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Disastrous Development:
The Narmada Report
For
last 14 years, the tribals, peasants, men, women and children of the Narmada
valley have waged a heroic and determined struggle against the attempts of
the central and state governments, backed initially by the World Bank, to
construct a massive multi-purpose project across the Narmada river.
The
valley of Narmada river, which marks a rift zone where the Satpuda and
Vindhya ranges meet, has been home to ancient, pre-historic and historical
civilization. It is one of the areas that perhaps holds some of the secrets
of human evolution, as the only remains of the homo-erectus group in
the sub-continent have been found here. Mainly tribal communities such as
the Gonds, Korkus, Bhils and Bhilalas inhabit the forested, hilly stretches
of the valley. Large peasant populations and some medium and large urban
settlements inhabit the rich, fertile plains.
The
valley and its people are now threatened with submergence by the massive
multi-purpose project -- the Narmada Valley Development Project (NVDP) which
comprises 30 large dams, 135 medium dams and 3000 small dams on the Narmada
and her tributaries. The Sardar Sarovar Project dam (SSP), one of the
biggest, is located at the end of the river in Gujarat and is at the
centre of the controversy. It is scheduled to submerge 245 villages and a
huge forest area and will render 40,000 families homeless in the three
states of Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh.
The
SSP will also have the world’s largest canal system of over 75000 kms,
which will further add to the displacement. The future of those cultivators
who will be deprived of all or most of their land due to the canal is
equally bleak. The Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal (NWDT) (1969-79) has not
recognised these people as Project Affected and hence does not consider them
eligible for rehabilitation.
Already
the dams that have been built as part of the NVDP, notably Bargi dam in
Jabalpur, Tawa dam in Hoshangabad and the Barna, Sukta and Kolar dams have
displaced lakhs of people. Most of them are now daily wage earners, while
some of the affected womenfolk are forced to join prostitution. Narmada
Sagar dam will have twice the devastating effect of SSP and is already 25
percent built! Other dams like the Maheshwar, Veda and Goin are also in the
pipeline.
Initially
resistance to the project was organised as state wide groups of SSP oustees
-- the Narmada Dharangrast Samiti in Maharashtra, the Narmada Asargrast
Sangarsh Samiti in Gujarat and the Narmada Ghati Navnirman Samiti in Madhya
Pradesh – within a short span of time they all merged together and gave
birth to the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA). The subsequent struggle against
the SSP and other big dams of NVDP is now well known not only in this
country, but internationally too, and has brought into focus the crucial
question of who stands to benefit from the ‘large dams/ mega projects’
development model being pursued by imperialist agencies like the World Bank,
the governments of the imperialist countries and the comprador rulers of the
Third World.
The
controversy over the SSP has come into public focus once again following the
recent Supreme Court decision to vacate its earlier stay and allow the
height of the dam to be raised from 80 metres to 88 metres (including hump)
on the basis of the affidavit of the Gujarat government regarding promises
of rehabilitation of the displaced people; and the subsequent jal
samarpan agitation taken up by the NBA, where a number of the oustees
and the NBA leader Medha Patkar had declared their willingness to sacrifice
their lives if the government ignored the protests and allowed the waters of
the dam to submerge new villages this monsoon. The agitation received a
further impetus when Booker Prize winner, novelist Arundhati Roy launched a
public campaign against the project.
Against
this background a fact-finding team of All India Peoples Resistance Forum (AIPRF)
visited the Narmada valley between 17 – 22, July. The team sought to
express solidarity with the people struggling against the Sardar Sarovar
project, under the banner of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) and also to
gather first hand information of the project affected people in the wake of
the recent Supreme Court decision. The team, during its visit talked to the
affected people in the resettlement colonies, people from the villages in
the submergence area, people affected by canals, activists and sympathisers
of NBA and other concerned persons.
The
People Speak
Interaction
with the people in the valley revealed that the governments of the concerned
states have hardly any intention or desire to rehabilitate the large number
of rural families belonging to disadvantaged sections of society who are
going to be displaced by the project. It has taken all routes to cheat
people. In the first place, the criteria of identifying project-affected
families have been narrowed only to those families who would come under
submergence by the dam. Even these families have not been rehabilitated
properly. In the second place, where the ‘land for land’ compensation
principle has been accepted, the quality of land provided is not at all
commensurate with the land that has been acquired. Thirdly, when villagers
are settled at other places, they were not provided with adequate
infrastructure, which existed in their original places. Fourthly, in
majority of the cases, the cash compensation provided for land taken over
for canal was abysmally low.
(i) Mukhdi
The
villagers of Mukhdi village were resettled in an area, which was more than
hundred kilometres away. Most of the families returned to the Mukhdi village
first because the land they were provided was infertile, secondly the amount
of land Promised by government were not given, thirdly, families were
separated in several places. All these provisions were against the Tribunal
award.
There
are about 200 families in village Mukhdi who were resettled at a distance of
more than 100 kms from their original lands at Ambawadi in Dediapala taluka
of Narbada district. Last year their lands were submerged. Says 76 year old
Tulsibhai Sanabhai Taravi, “Due to the submergence I had to rebuild my
house at a higher place (on the hill). This year this house will also be
drowned. Many officers came, but the government did not help us at all.
“We
two brothers had 10 acres of land in the village. At Ambawadi the government
allotted us 5 acres of land each. My brother died and his son is doing
agriculture there. Here we are growing jowar, makai (maize), urad, bajari
etc. At Mukhdi we were getting very good production without any fertilizer,
insecticide and pesticide. But, At Ambawadi the land is barren and we have
to spend more money on fertilizer and insecticides etc. We also can’t rear
cattle because there are no grazing grounds and fodder is not available
while here we can store the fodder for one year and also the cattle can
graze on the hill tops. Here everybody had minimum 5 acres of land, with
some families having more than that. And also this land is fertile land
while there the government has allotted each adult member of the family 5
acres of land. Even those who were having more land were also given 5 acres
of land. But if the land is measured properly than to majority of families
it comes to be less than 5 acres. What is more important is that land is
barren land with no irrigation facilities.
“Not
only the village population has been divided and settled at far off places
from each other but also the members of each family has been resettled far
from each other. And they have allotted only 5 guntas of land for building a
house. Neither there is water supply nor there is a hand pump, nor they have
supplied even a tin shed. There is no water for irrigation and there can
never be because the village does not fall in the command area.”
Not
surprisingly out of the 200 families from Mukhdi, while about 35 families
did go to Ambawadi, all 35 families have returned back and are now willing
to risk death in the rising waters rather than shift to Ambawadi.
Jaitibhai
Chekhjibhai, also of Mukhdi comes from a family of four brothers together
owning 15 acres of land. Besides meagre earning from agriculture he also
works as a wage labourer. This year the family’s entire crop will be
submerged.
Though
his father and the brothers including him together got 20 acres of land, all
the four families have been settled about 10 to 15 kilometres from each
other that also more than 100 kilometres from their original homes. While
one brother is cultivating on 5 acres of land there, we have left the
remaining 15 acres of land and returned to our original village because that
land there was not suitable for cultivation.
Tulsibhai
Sonabhai, an educated peasant has studied upto seventh standard and is
married with three children. His wife is educated upto 9th
standard. They are four brothers, with less than 10 acres of land. “In
Mukhdi our crops were submerged last year and this year also our remaining 3
acres of land will be submerged. My three brothers got 5 acres each, but in
government records my age is shown as 8 years though I have three children.
Here in this village there is no school. There in Ambawadi though there is a
school in the old village, they do not admit our children in that school.”
Tulsibhai
avers that while all the tribals belonging to the Taravi and Vasava jati (caste)
have joined the struggle, the upper castes in the Panchayat have stayed
aloof. He declares, “We shall die by drowning ourselves along with our
families.”
Says
Tulsibhai, “We have held numerous meetings in all the villages, to try and
cure the ‘pain in our abdomen’. We have even gone to Baroda, Ahmedabad,
Badwani, Delhi, and Bhopal etc. regularly to petition the authorities. But
if the government won’t listen to us then we will drown and die. We have
to die. We are poor Adivasis. The dam is near completion and we are tired
now. We have experienced the submergence, but what will happen to the
farmers of M.P. with large landholdings, even about 50-500 acres of land.
Government has given nothing to us and will not give anything to the M.P.
farmers.”
Not
surprisingly for the struggling people of the area Mukhdi has become a
centre of struggle. And there is an air of confidence that they will win the
struggle under the leadership of Medha Patkar.
(ii) Vadgaon
Rashikbhai
is an NBA activist and stays in Kevadia colony. He is a landless Brahmin by
caste and lived in Vadgaon, his in-laws’ village. According to him, “my
village was one of the first to be totally submerged in the reservoir water
and all the families of the village were shifted to other far flung areas at
different places. After the submergence of my village and of my house I did
not receive the five acres of land promised to me. I resolved to fight. So I
joined the NBA. I fought for my right to be considered a PAP. But the
government officials turned a deaf ear to my demand. Then the District Court
gave a verdict in my favour but now the Gujarat govt. has taken the case to
High Court.
“Now
my wife and children are staying in a quarter in a Vasahat which is about 50
kilometers from the dam site. My wife and daughter are working as daily wage
labourers.”
Rasikbhai told the
team that the NBA enjoyed support of more than 75% of the people and would
resort to various forms of struggle even if they lost the fight in the
Supreme Court.
Another
village with similar tales is Undava. Many of the peasants have lost land to
the SSP canal, but under the award of the Tribunal are not eligible for land
compensation as those affected by the dam are. Those who are lucky received
a meagre monetary compensation at the official rate (Rs. 2,000 per acre)
which is well below the market rate of above Rs35, 000 per acre.
(iii) Undava
In
the Undava village, people complained that they have not been given even
one-tenth the value of their land, while many families had been paid no
compensation at all. Many of the villagers were promised that one family
member from each family of the affected would be given job, however, this
promise has not been fulfilled. As a result of similar plight in many other
canal affected villages there are nearly 1,50,000 petitions from canal
affected families were lying before the Gujarat High Court.
Most
of the 200 families in this village are tribals - Hindu Taravi or Hindu
Vasava
Gopal,
a young shopkeeper in the village told us that most of those who lost their
land are either working as agricultural labour at a daily wage of Rs 15-20,
or go to Surat to as contract or casual labourers to earn their livelihood.
“We have demanded that we too should receive land in compensation as the
other project affected families have received, but leave alone that, not
even a single person was absorbed in government service to compensate for
their loss. Hence we are with the NBA and Gujarat Visthapit Sangharash
Samiti (G.V.S.S.) for land, more compensation and other demands.”
(iv) Koti
The
team also visited the six villages whose land was acquired for the
construction of the colony for the officials in 1962-64.
One
of these was Koti village. The land of this village along with other 5
villages was acquired in early sixties for building a helipad initially and
later on for the colony of the officials of the SSP.
Prabhubhai,
who is also a part timer activist of NBA, informed us that “in 1961
Jawahar Lal Nehru was to come for inauguration of the dam. At that time land
was acquired for a helipad. Later they acquired more land for the
construction of a colony for the dam officials from six villages i.e.
Kevaria, Koti, Vagria, Gora, Navangaon and Limli.”
The
entire land of Koti was acquired and 90% land from the other villages has
either been acquired or has been submerged in ponds for the colony.
Prabhubhai continues, “Our demand is that we should also be treated as
PAP. Land should be given for land. The land which has already been acquired
but is not being used, should be returned back to the peasants.”
The
villagers are members of the NBA, which has a 9-member committee of these
six villages. Prabhu is one of the committee members. “We will go on
fighting till we get our rights. Some of us are even prepared for jal
samarpan. There is no other way out because the government does not
listen to our demands. Since 1961 we are demanding land. And for last 14
years we are consistently struggling. They impose Cr.P.C.144 and do not
allow us even to meet the officials. The people of six villages are united.
“In
1990 Chimanbhai Patel came here in a public meeting. He promised that he
would consider the affected people of six villages as PAP, if he wins. He
became the chief minister at that time. But he also deceived us. Now our
people will boycott the politicians and the elections.”
Shankarbhai
Manjhibhai a villager from Koti narrated a similar tale of woe. “We were
four brothers, together owning 12 acres of land, all of which was acquired
in 1961-62. The total compensation we received for the standing crop was
Rs.2381\- only. Now all of us are working as daily wage labourers. Earlier
we had food grains and other needs for the entire year and some surplus for
the market also. Now a daily wage labourer gets Rs.22/- or equivalent grain,
along with one meal. If we work at the dam site one may get Rs.25 to 35 per
day. But usually the contractors bring labour from outside. Hence we are
demanding that we should also be treated as PAP and receive land for land as
compensation.
The Resttlement Colonies -- Living in Ovens and Caves
(v) Vasana and Malu
The
team also visited the vasana vasahat (Resettlement colony) which is near
Navsari town, Narbada district and is about 50 kilometres from the dam site.
About 2-3 kilometres off the metalled road, this colony of tin sheds gives
one the impression that the landholders (Patils) of Vasana village have been
provided very cheap young male and female labour at their doorsteps. The
inhabitants of the colony narrated horrifying stories of their plight after
their village Vadgaon got totally submerged. Vadgaon was the first village,
which was submerged due to construction of the Sardar Sarovar Project.
Nearly seventy families from this village were settled in Malu Vasahat
offering five acres of land each. This land was barren, uneven, rocky and
containing wild grass. So the uprooted Tadvi tribe from Vadgaon could not
plough this land for livelihood. Besides these families had to face the
hostile Nayak Tribe, which harassed them and looted, their belongings teased
their women folk and chased them away from the area.
They
told us, “We are about 70 families who were settled at Malu Vasahat in
Sankhera taluka of Vadodara district in 1991. On the one hand the land
allotted was not good, there was no facility for water, no education was
available, and on the other hand the local Nayak community was very hostile
towards us.
“So
in 1992, 24 families returned back to Vadgaon and government again resettled
these families at Dharmapuri in Dahbol taluka. In 1993, another 22 families
returned back to their ancestral village, Gadher. Meanwhile police tried to
force the remaining 31 families to stay on. But one night, fed up with the
hostile environment, we dismantled our houses and started our return
journey. It was the rainy season. We had to halt here with the people known
to us in the adjacent Gadher Vasahat. We came to know that this land belongs
to the Nigam and is lying vacant. Then we decided to stay here. So, we are
here in these tin sheds for last 14 months.”
Bhagwan
Bhai Dhaura Bhai, a local Kabir-panthi priest is one of the 31families who
have resettled at Vasna-1 in a plot of 4.25 acre of land. He had 13 acres of
fertile land at his ancestral village Vadgaon and was self-sufficient as
other families. Now he is compelled to reside in tin sheds along with his
family members and milch and other animals, under single roof constructed by
the state government. These tin sheds become so hot in summer and so cold in
winter that one can easily say that they are living in iron ovens and caves.
Their
plight is truly pitiable. Animals, family members, fodder and kitchen
everything coexists under a single tin shed. There are no education, health
or water facilities and they have no choice but to work in the fields of
Patels of Vasana village merely for Rs.15 to 20 per day without any meal.
Some of the women work in the houses of landlords (Patels) just for Rs. 50
per month with one meal per day.
But
the authorities refuse to recognise their existence. They have not been
allotted any land and are being compelled to return back to the Malu Vasahat!
Meanwhile in the official records, the rehabilitation of Vadgaon is
complete!
In
the nearby Gadher Vasahat as well, though the displaced people have
‘officially’ been ‘allotted’ 5 acres of land per family, basic
amenities are missing. The land is not of good quality and irrigation is
virtually absent. The displaced peasants are forced to work as agricultural
labour at very low wage rates i.e.Rs.15 to 20 per day or as ‘bonded’
labour for an amount of Rs.4000 to 6000 per year without meals.
Other Affected Areas
During
the team’s visit we passed the historic Hapeshwar Mandir (in Narbada
district of Gujarat) situated on the right bank of Narmada and about 60-70
K.M. from Dam site.
The
Pujari at the mandir told us that last year also the mandir was partially
submerged. On 18th July the water in reservoir was rising. By the
20th when we passed the site again, the mandir, whose plinth is
at the height of 101 metres, was already partly submerged and by the end of
this monsoon will disappear under the water. A nearby factory complex
(abandoned when it began to get flooded a few years ago), which was
partially submerged on the 18th had virtually disappeared by the
20th and even the rooftop were not visible.
Disturbed women not only displaced
The
life of Adivasi women in the villages of Narmada valley is very hard. There
are no basic facilities like drinking water, health care, education or
transport in the villages. The Adivasi women have to carry drinking water
everyday from at least more than 2-km distance. This work has to be done
invariably by women in the tribes called Tadvi and Vasawa.
The
Adivasis live in joint families. Their fields surround their houses, with
only a narrow snake like path to walk in and out. There are no doors to the
main entrance of the house. Only a small kitchen in a corner of the
mud hut has doors. The cattle live along with them in the corridor.
The children, the aged and the youth have to live together in the house
without doors or privacy. It is again the duty of the women to look after
every aspect of the house.
The
Adivasi women in these villages not only take the responsibility of keeping
the house running, but also work hard in the fields. Though men also work in
the fields, women have to work both in the fields and the houses, apart from
looking after the cattle and collecting the forest produce. It is women who
collect firewood, fodder for their cattle and fruits for their children. In
this way, the Adivasi women depend more on the forest for their livelihood
than on regular agriculture and other sorts of work. In the season they pick
bidipatta (the tendu leaves), which help them earn a little savings for the
rest of the year. The women also pick up mahua, a kind of flower with which
they make liquor. This is also another important activity for women in their
own land.
When
the team talked to Jantebai Jagachhibai of Mukhdi, she said, “The lands
given by the government at the rehabilitation site are barren. No one can
grow crops without high doses of fertilisers and pesticides in those lands.
We can’t afford all these. We can’t get fodder for our cattle at the
rehabilitation sites.” Jantebai’s husband and his three brothers have 20
acres of land in the village that is slated to be submerged. While some
families in the village were given agricultural land at the rehabilitation
sites, 15 km away from the village, her family has not been given any land
so far. Talking about her family position now Jantebai says, “We are
pushed into everlasting uncertainity by the government. We don’t really
want to move away from our village. Why should we?” “But now we are
thinking of accepting the land at the rehabilitation site only for the sake
of the survival of our children,” Jantibai goes on, “What else can we do
now?”
All
the families of Mukhri village belong to Tadvi tribe. There is no health
centre in the village. The government stopped providing any facilities
in this village pressurising the people to leave the village. They have to
go to Kevadia colony for treatment of any small or serious disease. There
are poor transportation facilities.
While
many families from the village are yet to be rehabilitated, the conditions
of those who are brought to the rehabilitation siteS are worse. Again women
are the worst effected. Women, who were relatively better off, though with
many limitations, in their own village in the lap of the river and the
forest, are forced to turn themselves into household servants cleaning the
clothes, houses and utensils of local Patedars, who are rich farmers or
landlords. This total a strange way of life for them. These women get Rs.
65/- per month and a meal a day. Women also work for daily wages in the
fields of the local landlords. They work for abysmally low wages of Rs. 15/-
per day. In the off season their men have to leave for Surat and other
industrial cities in search of work . Because of the low wages even the
children in the family are forced to go for daily wages. As the women are
living in the insecure, unsafe and new places at the rehabilitation site,
they are subjected to sexual harassment by the contractors, landlords and
their henchmen.
Champa
Behan told us that the entire family has to go without food if on any day
they don’t get work. She reiterates that after moving to the
rehabilitation site they cannot afford to stay back home even when they are
seriously ill. From the words of Champa Behan and other women it becomes
clear that women are doubly burdened in the case of displacement.
On
the whole, the Adivasis of the Narmada valley affected by the Sardar Sarovar
Project have not only lost their social, economic and cultural roots, but
they, and especially the women, have been transplanted into a strange and
oppressive setting. Sexual harassment, strange ways of life, and work are
not only the reasons for the fear and intimidation they experience, but also
because of the miserable economic conditions that have been forced on them.
Even after they are shifted to the rehabilitation sites the Adivasi women
are still responsible for collecting firewood, carrying drinking water and
feeding the children. The patriarchy in their society gets reinforced by
acquiring more arid forms of it from the Hindu social fabric of the plain
areas people. The women who lost their forest and the herbs, roots and
fruits are suffering at the rehabilitation centre with malnutrition and
anaemia. We must not miss the point that even at the rehabilitation sites
the government is not providing drinking water facility to the Adivasi women
from whom the river is wrenched away by the same agency. Even here women
have to pot their drinking water from several kilometres away.
Jalsindhi
and Domkhedi
Betrayed
by the government and now abandoned even by the Court, the people of the
villages that are now threatened with submergence are determined not to move
even at the risk of facing submergence. The fighting spirit of people at the
Satyagraha site of Domkheri in Maharashtra and Jalsindhi in Madhya
Pradesh was quite visible. (Subsequent events when the waters rose to
threaten the village, and over 40 NBA members and supporters stood in
swirling knee deep waters for over 12 hours before they were detained by the
police is ample testimony to this fact.)
The
Development Debate
The
struggle against the Narmada Valley Project which began as opposition to one
single dam, gradually became part of a larger movement that raised a very
basic question – who has really benefited for the so-called development
undertaken by the Indian ruling classes in the past 50 years. As a result,
the 50 million people who had been displaced by similar projects in the past
five decades and had disappeared from public view have been virtually
resurrected from the dead.
The
questions raised in the course of this movement has fuelled opposition to
all the development plans of the comprador rulers, and especially challenged
a number of mega-projects taken up by multinational corporations with the
backing of the government in the post liberalisation period. No more are the
people of India willing to watch silently as their lands are taken away for
the construction of roads, dams, power projects, airports, factories and so
on.
In
fact no public project should be taken up by the government and any private
sector without debate and discussion among the public and every one should
be given equal opportunity to express opinion fearlessly. Such projects are
always designed to benefit a small section of the rulers and are essentially
anti-people though they are initiated in the name of the people.
False
Claims, False Hopes
The
Narmada Project is an epitome of how the fruits of development are cornered
by a small section of society while the burden is borne by the vast masses
of oppressed people. The entire project envisages the displacement of 40,000
families, the majority of them being poor tribals from the valley, while
some are the rich farmers from the fertile Nimad region of Madhya Pradesh.
The government has made many claims about the rehabilitation package for the
project affected people. But, as many reports (including this) have clearly
established, these are largely a hoax. In fact this was one of the important
reasons for the withdrawal of the project’s initiator, the World Bank,
from the project in 1991.
As
per NBA estimates, around 40,000 families are likely to be affected by the
Sardar Sarovar project if it is allowed to be completed. The financial
viability of the project which is estimated to cost around Rs 30,000 crore
is itself questionable and if the trend up to now is an indicator, it is
unlikely that the project could be completed without destroying the economy
of Gujarat. The government claims about the irrigation potential, drinking
water and power generation is far from reality. It is also to be noted that
in the original plan there was no provision for supplying drinking water to
drought prone areas of Gujarat. It was included in the project following the
stiff resistance of people against the project to create illusions among the
people of Gujarat, although there is as yet no financial provision for it.
However
the rulers have tried to divert attention from this reality by false
propaganda about the supposed benefits of the project. The ruling classes of
Gujarat have been specially active in supporting the project, and have
attempted to mobilise the masses of the state by making false claims about
the benefits of the project and those who will actually receive them.
Take
the example of drinking water. It is an important and emotional issue
everywhere and more so for the people of Gujarat, whose north-western
districts of Kutch and Saurashtra are perennially drought prone. However
this supposedly major benefit of the project did not even find mention in
the initial project reports and estimates. Even now the benefits in this
sphere appear to be arbitrary and illusory. Why else would the figures of
the so-called beneficiaries as stated in the official reports vary from time
to time? The number of beneficiaries were stated to be 28.3 million in 1983,
this rose to 32.5 million, again climbed to 40 million, but subsequently
came down again to 25.3 million in 1993.
The
same holds true for the number of villages which would get drinking water.
During the 1980s the government projected that 4719 villages would be
benefited, this rose to 7234 in 1990 and the latest figure is 8215 during
1991. None of these figures are based on any concrete study. In fact of
these 61 villages of Kutch and 149 villages in Saurashtra are deserted
villages. As per the 1983 estimates the total cost of drinking water would
be Rs 78 crore. But elsewhere the Narmada Control Authority projected the
cost as ‘a few thousand crore’. The arbitrariness of these figures is
itself an indication of the illusory nature of the benefits. When will the
drinking water reach the villages? The Gujarat government has been promising
the drought affected villages that they would receive water in a few years.
But the Central Water Resource Authority estimates that the water would not
reach Kutch before 2025. The World Bank reports also suggest that the water
would only reach the most drought affected parts which are farthest from the
project between 2020 and 2025.
All
these estimates are based on the assumption that the water from the Sardar
Sarovar is going to be used largely for irrigation and rural drinking water
schemes. However there is ample reason to doubt the veracity of this
assumption. Actually four cities – Ahmedabad, Baroda, Rajkot and Jamnagar
will receive 40% of the total water supply as per a report of the Gujarat
Water Supply and Sewerage Board of 1983. This study estimates that the per
person per day need of drinking water at 227 litres, 140 litres and 70
litres for cities with a more than one million population, other cities and
rural areas respectively. Yet elsewhere the same document also states that
only 55 litres of water per day will be supplied to the villages of Kutch
and Saurashtra.
The
Gujarat government has also claimed that 1.8 milllion hectares of land would
receive irrigation from the SSP. But the project documents also say that
only 9.24% of the total agricultural land in Saurashtra and 1.6% of the
agricultural land in Kutch will come under the SSP command area. Hence the
claim of the ‘greening of Saurashtra and Kutch’ which is used to whip us
support for the project in these parts is clearly false. Further as the
initial estimates of the annual flow of the Narmada river have subsequently
been seen to be about 20% less in actual fact, there is even a question mark
over how much water is actually available for irrigation. Many of these
estimates are also based on the entire NVDP project being completed. But as
there is no real plan for where the funds for the remaining dams will come
from, and as the World Bank estimates that the efficiency of the SSP will
reduce by 30% if the Narmada Sagar dam remains incomplete, there is every
reason to believe that the claims made of the SSP are false. The claims made
by the authorities are also based on untenable assumptions of 60% water use
efficiency, with no explanation of how they have arrived at this figure. The
actual records show that a water use efficiency figure of 45% is much more
realistic. As no proper studies of the nature of the soil, the problem of
salinity associated with the storage of large amounts of water, water
logging and other such hazards now known to be associated with the
construction and use of large dams has been done, the actual irrigation
benefits may well be 50% of what is actually claimed.
The
situation may be even worse because the government has already announced the
setting up of five star resorts, golf courses and clubs to generate revenue
for the project along the banks of the canal, and though it is expressly
disallowed in the original plan, the emergence of a number of sugar
factories along the canal means that there will be a large-scale shift to
commercial water guzzling crops like sugar cane. The World Bank, commenting
on the financial viability of the project in 1995 suggested a 20% reduction
in the number of beneficiaries and the granting of permission to ‘high
value addition” crops as a means of improving the financial viability of
the project.
When
all these factors are taken into consideration, there is every reason to
believe that the real beneficiaries of the project are other than those
officially stated. A closer look at the development of the state of Gujarat
will reveal who they really are. In the last 10-15 years there has been a
spurt in industrialisation in the golden corridor stretch between the
southern tip of Gujarat, Vapi and the capital city Ahmedabad. In this
period there has been an inflow of nearly one lakh crore of rupees into the
region. Most of this is for the highly polluting chemical industries that
are becoming unpopular in the imperialist countries, and which as per the
suggestion of former World Bank officer and present senior functionary in
the US government, Lawrence Summers, should be shifted to the Third World
where the cost of lives is substantially cheaper. Thus the entire region
needs much more water than ever before, both to sustain the growing
industrial population and to provide inputs to the factories for industrial
purposes.
Alongside
this there is also a growing agro-industrial lobby comprising a small
section of the very big, rich farmers who are shifting to the cultivation of
cash crops and the industrialists who are setting up factories for the
processing of agro-based products. The sugar lobby is one such example.
While such a lobby would not mind paying a higher cost of the water from
expensive projects like the SSP, the medium, small and marginal farmers who
cannot sustain the high costs of inputs required for commercial cash crop
farming would gradually find their activity being rendered economically
unviable. The large number of peasant suicides in recent years, mostly in
areas that have taken to commercial cash crop farming in a big way should be
a warning in itself to the medium, small and marginal farmers of Gujarat,
who are being misled into believing that the SSP is meant for their benefit.
There
can be no two opinions about the NVDP. It has to stop immediately. A project
which will cost more than Rs 40,000 crores, submerge cultivable land of
40,000 families (of which 30,000 families belong to Madhya Pradesh alone)
and render them homeless was never even discussed among the affected people,
let alone giving any weightage to their opposition. Even the highest court
of the country has taken five years to decide on the demand of the Project
Affected People that the project should be totally scrapped or at least to
be reviewed again by an independent Tribunal. The myth that in the
construction of SSP the losers are only the cultivators of Madhya Pradesh
and Maharashtra and the people of Gujarat stand to gain is patently false.
Lakhs of canal affected cultivators in Gujarat have filed petitions in
Gujarat High Court and people of Kutch and Saurashtra are gradually becoming
aware that their support is being enlisted on false grounds. In fact in
recent years, with the SSP consuming more than 80% of the annual irrigation
of the Gujarat government work on all other small and medium irrigation
projects in the state have more or less stopped during the last decade. This
alone is a telling indication of the government’s so-called concern for
the drought stricken regions and the medium and small peasants of the state.
People centred development – The Real Alternative
At a
broader level the project has also to be opposed not just for its false
claims and promises but because of the very destructive and anti-people
nature of its plans. Ever since 1947, what has passed in the name of
development is a model based on the interests of ruling classes i.e.
imperialism, comprador big bourgeoisie and landlord classes. It has involved
among other things, the neglect of the real development of the rural areas
through a comprehensive land reforms programme, and has instead uprooted
tribals and small farmers and acquired their lands in the name of a public
purpose, but actually for the further development of the big land owners and
industrialists. Further there was never any democratic processes involved in
finalising these projects, and the people who were to be displaced were
neither consulted nor considered in the actual decision making.
Nehru had in fact summed it up very nicely when he said that “big dams are
the temples of modern India.” For, just as the dalits and many OBCs were
kept out of the temples of the caste bound society of ancient India, so also
the vast majority of the oppressed people have been excluded both from the
process of planning and from the supposed benefits of these temples.
Of course all these projects had one clear logic – they promoted the
benefits of the imperialists, the local comprador capitalists and the big
landowners in that order. The imperialists offered aid to these projects, so
they not only earned interest but also an assured market for their equipment
and goods which was to be involved in the construction of these projects.
The comprador capitalists in India, who never had any aim of developing an
independent, self-reliant industrial society, got the necessary inputs like
power and water for their industries and the big landowners were able to
adopt to some limited extent the modern inputs for cash crop production and
boosting output, without radically altering the rural areas as a whole.
Further,
all these mega-projects have aided the lopsided industrialisation of the
country with the development of urban concentrations at the cost of rural
population. These urban concentrations are overcrowded, lacking in basic
amenities for the vast majority of the population and can not be equated
with real development in any way.
Added to this are the environmental destruction and long term costs involved
in these projects. The ruling classes have successfully tried to sidetrack
this issue by portraying those who raise it as being more concerned with
saving the animals and trees than with human development. While there are
some environmentalists who do raise the question in this manner the real
issue is that the failure to take into account the overall impact of the
destruction of an eco-system on long-term human development. But the ruling
classes underplay or ignore these costs, and mostly they are never taken
into account while calculating the cost-benefit analysis. For example there
is now a sufficient amount of circumstantial evidence to indicate a
correspondence between the artificial storage of large bodies of water in
man made dams and the incidence of earthquakes to warrant a serious and
scientific investigation before embarking on any new projects. Similarly the
link between the widespread cash-crop farming encouraged by the Green
Revolution and the depletion of the water table and rising salinity of the
soil rendering it unfit for cultivation in such areas provides a sharp
critique of its supposed benefits. If this long-term destruction is factored
in than the real destructive nature of the development becomes much clearer.
We
should however remember that if today’s technology being promoted by the
imperialists has proved to be unscientific and destructive, and the
development it promotes is unsustainable, the problem is not so much one of
inadequate scientific knowledge, as its control and domination by powerful
MNC’s. These global corporations have monopolised and shaped scientific
research and development in the direction of increased profits rather than
toward fulfilling social needs. Nature has been privatised and exploited for
profit, rather than socialised and developed for fulfilling human needs.
Logically, in order to be physically sustainable, an eco-historical
formation has to meet three conditions: (a) the rate of utilisation of
renewable resources must be kept down to the rate of their regeneration; (b)
the rate of utilisation of non-renewable resources cannot exceed the rate at
which the alternative sustainable resources are developed; and (c) pollution
and habitat destruction cannot exceed the assimilative capacity of the
environment. A system geared only to maximising the immediate profits of a
few powerful companies and countries globally is obviously incapable of
giving a thrust to develop science in this direction.
Thus
today’s technology promoted power based on huge oil and coal based
generation plants (not coincidentally, both extraction and generation are
monopolised by a few MNC’s), or World Bank aided multipurpose, mega-dams,
totally neglecting the development of renewable and sustainable alternatives
like solar or wind power, bio-gas, scientific watershed management based on
use of tanks, bunds etc. and a series of small and medium dams.
A radical change in the approach to these questions is called for. The
people’s movements have to comprehensively reject the development projects
thrust on them by the rulers and seek to build a new India based on a
totally different pattern.
But
while the NBA has been opposing the destructive NVDP, its leadership should
review the successes and failures in the alternative programme and strategy
it has presented. It has failed to link the struggle against the project to
struggles of the people to demand from the state their due share of
development expenditure of last 50 years. There is no road, electricity,
drinking water, schools, health care facility, postal facility and so on.
Under the pretext of submergence the entire tribal belt of some lakhs of
adivasis of Narmada valley was allowed to deteriorate fast during the last 3
decades. Even land ownership rights are denied to the adivasis living there
for generations. But none of these issues have been properly taken up.
While
opposing the mega-projects of today’s development model, the country
should adopt and comprehensively implement land reforms so that the land
passes into the possession of the actual tiller. This will boost incentives
to increase production. Based on this radical restructuring of the relations
of production in the rural areas, modernisation of agriculture must be
carried out scientifically and democratically by unleashing the people’s
initiative through control over resources and technology. Tribals should be
given rights over their land and forests. Localised industry should be
developed in conjunction with agriculture. Employment generation should be
an important component of such industrialisation. Capital-intensive hi-tech
projects should be avoided as far as possible. Steps should be taken to
minimise pollution and displacement.
The seeds of this path of development can be most clearly seen in the rural
areas of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and some parts of the forest areas of central
India popularly known as Dandakaranya. Here the revolutionaries who are
leading the armed struggles of the peasantry have linked the issues of the
people to the question of building an alternative system of people’s
government to leads this alternative development. Alongside confronting the
attempts of the state and the ruling classes to push through their favoured
projects, these movements have also begun to mobilise the masses to take up
their own alternative path of development. Thus while the revolutionary
peasant masses of A.P. launched a struggle against the destructive
Pulichintala dam project in the Guntur district of A.P., they have also
taken up widespread programmes of launching their own eco-friendly and
people centred development projects like the renewal and repair of village
tanks and bunds and construction of local irrigation projects through shared
labour etc. Based on an approach once described by Mao Tse Tung as
“walking on two legs”, these movements have tried to link scientific
approach to the mobilisation of people’s initiative. As a result the once
backward districts of Telengana have not only survived some of the attempts
of the rulers to impose destructive development, but are also embarking on
their own alternative vision of things and actually taking up such projects
at the grassroots level as well as building the village committees necessary
to oversee and implement such schemes. This is the real path of development
along which the movement against destructive mega development projects
should advance.
Oppose
the Ruling Class Attempts to Push Through the SSP
It
is a foregone conclusion that the present government cannot, nor can any
government in this blatantly anti-people system compensate such a large
number of families to be displaced. AIPRF strongly believes that Sardar
Sarovar project is essentially anti-people, particularly anti-farmer and
pro-urban industrial clique. The project is a brain-child of deliberate
planning of domestic comprador sections and foreign interests. This is a
plan to provide water to industries, drinking water to cities at the cost of
peasantry. Even in the peasantry, it is small, marginal and medium farmers
who would be the worst affected, swelling the ranks of the dispossessed
families in urban centres, working at below-subsistence wages.
The
role of the judiciary in the whole episode reveals its anti-democratic and
anti-people character. Without taking into consideration how many families
would be further displaced or whether they have been adequately
rehabilitated or not, it ordered increasing the height of the dam from 80 to
88 metres based on false affidavits by Gujarat government. Not satisfied
with its anti-people verdict, it has now censured Arundhati Roy and NBA for
challenging its verdict. AIPRF strongly protests this attitude of the court
to disallow public debate on issues concerning people. We demand that
Supreme Court should arrange a public hearing to bring justice to the
people.
AIPRF
appeals to all democratic and patriotic sections in the country to oppose
not only the Sardar Sarovar project but also all anti-people, imperialist
sponsored projects.
AIPRF demands:
1)
Stop the Sardar Sarovar
project and have a complete and comprehensive review of the project with the
active, meaningful participation of the people and their organisations.
2) Full and just
rehabilitation of all those who have been displaced hitherto, immediate
settling of their claims. The canal affected and other categories of
affected by the dam too be declared as project affected and be given all the
benefits due to the dam-affected persons.
3) Stop all
malicious propaganda and highhandedness against the Narmada Bachao Andolan
in Gujarat.
Courtesy
http://www.aiprf.org/
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