ABSTRACT
Since time immemorial, women across countries have been found to be displaced from their roots. In a third-world country like India, the percentage of such displacements is even more. In my life, I have travelled to many places and spent time with people there – either for work or in my role as a mere traveller. Time and again I have come across displaced women, not just in West Bengal, but even outside it. Yet the most insidious and tragic form of women’s oppression that I have come across, has been in Chambal. - that cursed Chambal which has become synonymous with terror or which has come to stand for Bagi or dacoits. Women there have been exploited and violated again and again, across ages, though very few in the hands of the Bagis. The position of women in Chambal is such as it would put any civilized society to shame. From such exploitations were born women like Putli Bai, Phulan Devi, Neelam Gupta, Renu Yadav, Sarala Jatav, and others. In this chapter, I would like to take at least two women Bagis of Chambal and narrate their stories of displacement. I would like to explore how, as victims of forced displacement, the trajectory of their lives changed and thereby examine the various socio-cultural aspects of these displacements.
