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dam-l Narmada update/LS
I will continue sending updates as long as there is a crisis situation in the Narmada valley, since I know many on my listserv are following this issue.
62 Arrested Daring Submergence at Dam Protest
By Frederick Noronha
BOMBAY, India, August 11, 1999 (ENS) - Villagers and activists are braving
submergence in a do or die protest against the mammoth Indian Narmada dam
project, as protests touched a flashpoint this week.
Sixty-two people determined to face submergence in the rising waters
behind the Sardar Sarovar Dam were arrested by the Maharashtra police
Wednesday evening in Domkhedi village on the banks for the Narmada River.
They had been standing in the three-foot deep water since early Wednesday
morning.
The police had to resort to dragging and beating to arrest the protesters.
As the police carried them away, a steady stream of villagers took their
places in the waist deep water, according to eyewitness Sanjay Sangvai.
The villagers and activists have vowed to remain on their lands and die in
the waters now rising in the Narmada Valley rather than be forced onto
resettlement sites. They insist that life in resettlement sites is not
worth living.
Among those arrested are Medha Patkar, who is a commissioner of the World
Commission on Dams, and other well known activists Ranyabhai Padvi and
Devrambhai Kanera.
The Chief Secretary of the state of Maharashtra is on his way to Domkhedi.
The backwaters of the Sardar Sarovar Project started rising from the
morning of August 10.
The government of India has yet to give authorization to increase the $8.1
billion Sardar Sarovar Dam from its current height of 88 meters to a final
height of 163 meters. If the dam and its associated irrigation system are
completed, it will force the eviction of more than half a million people
from their lands. A Supreme Court ruling earlier this year lifted a
four-year moratorium on the dam's construction and the dam wall has gone
up from 80.3 meters to 88 meters.
Anti-dam campaigners have been protesting since June 20 in Domkhedi and
Jalsindhi villages against what they call "the unjust submergence imposed
on them by the illegal construction on Sardar Sarovar Dam before the
monsoon." This is the monsoon season in India, when heavy rains lash the
region. Reservoirs behind new dams are normally filled at this time of the
year.
Campaigners call their drive "Satyagraha." Satyagraha means a fight for
truth. It evokes a similar term used by India's nationalist champion
Mahatma Gandhi when he launched a drive against British colonialism in the
1940s.
The foremost campaign group, Narmada Bachao Andolan (Save The Narmada
Campaign), said, "In Jalsindhi, another Satyagraha place, the water was
hardly two feet below the Satyagraha house and the three main activists,
Sitarambhai, Luhariyabhai and Rehmat and others are prepared to face the
submergence waters. Government officials merely came to 'inform' the
people and went off."
Earlier this week, police toured some of the villages with a warning
asking campaigners to go to safe places. The people and activists made it
clear that they would not move out of the satyagraha house in face of
potential drowning.
Campaigns over the Narmada got a sudden boost within India and abroad when
an internationally acclaimed Indian prize winning novelist, Arundhati Roy,
took the side of the campaigners and articulately pressed their case. Many
mainstream papers in India have been widely covering the issue in recent
days.
The United States based International Rivers Network (IRN) is denouncing
the Indian government for its role in the events now unfolding in the
Narmada Valley. The group is calling on the Indian government to halt any
further construction of the Sardar Sarovar Dam. IRN has opposed the
project and worked closely with the Narmada Bachao Andolan for the past 10
years.
Juliette Majot, executive director of International Rivers Network spent
July 4 to 16 in India, in villages now flooded by the monsoon rains behind
the Sardar Sarovar Dam. "This is not a natural disaster caused by the
monsoon," said Majot. "It is a manmade disaster caused by a dam for which
the government of India is responsible."
While thousands of people now stand to be displaced or drowned due to
flooding caused by the dam, people already resettled face severe problems.
Resettlement in fragmented units has torn apart families, communities and
cultures. In rehabilitation sites, people face shortages of land and
water, and many suffer from lack of fuelwood, fodder and poor sanitation.
In resettlement sites visited by Majot, villagers reiterated that
conditions are unacceptable: land offered is inadequate for cultivation;
freshwater supplies are insufficient or unavailable; housing is built of
inappropriate materials for the climate. With no access to forest products
such as fruits, firewood, and medicinal plants, villagers, particularly
children, were experiencing health problems and hunger.
"What choice do we have but to submerge ourselves? I've tried to find the
person to answer this question, but there is no one," Batu Narmadya told
Majot in the village of Domkhedi.
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