endeavour because of its contradictions. On the one hand, the State has voted in favour of the adoption of the UNDROP and endorsed seemingly progressive laws for the realisation of the right to food and fair investment procedure. Likewise, it has strong instruments, such as the Public Interest Litigation (PIL), to ensure that the most vulnerable are heard. On the other hand, the race for modernisation and investment attraction is conflicting with the strengthening of procedural rights, with the consequence that social conflict is fuelled as a result of the threat to the rural population’s livelihoods. The chapter argues that, in addition to the specific inputs provided by the contents of the UNDROP to the legal framework, the Declaration could serve, in such situations, as a political instrument for strengthening the legitimacy of collective action for peasants’ struggles and ensuring that existing legal instruments serve the cause of the most vulnerable and concur in the promotion of social justice.