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dam-l LS: Arundhati Roy, 'For the Greater Common Good' (pt 4)
Truly, it is just not possible for a State Administration, any State
Administration, to
carry out the rehabilitation of a people as fragile as this, on such an
immense scale.
It's like using a pair of hedge-shears to trim an infant's fingernails.
You can't do it
without shearing its fingers off. Land for land sounds like a reasonable
swap, but
how do you implement it? How do you uproot 200,000 people (the official
blinkered
estimate) of which 117,000 are tribal people, and relocate them in a
humane fashion?
How do you keep their communities intact, in a country where every inch
of land is
fought over, where almost all litigation pending in courts has to do with land
disputes?
Where is all this fine, unoccupied but arable land that is waiting to
receive these intact
communities?
The simple answer is that there isn't any. Not even for the 'officially'
displaced of
this one dam.
What about the rest of the 3,299 dams?
What about the remaining thousands of paps earmarked for annihilation?
Shall we
just put the Star of David on their doors and get it over with?
Jalud, in the Nimad plains of Madhya Pradesh, is the first of 60 villages
that will be
submerged by the reservoir of the Maheshwar dam. Jalud is not a tribal
village, and
is therefore riven with the shameful caste divisions that are the scourge
of every
ordinary Hindu village. A majority of the land-owning farmers (the ones
who qualify
as paps) are Rajputs. They farm some of the most fertile soil in India.
Their houses
are piled with sacks of wheat and daal and rice. They boast so much about
the things
they grow on their land that if it weren't so tragic, it could get on
your nerves. Their
houses have already begun to crack with the impact of the dynamiting on
the dam
site.
The 12 predominantly Dalit families who had small holdings in the
vicinity of the
dam site had their land acquired. They told me how when they objected,
cement was
poured into their water pipes, their standing crops were bulldozed and
the police
occupied the land by force. All 12 families are now landless and work as wage
labour.
The area that the people of Jalud are going to be moved to is a few
kilometres inland,
away from the river, adjoining a predominantly Dalit and tribal village
called Samraj.
I saw the huge tract of land that had been marked off for them. It was a
hard, stony
hillock with stubbly grass and scrub, on which truckloads of silt was
being unloaded
and spread out in a thin layer to make it look like rich, black cotton
soil. The story
goes like this: on behalf of the S. Kumars (Textile Tycoons turned Nation
Builders)
the District Magistrate acquired the hillock, which was actually village
common
grazing land that belonged to the people of Samraj. In addition to this,
the land of 10
Dalit villagers was acquired. No compensation was paid.
The villagers, whose main source of income was their livestock, had to
sell their
goats and buffalos because they no longer had anywhere to graze them.
Their only
remaining source of income lies (lay) on the banks of a small lake on the
edge of the
village. In summer, when the water level recedes, it leaves a shallow
ring of rich silt
on which the villagers grow (grew) rice, melons and cucumber.
The S. Kumars have excavated this silt, to cosmetically cover the stony
grazing
ground (that the Rajputs of Jalud don't want). The banks of the lake are
now steep
and uncultivable.
The already impoverished people of Samraj have been left to starve, while this
photo-opportunity is being readied for German funders and Indian courts and
anybody else who cares to pass that way.
This is how India works. This is the genesis of the Maheshwar dam. The
story of the
first village. What will happen to the other 59? May bad luck pursue this
dam. May
bulldozers turn upon the Textile Tycoons.
Nothing can justify this kind of behaviour.
In circumstances like these, to even entertain a debate about
Rehabilitation is to take
the first step towards setting aside the Principles of Justice.
Resettling 200,000
people in order to take (or pretend to take) drinking water to 40
million-there's
something very wrong with the scale of operations here. This is Fascist
Maths. It
strangles stories. Bludgeons detail. And manages to blind perfectly
reasonable people
with its spurious, shining vision.
When I arrived on the banks of the Narmada in late March (1999), it was a
month
after the Supreme Court suddenly vacated the stay on construction work of the
Sardar Sarovar Dam. I had read pretty much everything I could lay my
hands on (all
those 'secret' Government documents). I had a clear idea of the lay of
the land-of
what had happened where and when and to whom. The story played itself out
before
my eyes like a tragic film whose actors I'd already met. Had I not known
its history,
nothing would have made sense. Because in the valley there are stories
within stories
and it's easy to lose the clarity of rage in the sludge of other peoples'
sorrow.
I ended my journey in Kevadia Colony, where it all began. Thirty-eight
years ago,
this is where the government of Gujarat decided to locate the
infrastructure it would
need for starting work on the dam: guest houses, office blocks,
accommodation for
engineers and their staff, roads leading to the dam site, warehouses for
construction
material.
It is located on the cusp of what is now the Sardar Sarovar reservoir and
the Wonder
Canal, Gujarat's 'life-line' , which is going to quench the thirst of
millions.
Nobody knows this, but Kevadia Colony is the key to the World. Go there, and
secrets will be revealed to you.
In the winter of 1961, a government officer arrived in a village called
Kothie and
informed the villagers that some of their land would be needed to
construct a helipad.
In a few days a bulldozer arrived and flattened standing crops. The
villagers were
made to sign papers and were paid a sum of money, which they assumed was
payment for their destroyed crops. When the helipad was ready, a
helicopter landed
on it, and out came Prime Minister Nehru. Most of the villagers couldn't
see him
because he was surrounded by policemen. Nehru made a speech. Then he pressed a
button and there was an explosion on the other side of the river. After
the explosion
he flew away. That was the inauguration of the earliest avatar of the
Sardar Sarovar
Dam.
Could Nehru have known when he pressed that button that he had unleashed an
incubus?
After Nehru left, the government of Gujarat arrived in strength. It
acquired 1,600
acres of land from 950 families from six villages. The people were Tadvi
tribals, but
because of their proximity to the city of Baroda, not entirely unversed
in the ways of
a market economy. They were sent notices and told that they would be paid cash
compensations and given jobs on the dam site. Then the nightmare began. Trucks
and bulldozers rolled in. Forests were felled, standing crops destroyed.
Everything
turned into a whirl of jeeps and engineers and cement and steel. Mohan
Bhai Tadvi
watched eight acres of his land with standing crops of jowar, toovar and
cotton being
levelled. Overnight he became a landless labourer. Three years later he
received his
cash compensation of Rs 250 an acre in three instalments.
Dersukh Bhai Vesa Bhai's father was given Rs 3,500 for his house and five
acres of
land with its standing crops and all the trees on it. He remembers
walking all the way
to Rajpipla (the district headquarters) as a little boy, holding his
father's hand. He
remembers how terrified they were when they were called into the
Tehsildar's office.
They were made to surrender their compensation notices and sign a
receipt. They
were illiterate, so they
didn't know how much the receipt was made out for.
Everybody had to go to Rajpipla but they were always summoned on
different days,
one by one. So they couldn't exchange information or compare amounts.
Gradually, out of the dust and bulldozers, an offensive, diffuse configuration
emerged. Kevadia Colony. Row upon row of ugly cement flats, offices, guest
houses, roads. All the graceless infrastructure of Big Dam construction. The
villagers' houses were dismantled and moved to the periphery of the
colony, where
they remain today, squatters on their own land. Those that created
trouble were
intimidated by the police and the Construction Company. The villagers
told me that in
the Contractor's headquarters they have a 'lock-up' like a police
lock-up, where
recalcitrant villagers are incarcerated and beaten.
The people who were evicted to build Kevadia Colony do not qualify as
'Project-Affected' in Gujarat's Rehabilitation package.
Some of them work as servants in the officers' bungalows and waiters in
the guest
house built on the land where their own houses once stood. Can anything
be more
poignant?
Those who had some land left, tried to cultivate it, but the Kevadia
municipality
introduced a scheme in which they brought in pigs to eat uncollected
refuse on the
streets. The pigs stray into the villagers' fields and destroy their crops.
In 1992, after 30 years, each family has been offered a sum of Rs 12,000 per
hectare, upto a maximum of Rs 36,000, provided they agree to leave their
homes and
go away! Yet 40 per cent of the land that was acquired is lying unused. The
government refuses to return it. The 11 acres acquired from Deviben, who is a
widow now, have been given over to the Swami Narayan Trust (a big
religious sect).
On a small portion of it, the Trust runs a little school. The rest it
cultivates, while
Deviben watches through the barbed wire fence. On the 200 acres acquired
in the
village of Gora, villagers were evicted and blocks of flats were built.
They lay empty
for years. Eventually the government hired it for a nominal fee to Jai Prakash
Associates, the dam contractors, who, the villagers say, sub-let it
privately for Rs
32,000 a month. (Jai Prakash Associates, the biggest dam contractors in
the country,
the real nation-builders, own the Siddharth Continental and the Vasant
Continental in
Delhi.)
On an area of about 30 acres there is an absurd cement pwd 'replica' of
the ancient
Shoolpaneshwar temple that was submerged in the reservoir. The same political
formation that plunged a whole nation into a bloody, medieval nightmare
because it
insisted on destroying an old mosque to dig up a non-existent temple,
thinks nothing
of submerging a hallowed pilgrimage route and hundreds of temples that
have been
worshipped in for centuries.
It thinks nothing of destroying the sacred hills and groves, the places
of worship, the
ancient homes of the gods and demons of tribal people.
It thinks nothing of submerging a valley that has yielded fossils,
microliths and rock
paintings, the only valley in India, according to archaeologists, that
contains an
uninterrupted record of human occupation from the Old Stone Age.
What can one say?
In Kevadia Colony, the most barbaric joke of all is the wildlife museum. The
Shoolpaneshwar Sanctuary Interpretation Centre gives you a quick,
comprehensive
picture of the government's commitment to Conservation.
The Sardar Sarovar reservoir, when the dam is at its full height, is
going to submerge
about 13,000 hectares of prime forest land. (In anticipation of
submergence, the
forest began to be felled many greedy years ago). Environmentalists and
conservationists were quite rightly alarmed at the extent of loss of
biodiversity and
wildlife habitat that the submergence would cause. To mitigate this loss, the
government decided to expand the Shoolpaneshwar Wildlife Sanctuary that
straddles
the dam on the south side of the river. There is a hare-brained scheme
that envisages
drowning animals from the submerged forests swimming their way to 'wildlife
corridors' that will be created for them, and setting up home in the New!
Improved!
Shoolpaneshwar Sanctuary. Presumably wildlife and biodiversity can be
protected
and maintained only if human activity is restricted and traditional
rights to use forest
resources curtailed. About 40,000 tribal people from 101 villages within the
boundaries of the Shoolpaneshwar Sanctuary depend on the forest for a
livelihood.
They will be 'persuaded' to leave. They are not included in the
definition of Project
Affected.
Where will they go? I imagine you know by now.
Whatever their troubles in the real world, in the Shoolpaneshwar Sanctuary
Interpretation Centre (where an old stuffed leopard and a mouldy sloth
bear have to
make do with a shared corner) the tribal people have a whole room to
themselves. On
the walls there are clumsy wooden carvings-government approved tribal
art, with
signs that say 'Tribal Art'. In the centre, there is a life-sized
thatched hut with the
door open. The pot's on the fire, the dog is asleep on the floor and
all's well with the
world. Outside, to welcome you, are Mr and Mrs Tribal. A lumpy, papier mache
couple, smiling.
Smiling. They're not even permitted the grace of rage. That's what I
can't get over.
Oh, but have I got it wrong? What if they're smiling voluntarily,
bursting with
National Pride? Brimming with the joy of having sacrificed their lives to
bring
drinking water to thirsty millions in Gujarat?
For 20 years now, the people of Gujarat have waited for the water they
believe the
Wonder Canal will bring them. For years the government of Gujarat has
invested 85
per cent of the state's irrigation budget into the Sardar Sarovar
Projects. Every
smaller, quicker, local, more feasible scheme has been set aside for the
sake of this.
Election after election has been contested and won on the 'water ticket'.
Everyone's
hopes are pinned to the Wonder Canal. Will she fulfil Gujarat's dreams?
From the Sardar Sarovar Dam, the Narmada flows through 180 km of rich lowland,
into the Arabian sea in Bharuch. What the Wonder Canal does, more or
less, is to
re-route most of the river, turning it almost 90 degrees northward. It's
a pretty drastic
thing to do to a river. The Narmada estuary in Bharuch is one of the last
known
breeding place of the Hilsa, probably the hottest contender for India's
favourite fish.
The Stanley Dam wiped out Hilsa from the Cauvery River in South India, and
Pakistan's Ghulam Mohammed dam destroyed its spawning area on the Indus.
Hilsa, like the salmon, is an anadromous fish-born in freshwater,
migrating to the
ocean as a smolt and returning to the river to spawn. The drastic
reduction in water
flow, the change in the chemistry of the water because of all the
sediment trapped
behind the dam, will radically alter the ecology of the estuary and
modify the delicate
balance of fresh water and sea water which is bound to affect the spawning. At
present, the Narmada estuary produces 13,000 tonnes of Hilsa and
freshwater prawn
(which also breed in brackish water). About 10,000 fisher families depend
on it for a
living.
The Morse Committee was appalled to discover that no studies had been
done of the
downstream environment-no documentation of the riverine ecosystem, its
seasonal
changes, biological species or the pattern of how its resources are used.
The dam
builders had no idea what the impact of the dam would be on the people and the
environment downstream, let alone any ideas on what steps to take to
mitigate it.
The government simply says that it will alleviate the loss of Hilsa
fisheries by
stocking the reservoir with hatchery-bred fish. (Who'll control the
reservoir? Who'll
grant the commercial fishing to its favourite paying customers?) The only
hitch is that
so far, scientists have not managed to breed Hilsa artificially. The
rearing of Hilsa
depends on getting spawn from wild adults, which will, in all likelihood, be
eliminated by the dam. Dams have either eliminated or endangered
one-fifth of the
world's freshwater fish.
So! Quiz question-where will the 40,000 fisherfolk go?
In circumstances like these, to even entertain a debate about
Rehabilitation is to take
the first step towards setting aside the Principles of Justice.
Resettling 200,000
people in order to take (or pretend to take) drinking water to 40
million-there's
something very wrong with the scale of operations here. This is Fascist
Maths. It
strangles stories. Bludgeons detail. And manages to blind perfectly
reasonable people
with its spurious, shining vision.
When I arrived on the banks of the Narmada in late March (1999), it was a
month
after the Supreme Court suddenly vacated the stay on construction work of the
Sardar Sarovar Dam. I had read pretty much everything I could lay my
hands on (all
those 'secret' Government documents). I had a clear idea of the lay of
the land-of
what had happened where and when and to whom. The story played itself out
before
my eyes like a tragic film whose actors I'd already met. Had I not known
its history,
nothing would have made sense. Because in the valley there are stories
within stories
and it's easy to lose the clarity of rage in the sludge of other peoples'
sorrow.
I ended my journey in Kevadia Colony, where it all began. Thirty-eight
years ago,
this is where the government of Gujarat decided to locate the
infrastructure it would
need for starting work on the dam: guest houses, office blocks,
accommodation for
engineers and their staff, roads leading to the dam site, warehouses for
construction
material.
It is located on the cusp of what is now the Sardar Sarovar reservoir and
the Wonder
Canal, Gujarat's 'life-line' , which is going to quench the thirst of
millions.
Nobody knows this, but Kevadia Colony is the key to the World. Go there, and
secrets will be revealed to you.
In the winter of 1961, a government officer arrived in a village called
Kothie and
informed the villagers that some of their land would be needed to
construct a helipad.
In a few days a bulldozer arrived and flattened standing crops. The
villagers were
made to sign papers and were paid a sum of money, which they assumed was
payment for their destroyed crops. When the helipad was ready, a
helicopter landed
on it, and out came Prime Minister Nehru. Most of the villagers couldn't
see him
because he was surrounded by policemen. Nehru made a speech. Then he pressed a
button and there was an explosion on the other side of the river. After
the explosion
he flew away. That was the inauguration of the earliest avatar of the
Sardar Sarovar
Dam.
Could Nehru have known when he pressed that button that he had unleashed an
incubus?
After Nehru left, the government of Gujarat arrived in strength. It
acquired 1,600
acres of land from 950 families from six villages. The people were Tadvi
tribals, but
because of their proximity to the city of Baroda, not entirely unversed
in the ways of
a market economy. They were sent notices and told that they would be paid cash
compensations and given jobs on the dam site. Then the nightmare began. Trucks
and bulldozers rolled in. Forests were felled, standing crops destroyed.
Everything
turned into a whirl of jeeps and engineers and cement and steel. Mohan
Bhai Tadvi
watched eight acres of his land with standing crops of jowar, toovar and
cotton being
levelled. Overnight he became a landless labourer. Three years later he
received his
cash compensation of Rs 250 an acre in three instalments.
Dersukh Bhai Vesa Bhai's father was given Rs 3,500 for his house and five
acres of
land with its standing crops and all the trees on it. He remembers
walking all the way
to Rajpipla (the district headquarters) as a little boy, holding his
father's hand. He
remembers how terrified they were when they were called into the
Tehsildar's office.
They were made to surrender their compensation notices and sign a
receipt. They
were illiterate, so they
didn't know how much the receipt was made out for.
Everybody had to go to Rajpipla but they were always summoned on
different days,
one by one. So they couldn't exchange information or compare amounts.
Gradually, out of the dust and bulldozers, an offensive, diffuse configuration
emerged. Kevadia Colony. Row upon row of ugly cement flats, offices, guest
houses, roads. All the graceless infrastructure of Big Dam construction. The
villagers' houses were dismantled and moved to the periphery of the
colony, where
they remain today, squatters on their own land. Those that created
trouble were
intimidated by the police and the Construction Company. The villagers
told me that in
the Contractor's headquarters they have a 'lock-up' like a police
lock-up, where
recalcitrant villagers are incarcerated and beaten.
The people who were evicted to build Kevadia Colony do not qualify as
'Project-Affected' in Gujarat's Rehabilitation package.
Some of them work as servants in the officers' bungalows and waiters in
the guest
house built on the land where their own houses once stood. Can anything
be more
poignant?
Those who had some land left, tried to cultivate it, but the Kevadia
municipality
introduced a scheme in which they brought in pigs to eat uncollected
refuse on the
streets. The pigs stray into the villagers' fields and destroy their crops.
In 1992, after 30 years, each family has been offered a sum of Rs 12,000 per
hectare, upto a maximum of Rs 36,000, provided they agree to leave their
homes and
go away! Yet 40 per cent of the land that was acquired is lying unused. The
government refuses to return it. The 11 acres acquired from Deviben, who is a
widow now, have been given over to the Swami Narayan Trust (a big
religious sect).
On a small portion of it, the Trust runs a little school. The rest it
cultivates, while
Deviben watches through the barbed wire fence. On the 200 acres acquired
in the
village of Gora, villagers were evicted and blocks of flats were built.
They lay empty
for years. Eventually the government hired it for a nominal fee to Jai Prakash
Associates, the dam contractors, who, the villagers say, sub-let it
privately for Rs
32,000 a month. (Jai Prakash Associates, the biggest dam contractors in
the country,
the real nation-builders, own the Siddharth Continental and the Vasant
Continental in
Delhi.)
On an area of about 30 acres there is an absurd cement pwd 'replica' of
the ancient
Shoolpaneshwar temple that was submerged in the reservoir. The same political
formation that plunged a whole nation into a bloody, medieval nightmare
because it
insisted on destroying an old mosque to dig up a non-existent temple,
thinks nothing
of submerging a hallowed pilgrimage route and hundreds of temples that
have been
worshipped in for centuries.
It thinks nothing of destroying the sacred hills and groves, the places
of worship, the
ancient homes of the gods and demons of tribal people.
It thinks nothing of submerging a valley that has yielded fossils,
microliths and rock
paintings, the only valley in India, according to archaeologists, that
contains an
uninterrupted record of human occupation from the Old Stone Age.
What can one say?
In Kevadia Colony, the most barbaric joke of all is the wildlife museum. The
Shoolpaneshwar Sanctuary Interpretation Centre gives you a quick,
comprehensive
picture of the government's commitment to Conservation.
The Sardar Sarovar reservoir, when the dam is at its full height, is
going to submerge
about 13,000 hectares of prime forest land. (In anticipation of
submergence, the
forest began to be felled many greedy years ago). Environmentalists and
conservationists were quite rightly alarmed at the extent of loss of
biodiversity and
wildlife habitat that the submergence would cause. To mitigate this loss, the
government decided to expand the Shoolpaneshwar Wildlife Sanctuary that
straddles
the dam on the south side of the river. There is a hare-brained scheme
that envisages
drowning animals from the submerged forests swimming their way to 'wildlife
corridors' that will be created for them, and setting up home in the New!
Improved!
Shoolpaneshwar Sanctuary. Presumably wildlife and biodiversity can be
protected
and maintained only if human activity is restricted and traditional
rights to use forest
resources curtailed. About 40,000 tribal people from 101 villages within the
boundaries of the Shoolpaneshwar Sanctuary depend on the forest for a
livelihood.
They will be 'persuaded' to leave. They are not included in the
definition of Project
Affected.
Where will they go? I imagine you know by now.
Whatever their troubles in the real world, in the Shoolpaneshwar Sanctuary
Interpretation Centre (where an old stuffed leopard and a mouldy sloth
bear have to
make do with a shared corner) the tribal people have a whole room to
themselves. On
the walls there are clumsy wooden carvings-government approved tribal
art, with
signs that say 'Tribal Art'. In the centre, there is a life-sized
thatched hut with the
door open. The pot's on the fire, the dog is asleep on the floor and
all's well with the
world. Outside, to welcome you, are Mr and Mrs Tribal. A lumpy, papier mache
couple, smiling.
Smiling. They're not even permitted the grace of rage. That's what I
can't get over.
Oh, but have I got it wrong? What if they're smiling voluntarily,
bursting with
National Pride? Brimming with the joy of having sacrificed their lives to
bring
drinking water to thirsty millions in Gujarat?
For 20 years now, the people of Gujarat have waited for the water they
believe the
Wonder Canal will bring them. For years the government of Gujarat has
invested 85
per cent of the state's irrigation budget into the Sardar Sarovar
Projects. Every
smaller, quicker, local, more feasible scheme has been set aside for the
sake of this.
Election after election has been contested and won on the 'water ticket'.
Everyone's
hopes are pinned to the Wonder Canal. Will she fulfil Gujarat's dreams?
From the Sardar Sarovar Dam, the Narmada flows through 180 km of rich lowland,
into the Arabian sea in Bharuch. What the Wonder Canal does, more or
less, is to
re-route most of the river, turning it almost 90 degrees northward. It's
a pretty drastic
thing to do to a river. The Narmada estuary in Bharuch is one of the last
known
breeding place of the Hilsa, probably the hottest contender for India's
favourite fish.
The Stanley Dam wiped out Hilsa from the Cauvery River in South India, and
Pakistan's Ghulam Mohammed dam destroyed its spawning area on the Indus.
Hilsa, like the salmon, is an anadromous fish-born in freshwater,
migrating to the
ocean as a smolt and returning to the river to spawn. The drastic
reduction in water
flow, the change in the chemistry of the water because of all the
sediment trapped
behind the dam, will radically alter the ecology of the estuary and
modify the delicate
balance of fresh water and sea water which is bound to affect the spawning. At
present, the Narmada estuary produces 13,000 tonnes of Hilsa and
freshwater prawn
(which also breed in brackish water). About 10,000 fisher families depend
on it for a
living.
The Morse Committee was appalled to discover that no studies had been
done of the
downstream environment-no documentation of the riverine ecosystem, its
seasonal
changes, biological species or the pattern of how its resources are used.
The dam
builders had no idea what the impact of the dam would be on the people and the
environment downstream, let alone any ideas on what steps to take to
mitigate it.
The government simply says that it will alleviate the loss of Hilsa
fisheries by
stocking the reservoir with hatchery-bred fish. (Who'll control the
reservoir? Who'll
grant the commercial fishing to its favourite paying customers?) The only
hitch is that
so far, scientists have not managed to breed Hilsa artificially. The
rearing of Hilsa
depends on getting spawn from wild adults, which will, in all likelihood, be
eliminated by the dam. Dams have either eliminated or endangered
one-fifth of the
world's freshwater fish.
So! Quiz question-where will the 40,000 fisherfolk go?