In this article we will discuss about:- 1. Meaning of Rehabilitation 2. Components of Rehabilitation 3. Process 4. Psycho-Sociological Consequences of Displacement.
Meaning of Rehabilitation:
Rehabilitation is more often understood as economic rather than psycho-sociological phenomenon resulting from displacement. It is normally perceived as a ‘planned change effort’. In a strict sense, it implies that, while there is a change the overall effects of the change is to restore the situation to its original condition.
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Though rehabilitation is sought for development but its nature is quite different from other developmental processes. All developmental efforts imply planned change to improve existing conditions, whereas rehabilitation is designed to restore the status quo. This makes it imperative to understand the term rehabilitation in a much wider perspective, and its components which make it different from other developmental processes.
Components of Rehabilitation:
Rehabilitation can be described as having the following components:
(i) Antecedent conditions – Displacement and rehabilitation of people are required when certain ‘antecedent conditions’ exist in the situation.
For example, National long-term interest for socioeconomic development of the country leading to commissioning of various developmental projects; National calamities, such as, war and political turmoil;
Natural disasters, such as, flood, earthquakes, drought and also man-made disasters.
(ii) Cognitive state of the individuals involved, i.e., their perception and awareness of the situation, such as:
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a. Fears and apprehensions about the possible problems to be faced by the affected people.
b. Fears and apprehensions about their acceptability by the host population.
c. Fears and apprehensions about fulfilment of government promises with respect to providing facilities.
d. Attitudes about various ‘developmental projects’ and about ‘government’.
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(iii) Affective state of the individuals involved in the situation – Perception of a situation may affect the people in a variety of ways such as, developing anxiety, psychological tension, stress and hostility.
(iv) Manifest behavior – Psychological effects manifest themselves in variety of behavioural patterns. These range from passive resistance to active resistance, overt aggression and finally agreeing for displacement under stress leading to many other dysfunctional behaviour patterns resulting in poor mental health.
(v) Rehabilitation – Displacement leading to rehabilitation of people through various rehabilitation programmes such as- Allotment of land – houses, monetary compensation, occupation and many other facilities required for resettlement.
(vi) Further demands by people from government – Any rehabilitation results in an aftermath which manifests itself in further demands by people from government.
Rehabilitation Process:
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Drawing upon the ways in which components of rehabilitation are described, it is apparent that, displacement leading to rehabilitation can be described as a dynamic process having definite sequential stages coming one after the other. Each stage has its own characteristics which influences the process in its own way. Displacement leads to deterioration of the situation in the initial stages and subsequently to restoration of the situation, quite close to status quo.
Rehabilitation process comprises the following six stages:
(i) Latent Stage:
It refers to the “Antecedent condition”, for example, commissioning of developmental project leading to displacement and rehabilitation of population. The nature of antecedent condition will determine the ways of handling the situation in terms of “preparedness measures” and “coping strategies” by the government, other agencies, and affected people and also by society.
These will influence the characteristic pattern of behaviour of individuals at the next stage, which will also accordingly affect the “Preparedness measures and Coping strategies” for the subsequent stages leading to rehabilitation thereby characterized by certain stable aspects of condition, perceptions, affects and behaviour.
(ii) Cognitive Stage:
Fears and apprehensions such as:
a. Loss of home
b. Loss of primary sources of gratification of needs
c. Fear of change of basic style of living
d. Loss or change in occupation (source of Livelihood)
e. Fear of adjustment in new jobs
f. Loss of social relationships
g. Fear of acceptability by the host population
h. Lack of confidence in ‘Government initiatives’ and ‘Programmes’.
All the above listed fears and apprehensions are the natural outcomes of displacement and are unavoidable. These must be acknowledged by all concerned. Correct diagnosis of the situation, appropriate ‘preparedness measures’ and ‘coping strategies’ to minimize them, can greatly reduce the severity of onset of next stage of the rehabilitation process.
(iii) Affective Stage:
Perceived fears and threats may or may not affect the people equally under normal circumstances. These come on the surface and show up in various forms, such as, anxiety, tension, and stress and may also lead to hostility. Effective handling of ‘affective stages’ would accordingly affect the state of next stage of the rehabilitation process.
(iv) Manifest Stage:
Degree of psychological tension/stress will greatly influence the behavioural patterns at the manifest stage. People’s passive and active resistance to ‘evacuating the home land’, and demand for better compensation may lead to aggressive behaviour and mass agitation. Quite often they finally agree for displacement under great stress leading to further deterioration of mental health.
(v) Rehabilitation Stage:
This stage finally leads to rehabilitating displaced people through various ‘Rehabilitation Programmes’.
(vi) Rehabilitation Aftermath:
Howsoever effectively the various stages of rehabilitation process are handled; it will still lead to an ‘aftermath’ in terms of further demands by the people leading to increased dependency on the government.
Psycho-Sociological Consequences of Displacement:
It is universally acknowledged that displacement is stressful and sometimes leads to traumatic conditions. In spite of this, the psycho-sociological issues have been neglected in the displacement of people under various projects. Rehabilitation programmes often lack specific components of the aspects of mental health of people. There is no evidence of discussion of the mental health problems and its implications for assessing cost and benefit of development projects.
A broadly defined psycho-sociological perspective can have important implications for designing rehabilitation policies. It allows us to anticipate inevitable problems that result from displacement of population to assess the consequence of particular policies.
A systematic analysis of what happens to individuals, who are subjected to displacement from their homeland and require rehabilitation, will help us to provide the ways and means to minimize the adverse impact of involuntary displacement on mental health of people. Fears and apprehensions are usually perceived as potential threats by the affected population.
These are natural and constitute the major components of displacement process resulting in dysfunctional behaviour patterns. These must be considered by all concerned involved in the management of the process. It is imperative to have in-depth understanding of the consequences and subsequent careful handling, to minimize their adverse impact on mental health of people. This can be studied at two levels- Individual level and Group level.
1. Impact at Individual Level:
(a) Loss or Change in Primary Sources of Satisfaction of Needs:
The major fear associated with displacement is, loss or change in the primary sources of satisfaction of needs. All behaviours are instigated by needs and are directed towards goals that can satisfy these needs.
Personality has a system of organized needs such as:
(1) Physiological needs, e.g., thirst, hunger, sex etc.,
(2) Safety needs, e.g., security and order,
(3) Social needs, e.g., need to belong, identification and love,
(4) Esteem needs, e.g., need to achieve, need to control, self-respect and
(5) Self-actualisation, e.g., need for identity and self- fulfilment.
Physiological needs are largely determined by the innate factors but others are greatly influenced by the nature of the social environment. Human beings are constantly seeking for pleasures, reflected through satisfaction of above mentioned needs in their unique manner through their established sources of livelihood, social relations, social status, kinship ties, etc.
Any change or blockage, though temporarily, in the manner of satisfying these needs, will result in varying degrees of tension and stress in different people. Therefore, social environment together with the satisfaction of needs in an acceptable manner, become extremely important.
For example, the satisfaction of the security need which constitutes an important need among the hierarchy of needs in Indian culture is greatly affected by the process of displacement. The compulsive change in the basic style of satisfaction of these needs is usually not welcomed by the people and hence often resisted.
People may start perceiving themselves as having low self-worth, ‘self-respect’ and develop ‘negative attitude’ towards themselves. In an extreme situation, they may also develop identity crisis. All these result in lack of adjustment, leading to psychological stress or shock or trauma. The major factor associated with this is loss or change in the sources of occupation/livelihood leading to varying degrees of occupational redundancy and loss of social relationships.
(b) Occupational Disruption:
Fear of change of source of livelihood leads to ‘Occupational disruption’. This may lead to low to high degree of Occupational redundancy. This loss, even if substituted by the new ways of managing earning of livelihood, often leads to a state of mental stress.
Loss of agricultural land by the landowners, though made up by ‘Economic compensation’ and also new occupational opportunities under various ‘Rehabilitation Programmes’ by the government, could not fulfil the psychological loss such as, social status enjoyed through Feudalistic culture, and the village leadership leading to psychological satisfaction. All these sources of satisfaction of needs usually get blocked by the relocation process in the new environment.
Loss of land and property is a blow to the oustees, who are unable to secure an alternative source of livelihood because of lack of education and skill. Evidence suggests that many development projects created new occupational opportunities but the people were unable to get the share in the benefits of the project.
The displaced persons, by and large, were forced into daily wage labour, for example, the persons displaced by the Pong Dam, who returned to Himachal Pradesh or decided to migrate to other states, in the hope of comparatively more comfortable life, were forced to become landless migrant labourers.
Another example is that of 16,080 tribal families from 170 villages displaced by Ukai-Kakarpur Project on river Tapi in Gujarat. Surveys reported that 42 per cent of all the families, landed or landless were forced to migrate for work for varying periods of time, most of them in the sugarcane factories. All these occupational disruptions, especially loss of job/sources of livelihood, lead people to experience feelings of insecurity, defunctness, powerlessness and loss of self-confidence, leading to stress and in extreme cases, to psychological shock.
The change in the job is also associated with variety of problems, such as, lack of skill and interest in the new job. Though people are provided training for the new jobs under various Occupational Rehabilitation Programmes, yet they are unable to use their potentials which demotivates them in the new jobs. They also develop feelings of low Self-efficacy, Self-esteem, Self-management, Self-mentoring, and Alienation, leading to a great stressful situation.
(c) Loss of Social Relationships:
Displacement also forces individuals to change the pattern of social relationships; individuals have to undergo an entire process of resocialization and adjustment in a new social milieu. This leads to loss of existing social relationships. Kinship ties which are important sources of individual’s gratification of social needs are in no way less important for an individual’s survival.
Evidence also suggests that the oustees are sometimes rejected by the parent group. The hostile behaviour of host population further makes the resocialization difficult, for the oustees. Having faced rejection by the parent group and unacceptance by the host population, the oustees go through a tremendous psychological trauma and face an identity crisis which sometimes leads people to go for second displacement.
Compensation Package:
Inadequate or in appropriate compensation package also results in psychological tension/stress among the oustees. It has been reported that adequate or inappropriate compensation packages to the oustees have also resulted in lot of psychological stress for the people. The illiterates found it difficult to utilize the compensation amount appropriately. This has led to social evils like alcoholism, gambling and prostitution.
2. Impact at Group Level:
Displacement also results in disintegration of family, other social groups and occupational groups. Evidence from Augucha Mines of Hindustan Zinc Ltd., at Bhilwara, Rajasthan suggests that providing occupation to one representative of each evacuee’s family by HZL, helped families, but created family tension resulting in breaking of joint family system and difficulties in getting match in their own community for their children.
All these psycho-sociological factors discussed above, result in psychological tensions, stress, hostility, sometimes leading to trauma. These get manifested in variety of dysfunctional behaviours leading to mental ill health and sometimes to mental sickness.
Management of Displacement and Rehabilitation Process:
In order to achieve the efficacy of various objectives of resettlement and rehabilitation projects, minimizing the adverse effects of displacement must form the primary focus. The success of these projects depends upon, how effectively the displacement is managed and the various rehabilitation programmes are perceived, as appropriate and adequate sources of gratification of needs by the affected population. This makes it imperative to plan, design and implement strategies as ‘preparedness measures’ and ‘rehabilitation programmes’, to cope with negative aspects of displacement, at the appropriate stages of the rehabilitation process.
Need for a ‘National Policy’:
Recognizing the adverse impact on human beings, the sufferings and hardships caused by involuntary settlement, the World Bank Policy states as its first requirement, that “whenever feasible, the involuntary resettlement must be avoided or minimized and alternative developmental solutions must be explored”.
Notwithstanding this policy, there have been cases, when projects have been designed and approved without examining such possible alternatives. Lack of provision of psycho-sociological consideration in the Land Acquisition Law 1994 and also Land Acquisition Amendment Act 1984, further weakens the implementation of the Bank Policy.
Though rehabilitation has normally been envisaged as a planned change effort, evidences suggest that implementation of each project, called for an ad hoc policy of its own. The Bank Policy can be made effective only, if a well-defined National Policy is designed.
Introducing of psycho-sociological perspective in the Land Acquisition Law will also greatly enhance the efficacy of bank policy. Therefore, the need for a well-defined national policy is a first prerequisite for effective implementation of resettlement and rehabilitation projects.
(d) Manifest Stage:
Careful and timely handling of cognitive and affective stage through appropriate preparedness measures would greatly reduce the psychological tension and stress generating dysfunctional behaviour at the manifest stage. In many cases the government has taken an unduly long time in deciding the compensation package, forcibly evacuated the people and acquired the land.
Evidences suggest that people have shown their actual resistance and resorted to mass agitation under certain development projects. Such a situation can be effectively handled through negotiations between government and affected population. All infrastructural facilities such as land, houses, schools, hospitals, etc., should be provided to people before displacement. This would help in minimizing resistance.
(e) Rehabilitation Stage:
Rehabilitation programmes necessarily need to he designed according to the felt needs of the affected population. Data about population, procured earlier as preparedness measures, must be appropriately used for designing the programmes.
Rehabilitation programmes should make use of available skills and talents and also focus upon providing new skills and competencies to the affected population, to equip them to face the outer world.
Efforts should be made to develop settler’s commitment to self-support and sustenance, to avoid onset of settlers dependency syndrome psycho-therapeutic/health programmes in the form of family counselling, stress reducing exercises, community programmes and other socio- occupational programmes should form an essential complement of the rehabilitation package along with adequate compensation package.
The perception of compensation package, as adequate and good, is greatly influenced by, how effectively the psychological tension, stress and traumatic situation is handled through these programmes.
(f) Rehabilitation Aftermath:
Effective management of earlier stages will greatly reduce the further demands by the people from the government.