The Double Bind: A Gender Analysis of Forced Displacement and Resettlement

The Double Bind: A Gender Analysis of Forced Displacement and Resettlement

In 1991, I was an observer at a women's meeting in the village of Gadher in Gujarat. Gadher lies on the banks of the Narmada river and is Gujarat's largest village to be submerged by the controversial Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP). The meeting was being conducted by a non-government organisation (NGO) that was once actively involved in resettlement and rehabilitation activities around the SSP. There were about 15 women in the meeting, all Tadvis. There was a discussion of the hopes and aspirations of the women, especially in light of their impending displacement. The female NGO worker asked the women whether they wanted to move from Gadher, a forest village on the hills, to the plains of Gujarat. She asked them whether they wanted to continue living in the jungle and face all the hardships of life in a remote hilly village or move to the plains where life would be easier. Were they willing to sacrifice their ‘old way of life’ in Gadher for five acres of land in Gujarat, a tap near the house, electricity and facilities such as schools and [Page 4]medical dispensaries? Their sons would get jobs too, and the days of trudging with heavy pots of water over the hills from the river for several hours every day would be over. There was a long discussion about the pros and cons of moving from the jungle to the plains. In some ways, the discussion had a lip service quality to it, because the project-affected people of Gujarat were already in the throes of relocation and active resistance to the project was largely absent. This notwithstanding, by and large, the mood at the meeting was upbeat. The women resolved at the end of the meeting that they would sacrifice their attachments to the land, the river and the forest for the future of their families and sons, who would benefit from the five acres of land being provided to every ‘major son.’ Furthermore, the days of drudgery would be over.

Nine years later in 2000, I heard women from Gadher talk about these issues in the course of a women's meeting organised by me along with several women confronted by displacement. We were in Malu, a resettlement village in Vadodara district. I had returned to re-connect with the families I had known from my 1991 stay in Gadher.1 The contrast between Gadher and Malu is striking. Gadher was a sprawling village spread out over the river valley with fields, homesteads and houses scattered over the hills and forest. By contrast, Malu, even after 10 years, is still a resettlement site (vasahat) with little or no tree cover and half-complete houses situated close to each other in grim unaesthetic lines.

Away from Gadher for over a decade,2 the women at the meeting could now speak about life in the resettlement sites from first-hand experience. There was a marked difference in their views and perceptions, when compared with what I had seen and heard in 1991. They were bitter and cynical, and a few were very angry. They were angry about mishaps with land allocation, separation from kith and kin, a constant shortage of money and poor agricultural yields that could not sustain the family. Some of them wanted to go back to Gadher; others wanted to join the protest movement. Most of them were very bitter about the NGOs that had persuaded them to leave Gadher, since there was a marked absence of the promised goodies combined with experiences of impoverishment and ill-being hitherto unknown to them.

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