ABSTRACT
Development-induced displacement has brought about a profound economic and socio-cultural disruption to the victims of displaced communities. Under conditions of deprivation and marginalization, the rights and entitlements of those forced to move and fundamentally change their traditional means of livelihood have been lost. Forced migrants lose their social networks, cultural identity, a sense of wellbeing and existing modes of production. These processes of impoverishment question the developmental model that perpetuates displacement, causing human misery to displaced communities the world over. While forced displacement affects both men and women, this article argues that women experience displacement and relocation in a particularly gendered way. This differential impact on women occurs due to the gendered division of labour that has arisen from socio-historical processes of men’s traditional incorporation in the wage-earning and labour-oriented tasks, while women remain on the land jobs and its management on a daily basis. Resettlement and rehabilitation (R&R) policies expose the male biases inherent in the insensitivity of the governments towards needs of women. This chapter examines the lived experiences of displaced women based on the empirical findings of research that looks at women displaced by the construction of Tehri dam in the Bhagirathi valley and their relocation in the New Tehri town and the plains of the Uttaranchal state of India.
