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dam-l TOI article by Krishna Kumar
TIMES OF India
Friday 12 March 1999
Civic Fatalism
Citizen's Loss of Sensitivity & Grace
By KRISHNA KUMAR
`Weaker' sections of Indian society were given a special
place in
the Constitution, but the apparatus of the state continues
to treat
them as faceless millions. Among the `weak', the tribal
people of
central India are perhaps the weakest. Economically and
educationally `backward', they are hapless human material
politicians love to play with. They receive a share of the
nation's
attention only under the auspices of dramatic events like
reconversion, displacement, and epidemic. A front-page
photograph in the TOI recently (February 15) showed a tribal
woman from Madhya Pradesh, participating in a ceremonial
`reconversion'. The photograph shows her right foot placed on a
wooden stool, waiting to be washed off Christianity. Her face
carries distinct marks of tiredness and resignation. There is
certainly no sign of joy or relief that one might associate
with
voluntary reconversion.
In another part of Madhya Pradesh, thousands of tribal families
are soon going to be uprooted from a region they have inhabited
for centuries. An interim order of the Supreme Court has
permitted the Gujarat government to add another five metres to
the Sardar Sarovar dam. Completion of the project is still far
away, but this modest addition will suffice to wipe out the
tribal
belt situated in the dam's immediate vicinity. The Bhil and
Bhillala
people, who live in this belt, have every reason to feel
disillusioned. After more than a decade of non-violent public
struggle marked by repeated repression, they have failed to
convince the highest institution of justice that their
rights and
aspirations are as much a part of national interest as a dam.
Two Qualities
An exhibition of five prominent tribal and folk artists,
which is
now about to close at the National Crafts Museum, describes
them as `contemporary' masters. The poster announcing the
exhibition shows a tree with healthy buds and birds painted by
Mr Jangarh Singh Shyam of Mandla. The tribe to which he
belongs has suffered untold misery since the completion of the
Bargi dam on the Narmada in the early nineties. One is at a
loss
to decide how to perceive Mr Shyam's magnificent paintings of
trees. Are they a memory to live by, or a vision which no one
understands any longer?
In what sense is Mr Shyam my contemporary? The world to
which he belongs is falling apart, and no graceful rebirth
is in sight.
The depth of his colours and shapes is nothing but a gift of
sensibility and grace -- the two qualities I should be
nurturing in
my students as their teacher. My difficulty is no less than Mr
Shyam's, for we are both using memory as a resource for our
professional activities. Memory of times when sensibility
mattered
seems at times quite unreal and merely a gift of sentiment,
but it
helps to conceal the absence of a vision. How can the
embellishments of modernity -- dignity and individuality -- be
sustained in the context of a loss of dignity of people
awaiting
forced eviction without the hope of just compensation?
Sharp Paradox
In the context of the Narmada, the paradox is particularly
sharp,
and it shows how badly we have performed as a modern
democracy. Faith in rational enquiry, as opposed to dogma, is
one of the more attractive features of modernity. Rationality
demands that any step, major or costly, should be subjected to
review if there is sufficient reason to do so. One had
thought that
the ecological and social turmoil caused by mega-dams had
provided sufficient ground for us to doubt the viability of
projects
like Sardar Sarovar and Tehri. Knowledge about the problems
that projects of this scale create has grown manifold since the
time these projects were conceptualised. Two main grounds for
the state's resistance to undertaking a review of such projects
have become manifest: one, the capital locked in them, and two,
the fear that willingness to reconsider will trigger similar
demand
elsewhere. Neither reason deserves to be placed above public
interest, especially above the interests and welfare of the
weakest
sections of the public. If converting the Narmada into a
series of
reservoirs represented a vision of modern India in the sixties,
abandoning that vision now on rational grounds would also have
been a fine example of modernity.
Now that we seem destined to follow the old dream, let us
reflect
on the likely consequences. Lakhs of people will have to
move in
the months and years to come, and we know from experience
that resettlement takes place mainly on paper. The uprooted
lose
not just their land and houses, but also the social fabric that
sustained them as a community. The Narmada Tribunal had
dreamed of integrated resettlement -- a whole village moving to
another site -- but this kind of sophisticated welfare
activity is
nowhere to be seen in the Narmada valley. The road that
ultimately awaits them is the one leading to an urban slum.
Narmada Struggle
The less localised consequences are more worrisome. These are
of a symbolic nature, comprising the message that the failed
struggle of the Narmada valley will send to society at large,
particularly to youth. The most difficult challenge is to
protect the
young from a sense of civic fatalism. They develop it in the
course
of their education and exposure to the rough interface of
state and
society. From the daily cycle of life they witness, they
form the
belief that the state cares only for the powerful. This kind of
response nurtures the desire to avoid all dealings with the
state,
and to hoodwink the state when dealing with it cannot be
avoided. In others, the fear creates anomie and its
attendant lack
of hope and patience for norms. Both responses represent a
sharp threat to civil society.
The Narmada struggle arose out of the peculiar circumstances of
the eighties when the post-emergency state was attempting to
show a sense of guilt and sensitivity towards civic
freedoms. Both
Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi tried to use personalised
remedies to compensate for the state's rigidities. Mrs Gandhi's
intervention in the Silent Valley case nurtured the illusion
that the
environment did matter to someone in power. The struggle to
save the Narmada became a major national drama of hope and
the capacity to invent new visions. The drama is perhaps now
entering its closing scene, but we still need new visions
and do not
seem to know how to invent them.