The value of peasant life Nayā Ambhora, a village of displaced persons in central India

International audienceThe displacement and resettlement of four villages are the focus of this article. They are located in the Nagpur district in Vidarbha, a region in the state of Maharashtra in central India. Twenty-five years ago, the construction of the Gosikhurd dam was undertaken in order to revitalize the agrarian economy of a region deemed to be “backwards” by the Indian authorities. If the peasant populations downstream from the structure would from that time onward have the benefit of permanent source of irrigation, the fact remains that its production involved the flooding of 93 villages and the displacement of over 83,000 people. What are these lives worth compared to the “public good”, “national interest” and the irrigation of 718 villages? When there is a plan to wipe a village off the map, what does the annihilation of the resources of the peasant world and the scattering of its former units involve? How is the feeling of injustice of these displaced peasants expressed? Supported by research that followed the state management of these forcibly-displaced persons over ten years, this article concentrates on the trajectory of the inhabitants of four former villages, which today are depopulated, to their current place of residence, the new village of Nayā Ambhora