RESEARCH IN PROGRESS

Attachment and Displacement: The Resettlers of Bhakra Damare Hurt

Raghubir Singh Pirta & Nitin Chandel & Chhaya Pirta

Received: 8 July 2013 /Accepted: 6 September 2013 /Published online: 19 September 2013# National Academy of Psychology (NAOP) India 2013

Abstract Dam-induced displacement and resettlement pose amajor challenge. A peasantry in the western Himalayasdisplaced nearly 50 years ago due to the Bhakra NangalProject, still has strong attachment to its lost home. Theresettled peasants recalled significantly greater number ofmemories of the lost home in comparison to the normalpeasants. Bowlby’s attachment theory suggests that unwillingseparation from secure habitats of human living cause long-term changes in cognitive schemas of memory. A serendipi-tous finding of the study is greater overall retrieval of thememories of loss of home among the displacees by scriptsof low and high anger, indicating a low threshold for suchprovocations due to hurt feelings. We suggest that policymakers show sensitivity to these negative feelings and plan asecure base for displacees in line with the principles of attach-ment theory.

Keywords Attachment .Memory . Secure base . BhakraDam . Resettlement . Holistic development

Introduction

A general feeling among the social scientists in India thatmany developmental processes are at variance with the ethosand perpetuate inequality (Misra 1990; Gadgil and Guha

1992; Dube 1994; Dreze and Sen 2002; Mehta 2002;Tripathi 2002) has substance. Among the most disturbingman-made edifices of development in the Himalayas are thehydropower projects, which besides displacing people fromtheir habitat, pose a threat as the area is high seismic zone.Some geologists have even reported extensive lists and mapsof landslides and earthquakes in the Himalayas (Arya 1992;Valdiya 1993, 1997) in support of the preceding thesis. But theothers, fully aware of these dangers especially for the largedams, underline better technological skills and planning(Krishna 1992; Biswas and Tortajada 2001; Biswas 2004).Neither the conservation of nature nor its manipulation hasbeen upheld all the way. Agreement on some issues seemslikely, for example, to reject the theory of common good andinclude to be affected minority in the development project.

Therefore we take recourse to risks and reconstructionmodel (RRM) proposed by Cernea (1997), a social scientisthaving long experience of working with the developmentalprojects in different parts of the world. The four distinctfunctions envisaged by the RRM are: diagnostic, predictive,problem-solution and research guiding. The RRM as an ex-planatory and cognitive tool has identified 8 risks of impov-erishment among displacees, which include landlessness, job-lessness, homelessness, marginalization, increased morbidity,food insecurity, loss of access to common property, and socialdisarticulation. The next important step in the RRM aims atguiding problem solution. The model avoids cost-benefitanalysis approach for fear of overlooking real impoverishmentrisks and impacts (also see Kapp 1959). RRM envisagesturning the project itself as a new socioeconomic base forthe people that are at the risk of losing. Lastly, RRM is alsoa conceptual tool for research in resettlement and involvesvarious dimensions of individual and community life but aninvestigator can take a few of these variables at a time.

The present study focuses on homelessness as a major riskfactor for reasons that will soon become clear. There is a

R. S. Pirta (*) :N. ChandelDepartment of Psychology, Himachal Pradesh University,Shimla 171005, Indiae-mail: rspirta@yahoo.co.in

R. S. Pirtae-mail: rspirta@gmail.com

C. PirtaDepartment of Biosciences, Himachal Pradesh University,Shimla 171005, India

Psychol Stud (January–March 2014) 59(1):1–10DOI 10.1007/s12646-013-0211-0

general lack of appreciation of the psychology of displace-ment. Shockingly, this serious lapse by researchers isirrespective of the fact that human history is replete with theexamples of identity and sacrifice as factors in territory. Since1960s a theory (Bowlby 1958; Harlow 1958) is gaining cre-dence that social bonds in humans and animals are evolvedattachment systems spanning from cradle to grave. Perhaps inall human cultures these attachments transcend beyond thegrave in myriad ways of grieving and mourning (Stroebe et al.1992). An authority on dams, Scudder (2001) recalled, evenhighly experienced researchers risked underestimating theassumed trauma associated with unwilling separations duringdam-induced resettlement. He further said that none amongthe major dam building countries (the United States, Chinaand India) had been able to restore the incomes of a majorityof resettlers. So much so the giants like Tennesse ValleyAthority (TVA) of United States could not resettle thedisplaced families, in spite of President Franklin Roosevelt’sgood intentions.

The foundation of hydropower projects in the Himalayaswas laid in1897 as a small installation (4×200 kW) atDarjeeling (Rangachari 2000). Since then the harnessing ofthe rivers for the generation of electricity and damming wateris a major human intervention with the ecology of theHimalayas (Bandyopadhyay and Gyawali 1994). In the late1950s, while the ground for the biggest concrete wall (theBhakra Dam) in Asia on the river Sutlej (or Satluj) was beingcleared in the foothills of the western Himalayas (Raj 1960),an uncertain future awaited the peasantry spread over a largepart of a princely state. Bilaspur or Kahlur (between 31° 12′and 31° 35′ N Latitude and between 76° 26′ N and 76° 58′ ELongitude; Anonymous 1910/1995) was an independent hillstate and Raja Anand Chand was the last ruler, and in 1954 itmerged with Himachal Pradesh.

Since 1963 the Bhakra Dam is a marvelous monument ofhuman engineering in a highly seismic zone. For, its visionary,an eminent engineer A. N. Khosla knew the terrain well andcould elicit the expertise of Caltech engineer Donald Hudsonon ground motion (Cohen 1997). Besides this able combina-tion of skills, the eagerness of the top leadership of India toexecute this ambitious project was also a factor in its success.At that juncture India was reconstructing herself on the pre-mises of science and technology. In this new paradigm, thescience of outer world has predominance over the science ofinner world, and this optimism was crucial for handing overkeys for making change in human condition to the materialsciences. Soon after Bhakra Dam, India began the construc-tion of yet larger dam at Tehri, on the Ganges in the Himalayas(Pearce 1991). The limits of the imagination of the commonman were perhaps blown away by the Three Gorges project inChina (Stein 1998), though away from the Himalayas, it posesa Himalayan problem of resettlers never ever encountered inhuman history.

The construction of two big dams in the western Himalayas,the Bhakra Dam in the 1960s and the Tehri Dam in the 1990sunderlined that development in the mountains has close link-ages with the development in the plains in India and elsewherein the world. For, teams of scientists and technologists,Americans in case of Bhakra Dam and Russians in the caseof Tehri Dam, provided necessary expertise to build dams in theHimalayas overlooking its fragility and proneness to strongground motion. Until there are alternatives for ‘energy’ and‘water’, the rivers originating from the Himalayas remain itsvital source, and so also the viability of proposals of interlinkingof rivers (see Radhakrishna 2003), a project of the proportionsof the Three Gorges.

The Struggle for Survival in the Mountains

It is a fact that, a minority giving way for these hydropowerprojects is left grieving for its lost home. It questions the hu-manistic aspects of such enterprises, and reminds us the prom-ises we make to these populations. These concerns, along withother issues, have been in the mind of some Gandhians workingamong the peasantry in the Himalayas. They became awarequite early of the impending ecological crisis in the Himalayanregion. In the 1970s these social workers picked up strands fromthe cultural heritage of India and neatly wove a grassrootsenvironmental campaign known as the Chipko (hug-the-tree)Movement (Guha 1989). The first phase of the environmentalmovement, devoted to protection of Himalayan forests, contin-ued from 1970s up to the 1990s, and was very successful. Later,some Chipko social workers began a new struggle to save theentire ecosystem and culture of the mountains. This new cam-paign was calledHimalaya Bachao Andolan , or Save HimalayaMovement. The main objectives of this movement have been tostop the construction of big dams in the Himalayas and togenerate electricity from small hydroelectric projects. TheGanga-Himalya Kuti near the upcoming 260.5 m high TehriDam in the Garhwal Himalayas, with veteran GandhianSunderlal Bahuguna leading the non-violent protest, becamethe center against aggressive development policies beingimplemented in the Himalayan region (Pirta 2005).

The local people of the Himalayas look at the developmentprocess holistically. In their holistic thinking, the developmentof both the individual and the community is important. In theirminds, the goal of the individual is to attain self-enlightenmentthrough a way of life, one where there is harmony in one’sknowledge, devotion and action (Pirta 2003). This thinkingreminds man that his ‘material development’ is a path towardsdestruction. The wisdom of Himalayan people states that thevery air, water and soil are main products of the forest whereasfor a silviculturist, the forest exists only as a commodity. TheChipko workers in their messages blend information fromscientific studies with the wisdom of ancient Indian tradition.

2 Psychol Stud (January–March 2014) 59(1):1–10

Attachment and Loss

There is obviously a hiatus between the vision of development(holistic model) of these mountain people and the universalparadigm of development. These disparities apart, we areexamining the consequences of an externally driven develop-mental process from a particular psychological view, the sep-aration of the mountain people from their habitats due tohydropower projects (e.g. the Bhakra Dam).

Humans and animals have natural ability to form attach-ments with persons and places and it has survival function(Bowlby 1969/1997, 1977; Bretherton 1992). Four importantcharacteristics of attachment relationships are proximity main-tenance , separation distress , safe haven , and secure base(Collins and Feeney 2000; Mikulincer et al. 2002; Feeney2004). Attachment develops early in life with mother ormother substitute, and later generalizes to family members,home and habitat of living (also known as place attachment).Bowlby’s attachment theory has two inevitable corollaries, thefirst is ‘broken heart’ and its feeling as ‘social pain’ and thesecond is reaction to ‘social pain’ and its relationship withaggression and disorders (MacDonald and Leary 2005;Panksepp 2003, 2005). Attachment relationships, stored inthe mind as schemas of memory (Cohen et al. 2002) arecolored by emotions mainly when our hearts are broken dueto loss of attachment object (Kakar 1995; Hirsch and Spitzer2002), or for example, separation from a place where we havelived for long time (Fried 1970, 2000).

On the basis of these studies we assumed that since socialpain of loss leads to aggression, and the process involvesactivation (Eisenberger et al. 2003) of attachment relatedmemories, which are part of internal working models to planand execute actions. Likewise, while recalling memories ofsocial loss (e.g. loss of home among displacees of BhakraDam), it is possible to color themwith emotion (e.g. by scriptsof anger). We conjectured that the arousal of anger wouldelicit greater number of memories related to loss of home. Bymanipulating anger, with scripts of low or high anger, weexpected corresponding changes in the level of physiologicalarousal and efficiency to recall memories according to theYerkes-Dodson Law (see Christianson 1992), the greater thearousal, the greater the efficiency to recall memories, up to acertain limit. Mood congruence hypothesis (Blaney 1986) alsosupports similar increase in the recall of memories, but fordifferent reason.

This study examines the memories of loss of home amongthe resettled peasants after about 50 years of the constructionof the Bhakra Dam using a research design that compares thedisplacees with the normal peasants living in the nearby areas.Drawing upon Bowlby’s attachment theory, we hypothesizethat the recall score of the displacees will be significantlygreater from the normal peasants. Furthermore, attachmenttheory states that external cues evoke internal working models

and related schemas of attachment objects, places and rela-tionships. Therefore, we hypothesize that the recall score ofhigh anger group will be significantly greater from the lowanger group. Lastly, we hypothesize that the recall score willnot be differentially affected for the displaced and the normalpeasants under the low anger and the high anger conditions.

Method

The Study Area The Bhakra Dam, a part of Bhakra NangalProject (Raj 1960) lies in Bilaspur district of HimachalPradesh, India. The construction of Bhakra Dam on the riverSutlej (or Satluj) began just before the independence of Indiain 1947 and the year of completion was 1963. This 225.55 mconcrete wall created a lake Govind Sagar, spread over168 km2 with the water a storage capacity of 9340 millioncubic meters. A large part, about 16,835 ha, of the thenprincely state of Bilaspur immersed in Govind Sagar, and inall more than 36,000 people were displaced (Raj 1960; Singhet al. 2002). The contribution of this ambitious project, in thedevelopment of country, especially north India, through elec-tricity and irrigation has been enormous. However, during thisprocess nearly ten thousand families were uprooted from 256villages, including complete submergence of the old town ofBilaspur.

Sample Two sizeable populations of displaced (resettlers) andnormal (non-displaced) peasants were selected in the Bilaspurdistrict of Himachal Pradesh. When the construction ofBhakra Nangal Project began, Bilaspur (or Kahlur) was anindependent hill State and Raja Anand Chand was the lastruler, since in 1954 the State merged with the Union Territoryand later became part of Himachal Pradesh. In 1941 thepopulation of Bilaspur was 110,336 (56,935 males and53,401 females), and in 1961 the population rose to 158,806(81,363 males and 77,443 females) in an area of 448 squiremiles (Census of India 1961).

The participants, displaced as well as normal, were livingin villages at the outskirts of Govind Sagar. Displaced peas-ants, 109 males and 91females, 200 in all, constituted theexperimental group. Normal peasants, 82 males and 118 fe-males, 200 in all living in the same area, formed a comparisongroup. These participants, at the time of present study, were 55to 80 year old, but they were young at the time of displace-ment that took around 10 years, from 1955 to 1965. As themidpoint of the displacement was 1960, and the present studywas conducted in 2005, in this way the memories of thistraumatic event were explored after about 45 to 50 years.

After locating the resettlers during the field work, a groupof more than 200 peasants was identified, and similarly from anearby area a group of more than 200 normal peasants wasselected. Each participant, displaced or normal, at the time of

Psychol Stud (January–March 2014) 59(1):1–10 3

administration of retrieval cues, was assigned to one of thefour retrieval strategies/methods. In this way, though the se-lection of a general pool of more than 400 participants wasopportunistic, the assignment to retrieval conditions was ran-dom. Each retrieval strategy constituted a separate study (asdifferent theoretical assumptions were behind it) having 50displaced and 50 normal participants. In the present study theretrieval strategy involved manipulation of anger.

Design of the Study In this field study, 2×2 factorial designwas employed, 50 displacees were randomly assigned to lowanger (n =25) and high anger (n =25) conditions, and similar-ly 50 normal peasants (non-displaced) were also randomlyassigned to low anger (n =25) and high anger (n =25) condi-tions. These 55 to 80 year old males and females were ado-lescents and young persons at the time of displacement.

Measures of Recall Four dependent measures of recall were:latency, category, past memory and total recall (Christianson1992; Davis 1999). Latency is the time required to get theovert response started. For each participant, all memoriesrelated to the loss of home (agreement arrived at among twoindependent observers R. S. P. and C. P.) were grouped underthe six categories described by Fosse et al. (2003). In addition,a 7th category grouped all the other memories recalled by aperson which were not related to displacement . Thus there are7 categories in all, characters, objects, situations, actions,emotions, locations , and the other, and a person’s score oncategory ranges from 0 to 7. From the measure of category,we derive a combined score, the past memory for each sub-ject, which includes all the memories of loss of home , underthe six categories, excluding the other. Finally, total recall isthe number of memories under all the seven categories for asubject.

Procedure In a preliminary study during 2002–2003 one in-vestigator (N. C.) located the study population and habituatedherself with the terrain and subjects. The study population wasspread in various villages surrounding the lake Govind Sagar.On reaching at a particular village, by boat or local bus, theinvestigator approached the village head or an elderly mem-ber. After a brief introduction and explaining the purpose ofthe study, the investigator would locate the participant, womenand men in the age group of 55 to 80 years. In the final study,during 2005–2006, after a brief conversation to gain rapportwith the family, the investigator (N. C.) in her general instruc-tions to the participant in local dialect, apprised the participantabout the procedure of giving responses, especially to recallmemories of younger age, and speak them out in small(discrete) words and sentences, when asked to do so.

To arouse the schemas of “low anger” or “high anger”, weprepared two scripts (see Davidson et al. 2000) in the localdialect. After the general instructions, the investigator then

gave specific instructions to a participant on scripts, the scriptwas either spoken by the investigator (N.C.) or the subjectread it. In the first script (low anger) the event drowning ofhome and surrounding area was described as an event withoutany bias about it. But in the second script (high anger) there isan attempt to create cognitive dissonance by praising theconstruction of Bhakra Dam and the rehabilitation policies,but underplaying the early social life of people. The instruc-tions (given in local dialect) for the low and high anger levelswere similar.

The investigator said: “I will narrate an event to you.Please listen to this event with attention. After hearingthis event, if you recall any event related to your life, or(you) remember any experience, or (you) recall any faceor any place, you go on speaking words associated withthem. And what do you feel, tell me. You have to keep inmind that as soon as I stop reading, immediately youhave to go on speaking words associated with whateverevents, experiences, conditions, faces and places. Youhave not to narrate long story, only speak words asso-ciated with childhood and young age. Let us start now.Listen to the event with attention .”

(The participants under low anger conditions received thefollowing message.)

“A city was surrounded by several prosperous villages.Several years ago people of these areas received analarming message that the place is to be vacated as adam is to be built nearby. People were astonished hear-ing this. The work of dam started, the water reached upto the houses of people, (and) people left the houses.Their houses, gardens and fields, all drowned. Peoplewent to new place. Old customs, living, social-network,all vanished. And a new life began.”

(On the other hand, the participants under high angerreceived the following information.)

“Several years ago, in Bilaspur, the old city wassurrounded by a number of villages. There was extremepoverty. One day the inhabitants of these areas were toldthat the place is to be vacated and a dam will beconstructed there. After listening this, people becamevery happy. Dam got ready, people received good com-pensation from the government to vacate their area, andin addition land was given for land, by this people felthappier. People settled in the new area. New villageswere more beautiful than the previous. At new place,they liked the houses, gardens, and fields more than theearlier. Mutual relations, cooperation and living alsowere better. In this way a happy life began.”

As soon as the script was finished, the investigator said“now you speak .” At this, the participant began verbally

4 Psychol Stud (January–March 2014) 59(1):1–10

recalling memories as quickly as possible. The memoriesrecalled by the participant were noted down by the investiga-tor (N. C.) on a response sheet, which also included otherbiographical information about him/her. The total time forrecall was 10 min (based on earlier studies and trials duringpresent study).

The scores obtained on each of the four measures (e.g.latency, category, past memory and total recall) were ana-lyzed by applying four separate 2 (displacement) × 2 (retrievalcue) analysis of variances (ANOVAs). Our main findings onthe four measures latency, category, past memory and totalrecall , are shown in Table 1. We do not consider measures oflatency and categories as adequate, latency requires morecontrol condition and categories due to lower score.However, our focus will be on the analysis of past memory,events about loss of home recalled by the subject. Two inves-tigators (R. S. P. and C. P.) independently read the responsesheet on which memories recalled by a participant wererecorded and classified them into categories (see Davis1999; Fosse et al. 2003). Total number of memories underthe 6 categories of lost home (excluding the 7th category,other ) constituted the score for past memory. The total recallincludes score on past memory, and in addition all othermemories recalled by the subject. Since the number of mem-ories in the latter category (other memories) is low, in facttotal recall contains only the past memory, therefore the pastmemory is the focus of discussion. Thus the score on pastmemory is the number of events about lost home recalled bythe participant, and ranged from zero to as many memories asone can recall during a session of 10 min.

Results

Two factors affected the past memory scores, displacement(displacees and normal) and retrieval cue (low anger and highanger). On the basis of Bowlby’s attachment theory weexpected that the displaced group in comparison to the normalgroup will have significantly greater score on the past memory.The results show that the average score on past memory fordisplacees (M =9.08±5.19) is significantly greater [F (1, 96)=6.04; P <.05] from the normal participants (M =6.78±4.01),

and thus we accept the preceding hypothesis. On the same lineswe expected significantly greater score for past memory underthe high anger stimulus condition in comparison to the lowanger. We find that the score on past memory under the highanger (M =8.02±5.29) is not significantly different from thelow anger (M =7.84±4.2), and therefore reject our hypothesis.The lack of interaction supports the strong effect of displace-ment. The mean scores for the four groups are in this order:displacees low anger 9.16±4.16; displacees high anger 9.00±6.13; normal high anger 7.04±4.19; and, normal low anger6.52±3.89.

Discussion

There are three independent theoretical perspectives, the at-tachment theory (Bowlby 1969/1997), philopatry (Wynne-Edwards 1986) and place attachment (Fried 1970, 2000),which suggest a greater recall of memories (related to theirlost home) by the displacees. These theories assume thatattachment to home/place serves a biological function, protec-tion from predators, besides other functions. We howeverfocus on Bowlby’s attachment theory. Bowlby (1977) notedthat in adults attachment behaviors “are especially evidentwhen a person is distressed, ill or afraid .” The attachmentbond is a life-long source of security for an individual, notonly that, he develops a trust and moves away from theproximity of mother to explore the environment from thissecure base . Another aspect of this system is, whenever thereis external threat or discomfort the individual seeks solace atthe secure base which on such occasions becomes a safehaven . Bowlby (1977) further clarified that it was customaryto refer to the individual who shows attachment behavior as‘child’ and the attachment figure as ‘mother’, “Whatever issaid, however, is held to apply also to adults”. He added, thebase from which a person “operates is likely to be either hisfamily of origin or else a new base which he has created forhimself. Anyone who has no such base is rootless .”Unwillingseparation and loss of these attachment bonds result in psy-chopathology: emotional distress and personality disturbance,including anxiety, anger, depression and emotional detach-ment (Bowlby 1977).

Table 1 The average scores onfourmeasures (seeMethod) of pastmemory, anger as retrieval cue. Oneach measure the scores were an-alyzed by 2 (displacees vs. normal)× 2 (low vs. high anger) ANOVA

Measures Displacement

(Factor A)

Retrieval cue

(Factor B)

Significance levels

Displacees Normal Low anger High anger A B A × B

Latency 2.12 2.48 2.04 2.56 ns .05 .05

Category 3.38 3.08 3.44 3.02 ns ns ns

Past memory 9.08 6.78 7.84 8.02 .05 ns ns

Total recall 9.32 7.14 8.14 8.32 .05 ns ns

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These concepts have rarely been applied to study attach-ment to home, place or objects, and how unwilling separationor losses of attachment bonds to these objects affect individ-uals, families and communities (e.g. Fried 1970; Henderson1977). But the memories of unwilling separation and loss ofattachment bonds spans over generations and are traumatic(e.g. Sagi-Schwartz et al. 2003), they are profusely narrated bywriters, poets, novelists and folklore (see ‘postmemories’ inHirsch and Spitzer 2002).

The theories of ‘place attachment’ also support conclusionsof Bowlby’s attachment theory. And there are attempts tounify Bowlby’s attachment theory and ‘place attachment’theories (Giuliani 2003). For ‘place attachment’ theories alsounderline that forcible displacement from one’s living habitatis distressful, and the sequel is similar to predicted byBowlby’s attachment theory (Fried 1970; Bonnes andSecchiaroli 1995; Fullilove 1996).

A fundamental postulate of Bowlby’s attachment theorypertains to control system within a person’s cognition andupdating information about external environment (Bowlby1969/1997; p. 50). The control system is adapted to an envi-ronment of designed adaptedness which approximates insome essential ways the environment of evolutionary adapt-edness. Any modification in its components, calls forrestructuring of person’s internal working models within acontrol system, for example, perception of threat from intrud-er. The greater the perceived threat from the intrusive agent,the more will be the arousal in the person’s attachment system,and the more immediate search for protective persons andremaining in proximity to them.

In addition to Bowlby’s attachment theory and place at-tachment, which are functional explanations, some psycho-logical theories provide proximate explanations of the effectof retrieval cues on displacees in evoking past memoryschemas. They include reconsolidation, reactivation, mood-congruence and resilience among others. Stressful experi-ences have two types of effects on memory. First, there occurimpairment in memory subsequent to immense stress (Kimand Diamond 2002; de Kloet et al. 2005). These stressfulexperiences were undoubtedly greater for displacees ofBhakra Dam as compared to normal peasants in the nearbyarea. This negativememory bias occurs due to depressive self-schema (Pyszczynski et al. 1989; Skowronski et al. 1991;Edelstein 2006). Second, these studies indicate better recallof memories for pleasant events. The past memory in presentstudy includes pleasant and unpleasant events, it is indeedrecall of places, objects and experiences about lost home.

For long, it is known that appropriate external cues facilitateretrieval of memories. The process involves reactivation andreconsolidation of memories (Sara 2000). Reconsolidation is amemory updating mechanism where reactivated memoriesadapt to new circumstances (Dudai 2006). Since memoriesrelated to the loss of home are often recalled by the displacees

for various reasons, they are most likely to be strengthened intheir minds. Experimental evidence supports the conclusionthat stress-enhancement in memory is the result of memoryreconsolidation process (Henckens et al. 2009).

Displacees, since the loss of home almost 50 years ago, hadbeen living in isolation, distress and helplessness due to lackof proper resettlement. When these displacees read irritatingscript, it aroused anger and also there was a greater recall ofmemories. To some extent it has also an explanation in mood-congruency hypothesis (Matt et al. 1992). However, this issuegets rather complex due to tagging of positive (good) ornegative (bad) meaning to events, and the experiences of losthome thus get associated with bad events. The assumptionthat negative events mobilize physiological, cognitive, socialand affective resources of organisms has a corollary that thereis an overall attempt to minimize it (Taylor 1991). Individualsevolve mechanisms to cope up with ‘bad’ events (Baumeisteret al. 2001), and thus enhance resilience to adversities (Clarkeand Clarke 1998; Bonanno 2004).

Apparently, anger as a retrieval cue seems ineffective, asthe past memory score under low and high anger conditionsare similar, and thus not in line with our expectations on thebasis of the Yerkes-Dodson law and mood congruence. Butthere is a different story behind it, a rather serendipitousfinding, which makes these results interesting. Our qualitativenotes and interactions with the participants, during the prelim-inary study, had convinced us that the resettlers had strongfeelings of contempt, along with the lack of trust in the system.Therefore a script of anger was likely to evoke the attachmentschemas of their home, which has been lost, but was once theirsecure base and safe haven. This conceptualization followsfrom Bowlby’s attachment theory and has overwhelmingsupport in the present study. We now explain lack of signifi-cant difference on past memory under low and high anger.

In fact, we conducted four independent studies (includingthe present one) using different retrieval cues to elicit memo-ries of loss of home among the displacees of the Bhakra Dam,a summary of findings is shown in Table 2. From thesefindings it is abundantly clear that the retrieval cue of angerelicited highest number of memories related to loss of home.The average for displacees (m =9.08) is the highest scoreamong all the groups, and the second highest score on pastmemory is for the high anger group (8.02). Yerkes-Dodsonlaw (see Christianson 1992) and mood congruence (Blaney1986; Matt et al. 1992) as well as new evidence on emotionalmemory retrieval (Buchanan 2007) and reactivation of brainareas (Danker and Anderson 2010), serve proximate causalmechanisms for this effect.

The similar scores on past memory for low and high angergroups suggest that the scripts for low and high anger wereequally effective in arousing past memory. But our alternativeexplanation, in line with preceding studies, is that thedisplacees had very low threshold to stimuli of anger and

6 Psychol Stud (January–March 2014) 59(1):1–10

got highly aroused even by low anger stimulus. Moreover, theaverage score (m =6.78) for the normal peasants is high ascompared to all the other groups (except one) in Table 2, andexpected from attachment theory. These non-displaced per-sons were naturally affected by displacement (see Scannelland Gifford 2010), as peasants in displaced and normal groupwere all Kahlurians, belonging to the princely state of Bilaspur(Anonymous 1910/1995), their capital drowned in BhakraDam. Furthermore, it is a fact that injustice has been done todisplacees, with whom these (normal) peasants had kinship.These are perhaps sufficient reasons for the arousal of theparticipants of the normal group and consequent increase inpast memory score. Therefore we underline that sincere effortsare imperative for containment of anger (see concern of thePlanning Commission of India on similar issues, Anonymous2011) among the displacees through better resettlement plansso that new site is a secure base.

Resettlement as a Process to Build a New Secure Base

This paper looked into the reminiscences of the loss of homeamong the displacees of the Bhakra Dam. Such changesoccurring in human environment and consequent changes inperson’s internal systems, increase stress in highly complexways due to inadequacy of man’s adjustability (Tinbergen1973). An important behavioral system implicated in thepresent study is attachment. A distinctive feature of attach-ment system according to Bowlby (1969/1997, p. 223) is itsprotective function from external threat for the person, byvirtue of this, attachment behavior is elicited highly effectivelythroughout the life time. However, the appraisal of threat dueto human developmental interventions in the proximate envi-ronment poses a challenge for a person’s cognitive system(Scannell and Gifford 2010), this is especially the case with

the rural populations facing onslaught of massive interven-tions (Downing and Garcia-Downing 2009; Morrison 2010).

There occurred catastrophic changes in the familiar envi-ronment of a rural population in the western Himalayas due toconstruction of the Bhakra Dam. A familiar place, includinghome, to which people were attached, was lost forever. Alongwith this loss, much of the social support net-work of thedisplacees was broken, since the displacees had to move to anew resettlement site, which was far away in Hissar, Haryana(then a part of Punjab). The participants of the present studywere adolescents or young adults at that time. At the newplace these displacees had to reconstruct their ties to the newplace and establish new social net-work. But all the time, dueto paucity of material resources, the stress on the displaceeswould have been obviously very high. For, such events areaversive as they destroy the safe haven and secure base,beyond the control of a person and arouse fight or flightsystem (Maunder and Hunter 2001; Kim and Diamond2002). The acculturative stress, reworking of social ties, andstrangeness of the environment, all these factors, wouldreactivate the attachment system (see Bowlby 1969/1997;p. 80; p. 373), rather more often and with greater intensity.Perhaps this was the reason that displacees explored ways ofreturning to the proximity of their native habitat, and ultimatelya sizeable population (including the participants of the presentstudy) left their resettlement site at Hissar in Haryana to makenew shelters on the fringes of the Govind Sagar, a lake thatcame up due to Bhakra Dam. These efforts were risky invarious ways, for example, these habitats were in the danger-ous zones where water level often fluctuated, did not havenecessary support from the administration, and lacked basicamenities available to other citizens, such as schools, hospitalsand roads. It is however a matter of further researches howdisplacees reorganize their internal working models to adjustwith the environment (see Ishizaka 2006; Bahuguna 2008;Sharma 2009 for a variety of perceptions in context of theTehri Dam).

The struggle of the displacees of Bhakra Dam for survivalno doubt tells about human resilience, yet the contempt anddistrust inside, validated by heightened recall of memories ofloss of home in the present study, and among the displaceeselsewhere in general (Lerer and Scudder 1999), invites specialcare from mental health personnel. Furthermore, the lack ofbasic facilities to displacees even after 50 years has somethingto do with the framing of policies of aftercare of such resettledpopulations. Studies on the displacees of dams, along with thepresent one, indicating deleterious effects of unwilling sepa-ration from familiar habitats in the Himalayas, and partlydisappointment from unmet expectations (Lerer and Scudder1999; Kedia and Willigen, 2001; Newton 2008; Xi andHwang 2011), entail utmost sensitivity from the planners(Morrison 2010; Mathur 2011), unfortunately, still missingin the new proposals of the technocrats (see Jain et al. 2008).

Table 2 Average scores on past memory for various groups in the fourstudies, each having two factors, displacement and retrieval cue. For eachparticipant, in each study, the score on past memory is the number ofevents recalled about lost home, which ranged from zero to as many asone can recall during a session of 10 min. (Note: This paper presentsfindings on Study 3, the other articles based on Studies 1, 2 & 4 are inpreparation)

Studies Displacement Retrieval cue

Study 1 (n=100) Displacees Normal Discrete Continuous

5.78 4.12 2.22 7.68

Study 2 (n=100) Displacees Normal Neutral Relevant

4.92 4.64 2.88 6.68

Study 3 (n =100) Displacees Normal Low anger High anger

9.08 6.78 7.84 8.02

Study 4 (n=100) Displacees Normal Secure base Safe haven

6.36 3.64 4.16 5.84

Psychol Stud (January–March 2014) 59(1):1–10 7

Conclusions

The attachment system and its components, along with otherbehavioral systems, are organized hierarchically to function ina coordinated manner. The present study, for the first time,indicates utility of Bowlby’s attachment theory to understandsocial pain of loss of home among the displacees of hydro-power project. It is this particular aspect, perception of threatin the environment (for secure base and safe haven ), andconsequent reorganization required in the internal controlsystem, where behavioral mediation has significance(Bowlby 1969/1997). An animal or a human being, all areequipped with systems that minutely map its surroundingenvironment. The workingmodels developed by an organism,after minute appraisal, helps in the proper functioning ofvarious systems. Borrowing Young’s hypothesis of workingmodel, Bowlby (1969/1997; p. 81) wrote that cells in the brainprovide a set of such components, which are assembledthrough learning in the form of a model (a plan of action).

The challenge for a social scientist is the resolution of threeimportant dilemmas of development-induced displacement:public interest, self-determination, and equality (Penz 2002),so that the framing of universal convention for the InternallyDisplaced Persons (Kalin 2006) becomes reality. But above all,the faster rate of cultural evolution stresses natural ecosystemsas well as biological systems within us. The innate and learnedcomponents set limits of a system in an organism, an extremelyimportant factor in behavioral adjustability (Tinbergen 1973).Referring to it as Tinbergen’s doubt, Crook (2009), with anexceptional work on the socio-ecology of the peasants of thewestern Himalayas to his credit, has further underlined thisdoubt. If this appears utopian, our findings on the heightenedrecall of past memory among the displacees of the Bhakra Dam,is a ground reality.

Our aim is to apprise policy makers to be sensitive to thelong lasting negative consequences of the loss of home, as is thecase with the Holocaust survivors. This is possible if policiesare framed where resettlement is conceptualized as a process tobuild a new secure base in line with the principles of Bowlby’sattachment theory. The displacees of Bhakra Dam, suffering theloss of home for about 50 years, indicate the long lasting effectsof unwilling separations from the familiar habitat. Field studieson populations, where attachment relationships had been sev-ered permanently remains almost non-existent, the only excep-tion being sporadic work on Holocaust survivors living invarious parts of the world, which indicates devastating effectsof such unwilling separations from habitats of human living.Bowlby’s attachment theory provides a basis to explore theconsequences of these unwilling separations throughout thedevelopmental span on individual and the key process involves‘internal working models’ or representations of attachmentrelationships stored as (autobiographical) memories. The thrustof the studies on attachment theory among adults in the last

three to four decades, have been entirely on exploration ofindividual differences in the attachment styles. To our knowl-edge Bowlby’s attachment theory has been applied for the firsttime to understand psychological effects of forcible displace-ment and in a way support risks and reconstruction model ofCernea with broad sociological conceptualization.

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