From Shangri-La to De facto SEZ

Sikkim in north-eastern India is a small border state strategically located between China, Nepal, and Bhutan. Two decades of state-led investment in infrastructural development and private investment in hydropower and pharmaceutical industries has transformed Sikkim from a remote border state to a de facto Special Economic Zone (SEZ) where incursions by private capital are masked under state-led development policies. The chapter focuses on Setipool slum, east Sikkim, located near two pharmaceutical factories, to demonstrate how ambiguous land rights and the establishment of pharmaceutical factories have led to spatially contained land booms which replicate nexuses of illegality, claim-making, and exclusions that are characteristic of corporate land grabs. The paper illustrates (i) the liminal origins of development zones, (ii) the networks and, sometimes, unforeseen socio-spatial impacts within and outside development zones, and (iii) the different forms of intimate exclusions that challenge prior assumptions around local responses to corporate incursions.