DEVELOPMENT-INDIA: Dam Displaced Tribes Lose Fishing Rights

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Bharat Dogra

ITARSI, Central India, Feb 9 2007 (IPS) - The philosophy of satyagraha or non-violent resistance, first employed by Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi, has been adopted by tribal fisherfolk in 44 hamlets on a dammed river in central India to protest the loss of their livelihoods.

Every day since early January, except on government holidays, these tribal villagers have taken turns to hold a relay ‘dharna’ (sit-in protest), outside the office of the Satpura National Park, a tiger sanctuary in Hoshangabad district, against the Madhya Pradesh state government’s decision not to renew their fishing lease.

The reason cited is that their fishing grounds in the man-made Tawa reservoir fall within the protected area of the rugged and thickly forested park.

But in 2005, when the Indian government appointed a Tiger Task Force to review the 30-year-old conservation project to save the endangered big cat, it had endorsed their fishing rights, say activists of the Tawa Matsyay Sangh (TMS), a federation of 34 fishing cooperatives that represent some 1,600 fishing families.

The task force in its report had expressly stated its appreciation of how these tribal fisherfolk had, for a decade, sustainably managed natural resources. According to the report, compared to earlier management first by the state and then a private contractor, ”the cooperative regime has been able to manage production, maintenance of stock, employment and income generation most efficiently”.

The members of the task force, among India’s most-admired environmentalists, noted that per hectare production of fish was over 32 kg, three times the national average for big reservoirs. The TMS banned monofilament yarn nets to avoid over fishing. The private contractor, with an eye on profits, had forced fisherfolk to use these nets.

Moreover, the fishing season was closed for two months in the year to allow breeding. TMS members enforced the ban by patrolling in boats and jeeps. TMS earned the well-deserved reputation of a model cooperative – providing sustainable livelihoods with the enforcement of a conservation strategy.

But the government’s refusal to renew the five-year fishing lease, which was first issued in 1996, has plunged the area in crisis. For the second time, the mainly Korku and Gond tribes are faced with loss of livelihoods.

Displaced in the 1980s by the dam on the Tawa river, a tributary of the much bigger Narmada, they were not satisfactorily rehabilitated.

While the overall figures of the number of people displaced by dam projects in India have never been accurately assessed, the World Commission on Dams, an independent, multi-stakeholder process which addresses controversial issues associated with large dams, says the figures could be as high as 40 million people.

After several years of destitution, new hope emerged when the Kisan Adivasi Sangathan (KAS), an organisation of peasants and tribals, mobilised them to get fishing rights in the reservoir. The TMS was created soon after.

Rajendra Chaudhary, an economist at the Maharishi Dayanand University, Rohtak, who has studied reservoir fisheries, was all praise for TMS. ”It presents a very fine example of a well organised, honest cooperative which can be a source of inspiration for fisherfolk of other reservoirs,” he told IPS.

But the authorities have a different opinion. The lease, which was due for renewal by Dec. 23 last year, has been allowed to lapse. The reason cited is ‘legal difficulties’.

According to Sunil, identified only by his first name, a prominent TMS and KAS activist, the authorities think that by withholding the fishing rights from the cooperatives, they are attacking the bigger KAS which has been exposing corruption in government.

”KAS has been exposing corruption. They (authorities) want to weaken the KAS and that is why TMS has not been given a lease,” Sunil, who unsuccessfully fought elections to parliament as an independent candidate in 2004, said.

Surrounded by fisherfolk in the modest office of the TMS, he asserted quietly, ”What happened at Bargi and Totladoh (reservoirs) should not be allowed to happen here.”

The dam on the Bargi, another tributary of the Narmada, submerged villages in the 1980s. Villagers received only one compensation: fishing rights in the reservoir, but this too was arbitrarily taken away from them after five years.

Totladoh dam was built between 1975 and 1985 on the Pench river near Madhya Pradesh’s border with western Maharashtra. The displaced from Totladoh village were given fishing rights. But they were brutally evicted in 2002 by the government which said the reservoir was within a protected national park.

”This was a most cruel eviction. People could not even gather their belongings. A pregnant women who was about to deliver a baby was not allowed medical care,” recalled Chandra, a Communist Party of India (CPI) activist. Ultimately the village was relocated, but the fisherfolk lost their livelihoods.

The Tawa villagers are determined to oppose displacement a second time. ”We are determined not to leave our villages, come what may,” said Premvati at a meeting organised by the TMS on the banks of the reservoir. ”Apart from fishing we are also able to cultivate small patches of land when the reservoir shrinks in dry weather,” she added.

However, the authorities are in an uncompromising mood. Arrest warrants were issued for Sunil and nine other TMS activists. On Jan. 27, the forest department impounded two of the TMS’ three motor boats following a clash between the police and villagers in Dhauri village the previous day. In retaliation, village women captured two forest department boats.

Immediately, 350 policemen were deployed in Dhauri. Violence was averted, and both sides agreed to return the boats. But the situation remains tense.