ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the cultural impact of involuntary displacement that followed construction of the Rengali Multipurpose Dam across the Brahmani River in Orissa, India. It highlights the resettlement’s effects on the rural farming base of the displaced and the problems of their life in the new settlements. The chapter shows how the disruption caused by resettlement not only causes economic hardship, but also how the changed socioeconomic basis of rural society has broken the normative machinery that made village culture work. Overall data on the resettlement plan for the Rengali project comes from the survey of 22 villages. The most special feature of the Rengali resettlement plan was the provision of homestead land and reclaimed land for cultivation in addition to monthly compensation for the loss of land and trees. The pattern of dispersal and resettlement of the displaced households has followed caste, kinship, and community lines.
