India is well ahead in this respect. A country with as many as over 3600 large dams within its belt can never be the exceptional case regarding displacement. The number of development induced displacement is higher than the conflict induced displacement in India. According to Bogumil Terminski an estimated more than 10 million people have been displaced by development each year.

Athough the exact number of development-induced displaced people (DIDPs) is difficult to know, estimates are that in the last decade 90–100 million people have been displaced by urban, irrigation and power projects alone, with the number of people displaced by urban development becoming greater than those displaced by large infrastructure projects (such as dams). DIDPs outnumber refugees, with the added problem that their plight is often more concealed.

This is what experts have termed “development-induced displacement.” According to Michael Cernea, a World Bank analyst, the causes of development-induced displacement include water supply (dams, reservoirs, irrigation); urban infrastructure; transportation (roads, highways, canals); energy (mining, power plants, oil exploration and extraction, pipelines); agricultural expansion; parks and forest reserves; and population redistribution schemes.

This is the full text of the poem “Daddy’s Here”. It was actually not written by Thomas Ebzery, but on his behalf fully 50 years after his death for his daughter, Jenny; the poet wrote it in Thomas’s voice and attempted to convey how he would have felt.

My little girl,

If I could but have held your hand
for just a little while
I would have said ‘I love you’,
Would have wallowed in your smile,
Would have eased your baby cares,
would have been there for you:
My sadness is, my little one,
I may never see this through.
My thoughts are always with you
you’ll know it by the signs
a warm breeze on your rosy cheeks
the friendly child that smiles,
the puppy dog that loves you,
and in a million other ways:
I’ll send you things to bless you
to brighten all your days.

I know you’ll think I’m clever
in the Mother that I chose,
to care for you my darling
if your Daddy ever goes.
We take our life for granted
until our freedom’s gone
and there’s only dark oppression
where once the bright sun shone.

As I sit in this prison camp
so far away from home
and think of your sweet Mother
Struggling there alone
Then anger overwhelms me
and I can’t hold back the fear
I shout up to the good Lord
for all the world to hear
not to forsake his people
for does not the Bible say
if we bring the children to him
none will be cast away.

So I give you and your sister
into His tender care
(He must be in Australia
for there’s no sign of Him here)
I may never post this letter
written to affirm my love
for the prison guard is yelling
that tomorrow we must move.

They beat the sick and weary
their cruelty’s hard to bear
We’ll try to get away from them
when they’re marching us from here.
They will kill us if they catch us
our lives to them don’t count
but just to see your tiny face,
there’s nothing I can’t surmount.

I only hope that when they die
the good Lord hears my plea
and says ‘You POWs are the welcoming party.”
There’s not too many of us left
and most of us are sick
so if they want to save us
our boys had better get here quick!
Sapper Keating died at Kuching
but Lance Maskey’s going strong;
tell your mum – he was the woolclasser
I worked with in Birrong
No-one will recognise me
I’ve lost a lot of weight;
I don’t know what we did my love
to deserve such a fate.

There’s no time now to wonder
we are starting on a trek.
I wish it was to Gundagai
Boy, I feel a total wreck.

Me and all the other blokes
have always stayed ‘True Blue’.
We pray that we won’t die in vain
that there’s a better life for you.
And if there is another life
to which we go from here
I’ll throw wide Heaven’s window
and shout ‘Sweetheart, Daddy’s here.’