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dam-l LS: Omvedt Discussion Part 6/6 - Himanshu Thakker Response
A Response to Gail Omvedt's Articles on Sardar Sarovar and Large dams
(continued)
By Himanshu Thakker
4 Sep 1999
Part II.
LARGE DAMS AND BOMBS
Everybody, irrespective of whether he/she is rich or poor, has equal right over
the water given by nature and stored by the efforts of common labour in which
he/ she has actively participated. Nobody should have special benefits in any
way, is my firm belief and conviction.
Pledge of Baliraja Smriti Dam water users' cooperative
It is convenient to quote Nehru as worshipper of dams and to club all those who
are against large dams as advocates for "returning to the presumed harmony of a
'natural' agricultural society", as Gail Omvedt does. Most people do not know
what Nehru said in latter stages of his life, as quoted in box above (in part 1
of my essay). Let it be clear that all those against large dams are not against
development. What is being questioned is the prevalent model of development, not
development per se.
We have to be clear about what our priorities are, what resources we have
available to us and how we are going to use them. If we are not clear about
this, then, we will surely be driven by the engineering paradigm of looking for
appropriate sites for large dams and then justifying dams we want to build.
Since rainfall is decentralised and the demand for water is decentralised, it
sounds rational to harvest water where it falls. Even Govt. of India programme
of watershed development accepts "From Ridge to Valley" as the central
principle. The River Valley as the unit of planning and management of water
resources has been accepted the world over and a watershed as a unit for
harvesting water is the logical extension of this. The large dam critique also
says: harvest and use water where it falls. To do this surely modern science and
technology should be used. But certainly, using modern science and technology
does not necessarily mean that you automatically have to negate traditional and
accepted wisdom? But proponents of large dams begin with the premise, as Gail
does, that large dams are basically agents of human advance. The problem starts
here. This is such a non participatory, undemocratic and let me say, anti people
premise. You cannot argue against it. The decision has been taken by the state
on behalf of everyone else, even though you may be able to fulfil your water and
energy needs in a more benign, sustainable, cost effective, equitable,
participatory, quick and viable way. You have no say in that decision. You have
got to have large dams. Otherwise you are backward.
Critics of large dams are not against irrigation, energy, water supply or ways
of reducing damages due to floods. What they are against is the notion that
large dams are the only means of achieving all this. They are against large dams
because large dams are economically unviable, ecologically unsustainable,
politically reprehensible and technologically obsolete.
Unfortunately, a false impression has been created in post independence India
that the food self sufficiency achieved today is due to large dams. India's
irrigation establishment, which has assured that India has the highest area
under irrigation in the world (Sandra Postel: Pillars of Sand: Can the
irrigation miracle last?, Worldwatch Institute, 1999) has vested interest in
spreading such myths. It is a fact that today India produces 205 million tonnes
of foodgrains as compared to 51 million tonnes in 1950. However, a simple back
of the envelop calculation shows that less than 12% of food production today
comes from area irrigated by large dams. There are many factors responsible for
the increase in food production today. As far as water is concerned, ground
water has played much bigger role than large dams both in increasing the
irrigated area and in increasing per ha yields.
Hence, to begin with a conclusion that it cannot be said that the project of
building dams was itself a mistaken one is to perpetuate the same myth that
large dam lobby seeks to perpetuate. Gail has not been able to give any
substantial arguments in favor of such a hypothesis. An honest, objective
analysis of the experience till date would show if this premise holds or not.
Unfortunately, after building over 3300 dams and spending over Rs. 91,000 crores
of rupees at current prices (Rs. 2,20,000 crores at constant 1996-97 prices), we
do not have comprehensive post project evaluation of a single dam. The state has
not done it. The academics have not done it. No one has even questioned the fact
that such an exercise has never been done. And if we were to look at all the
costs, benefits and distributive aspects, it is difficult to escape the prime
facie conclusion that dams have not worked.
Look at the costs we have paid in the process of following the model development
that main stream economists in India have been advocating. We have displaced
over 50 million people, 40 million of them due to large dams. We have submerged
millions of ha of land and forests. We have destroyed the habitats of people,
plants and wildlife. We have more drought prone and flood affected areas today.
We have more "no source" villages (as defined by Govt. of India) today than we
had fifty years ago. Not a single river in plain areas of the country has
potable water and an ever-increasing extent of groundwater is getting polluted
or vastly depleted. We have destroyed a rich tradition of local water harvesting
systems. We have destroyed the people's sense of belonging to and managing their
resources. How many bombs would you need to achieve comparable results?
The biggest price we have paid is in terms of wasting an opportunity to develop
the country in a more sustainable, equitable, participatory and just way.
History does not provide many such opportunities. We have wasted a golden
opportunity, to put it mildly.
To say as Gail does, that Rainwater harvesting can be insufficient for
agriculture in certain drought prone areas is a meaningless statement unless it
is qualified by specifying what kind of crops are to be grown in the areas in
question. Drought prone areas differ in the quantity of rainfall, climate,
soils, topography, groundwater conditions, and so on. And cropping patterns have
to be suited to these conditions. No doubt at least one crop a year should be
assured in any region. Where possible and sustainable, two or three crops too
should be taken. But there can be no single solution for water requirement for
all kinds of drought prone areas. The underlying principle has to be: exhaust
your local water potential first before raising the issue of exogenous water
sources. Unless this is done first it is unscientific to claim that the methods
that were sufficient...... have now become outmoded.
The point is that as far as Kutch and Saurashtra are concerned, such a potential
has yet to exhausted, as is evident from the situation on the ground and reports
from the Gujarat Govt. itself. However, some signs of the kind of potential that
exist in these regions is available from the results of what is being done in
Saurashtra, as described in part I. Such a potential is yet to be exhausted in
Narmada Valley either. That is why so much water is seen to be available in
Narmada, even as large areas within Narmada valley remain drought prone and
water thirsty.
More evidence is available from what has been achieved in Alwar district in
Rajasthan over the last fourteen years. Alwar is also a drought prone district
with an average annual rainfall of less than 600 mm. There, due to the efforts
of Tarun Bharat Sangh, a non-government organisation working with the local
community, some 2500 johads, or local water harvesting structures have been
constructed. This has changed the face of the region. A notified dark zone has
become white in govt. records. Local migration has been reduced very
substantially and in fact, some of the population that had migrated has started
to return. A food deficit region has become food surplus and most
illustratively, five of the local rivers that used to dry up just after the
monsoon have become perennial. No doubt the solutions applicable in Alwar could
be and would be different than those applicable in Kutch or Saurashtra or other
drought prone areas. But of course, before talking about these issues, we need
to educate ourselves about whether the proposed large dams (like the SSP) will
benefit the drought prone areas (like Kutch, Saurashtra or North Gujarat) at
all.
That large dams have not led to drought proofing can be seen at many places
across the world. What large dams achieve at the most is they create islands of
prosperity. Prosperity in terms of water, agricultural development, industrial
development. However, they also destroy huge habitats. They destroy habitats in
the submergence area, in downstream areas and more often than not in command
areas. They take away resources that the poorest people depend on. Even in the
command areas, documented studies show that large farmers and industries benefit
at the cost of small and marginal farmers, craftspeople, fisherfolk and other
poor people.
The point about Kalahandi is not that dams and development has led to hunger in
western Orissa. I happened to visit the districts of western Orissa extensively
after the last severe drought of 1996. What came out most starkly from speaking
with people of the region and NGOs and some of the bureaucrats working there for
a long time was that in spite of the abundance of water and other natural
resources in that region, the situation of the people of western Orissa was only
going from bad to worse. A process of severe disentitlement (both internal and
external) was taking place where Dalit and Adivasi farmers were losing out
whatever resources they had or were entitled to. We were told about the
destruction of people's rich tradition of local water harvesting systems due to
government policies. We were struck by the utter lack of development of
groundwater in the region, though, as a former collector of Kalahandi told us
latter on, there was large potential for groundwater development. Most
importantly, we were struck by the fact that region was surplus in rice
production in each year including the drought year of 1996 and yet people did
not have enough to eat. Studies have shown that this pattern of uprootment and
marginalisation of the poorest is reinforced and worsened in the command areas
of large irrigation projects.
Nobody is suggesting that the rural Dalits and Bahujans of Kalahandi should
continue to live and produce as they are living now. The point is that even in
scrambling for minor forest produce or in being forced to migrate, the Dalits,
Adivasis and the Bahujans of western Orissa are getting severely exploited. They
are unable to hold on to the minimum resources available to them in the region.
Prescription of big dams and large industries in the region would only
accelerate the process.
Turning to hydropower, no doubt some power is produced by large dams, but who
does that go to? Rich people in Delhi's posh Greater Kailash area may have
twenty air conditioners and capacity to pay for electricity for these air
conditioners, but is that sufficient reason for building large dams when even
after fifty years, and building over 3300 large dams, 80% of rural households
have no access to electricity? When over 90% of tribal households do not have
access to electricity? When mismanaged, inefficient and corrupt systems lead to
vast amounts of wastage of existing energy and energy systems. When vast
untapped potential of demand side management would lead to saving in terms of
thousands of MW of installed peaking capacity. When existing dams have thousands
of MW of potential to generate peaking power. When such vast potentials of
renewable energy potential from wind, solar and biomass remains untapped.
To give an instance about the untapped potential of renewable energy sources,
some seven years ago India had less than about 100 MW of installed wind power
capacity. That has suddenly gone up over 1000 MW today. The World over, the
installed wind capacity has jumped from less than 1000 MW ten years ago to over
10,000 MW today and is slated to jump to 40,000 MW in the next ten years and to
over 100,000 MW in the next twenty five years. How did all this suddenly become
possible? It became possible because more research & development efforts were
put in and economic incentives were given for wind power generation. A much
larger potential exists in terms of mini and micro hydro, solar and biomass
energy. If enough money and encouragement is put behind the R&D in these fields
they will become viable alternatives.
So to conclude, as Gail does, that industrialisation and major irrigation
projects must be the twin goals to aspire to is a somewhat tired, outmoded and
illogical notion. A notion that has hurt the poorest adivasi people in the hills
and forests of India very severely in the last fifty years.
What is most tragic is that Gail Omvedt's defence of large dams in general, the
Sardar Sarovar, the Gujarat Govt. in particular and her charges against NBA and
its supporters including Arundhati Roy, is that it amounts to a defence of the
most undemocratic, repressive, insecure, anti people government that has chosen
to crush the movements of the adivsis and farmers, that has suppressed all
attempts at any debate on the issue in Gujarat, that has even disallowed any
attempts to inform the people of Gujarat about the project. The language and the
charges she uses are the same as the Gujarat Govt. uses. Moreover, she has very
little information about the issues she writes about. Worst of all, she has
chosen to raise these issues when the people of Narmada valley are fighting this
battle with their backs to the wall, when almost each and every institution of
our 'democratic' functioning has refused to do justice to them and they are
fighting against the worst form of state sponsored repression in the form of
submergence. It is not for nothing that three of the twelve items in the Current
Happenings section in the website of the Sardar Sarovar Nigam happen to be
authored by Gail Omvedt.
By being in instrument of the Gujarat Government, Gail is certainly not serving
the interests of fighting people of Narmada Valley. Nobody should be under the
illusion that strong vested interests, that has not be convinced by the struggle
of the people of 14 years would not get convinced due a few academic articles.
Being from Kutch and knowing the area and the people of this most drought prone
area of Gujarat, I can also assure her that she is not serving the interests of
drought prone areas either.
Himanshu Thakkar