ENVIRONMENT-INDIA: Villagers Displaced by Dam Get Reprieve

By Ranjit Devraj Reprint | | Print |

Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, Sep 28 2001 (IPS) - Villagers displaced by the mammoth Sardar Sarovar dam being constructed in India’s western Gujarat have won the support of the government in adjoining Maharashtra state in their struggle for resettlement and rehabilitation.

More than 2,000 affected peasants converged on the bustling port city of Mumbai, capital of Maharashtra, 12 days ago to prod the state government into a promise of intervention in the dam promoted largely by Gujarat and central Madhya Pradesh state.

The highlight of the mass action was a hunger strike, led by noted environmental activist Medha Patkar, which was called off Thursday, after the Congress party government in Maharashtra said it would ensure no further construction until rehabilitation of displaced families was first addressed.

Importantly, the Maharashtra government has agreed to involve Patkar’s Narmada Bacaho Andolan (Save the Narmada Movement) to verify settlement claims by the peasants.

“Since the Maharashtra government has agreed that it would verify the total number of oustees and the status of rehabilitation with the help of the NBA and not allow increase in the present height of the controversial Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP), we have called off the strike,” Patkar said.

Several of the tribals who sat on the ‘indefinite hunger strike’ with Patkar were taken away to hospitals in critical condition soon after the protest was called off.

The protest action had the support of mainstream political parties like the Peasants and Workers’ Party, the Communist Party of India (CPI), the Marxist Communist Party (CPI-M) and leading voluntary organisations like the National Fishworkers’ Forum.

“The state government could have done all this within a day by holding proper discussions with the NBA. But the tribals and peasants have to struggle with their lives for such small things,” Patkar said in a statement.

Patkar said she saw the Maharashtra government’s gesture as only one step forward in the 16-year-old old struggle against the construction of the Sardar Sarovar and other dams on the Narmada river.

The Sardar Sarovar Dam is the keystone of the Narmada Valley Development Project, one of the world’s largest river development projects which when finished, would submerge more than 37,000 hectares of forest and agricultural land.

The Narmada valley falls mostly in Madhya Pradesh but the Sardar Sarovar dam itself is being built in Gujarat which is the main beneficiary. People in these two states and also in Maharashtra will be displaced by said dam, the the biggest of some 30 dams planned to be built across the Narmada.

The Indian government, with the support of the state government of Maharashtra, Gujarat and central Madhya Pradesh, plans to build 30 large, 135 medium and 3,000 small dams to harness the waters of the Narmada and its tributaries.

The five billion dollar Sardar Sarovar and its associated canal system would alone displace some 320,000 villagers, mostly from tribal communities, whose livelihoods have long depended on these natural resources.

Sustained agitation by the NBA forced an independent review of the dam by the World Bank, which concluded in 1991 that the project was ill-conceived and ignored the rights of the local people.

Unable to meet the Bank’s environmental and resettlement requirements, the Indian government cancelled the final installment of the World Bank’s 450 million dollar loan and proceeded to finish the project on its own.

In 1993, Patkar and other activists forced the central government to conduct a review of all aspects of the project and obtained a Supreme Court stay on construction.

But the NBA suffered a setback last year when the Supreme Court lifted the stay and allowed expanding Sardar Sarovar dam beyond 88 metres, thus increasing the area to be submerged.

The Sardar Sarovar Dam currently stands at 90 metres but will rise to 163 metres when finished. Proponents of the dam claim that it will provide large amounts of water and electricity which are desperately needed to develop a poor area.

But Patkar and other opponents question the basic assumptions of the Narmada Valley Development Plan and have called the mass displacement of underprivileged people an abuse of human rights.

They have also cast doubts on hydrological and seismic soundness of the project and argued that water and energy can be provided to the people of the Narmada Valley, Gujarat and other regions through socially just alternative technologies.

“By monitoring government actions in Narmada valley, mobilising and strengthening the people’s struggle we will intensify our struggle against unjust and iniquitous development, particularly against the so- called globalisation,” she declared.

Patkar, a commissioner of the World Commission on Dams (WCD) however, feared that the Maharashtra government could still succumb to the “pressure tactics by the moneyed powers in Gujarat in the just matter regarding the people’s rights”.

Gujarat is run by the ultra right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which leads the national ruling coalition of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and which regards the Congress party as its arch rival for national power.

Alhough the Maharashtra government skirted several important issues in its formal announcement of support, Patkar said she was satisifed that it agreed to key points raised by the NBA.

“The government agreed, for example, to constitute a task force to verify the status of resettlement in every dam affected village in Maharashtra,” Patkar said.

“What is most important is that it has admitted the presence of such oustees, who were displaced but were never given rehabilitation land,” Patkar said.

According to Patkar the favourable decision by the Maharashtra government was partly the result of a show of solidarity by a large number of supporters from the city of Mumbai, and from southern Kerala and Karnataka states.