The present century marked as the ‘development’ era is essentially an era of uprooting and involuntary migrations. In the name of development mi/lions of people especially in third world countries who are apparently the target of development, are displaced and expelled from their homeland and occupations. This expulsion does not bring them closer to development even as prescribed by the ideologues of the so-called developed world whose brainchild is such processes and projects. On the contrary, they are more marginalised and distanced from the mainstream development. The resultant schism, it gives rise to, poses a serious question of ‘who’ gets ‘what’ ‘where’ and ‘how’. The present paper examines the issue of involuntary migration in India with the help of a case study of a river valley project.
