December 2024 marked 80 years since the founding of the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), after the conference attended by 44 countries at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, US, to decide on a system of international monetary exchange and secure the economies of nations devastated by World War II. India is now the largest borrower of the World Bank. A recently released report, World Bank on Trial!, details how the WB represents a danger to India’s sovereignty.
An Independent People’s Tribunal was held in Kolkata in December 2024 to mark 80 years of the WB. About 300 people attended, and 30 speakers represented diverse groups — street hawkers, those affected by bauxite mining, Adivasi and Dalit communities, fisherfolk, the dam displaced, farm workers, forest-working people, public sector employees, the campaign to tax the rich, the unorganized sector, indigenous communities in the northeast, coal mining, and the right to food campaign.
The jury comprised Prof. Anuradha Chenoy of Jindal Global University, Prof. C. P. Chandrashekhar of Jawaharlal Nehru University, Pamela Philipose, Fellow, Indian Council of Social Science Research, and Sujato Bhadra, former professor. World Bank on Trial! is now available for free download and dissemination here.
Significantly, in true democratic spirit, representatives from the World Bank were invited to attend but declined the invitation.
The WB’s influence on India goes far beyond lending—it extends to shaping policy and engineering reforms in ways that undermine democratic decision-making and public welfare, the tribunal heard. The People’s Tribunal is part of an international stocktaking process, with similar meetings held in other parts of the world.
The Kolkata meeting saw five major sessions. The first offered an overview of the WB’s background in India—its role as lender and policy shaper—and noted that democratic accountability mechanisms fail to hold when it comes to the WB, which enjoys legal immunity and operates without democratic oversight.
The second session discussed “legacy cases” such as the Sardar Sarovar Dam, Tata Mundra Ultra Mega Power Project, Social Forestry, Mumbai Urban Transport Project, and the Singrauli Thermal Power Project.
The third session focused on WB influence on key public sectors—agriculture, education, health, energy, water, urban planning, and banking.
The fourth examined how democracy has been weakened, labour protection eroded, environmental safeguards diluted, and public goods privatized. Natural resources have been financialized, digital surveillance heightened, caste and gender inequalities deepened, and caste and communal tensions exacerbated.
The final session exposed the contradiction between the WB’s stated goals and the real impact of its work—investments in large-scale energy and infrastructure projects that prioritize profit over people, often aggravating climate-induced disasters.
The report notes that the World Bank Group—comprising five distinct institutions—“operates under a governance structure that disproportionately serves the interests of its most powerful members. At its core lies a ‘one-dollar-one-vote’ system, ensuring that the wealthiest nations, particularly the United States and its Global North allies, retain dominant control over global financial decision-making.”
The United States is the WB’s single largest shareholder, with the biggest voting share across the five institutions. Together with the G7 group of nations, it controls a majority of the votes, aligning lending conditions with their interests and “keeping borrowing countries in cycles of debt and dependency.”
Funding is thus leveraged to shape India’s social, economic, and political landscape, the report says—prioritizing privatization, deregulation, and fiscal restructuring.
World Bank and Climate Catastrophe
Even though India possesses deep knowledge in climate resilience, this wisdom—and those who hold it—are sidelined in decision-making. Instead, the World Bank and its “Knowledge Bank” promote advice that often worsens crises by eroding environmental safeguards embedded in domestic law.
Under the guise of “ease of doing business” and renewable energy promotion, technologies and policy shifts have been pushed through that cause large-scale displacement, impoverishment, and unequal access to energy—primarily benefiting private control and profit.
In 1985, the World Bank approved funding for the Sardar Sarovar Project, a multi-dam initiative in the Narmada basin spanning Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Gujarat. The project caused massive displacement and flooding of fertile land; biodiversity suffered as natural habitats were submerged. The impact assessment was later found deeply faulty, failing to account for these losses. Fishing communities reported a reduction in fish catch by up to 80%, while farmers noted declining crop yields.
Coastal regulations have since been changed, and public hearings for approving coal mine expansions in already functional mines are no longer mandatory. Dense forests once considered “no-go” zones for mining have been opened up, and forest laws now count even plantation areas as “forest land.”
Pastoral communities have suffered as solar and hydro projects—exempted from environmental laws—occupy common lands for solar parks, displacing residents and depriving pastoralists of grazing areas.
Projects such as Tata Mundra Ultra Mega Power, the Social Forestry Programme, and Teesta Hydropower in Sikkim were all pushed through despite vehement local opposition. Communities that were once self-sufficient, if not prosperous, now face deepening poverty and dependence on state compensation—often delayed or denied.
Deepening Inequality and Dispossession
“Due to policies of the World Bank-IMF, 10 lakh farmers have been rendered landless and one lakh have been forced to commit suicide. This is only an official number—the real figure is higher as tenant, Adivasi, Dalit, and women farmers are not counted,” the report notes. “The irony is that these anti-people policies are introduced under the banner of eradicating poverty and inequality.”
In urban areas, street vendors—once part of a vibrant informal economy—have been displaced as infrastructure-centric development has driven up land prices, pushing them off city streets.
A World Bank–National Thermal Power Corporation assessment in 1991 found that 90% of people in Singrauli, Madhya Pradesh—dubbed the “Energy Capital of India”—had been displaced at least once; 34% were uprooted multiple times. The repeated displacements tore apart communities and destroyed social networks that formed their first defense against disasters.
“The dense forests that once covered the area have been cleared and the land handed over to large corporations, including those like Adani.”
The World Bank’s Social Forestry Programme, intended to restore degraded land and support local communities, ended up facilitating resource extraction and displacing forest dwellers, who were evicted in the name of “conservation.”
The report highlights how WB interventions have deepened inequality and prioritized private profit over social welfare. Public services have been converted into profit-driven models. In Kerala, now a hub for medical tourism, hospitals are partly owned by global hedge funds such as Blackstone. Having saturated Western markets, these funds now expand into regions like India to continue extracting profits.
In education, the Strengthening Teaching Learning and Results for States (STARS) programme has weakened the commitment to universal schooling. The neglect of public education has hurt children from poor households. Former NCERT chief Prof. Krishna Kumar, in an Indian Express article, explains how teachers, unable to cope with “aggressive bureaucracy” and excessive record-keeping demands, are walking away from classrooms.
The report argues that the WB has pushed India toward greater dependence on global finance capital, prioritizing “capital over communities and markets over meaningful social transformation.” The state’s retreat from productive sectors has opened more space for large private players. Labour laws have been rewritten to erode protection—job security, collective bargaining, and unionization—while corporations enjoy significant tax concessions.
The shrinking of democratic space, rising authoritarianism and surveillance, suppression of dissent, and the “militarized logic” behind Aadhaar are explored in one chapter. It explains how the “data economy” feeds into global financial networks. This analysis of how economies are restructured to suit capital’s mobility and profitability resonates globally, as digital ID systems roll out worldwide—in “lockstep,” to borrow a pandemic-era term.
The report concludes with a call for greater accountability from the World Bank and a move toward justice, equity, and sustainability.
Two quibbles remain with this otherwise sharp and vital report: all monetary figures are in US dollars, not Indian rupees—less accessible for Indian readers—and there is little discussion of how global capital has also harmed working classes in the First World. Such context could strengthen calls for global solidarity against entrenched power elites.
This is a report to print, read, underline, and preserve. It should be translated into all Indian languages and discussed with elected representatives: Why are loans still taken from the World Bank when domestic resources could be mobilized? Why are “electronic tracking mechanisms” necessary? Would it not be far better to meet the demands of striking ASHA workers and allow the elderly proper care—with a human face?
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*Freelance journalist
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