Abstract
Naya Ambhora, a multi-caste agrarian settlement in Maharashtra, Central India, emerged from the displacement of four villages submerged by the Gosikhurd dam. Over 15 years have passed since this once-thriving farmland was transformed into a resettlement site, leaving behind submerged ruins and fractured communities across an altered riverine landscape. What has become of the farmers, daily labourers, small merchants and fishermen who once lived there? Have caste-based inequalities endured, or have they taken new forms? This article builds on previous analyses of displacement in Naya Ambhora, offering a deeper examination of its material and symbolic dimensions in relation to caste. It highlights how resettlement policies often reinforce existing caste and class inequalities, exacerbating disparities precisely when communities most need stability. By exploring how displaced families navigate the inequitable realities of resettlement—whether by bypassing, resisting or adapting to them—this study provides critical insights into the long-term impacts of displacement, particularly for scholars and policymakers seeking to understand the intersection of caste and forced displacement.
Introduction
In the 1990s, two significant events reshaped life in Ambhora, a village of eastern Maharashtra in Nagpur district, disrupting its social and material landscape. First, a severe monsoon flood swept through Vidarbha in 1994, wreaking havoc and half-destroying the village of Ambhora Khurd. Shortly after, the villagers confronted the reality of a dam project inaugurated by Rajiv Gandhi in 1988. By 1998, the impact of the dam became undeniable, as villagers saw their lands marked for acquisition and set for submergence by the Government of Maharashtra. With this realization came the knowledge that their village, along with others, would soon face displacement, sparking chronic uncertainty among residents.
In 1999, the first resettlement map of Ambhora was drawn and approved by the Collector’s office in Nagpur. At the same time, the state government amended the 1976 Rehabilitation Act to improve civic facilities in resettlement colonies and ensure the planning of ‘‘new villages’ with better infrastructure, albeit without input from residents. Public hearings (jan-sunwaai) followed only after persistent advocacy by the Gosikhurd Prakalgrast Sangharsh Samiti (GPSS), a social movement representing the displaced. Villages such as Ambhora Khurd, Maloda, Gadpayly and Ambhora Kala (Devasthan) were slated for resettlement at a new site, Naya Ambhora—located a few kilometres away—with most villagers largely uninformed about the plans save for a few local leaders. For at least five years, nothing happened. It was only around 2004 that the villagers began to protest being mixed up between former villages in the new resettlement site. Not only castes but former villages were dismantled spatially at first.
To organize relocation, government officials conducted a lottery-based plot distribution, relying on outdated gram panchayat lists. This process yielded arbitrary and often unsatisfactory allocations, even though its objective was to neutralize caste-based demands of resettlement. In response, Ambhora residents rejected the initial resettlement map during a first village meeting in 2004, mobilizing village representatives to petition authorities for a caste-based pattern of resettlement, seeking social continuity as encapsulated in the phrase ‘jaise tha, vaise hona’ [we want it just as it was before]. Ultimately, however, the leader of the GPSS successfully lobbied to exclude caste as a criterion in resettlement plans. In 2006, a revised map emerged after an update of village records, reflecting a community consensus shaped by broader consultation and the participation of the GPSS. Its influence had extended to pressing the late Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh at a public event in Bhiwapur to address the villagers’ concerns while keeping caste at bay as a formal criterion of spatial relocation. Although caste was thus officially absent from the new resettlement blueprint (see Figure A1), subtle attempts to maintain former village units in the new site echoed the residents’ desire for continuity. This article tells the story of that unspoken yet persistent social and spatial reproduction of caste in the new village.
Scholarship on caste has shifted from speculating on its disappearance to examining how it adapts to the pressures of colonialism, modernity and capitalism (Jodhka & Naudet, 2023). However, in both academic and policy discourses, caste is still often framed in limited ways: either as a static, unchanging remnant of the past expected to erode with development, or as a political tool for group mobilization. While these perspectives have shaped important debates, they risk overlooking caste’s persistent role as a relational structure embedded in everyday life. Our approach builds on and extends this scholarship by foregrounding caste’s adaptability and its function as a lived social infrastructure, particularly in rural contexts where it continues to shape networks of support, obligation and recognition across generations. Far from being a residual or merely strategic category, caste remains central to processes of governance, identity formation and local belonging at the same time.
Our study found that the state’s policy of dispersing social groups based on the economic status of households dismantled former caste bastis or wadis, yet caste reasserted itself in the new resettlement village through former village-based units sometimes partially reflecting old caste hamlets (see Figures 1 and 2 for the internal borders distinguishing old villages and the caste distribution of land plots in the new village). With approximately 2,150 inhabitants across 303 households representing 14 different castes, Naya Ambhora now sits within a riverscape dominated by the Gosikhurd dam backwaters. 1 As captured by the Marathi proverb ‘Ji kadhi jaat nahi, ti jaat aste’ [that which never goes away is caste], caste structures have not vanished but transformed. Here, we focus on caste inequalities in the case of a Dalit caste (the Mahars) that converted to Buddhism in 1956 2 and with whom one of the authors has lived regularly since 2004.
By offering a caste-based analysis of resettlement outcomes, this article highlights the complex intersections of caste and displacement. The dismantling and reconstruction of a village provide a unique opportunity to evaluate what remains of rural structures and relations after resettlement following displacement. Caste and land, long seen as ‘twin shackles’ preventing democratization and modernization (Gupta, 2005), were often thought to be withering away. But is this truly the case, and if so, in what ways? This research investigates the evolution of caste and land relations within the context of displacement induced by the Gosikhurd dam, examining both continuity and transformation in the face of large-scale relocation and land dispossession.
From Rehabilitation to Resettlement: Caste, Space and the Political Sociology of Displacement
Rather than attempting to sociologically conceptualize a normative, policy-driven term, we suggest that resettlement is a more observable phenomenon and a workable concept that can be used empirically without normalizing its existence as a technology of government or space-making (Rogers & Wilmsen, 2020). As a policy concept, rehabilitation is difficult to apply in practice due to its vague definition and lack of standardized implementation. While in theory it encompasses economic recovery, housing reconstruction and social reintegration, its meaning often shifts based on political and social forces in specific sociohistorical contexts.
The ambiguity surrounding rehabilitation is compounded by a lack of reliable data on displacement. Lobo and Kumar (2009) highlight a critical gap in land acquisition records from 1947 to 2004 in Gujarat, noting the absence of ‘precise, authenticated information’ on displaced families. They argue this lack of data indicates a callous disregard by policymakers, planners and private investors towards displaced populations. It is certainly not excessive to consider that the last two decades have not unleashed new state trends in the production of public knowledge on the characteristics of displaced social groups, despite intense social confrontations around dispossession since the 1990s till today.
In Maharashtra, project-induced displacement was historically treated as a bureaucratic formality, with no comprehensive master plans or social impact assessments (Cernea, 1985). However, since the 1970s, social movements pressured the state to acknowledge displacement concerns, leading to India’s first Rehabilitation Act in Maharashtra in 1976 (Chowdhury-Roy, 2018). Though this Act pre-dated many major projects, its later amendments were instrumental in shaping the policies applied to the displaced population of Naya Ambhora (a process we described in Cabalion, 2015).
The resettlement process of these villages coincided with debates surrounding India’s national Land Acquisition, Resettlement, and Rehabilitation Act (2013), whose initial drafts emerged between 2004 and 2007. During this period, most Gosikhurd dam oustees received compensation or settlements based on notarial land valuations from the late 1990s. 3 Though the national policy was not applied retroactively, it influenced project-level policies (Cernea, 2005). For instance, 2013 saw the announcement of a significant ‘rehabilitation package’ for Gosikhurd dam oustees, with each affected family receiving a sum calculated to be equivalent to 15 years of minimum wage, or ₹290,000 (approximately €3,300).
Despite the passage of a national rehabilitation act in 2013, its implementation remains inconsistent, varying across different types or ‘regimes of dispossession’ (Levien, 2018). Under the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 (LARR 2013), rehabilitation refers to the process of restoring displaced persons to a state of self-sufficiency and full participation in society. It aims to ensure that affected families regain their housing, livelihoods and standard of living at least to pre-displacement levels. As defined in Section 3(r) and elaborated in the Second Schedule, rehabilitation includes entitlements such as housing, employment, training and access to civic amenities. Compensation policies often diverge from those aimed at rehabilitation, which, by legal definition, should focus on long-term economic and social recovery. In practice, however, this aspect is often neglected due to operational challenges. Resettlement and rehabilitation should be understood as distinct stages in a continuum of recovery: Resettlement refers to the physical relocation and establishment of displaced communities, while rehabilitation is meant to ensure long-term economic and social stability. However, genuine rehabilitation remains elusive.
Caste, Displacement and Dispossession
Forced displacement caused by large-scale infrastructure projects constitutes not only a material rupture but a deep reordering of space, social life and belonging. While often framed through terms like deprivation or vulnerability, such experiences must be situated within broader structures of inequality, especially caste. Rather than viewing displacement solely as a moment of loss, we follow scholars who argue that it becomes a site for the reconfiguration—and often reinforcement—of existing hierarchies (Colson, 2003; Levien & Upadhyay, 2022 ).
Displacement is rarely a singular event—it unfolds through time as a prolonged negotiation between imposed change and local adaptation. 4 It is marked by tension between state-led developmental objectives and socially embedded systems such as caste, which continue to shape access to resources, compensation and long-term outcomes (Kabra & Das, 2022; Mosse, 2018, 2020). While techno-managerial approaches to resettlement tend to treat displaced populations as undifferentiated units (Penz et al., 2011), a growing body of research points to the heterogeneous effects of displacement, particularly in how it restructures caste-based access to land, livelihoods and political claims (Bandyopadhyay & Chaudhury, 2022; Nielsen et al., 2020). Our study builds on this perspective by foregrounding caste as a spatial and social structure that both constrains and enables different forms of resettlement. Caste hierarchies not only influence who owns the land and receives compensation but also shape who can convert this compensation into educational advancement, housing quality or upward mobility (Agrawal & Levien, 2020). However, these outcomes are not uniform: the value of compensation itself is uneven, and its effective use often depends on caste-based access to credit, brokerage or state institutions.
A common assumption in policy design is that resettlement leads to caste-mixing and hence to the weakening of caste as a structuring principle. In some cases, spatial reorganization may reinforce caste clustering, as resettled families choose to relocate alongside their jati networks or find themselves re-sorted through informal allocation mechanisms. This pattern, however, usually predates the establishment of clear relocation public policies, such as the ones described above. This may be found, for example, in the pioneering case study of Koyna conducted by Karve and Nimkar (1969), which resonates with findings from other contemporary contexts, where financial compensation without structured relocation planning leads to spontaneous caste-based resettlement (Oskarsson et al., 2024). Even in planned layouts, the reproduction of caste geographies persists—through marriage networks, land exchanges or previous neighbourhood dynamics. In Ambhora, displacement has disrupted these networks, compelling communities to reconstruct them in state-assigned habitats.
At the same time, displacement does not affect all caste groups in the same way. In Maharashtra, and even anti-dam mobilization (Vora, 2009) has a long history, Dalit families have at times leveraged political networks to articulate claims of exclusion. But as Noy (2019, 2022, 2023) and Dasgupta and Pal (2021) have shown, displacement policies themselves can fracture solidarities, by offering differential compensations to tribal groups versus caste-based agrarian households. The resulting landscape is not simply one of neglect, but one where competing policy frameworks reconfigure caste politics from within.
It is, therefore, misleading to state that caste is ‘ignored’ by the state. Rather, caste enters indirectly through ‘the window’ of classification, compensation and eligibility, but without being addressed as a structural axis of inequality in most ‘displacement studies’. This leads to situations where development priorities remain indifferent to internal hierarchies.
In our case, caste determines not just who is displaced, but also how resettlement unfolds. Pre-existing land ownership patterns—highly stratified along caste lines—shape compensation levels. Those from dominant agrarian castes are more likely to receive higher-value land awards and reconstruct faster, often investing in education or employment transitions. By contrast, landless or marginalized caste groups face barriers in accessing equivalent housing, irrigation or state resources. While caste is sometimes a resource for collective mobilization, more often it operates as a social infrastructure that governs the reconstruction of daily life.
Spatially, the post-displacement village reflects the morphological persistence of caste (Halbwachs, 1938/2007). Physical layouts reproduce status hierarchies, with larger plots and better-located housing disproportionately concentrated among OBCs, while SC and NT-ST families occupy peripheral or lower-valued areas. These arrangements are not just technical consequences but social facts, emerging through negotiation, brokerage and state routines.
To capture these dynamics, we propose thinking of displacement not as a break, but as a scalar reorganization of social power. While some hierarchies are disrupted, others are translated into new spatial and bureaucratic forms. The persistence of caste in these new arrangements echoes Paik’s (2022) notion of ‘stickiness’ and Weber and Tribe’s (2019) idea of the ‘community of fate’: People displaced ‘under duress’ (Baehr, 2005) do not shed their social structures but carry them into new geographies 5 where they are reactivated under different constraints.
Our contribution lies in linking caste, compensation and space to show how resettlement reproduces inequality without replicating it mechanically. This requires attention not just to caste as identity but to its operation as a relational and spatial force that shapes access, aspiration and adaptation in displacement. Rather than treating caste as either ‘ignored’ or ‘deterministic’, we thus trace its material and symbolic reconstitution in contexts where policy meets practice, and where the logics of redistribution and reproduction intersect.
Building a Resettlement Monograph: Methods, Scope and Long-term Inquiry
This study employs a combination of quantitative, qualitative and spatial methods to examine the long-term experiences of displaced rural communities. While previous research on Ambhora and its neighbouring villages has explored various aspects of displacement (Cabalion, 2013, 2014a, 2014b, 2015), a consolidated, longitudinal analysis of caste inequality across a generation has been lacking. This article addresses that gap, offering an integrated perspective on caste dynamics within the resettlement process.
Our methodological approach uses statistical data to illustrate key dimensions of caste inequality, summarized in our synoptic findings in Appendix A: Land, compensation, livelihoods and housing. 6 The resettlement colony at the centre of this study brings together four displaced villages, which, along with three nearby villages, form a single gram panchayat. Understanding displacement in this setting requires a village-level analysis to capture site-specific conditions and their implications. Table 1 presents the multidimensional dataset that was not only collected but also reconstructed to support the longitudinal analysis of displacement and resettlement in Ambhora.
Types of Surveys and Data Collected in Ambhora (2005–2024).
**All secondary datasets have been cleaned, filtered and ‘enhanced’ with the variable ‘caste’ through an analysis of the surnames (aadnaav).
***The marriage dataset (Vivaha Nondni Register) is the only administrative document that already contained the variable caste (jaat).
Over two decades, we have systematically observed the displacement and resettlement of these four villages, constructing a longitudinal study with a strong qualitative foundation. While we have not consistently revisited the same households, our datasets remain comparable in terms of caste composition and landholding size. Based on extrapolations from the last pre-Independence caste census (1931), our sampled villages represent approximately 70%–75% of Vidarbha’s caste demographics (Cabalion, 2013), a stability further supported by National Family Health Survey-based studies. Naya Ambhora, as a representative mixed-caste village, therefore, offers valuable insights into agrarian trends, migration patterns, education and caste endogamy.
A core challenge in displacement studies is the uncertainty surrounding government data, particularly in large irrigation projects. Corruption, cost overruns and delays frequently obscure accurate estimates of displacement figures, losses and compensation. The Gosikhurd project exemplifies these difficulties, highlighting the discrepancies between planned and actual outcomes. Securing reliable compensation data required years of effort, facilitated in part by a supportive District Collector. These data, central to our analysis, are framed within Ravi Kanbur’s ‘compensation principle’ (Kanbur & Cernea, 2002), which underscores the uneven nature of resettlement awards.
The quantitative structure of our study begins with an overview of key denominators—households, landholdings, irrigation access and marriage patterns—offering a foundation for understanding caste-based disparities. Our primary sample, drawn from PhD research (Cabalion 2013), segments caste groups according to historical occupational hierarchies, particularly within the balutedari 7 system, western India’s counterpart to the jajmani system. This classification reveals how land ownership and caste prestige continue to shape social and economic mobility. While some groups, such as the Kunbis (classified as Other Backward Classes), have retained relatively stable agrarian roles, others, including Dhiwars (landless fishermen classified as Nomadic Tribes) and Scheduled Tribe households from the Gond Adivasi group, face more precarious economic conditions.
Land quantity and quality further deepen these inequalities. Historical land ownership patterns, such as the 9% of Ambhora’s land once controlled by a single Brahmin Malgujar family (Harnetty, 1987), demonstrate how tenure systems reflect entrenched agrarian relations. Compensation for landowners also varies significantly based on land quality, with higher-value plots yielding better settlements when official demarcation and notification procedures are followed. Despite common perceptions of Dalits as landless, Mahar households in this region have land holdings, though often minute ones (Jaffrelot, 2006; Zelliot, 2005).
Understanding the social uses of compensation awards requires applying Michael Cernea’s (2000) ‘Impoverishment Risks and Reconstruction’ model beyond its usual institutional context. Our findings show that landholders often sustain agricultural practices post-resettlement, primarily due to limited non-agrarian employment opportunities. Disparities in plot allocation and resettlement timing further highlight how temporal factors shape long-term outcomes alongside land ownership and irrigation access.
The economic value of resettlement plots, including built-up areas, reflects broader structural inequalities. Even within a detailed quantitative framework, caste-based disparities do not follow linear patterns, necessitating a mixed-methods approach that integrates objective data with sociohistorical analysis. Life trajectories in resettlement depend on caste, but they are also shaped by family strategies, political networks and broader economic shifts. As a result, ‘self-rehabilitation’ varies widely, with different families leveraging education and economic resources to navigate displacement.
Some critical factors influencing land value—such as proximity to water sources—extend beyond the scope of this study but merit further investigation. While riverside plots offer irrigation advantages, they are also the first to flood, introducing unpredictability into land valuation and compensation outcomes. Additionally, intra-family disputes and political affiliations contribute to intergroup inequalities. While we include some data on compensation-sharing among siblings and sisters, the political dimension is only briefly addressed due to space constraints. Notably, dominant Teli and Kunbi families have often mitigated the adverse effects of displacement through the accumulation and conversion of economic capital into educational investments.
While economic analyses typically quantify intergroup inequalities, our socio-anthropological approach is rooted in long-term observation and social mapping. Conducted with minimal external assistance, our surveys and interviews relied on local collaboration, resulting in a mixed-methods perspective that balances statistical analysis with qualitative insights. Although a more robust statistical framework for caste displacement studies remains an ongoing academic need, this research contributes by integrating historical perspectives, field engagement and sociological understanding into a comprehensive resettlement monograph.
Setting: Displacement, Territory and Social History of Ambhora
The Gosikhurd dam project submerged around a hundred villages across Vidarbha, leading to the forced displacement of more than 15,000 households. Among them, Ambhora and its three neighbouring settlements—Maloda, Gadpayly and Ambhora Devasthan—were relocated between 2004 and 2007, becoming part of what is now known as Naya Ambhora. This newly planned site sits at the confluence of the Wainganga, Kanhan and Amb rivers, in a region where land, caste and spiritual history have long been intertwined.
Our study focuses on how spatial displacement restructures caste-based inequalities, building on both material transformations (land tenure and compensation) and symbolic geographies (temples, religious sites and collective memory). Ambhora’s landscape—both past and present—offers a rich site to examine how resettlement affects the morphology of caste relations.
Geographies of Displacement and Resettlement
Before displacement, the four villages held approximately 800 hectares of cultivable land, complemented by 450 hectares of forest and commons. Submergence due to dam backwaters claimed about 500 hectares—a disproportionate share across villages: Maloda lost 100% of its farmland, Ambhora Khurd 85%, while Gadpayly and Ambhora Devasthan were less severely impacted.
Each of these settlements had a distinct caste composition, sometimes almost ‘mono-caste’:
Maloda: Predominantly Dalits (mostly Mahars) with some OBC cultivators (Telis, Kunbis and Lodis). Gadpayly: Mostly Mahar Buddhists, with Gonds (ST) and Malis (OBC). Ambhora Devasthan: Largely Dhiwars (NT), historically engaged in fishing, with some landowning Telis. Ambhora Khurd: The largest and politically dominant unit, with higher landholding diversity and multiple caste groups.
Displacement dramatically altered access to land. By 2019, only 194 hectares of remaining farmland were available to resettled households. A survey of 102 households showed average landholdings fell below 0.5 acres per family, with 25%–30% entirely landless. These disparities directly reflect pre-displacement tenure and caste status. Land fragmentation was already widespread before displacement—the average holding was 1.1 ha, but this varied significantly (e.g., 0.4 ha in Gadpayly, 1.6 ha in Maloda). Ownership across 700 plots was spread among 2,400 individuals, reflecting intense subdivision and inheritance dynamics.
Compensation was bureaucratically framed as ‘land awards’ or ‘house awards’, 8 but the path to claiming them was fraught. More than half of the households surveyed reported serious administrative delays. Disputes over eligibility (especially involving women’s inheritance claims), outdated colonial-era land maps and caste certificate issues exacerbated inequalities. Even a decade later, nearly 20% of households still faced unresolved compensation disputes. In some caste groups, the proportion was striking: 16 out of 17 Dhiwar families reported such conflicts—most often over housing rather than land.
Social Morphology and Symbolic Space
To understand how these spatial inequalities evolved, we draw on Maurice Halbwachs’ concept of social morphology—the idea that material and spatial structures co-produce collective memory and social relations. In Ambhora, pre-displacement caste-based clustering shaped lived geographies. In resettlement, these structures were not erased but partially translated: while formal layouts are grid-like and ostensibly caste-neutral, older networks persist in daily practices, use of public space and religious life.
The Chaityaneshwar temple, a medieval Shaivite site linked to the Mahanubhav tradition and Marathi’s literary roots (see Novetzke, 2016, p. 88), survived due to symbolic value and negotiations. Its village—Ambhora Devasthan—did not. This juxtaposition illustrates how cultural capital protects some spaces while exposing others to displacement. The vicinity of that temple also includes a vihara [Buddhist temple] and a Gond altar on a hilltop, connecting the community to Ambedkarite traditions rooted in nearby Nagpur and to other social groups perceived as cultural minorities. This spatial palimpsest reflects caste-specific investments in religious space, revealing how displacement reconfigures—not erases—symbolic geographies (Borja et al., 2019).
Land, Caste and Agrarian Inequality Before Displacement
Before the dam, Ambhora’s agrarian system reflected broader Vidarbha trends: moderately prosperous, with ‘green revolutionaries’ (Jodhka, 2016) among Telis and Kunbis, and significant landholding inequality. Our surveys mapped the distribution of landholdings by caste and fiscal value of land acquisitions prior to displacement in Ambhora (N = 715). The data collected reveal marked caste-based disparities in land quality and value. Teli and Kunbi-related OBC groups together held the largest number of land plots, but much of their land fell into lower fiscal categories. In contrast, Brahmans, though a small minority (36 holdings), disproportionately possessed high-value land, with 57% of their land area classified in the highest valuation tier (fiscal land category). 9 Mahar (SC) and Dhiwar–Navhi–Gond (SC, ST, NT/OBC) groups also owned sizeable landholdings, but these were concentrated in the lowest fiscal classes, reflecting longstanding inequalities in land valuation. Overall, the data illustrate how pre-displacement land inequality was structured not only by ownership volume but also by land quality and acquisition value. Mahar families, despite agricultural engagement, owned proportionally less land than OBCs, while ST and NT groups like Gonds and Dhiwars had marginal or no holdings. These patterns were key determinants in resettlement outcomes. Unlike many regions experiencing agrarian distress, these landowning castes were initially very reluctant to relinquish their land, as they faced neither an agricultural crisis nor a breakdown in social reproduction (Deshpande & Arora, 2010; Gaurav & Ranganathan, 2022).
The disparities in compensation show that caste remained a powerful predictor of post-displacement resource access. State policies, though ostensibly caste-neutral, translated existing inequalities into the resettlement regime through bureaucratic practices. Teli (OBC) households represent 34.6% of the sample but received nearly 47% of the total compensation, with an average award of over ₹434,000, the highest among all groups. In contrast, Mahar (SC) and Dhiwar-Navhi-Gond (SC/ST/NT) households received substantially lower average awards—₹252,988 and ₹151,251, respectively—despite comprising nearly 40% of the surveyed population. Furthermore, land regularization struggles disproportionately affected the poorest—over 1,000 families were originally declared ‘encroachers’ until local movements ensured legal recognition.
This section offers the foundational setting for analysing how displacement reorders caste through spatial, legal and economic modalities. The following section examines how these dynamics play out in everyday life, in terms of housing size, political agency and labour reorganization.
Resettlement, Social Morphology and Caste Reconfiguration
This section builds on the concept of social morphology developed earlier to analyse how spatial displacement in Naya Ambhora reorders caste, kinship and livelihood structures. We argue that the material transformation of the village landscape—through resettlement and compensation regimes—reshapes but does not erase caste-based inequalities. While the formal layout of the new village dissolves some spatial markers of caste, our findings show that disparities in access to land, compensation and adaptation strategies remain deeply structured by caste and gender. Using disaggregated and longitudinal data, we examine how caste intersects with resource distribution, family reconfiguration, livelihood shifts and social organization in the wake of forced displacement.
Compensation, Land and the Limits of State Rehabilitation
In South Asia, analysing resettlement without caste obscures fundamental mechanisms of inequality. Far from a basic truism, our findings offer rare spatial and jati-disaggregated data that demonstrate how caste-based disparities are not only reproduced but recalibrated in resettlement. When people resettle, they encounter not only disparities in access to resources—material or symbolic—but also inequalities in adapting to the new village, where many will likely spend the rest of their lives. People do not receive equivalent land plots for resettlement, nor do they depart at the same time; some receive no plot at all and are labelled as encroachers on their own land. Others migrate to cities or neighbouring villages where they have kin, leaving behind an empty plot in the resettled village—a home that has shifted yet remains unconstructed.
On average, displaced households received around ₹1.2 million (approximately €13,300) in total compensation, combining asset loss payments and a late-stage financial package declared in 2013. However, this package excluded pooling new agricultural land, undermining the long-term sustainability of agrarian livelihoods. Our 2012 analysis showed that 60% of households used compensation funds for ‘non-productive’ purposes, often to meet essential needs (healthcare, housing and marriage), reflecting what Bourdieu (1994) calls ‘prophylactic strategies of social reproduction’. While weddings may appear economically unproductive, they reproduce social and symbolic capital, especially in contexts of insecurity. Later surveys reveal that this financial aid failed to generate lasting economic stability. 10 Although some individuals used the funds to open tea stalls or small shops, most investments were unsustainable in a weak local economy. The resettlement village remains predominantly rural, located close to two small market towns yet lacking the infrastructure or consumer base for ‘true’ diversification. In this context, the compensation acted more as a mechanism of minimal state compliance than a transformative intervention. Short-lived vocational programmes—for tailoring, computing or poultry farming 11 —ceased soon after the rehabilitation office closed. It was at this point that ‘self-rehabilitation’ began, as villagers crafted strategies in the absence of continued state support. As the data show, self-rehabilitation largely reflected caste-differentiated strategies: while nearly 60% of households deployed compensation funds merely to meet subsistence needs, only a minority, mostly from dominant OBC groups, managed to reinvest in agriculture, small businesses or mobility-related assets.
Household Fragmentation and the Rise of Mixed Livelihoods
Forced relocation deeply fragmented family structures, pushing many extended families to split into smaller, nuclear households. This shift stemmed from government resettlement policies, which allocate land plots exclusively to married couples. Such a policy overlooks the complexity of household structures in India, which often vary by kinship patterns, marital alliances and inheritance strategies. Consequently, resettlement not only divides families into individual households but also ‘produces’ economic agents (Bourdieu, 2000) and reinvents work as an existential necessity, as families must rationalize their structures to qualify for government support. Before displacement, households outnumbered houses, as extended families commonly shared residences. In the resettlement site, a displacement of approximately 100 individuals from their original residences (from 627 to 527 people) was observed. These individuals have not vanished or migrated but have instead relocated to other plots within the resettlement site.
In this new context, only 54% of households now list farming as their primary income source, while 35% rely mainly on farm labour (2019 survey). Most households depend on a combination of both, with the share of farm labour increasing as available land has shrunk due to the submergence. 12 This accelerated ‘depeasantization’ process has been driven by state-led dispossession and the impracticality of implementing land-for-land compensation policies. These shifts mirror national trends of increasing casual labour in rural areas, including a contraction in farming and a gender-skewed shift, with men taking on a larger share of daily wage work. About 14% of surveyed households reported starting new businesses in the resettlement area, mostly small-scale operations like tea stalls and shops, prompting villagers to remark that ‘the village has more businesses than customers’. Among the 303 surveyed households, 40 are now engaged in non-farm activities, reflecting ongoing economic diversification. Some of these jobs are associated with caste-based occupations such as barbering, carpentry, goldsmithing and blacksmithing. While carpenters, who are considered higher-status OBC castes, tend to also own land, other so-called lower balut social groups remain largely landless.
Most non-farm activities include small, self-owned businesses like tea stalls (tchai centres or panthela), general stores, cycle and bike repair shops and stationery shops. A few households operate agricultural supply stores, typically owned by large Teli farmers, selling fertilizers and pesticides. Additionally, the village has a small group of fishermen who grow water chestnuts and occasionally cultivate rice. Our survey may under-represent their activities, though these often prove more profitable than most other forms of rural work, aside from service jobs.
Overall, while Naya Ambhora still resembles an agrarian village, it is rapidly transforming as land’s social value diminishes and more residents choose to exit farming rather than continue traditional agricultural livelihoods. Displacement has undoubtedly accelerated this trend, though it was already underway prior to relocation. A dual process of land consolidation and a shift away from farming is emerging, alongside a structural rise in land’s monetary value. This trend increases the likelihood of land conversion for alternative uses. Where farmers initially received about ₹50,000 per acre (approximately €555) in compensation in the early 2000s, an acre of agricultural roadside land now sells for approximately ₹500,000–1,000,000 rupees (€5–10k)—an increase of at least tenfold.
Caste, Space and Social Belonging in the New Village
Resettlement officials often describe Naya Ambhora as ‘well planned’, citing compliance with the 1999 Rehabilitation Act (Varhade et al., 2013). Yet the spatial order obscures deeper losses: the erosion of caste-based solidarities, kinship clustering and symbolic geographies of belonging. Villages like Naya Ambhora reflect a form of ‘negative urbanization’ (Bourdieu & Sayad, 1964), where displaced residents struggle to adapt and sustain themselves despite formal resettlement. The old village, etched in memory, provided a stable spatial and social framework, now lost, leaving the new village hard to internalize as a stable foundation for community or individual identity (as elicited by our analysis of social memory in our 2019 survey). To visualize the new logics of social distribution in Naya Ambhora, Figures 1 and 2 juxtapose the official resettlement ‘blueprint’ with a spatial reconstruction based on caste distribution.
Naya Ambhora comprises predominantly lower castes, Dalits and tribal groups. In the original village layout, physical space mirrored social hierarchy: Brahmins and dominant castes resided in the north, Dalits in the south and Dhiwars in the centre, separated by a gulley. This spatial division represented purity–impurity logics of the caste system. The 1994 floods disrupted this arrangement, causing some OBC households to relocate south, subtly reconfiguring caste spatiality.
In the new site, caste-based spatial segregation is absent, though Dalits often fare worse than other castes. Since Independence, rural caste relations have shifted (Jodhka & Simpson, 2019). While the first and second generations of Ambedkar’s followers strove to make way for simple dignity before broader social mobility and cultural autonomy (Cabalion & Jugand, 2023), third-generation children reap the benefits of their elders’ efforts and tend to assimilate to a middle caste style of living, paying less attention to their political heritage. However, rural Mahars still face caste-based discrimination and have not achieved the same level of social development as urban Mahars (Beltz, 2001). They may also constitute important ‘green revolutionaries’ (Jodhka, 2016) and hard-working agriculturists keeping up with Telis and Kunbis in irrigation management. These other two OBC castes are the most proximate social groups to them, even though they represent dominant Hindu agrarian groups who usually share different political ideologies. In particular, many OBC groups have shown increasing alignment with Hindu nationalist currents, whereas Dalit Buddhists, shaped by Ambedkarite legacies, often position themselves in opposition to such ideologies. Mahars are important agriculturalists, but they are also politically marginalized. The rise of Hindu nationalism has had its share of implications in these villages, geographically very close yet not necessarily ideologically adhering to the RSS template of Hinduism. While Maharashtra has a long history of non-brahmin politics and alliance-building that circulated widely all the way to these villages of Vidarbha (O’Hanlon, 2002; Omvedt 1993, 1994), the relationship between Dalit Buddhists and other OBC castes can be fraught due to their political differences today, despite daily interaction in villages.
The disappearance of caste-based wards, or wadis, from the new spatial order is pivotal, marking a shift from traditional social arrangements. While the end of caste segregation has been anticipated in social and political discourse, the indifference to caste as a criterion of organization in resettlement prompted residents to openly express a preference for relocation along ‘traditional’ caste lines. Here, caste is seen not merely as a symbol of division but as a marker of solidarity and interpersonal connection, embodying what Mosse (2020, p. 1256) describes as a ‘celebrated community or cultural identity’. The removal of caste as a spatial organizing principle fundamentally alters lives, as it had historically provided a familiar and emotionally secure foundation.
A tangible impact of this spatial disintegration is the loss of kinship connections. Traditional villages were organized around caste clusters, with dedicated areas like the ‘Maharvada’ for Mahars in Maharashtra or the ‘Dalit basti’ more broadly in India. Before resettlement, each village that now comprises Naya Ambhora had its own caste and subcaste clusters. In the new village, the fragmentation of family structures into nuclear households has diluted these kinship-based clusters, leading to a perceived loss of communal standing for historically marginalized castes like the Dalits. Paradoxically, however, the absence of caste-based spatial clustering has fostered new relationships among neighbours, albeit unevenly across castes and genders. Most households interact regularly with their neighbours, a notable shift in a society where hierarchy often limits such relations. Yet, some groups, like the NT-ST Dhiwars, report less social engagement with neighbours, underscoring ongoing caste distinctions.
Gender, rather than caste, now plays a defining role in social relations within the resettlement village. Over 85% of women report visiting their neighbours’ homes, compared to approximately 50% of men. These visits often serve social purposes rather than commensality, underscoring women’s roles in creating and maintaining social networks through shared activities like tea gatherings. As Mehta (2009) highlights, displacement reorders social and gender dynamics, often placing women in a ‘double bind’. In Naya Ambhora, only 25% of plots are jointly titled in both spouses’ names, while 67% are solely under male names. Widows or solitary women head 7% of households, with plot ownership distributed unevenly, reflecting persistent gender disparities. If resettlement does not have a caste, it has a (male) gender.
The loss of shared resources has affected inter-caste solidarity, as evidenced by economic tensions. For instance, the Mahars, traditionally agrarian, remain small-scale farmers reliant on wage labour and external income sources. Economic advancement opportunities are often ‘gatekept’ (Pattenden, 2019) by OBC men who control political and economic access. Discriminatory practices within programmes like NREGA, managed by OBC men, have forced Dalits to voice concerns through public channels. Although these issues have been addressed in some instances, the overarching effects of economic marginalization persist.
As assets dwindle for entire social groups, the ‘moral economy’ that once upheld asymmetric socioeconomic relations among castes erodes. This disruption affects equilibrium, as seen in prior caste conflicts between OBC castes and Buddhist Mahars in the old villages prior to displacement. These conflicts, often tied to local alcohol production, have faded, yet the displaced Mahar community continues to face challenges, with many migrating to urban areas only to return as artisans in local construction.
The return of some Mahar men as well as the aggregation of the four villages has led to a partial mutualization of Buddhist practices. 13 But this is only relative, as old villages decided to rebuild former religious village structures separately. Curiously, it is only the Mahars that decided to reconstruct their vihara (Buddhist temples) in the new layout on separate plots. Certain OBC Hindu and large agrarian families have lobbied for the unification of Hindu temples between villages, without much success. The large exception to that rule results from the fact that this village also hosts another regional cult called Parmathma-Ek. The followers of this sect 14 are periodically blamed for not contributing to the main Hindu temple and have built their own makeshift structure. Two out of three Buddhist viharas have already been built and inaugurated while a third one is yet to be built.
While religious structures distinguish people along former village lines, political existence is yet another issue. A man from the former hamlet of Maloda recently created a branch of the historically famous Samta Sainik Dal of the period of Ambedkar in the new village. 15 This development illustrates the complex ways in which we can analyse caste once it is translated in the public realm of agonistic politics. Is it an effect of prior political empowerment, a sign of declining social strength and need for protection, or a religious assertion and wish for more freedom? It can typically be said to be all three at once. Ultimately, resettlement has introduced new economic uncertainties and intensified the moral and social degradation for those who have yet to adapt. For many, resettlement feels like a precarious effort towards an uncertain future. A lack of trust between the displaced and their representatives, as Colson (2003) notes, often leads to cognitive dissonance. With rumours of further displacement due to wildlife conservation efforts, the fragile sense of security remains under constant threat. The Karandla Tiger Sanctuary, made feasible by the Gosikhurd dam reservoir, underscores the irony and anxiety that resettled villagers face: As they rebuild, the threat of displacement lingers.
Magnifying Inequalities: Built-up Area, Reconstruction and Capital Values
During the initial phases of resettlement, the government allocated residential plots to displaced households according to a bimodal logic: Households were classified either as landowning cultivators or as non-farming labourers and the size of plots allocated was determined accordingly. Larger plots were granted to farming households based on land loss and household size, while smaller plots were assigned to non-farming or landless households, reflecting their presumed lower need for productive space. Our resettlement dataset examines the distribution of residential plot sizes by caste-based administrative categories in the resettled village (N = 414). Overall, 72.8% of plots have been built upon, reflecting substantial settlement over time. OBC households dominate the built environment (72.2%) and were more likely to have received mid- to large-sized plots (370–740 m²). Scheduled Castes (SC) also show a high rate of built plots (66.7%) but are overrepresented in smaller plots (185–277 m²). In contrast, NT-ST groups were disproportionately allocated smaller plots, with 70.6% receiving plots of the lowest size category and very few benefitting from larger parcels.
This plot assignment process was complex for resettlement officers, who faced significant challenges in ensuring that housing needs were met. Roughly a quarter of the population required emergency quarters, which were hastily built by the state as single-room chambers in barracks with corrugated tin roofs. These temporary quarters, often dark and extremely warm in summers, were used by some households—especially elderly women or the poorest families—as they built their own homes. They were also repurposed by some for occupational needs; for instance, blacksmiths and carpenters set up small workshops in these quarters. Barbers, however, avoided these spaces due to inadequate light and ventilation. Many families occupied these quarters for over a year, adding makeshift greenery to soften the harsh environment. Although more OBC families passed through these quarters, SC and NT groups (Mahar and Dhiwar castes) faced a higher probability of prolonged temporary housing. Approximately 25% of the population faced delays in rebuilding ‘on time’, a significant obstacle as displacement proceeded and state-imposed deadlines approached.
The Gharkul programme, intended to provide reconstruction aid for displaced Dalits and Adivasis, was politicized and became a point of contention. Originally designed to assist specific groups, Gharkul was advocated by social activists to become a universal foundation-building grant for all displaced households. Despite these efforts, the programme remained limited to below poverty line (BPL) cardholders, with only 14 out of 102 households benefitting, even though these villages had an official poverty rate of 48% (source DDD). 16 This exclusion further exemplifies the complexities of resource allocation and the reproduction of inequalities in resettlement. Official BPL lists, unchanged for over 15 years, reflect a persistent statistical gap since 2007, complicating assessments of current needs.
Most households hired a single, familiar contractor for home construction, and purchased materials themselves to transport to the site. Construction timelines varied significantly by caste, influenced by socioeconomic factors tied to house size. House construction took 12–30 months on average, with Mahars typically completing theirs within a year, while most OBC households required one to two years, and over 20% of households needed more than two years. Dhiwar households, though generally assigned smaller plots, took longer than SC households due to building relatively larger homes financed through fishing income.
Across the resettled village, post-displacement inequalities in housing and assets remain sharply stratified along caste lines. Teli (OBC) households consistently occupy the upper end of the socioeconomic spectrum: they represent 31% of the population yet account for nearly 38% of total built-up area, 41% of total reconstruction costs, and over 65% of the total capital value in the resettlement zone. Their average built-up area (108 m²) and house reconstruction cost (₹1,040,909) are the highest among all caste groups.
In contrast, Mahar (Scheduled Caste) households, despite forming 22.2% of the sample, occupy only 14.6% of built-up area and 13.1% of reconstruction expenditures, with smaller homes (average 58 m²) and lower investments (average ₹578,947). Similarly, NT-ST groups remain marginalized across all indicators: they control just 14.5% of total capital and have lower average house sizes and investments.
The village of Ambhora Khurd emerges as the epicentre of wealth accumulation, holding over 70% of the total resettlement capital. This spatial concentration compounds caste-based disparities, revealing how both caste identity and village origin jointly mediate resettlement outcomes. Overall, the data illustrate how access to compensation, construction capital and valuable land reproduces caste hierarchies, even within a formally egalitarian resettlement framework.
The juxtaposition of these values as well as our synoptic summary of our findings in Appendix A provides a multidimensional and empirically grounded portrait of caste-based inequalities in a resettlement context. Taken together, they offer a rare opportunity to observe how displacement, compensation and reconstruction are not just economic or technical processes, but deeply socially differentiated phenomena, shaped by historical caste hierarchies, spatial reallocation and unequal institutional access.
Conclusion
This study has examined how displacement reshapes—but does not dissolve—caste hierarchies in rural India. While resettlement alters physical space and community layouts, the social structures that underpin caste remain remarkably resilient, adapting to new geographies rather than disappearing from them. Our findings challenge the assumption that spatial dislocation disrupts social stratification; rather, displacement reorders caste in more discreet and bureaucratic forms.
As early as 1969, Irawati Karve—writing on the Koyna dam 17 displacement—observed how displacement reinforced familiar social institutions: ‘[W]hen the larger community breaks down due to displacement, the village, the caste and the family become strengthened as foci of emotional security’ (Karve & Nimkar, 1969). In Koyna, the possibility of resettling among caste kin provided a buffer against disruption, a phenomenon also evident in our fieldwork. Far from dispersing caste networks, displacement often consolidates them, either through state-sanctioned layouts or informal social regrouping.
This observation resonates with comparative work by Colson and the University of Zambia Institute for African Studies (1971) on the Gwembe Tonga displaced by the Kariba Dam in Zambia, who found that material dispossession produced heightened social reflexivity, as people reassembled familiar hierarchies under altered conditions. In another context—that of a colonial war—Bourdieu and Sayad (1964) had undertaken studies of camps in Algeria that led to similar findings about the disintegration of rural life and the complicated making of the economic habitus in times of chronic uncertainty. 18 In the structuralist anthropological tradition, Levi-Strauss and Wilcken (2014) observed that the Bororos had converted to Christianity after seeing their habitat transformed.
In our case, Ambhora’s spatial redesign diluted traditional residential clusters, yet caste-based differences in land awards, house size and reconstruction timing reproduced stratification in new, spatialized ways. Importantly, caste is not simply ‘retained’ in resettlement. It is recalibrated—made less visible in layout, but no less operative in daily life. This process is shaped not only by displacement policy but also by broader social forces: access to credit, education, political networks and state officials—all channels through which caste capital is differentially converted. The persistence of caste in resettlement thus results from a double mechanism: state policies that largely ignore caste as a spatial variable, and social environments that continue to value caste as a currency of trust, exchange and distinction. Yet displacement also initiates subtle fractures: mixed housing layouts without traditional Dalit colonies and the proximity of castes who previously lived apart generate fragile new solidarities, which may simultaneously unsettle established support systems and introduce precarious forms of coexistence.
While it may be argued that caste is overlooked in displacement policy, we suggest a more precise formulation: caste is administratively neutralized but socially active. Policies are designed to treat displaced populations as uniform ‘project-affected persons’, yet compensation procedures, land valuation and rehabilitation timelines unfold along caste-inflected lines. As shown in our data on compensation, land ownership, housing area and reconstruction, dominant OBCs (especially Telis and Kunbis) were best positioned to mobilize entitlements, while SC, ST and NT households received lower-value plots and built more modest houses, often with delays.
In this sense, displacement reinforces caste not in symbolic or ritual terms, but as a material and spatial logic. As Ambedkar argued, caste is ‘a state of mind’—a social patterning of relations—not merely a visible boundary. Displacement may erase the old physical lines of caste-based hamlets, but it does not uproot the relational hierarchies that structure opportunity, influence and exclusion.
In our field site, this played out most clearly in the differentiated reconstruction timelines, land fiscal values and total capital value by caste. Buddhist Dalit households, while politically conscious, were not equally empowered: some benefited from educational gains, others migrated out and their collective weight in the resettled village was visibly declining. This points to a fragmentation of caste capital even within historically mobilized groups. Yet the broader pattern remained: Landed groups were able to reinvest; marginal groups faced persistent precarity.
At a broader level, our findings suggest that caste continues to operate as a discrete habitus—a structure of perception and practice that organizes life even in new geographies. It reappears in forms not always legible to policy frameworks: through land exchanges, local brokerage, informal labour arrangements and symbolic status competition. This is why displacement does not erase caste, but transposes it into new spatial, economic and administrative coordinates.
While gender has received relatively more attention in international resettlement discourse—often under the auspices of global institutions prioritizing gender equality—caste remains under-analysed, partly because it does not travel as easily as a category of governance. However, this is beginning to change. Recent legal recognitions of caste discrimination in the USA and the UK, and revived caste census efforts in India (e.g., Bihar 2023), 19 suggest a repoliticization of caste in both local and global contexts. These shifts offer new openings for connecting caste to wider frameworks of inequality, capital and social reproduction.
To fully understand the long-term effects of displacement on caste, we must take seriously the temporal dimensions of social transformation. As Scudder and Colson have argued, the effects of displacement unfold not over months or single interviews, but across generations (Clark Colson et al., 1995; Cliggett et al., 2007). It is only by tracing how families reorganize their strategies around land, marriage and education over time that we can see how caste either reproduces or mutates. Our study contributes to this agenda by showing that even when residential caste clusters dissolve, inequalities are reinscribed through compensation, capital conversion and institutional navigation.
Future work should pay greater attention to the intersections of caste, space and rural transformation, especially as India enters a new wave of infrastructure expansion under neoliberal and populist governance. Displacement continues to be framed as a technical problem to be solved through compensation and engineering. But as our findings demonstrate, it is equally a social and spatial problem—one that requires analytical tools attuned to both the visible and invisible logics of caste in contemporary rural India.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.