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dam-l LS: Articles on Supreme Court Case, Life in Anjanvara and Maheshwar



This email contains the following articles.

1) SC reserves order on plea against NBA leaders, Deccan Herald, 8/25/99
2) A Grain of Sand on the Banks of Narmada, EPW Commentary, 8/7-13/99

3) Maheshwar? DAMN IT, The Week, 8/29/99
4) Essay Contest, Times of India, 8/17/99

------------------------
from the Deccan Herald, 8/25/99

SC reserves order on plea against NBA leaders

                                  NEW DELHI, Aug 25 (PTI)

The Supreme Court today reserved its order on the question whether to issue
contempt notices to Booker prize winner Arundhati Roy and Narmada Bachao
Andolan (NBA) leader Medha Patkar for alleged derogatory remarks about an
interim order by the apex court on Sardar Sarovar Project.

A three-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice A S Anand, reserved the order
after hearing arguments from counsel of parties on a Gujarat government
plea drawing court`s attention to certain media statements by NBA leaders
against the court and refrences by Ms Roy in her book The Greater Common
God and an interview to a news magazine.

The bench, which also comprised Justice S P Bharucha and Justice B B
Kirpal, directed the Gujarat government to submit complete statement in
tabulated form about the rehabiliatation of oustees from the project area
and relief provided to them so far on the basis of three interim reports of
Justice Desai Committee.

The Gujarat government had documented several statements of NBA leaders and
articles By Ms Roy in the book which dealt with alleged fallacy of court`s
interim order allowing raising of the height of Saradar Sarovar dam from 80
meters to 85 meters.

The bench observed that prima facie it seems to be a ''deliberate attempt
to malign the court. We know very well what she (Roy) wants to say, and she
has said it in the manner she wanted to say.``

*******************

EPW    Commentary

August 7-13, 1999

A Grain of Sand on the Banks of Narmada
by Amita Baviskar

IT was the middle of the night. After the 22 km walk to reach Anjanvara
village, we were deep in exhausted sleep at Khajan's house. Suddenly, a
hoarse shout jolted us awake. 'Khajandadu! Khajandadu! Gaav ma pani aavi
gayo!' [Khajandada! Khajandada! The water has entered the village!]. For
one moment, time stood still. Then it registered: it wasn't raining. It
hadn't rained for the last 10 days. The Narmada was swollen, but still well
below Anjanvara's houses and fields. Water could not possibly have entered
the village. Khajan was up too, trying to calm the man who was still
shouting. It turned out to be Jamsingh, a neighbour, who had been drinking
steadily the night before. Jamsingh must have dozed off into this
nightmare.

Just a drunken dream, but one that lurks night and day in the mind of every
person in this village. One day the water will swirl in - the river always
rises swiftly, and everything will be swept away - houses, crops and
cattle. The people of Anjanvara now live with this terror even as they
fight desperately to prevent it from becoming real.

The Narmada Andolan is 14 years old. In the last four years, while the case
against the Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP) was being heard in the Supreme
Court, the issue had faded from public memory. This year, the court allowed
the Gujarat government to construct another 8 m of the dam. At this height,
the dam threatens to submerge more tribal areas in Gujarat, Maharashtra and
Madhya Pradesh. Just when the SSP seemed to be a lost cause, the
intelligentsia's interest in the issue was revived by Arundhati Roy's
eloquent essay 'The Greater Common Good'. The essay was followed by an
event where urban supporters expressed their solidarity with the struggle
in the Narmada valley. Amidst the hoopla surrounding the 'Rally for the
Valley' and the media attention focused on this celebrity-crowded event, it
is important to look at the Narmada issue from the bottom up. What are the
views of the poorest adivasis who, in their everyday lives, deal with the
dangers of displacement, even death? Why do the people of Anjanvara
continue to take extraordinary risks against overwhelming odds? How do they
perceive the choices before them?

In this account, I attempt to communicate the concerns that move the men
and women of Anjanvara in the current phase of their struggle. I also hope
to convey the clear-eyed way in which these villagers have made decisions
that often strike outsiders as quixotic. Anjanvara is a village of 43
Bhilala households on the bank of the Narmada, in Alirajpur tehsil, Jhabua
district, Madhya Pradesh (MP). The village is surrounded by hills sparsely
covered by mixed deciduous forests. I first lived in Anjanvara 10 years ago
as a researcher. (My research on the changing tribal relationship with
nature was published as a book In the Belly of the River: Tribal Conflicts
over Development in the Narmada Valley, Oxford University Press, 1995.)
Later, I worked in the area with Khedut Mazdoor Chetna Sangath, an
organisation of tribal peasants working for economic, political and
cultural rights. Living here was an immensely rich experience for me. I
learnt Bhilali, made friends among people of a very different culture,
shared the exhilaration of being part of a mass movement as well as the
intimacies of everyday village life, its scandals and humdrum ups and
downs. After moving to Delhi to teach in 1994, I continued to visit the
village for long spells over the next five years, but for various reasons,
I did not go to Anjanvara after that. I had now come to the village after
four years. The cliche was only too true: much water had flowed down the
Narmada during this time.

The first shock was the river itself. On the long walk downhill to
Anjanvara, the first glimpse of the Narmada had always been a delight to
look forward to. The spirit soared at the sight of the clean water flowing
forever, gleaming in the sun. Now the Narmada has stopped flowing. At
Anjanvara, the river is still, its stagnant water muddy with sediment that
cannot be flushed away. Dead, diseased livestock that was disposed of in
the river now stays there and festers. The deep mud along the water makes
the old joys of drinking, washing and bathing in the river a poignant
memory. Women now make do with water from small streams that dry up to a
trickle in the summer. Arundhati Roy is so right when she writes that
"anyone who has loved a river can tell you that the loss of a river is a
terrible, aching thing". In the 'gayana', the central Bhilala myth of
creation, the world begins from a state of chaos when the mountains change.
In the myth, the proper mode of worship and the magical powers of music
help to tame the powers of nature. Now, as the river changes, a familiar
world is plunged into chaos once again. The Narmada of the gayana, a
generous life-giving girl, seems beyond the reach of rituals. What magic
will make her flow again?

Across the river from Anjanvara lie the villages of Maharashtra. The
distance is spanned by enduring ties of kinship and marriage. Women from
Anjanvara marry 'paldhad' (on the opposite bank) and vice versa. Emotional
and economic support cements these alliances. Through the seasons, there is
a constant traffic of people visiting relatives, carrying small gifts -
some mangoes or groundnuts, for instance. Besides this everyday
reciprocity, there is the help accorded in times of crisis, when money has
to be raised for brideprice, or when someone wants a patch of land to farm.
For married women, particularly, access to their natal village is a
precious thing.

This summer, Anjanvara watched the villages across the river close down. A
road was built all the way along the river and, one by one, the houses
paldhad were dismantled and taken away to the resettlement sites. For those
who are staying on, the emptied villages signal the end of the social
universe as they have known it.

While the trucks were ferrying people and their belongings, the men of
Anjanvara also hitched rides to visit relatives at the Taloda resettlement
site in Maharashtra. Budhya's two daughters who were married into
Maharashtra have shifted their homes to Taloda. In Budhya's view, Taloda is
better than most other places. His sons-in-law have got irrigated land.
Since Taloda was a forest that was denotified to settle adivasis, it is
relatively easy to get fuel and fodder and other forest produce. Of all the
experiences with displacement, this seems to be the least painful.

Budhya's opinion about Taloda, and about forest land as the closest
approximation to what adivasis want, is echoed by other people in Anjanvara
too. They don't want to move. But, if worst comes to worst, they would need
forest land where the entire village can be resettled as a unit.
Unfortunately, even this modest requirement is not being met in their home
state of Madhya Pradesh. For a state with the largest area under forests,
the MP government has not found any land where it can settle its adivasi
population. On June 16, 1999 the newspapers reported an MP government order
that forests could be denotified for mineral prospecting. Clearly, there
are two sets of laws - one for mining companies and another for adivasis.

The utter callousness of the MP government is all the more shocking when
contrasted with chief minister Digvijay Singh's celebration in the media as
a 'green', pro-poor politician. According to the terms of the Narmada Water
Disputes Tribunal, Anjanvara has the right to choose whether to stay in MP
or resettle in Gujarat. The MP government has made sure that this right is
never exercised. After all, if all the 193 villages to be displaced by the
SSP stay on in MP, what an administrative headache it would be! And then
there is the displacement from Maheshwar, Narmada Sagar, Onkareshwar and
all the other dams planned upstream. Much better to not set a precedent by
giving Anjanvara a decent deal. Let Gujarat handle them.

Gujarat. If there is one thing that Anjanvara is sure about, it is this:
they don't want to go to Gujarat. They have visited resettlement sites
there and they have seen the misery. Waterlogged fields, no livestock,
fragmented families, hostile neighbours, no commons to collect fuel and
fodder - this sums up the experience of most adivasis from MP who were
given land in Gujarat. To be sure, there is the rare exception. Dhankia,
the ex-sarpanch of nearby Kakadsila, got reasonable land where his hamlet
was resettled as a unit. Dhankia is said to have profited from
resettlement. He illicitly felled lots of teak from the Kakadsila forests
and sold the timber in Gujarat. He also made money from every family that
left. Just like the old sterilisation campaign, resettlement also provides
for a 'motivator' who earns a commission for every person he delivers to
the door of the 'doob' officer (submergence officer). For hustlers like
Dhankia, there is money to be made at every step, and he has even bought a
motorcycle and a tractor. But most adivasis are not hustlers; they are poor
farmers. Their ability to negotiate with the government on their own is
minimal. They are almost structurally fated to get short-changed.

Then why are some people leaving? All of Anjanvara is unitedly staying on,
but they have seen their neighbours' numbers deplete over the last few
years. This is the power of the politics of attrition. This is how
governments wear people down by ceaseless battering. For 14 years, this
strip of tribal villages along the Narmada has faced sustained government
action against them - the absence of all development inputs, the forcible
surveying of lands and homes, and the brutal suppression of protest. Cases
have been filed against them, people have been arrested and jailed.
Anjanvara was the scene of a police firing in 1993. Six years later, the
case still drags on and people still have to appear in court at Alirajpur
80 km away.

Then there are the government's assurances, blandishments and promises,
backed by the looming threat of the dam. 'Leave now or you will drown like
rats when the water comes'. What do you do? Do you have a choice? At the
Narmada Forum conference held in Delhi in 1993, Gujarat government
officials and pro-dam scholars were outraged when Bela Bhatia, who had
meticulously documented the resettlement experience of Gujarat oustees,
described the process as 'forced eviction'. (See Bela Bhatia's essay in
Dreze et al (eds), The Dam and the Nation, Oxford University Press, 1997.)
Six years on, forced eviction continues.

Anjanvara has still not budged. Nor has neighbouring Bhitada. Entire
villages and hamlets are doggedly staying on. What prospects do you have if
the water comes, I ask. Well, what prospects do we have if we leave, they
ask. Impasse.

Meanwhile, life goes on in Anjanvara. The entire village assembled to
sacrifice a goat to their ancestor Kutra Kunasa, to end the seasonal taboo
on cutting teak leaves. At the clan feast that followed, people chatted
about sending their children off the next day to the ashram school in
Mathvad. When I had first come to Anjanvara, no one could read or write in
the village. I made a start, but it fizzled out after I left. Then the
Andolan posted a young school teacher here and he has taught many children
now. Last year, nine of them enrolled in the Mathvad boarding school. This
year, they plan to send 15. The government school is officially recognised
and funded, but children learnt far more in the Andolan school in the
village. Khajan's 14 year-old son Radya can read and write fluently, but he
has been placed in class 1. He is so bored that he spends his time copying
out bhajans (devotional songs) that he has learnt at school. Leafing
through his notebook, I notice that all the songs are in Hindi and are
about Hindu deities. One of them begins, 'Ayodhya mein namo re', exhorting
singers to worship in Ayodhya (the place where Babri masjid was demolished
by Hindu extremists). Do you sing any of your own songs at the school, I
ask. Radya, who like most adivasis, can sing through the entire night,
shakes his head.

Despite the cultural dissonance, Anjanvara is enthusiastic about education.
Education smartens you up, they say. There is an added keenness to this
newfound desire for schooling. Somewhere lurks the hope that their educated
youth will eventually get government jobs. Sending kids to school is a way
of investing in their future and yours. It's a very long shot indeed, but
one that makes sense in the context of the dam.

Seeing Radya in unfamiliar shirt and trousers, ready to leave for school,
reminds me that Anjanvara has prospered since I was here first. No one
could afford trousers earlier. The years of reprieve given by the Supreme
Court stay were marked by good monsoons. The road built across the river
and the trucks plying back and forth enabled Anjanvara to buy synthetic
fertilisers which they had never been able to bring to their remote village
before. The produce is much more now, they say. For the last few years,
they have also been protecting teak trees in their village and the
regeneration is impressive. Both the land and the forest are flourishing.

This year, the crops have been sown. The young maize and tuvar is already
growing. But it hasn't rained for 10 days. The bajra and jowar will
probably have to be resown, as will the groundnut and other pulses. What
crushing irony! The rain will bring water for the thirsty crops and people
pray for rain. It may also ultimately flood the land. Anjanvara has been
living this paradox for some time now. They shrug their shoulders and carry
on living - worshipping, ploughing, marrying, cooking and bearing children,
and singing them to sleep. Despite its hardships, this is still the life
they prefer. This is where they want to be.

The larger issues of rehabilitation for all, of other dams, of a National
Rehabilitation Policy, why displacement in the first place, are very
important. What I offer here is a fragment, a partial view of one village,
a grain of sand on the Narmada riverbank. Anjanvara may be just a detail.
But they say that god is in the details. For the Supreme Court, for the P D
Desai Committee, and for the government of Madhya Pradesh, it must matter
that the people of Anjanvara should not face ignominy and a living death.

*********************

from The Week, Aug 29, 1999

Maheshwar? DAMN IT
Controversy: People of Pathrad and surrounding villages are
angry the country's first private hydro-power project

by V. Radhika

Any official associated with the Maheshwar dam is barred from entering the
village." This warning splashed across a board at the entrance of Pathrad
village reflects the defiant mood of its residents. It also tells the story
of the misery that India's first-ever privatised hydro-power project, the
Shri Maheshwar project, will cause. Pathrad is one of the first villages
that will be submerged by the dam being built on the Narmada river.

According to NBA leader Medha Patkar (right), though 40 per cent of people
in Nimad are landless, the movement against Maheshwar dam enjoys popular
support. This answers the criticism that NBA has support of only rich
farmers.

Located two kilometres upstream from Mandleshwar town in the fertile Nimad
region of Madhya Pradesh, the Maheshwar dam is one of the 30 big dams
proposed on the Narmada. The government has contracted the 400-MW project
to textile giant S. Kumars, and it is expected to be complete in 2003, at a
cost of Rs 1,910 crore.

The project was awarded to S. Kumars in 1991, and a conditional
environmental clearance was granted in 1994. In 1998, preliminary contracts
were signed with the German power utilities Bayenwerk AG and Vernigte
Elektrizitatswerke Westfalen (VEW) for participation in the project.

The Madhya Pradesh Electricity Board (MPEB) claims that the project is
specially designed to increase power production during peak requirement
period. Besides, it will be the main power supplier for western Madhya
Pradesh after Chhatisgarh becomes a separate state.

The farmers in fertile Nimad, however, are not ready to move out unless
they get equally fertile land elsewhere. "We are supposed to be allotted
land in Samraj village, but it's a rocky terrain with no water," says
Bharat Singh Patidar, who owns 25 acres. "Here we grow cotton, soyabean,
maize, chili and even sugarcane."

This is a common refrain in most houses. Khargone District Magistrate
Bhupal Singh maintains that there is enough land in the district to be
allotted to project oustees. But, by his own admission, most of the land
will have to be carved out from excess grazing lands of the 1,200 villages
in this district. "But then, grazing lands are for grazing and that is why
they are not cultivated," points out Mansa Ram Bhai, a farmer.

Those whose lands will be 'partially submerged' are also upset. One of
them, Mahadev Bhai, says: "According to dam authorities only 36 decimals of
my field will be submerged and therefore I can get compensation only for
that. Actually the entire field will be affected."

According to S. Kumars, 13 villages will be submerged fully and 9
partially. The company says that part of the population of the 9 villages
will be relocated. The government estimates that 61 villages will be
affected; 21 will be partially or totally submerged and agricultural land
will be submerged in the rest.

The project would also rob boatmen, fishermen and sand quarriers of their
livelihood. "I cannot be anything else but a boatman," says Madan Kewat, a
boatman who recently rowed to Pathrad to welcome the 'Rally for the Valley'
led by writer Arundhati Roy. "Our elders have taught us to live on the
river. That is the only thing we know."

Mukul Kasliwal, managing director of S. Kumars, told The Week that sand
quarriers, fishermen and boatmen living in the affected villages will be
rehabilitated and given grants of Rs 40,000 a head. Outsiders who depend on
the river for survival are, however, out of this bracket.

The Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), which has been spearheading the
resistance against the 30 big dams on the Narmada, does not consider
compensation the central issue. "We start with questioning the
inevitability of displacement and examining whether all alternatives have
been explored," says NBA leader Medha Patkar.

Rich farmers, particularly Patidars from Nimad, are the most vocal
opponents of the Maheshwar dam and they have rallied behind the NBA.
Originally from Gujarat, the Patidars had worked as share-croppers before
they became landlords. Patkar, however, asserts that the NBA enjoys the
support of other sections as well. "Many full-time workers in the NBA come
from landless families," she says. "In Nimad, 40 per cent of the people are
landless, and we enjoy the support of the village community."

Mobilisation against the project in the last two years has resulted in the
German government suspending its decision to give Export Credit Guarantee
for the project. It also resulted in the backing out of Bayenwirk and VEW
from the project.

There is now talk that Siemens, which is supplying equipment worth $200
million, is lobbying with the German government to rescind the suspension.

Some ardent supporters of the NBA have accepted compensation packages
offered by the S. Kumars. Dhanna Lal of Behgaon village, for instance, has
received fifty per cent compensation for his four-acre field.

Isn't there a contradiction here since the NBA is advocating refusal of
compensation? Lal does not think so. "It is because of the NBA that we are
getting such a high compensation (Rs 130,000 an acre of irrigated land).
Moreover, our land is in the low-lying areas and gets flooded every year,
dam or no dam," says Lal. "The administration never gave us land. Now, when
someone is paying us money to move, why should not we accept it? That does
not mean we should not support the NBA!"

The landless peasants have also accepted compensation. "If land is offered
to the landless we certainly welcome it," says Patkar. "But this land is
not offered with a view to bringing about land reforms, but to make them
vacate the villages. That's cheating."

The sustained opposition to the dam made the MP government stop the work
last year. A task force including NBA representatives was constituted to
study Narmada Valley development options. Its report observed that the cost
of power could be around Rs 5.24 a unit, not Rs 3.50 as the authorities had
claimed.

A cause for concern, says Chittaroopa Palit of the NBA, is that the state
electricity board will have to purchase all the power produced by the
project. Electricity produced by the board costs only Rs 1.67 a unit. The
state government has, however, set aside the task force report.Ê As the
struggle goes on, villagers live in uncertainty, and all work has come to a
halt. Even minor repair works are not undertaken. Khuman Singh Patel's
house has not been plastered. "What is the point of spending money when the
house may go under water?" he asks.There is no frustration in his voice,
only resolve to stall the 'damned' project.

***************
from The Times of India News Service, 8/17/99

Essay competition for students

NEW DELHI: Should big dams be built or not? If not, what could be the
alternatives to meet the country's water and power needs?

With the fight on the Narmada in the limelight, the organisers of an
international conference here have decided to hold a national essay
competition for students upto Class XII on ``Large dams - Controversy and
need for meeting the demands of water supply, irrigation and power''.

The conference on Hydropower and river valley development: Building
synergy in Asian countries will be held here in December. It is being
organised by the Institution of Engineers (India) and Water and Power
Consultancy Services, and supported by the ministries of power and water
resources.

The organisers will accept essays of up to 1,500 words, typed or neatly
written, and routed through school principals before November 15. The
three best entries will be awarded during the conference.