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DAM-L To: dam-l@sandelman.ottawa.on.ca (dam impacts discussion list)
Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 10:57:37 +0530
From: Himanshu Thakkar <cwaterp@del3.vsnl.net.in>
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Subject: An Invisible Renaissance: MEDHA PATKAR ON EDIT PAGE in Hindustan Times Today
Source: The Hindustan Times, New Delhi, Edit Page, Aug 24, 2000
An invisible renaissance
By Medha Patkar
The Government of India is seeking a dialogue with militants
in Kashmir, even with those operating at the behest
of Pakistan. The Chief Ministers of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka,
and the Centre, have come to their knees; they
are ready to concede the atrocious demands of a thug like
Veerappan.
Paradoxically, the people in the Narmada valley, struggling
to safeguard the resources of this country, have to
confront submergence under water due to the Sardar Sarovar
project, as it happened on July 15 and after, as it
happens every monsoon.
What have the people in the valley been demanding? They have
been seeking a legitimate role in the decision
making process on issues concerning development, their
destiny and resources; and their protests have been
peaceful, within the norms of our democracy. But for the last
15 years, the State has dismissed the pleas of the
non-violent movement for a review of the controversial Sardar
Sarovar project which was pushed without basic
impact studies, and still does not have a formal and legal
clearance. Instead, the Centre, and the Governments
of Maharashtra, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh have used their
might to defame and suppress the people’s
movement, often with police brutality.
They don’t have the guts, nor the will to establish the truth
related to displacement and rehabilitation. There is no
land to settle thousands of displaced people. And now, as is
the norm every
monsoon, they are trying to evict the people with the threat
of submergence.
In the Kargil war, the soldiers, mostly from the households
of peasants and backward classes, gave their lives for
the elite, who are ever eager to rush into the glitz and
cacophony of globalisation. The tribals and peasants in the
beautiful Narmada valley are fighting yet another war with
their lives equally at stake, to save their land and
villages while the governments are demanding their sacrifices
to benefit the urban-industrial elite.
When superficial issues like the arrest of Bal Thackeray and
parliamentary brawls catch the headlines, basic
issues of the people are marginalised. And yet, the struggles
have to go on. With the accelerated pace of
encroachment on their sources of livelihood, the toiling
people have no option but to fight for survival.
Due to the developmental policies pursued during the last 53
years and especially with the advent of
globalisation and liberalisation, the displacement from
fields and traditional occupations has become the fate of
large sections of people. With no or little access to the
emerging economy of money and market, the natural
resource-based communities such as agriculturists,
fishworkers and forest dwellers have to routinely face the
worst case scenario, not just in terms of everyday hunger,
but also in their cultural uprootment. Certainly, their
distress is as intense as the atrocities inflicted on Dalits
and minorities caused by upper caste private armies
and organised communal forces.
The satyagraha in the Narmada valley has raised serious
issues regarding development and nation building. It is
challenging the outright violation of constitutional and
human rights. Several crucial issues regarding our
democracy have not been addressed since the last five
decades. Now, it’s the people on the margins who are
asking these difficult questions.
It’s in this context that the Narmada satyagraha has been on
since 1991. For the last ten years, with a
willingness to face rising waters and imposed evictions, the
people in the valley, along with many other
movements in India, are asking some basic questions: “Whose
nation is this? Who is the ‘public’ and what is
the ‘purpose’ of a democracy? What sort of a nation are we
making and for whom?” If our political system fails to
respond to these queries, then the nation will stand
discredited in the eyes of all those who are the eternal
victims of this top down paradigm of ‘progress’. All
democratic institutions will have to face this prospect.
From 1987 onwards, the struggle in the valley, corresponding
with similar struggles against destructive projects,
has been striving for a truly democratic decision making
process on the issue of sustainable development. The
issues brought forth by such struggles that emerged during
the Eighties and Nineties have been seeking a
‘modern’ (if that means contemporary) and rational model of
development, apart from an equitable, just and
humane polity as the core value of a society.
Apart from asserting the pre-displacement rights of the
affected people like the right to information, meaningful
and decisive participation, proper evaluation of their needs
and resources, and community rights to natural
resources, the Narmada movement linked displacement with the
so-called ‘public purpose’ of the project. This
linkage is important since the project and the consequent
displacement has been justified on the basis of ‘public
purpose’ and ‘national interest’.
The affected people’s refusal to take displacement for
granted while linking the issues of displacement and
‘public purpose’ have enraged powerful lobbies — engineers,
bureaucrats, politicians and financial vested
interests — at every level. Inversely, this has been a major
step towards the realisation of democratic rights.
Thus displacement does not remain just a technical and
managerial problem but is seen in a totality. It depends
on the kind of projects we undertake and our resource matrix.
How much of land can feed us and also provide
employment? Do we have the freedom to involuntarily change
economies and cultures of the toiling sections? Do
we have a framework of equitable sharing with all, including
the landless and destitute? What are the
environmental effects of the project and can we afford these?
Are the benefits real and lasting? These questions
just cannot be sorted out with a ‘management approach’; it is
essentially a political issue dealing with ground
level reality.
The project protagonists tend to generalise the benefits and
particularise the costs of the projects. The tribals
and farmers have been challenging such presumptions. “Are not
our resources, our lives and rights part of the
nation and national interest?” they ask. Are not the
well-settled villages and forests, fertile lands, the abundant
crops, unpolluted, free flowing rivers, clear, transparent
skies and air, the ambience and landscape in which the
people still live — part of the national wealth?
The rapid democratisation and assertion of identity among the
hitherto depressed classes will inevitably intensify
this critique? “Whose benefit, at whose cost? What is a
nation? If you benefit at the cost of our lives, rights and
resources, then the very concept of nation and nationhood has
to be looked into.” This is the new consciousness
which no regime can crush anymore.
The struggle of fishworkers across the Indian coastline,
including the critical one at Umergaon, Gujarat, and by
farmers in Karnataka and Kerala; the protracted battle of the
workers of Chhatisgrah; the Dalit and backward
class movements on issues ranging from grazing land to right
to information, are some of the landmarks of the
new consciousness. These discourses have been trying to shape
an alternative paradigm for the nation. Every
democratic institution will have to answer these grassroots
urges: political parties, Parliament and legislatures,
policy-makers, judiciary, and the civil society. This is
crucial if we want to build a sane society.
In Domkhedi and Jalsindhi villages on the banks of the
Narmada, people have pledged to continue satyagraha
(peaceful insistence on truth) with nyayagraha (insistence on
justice). We are engaged in Nav Nirman
(constructive action) where villagers are creating
sustainable alternatives in energy, agriculture, education and
health, nourishing the forests or building micro-hydel
projects, as the recent one inaugurated on Independence
Day. Hundreds of children at the Jeevan Shala (schools for
life), run by the Narmada Bachao Andolan, celebrated
the International Peace Day, on August 6, linking the issues
of war and violence, nuclear weapons and
destructive armaments to the need for non-violent revolutions
integrating nature with human society.
Last year, the satyagrahis confronted the submergence, but
did not budge even when the water reached their
necks. This year too, we are prepared to stake our lives for
the sake of justice and democracy. This is the way
common people will protect the ‘Nation’ in their dreams. This
is our contribution to people’s politics, this is our
effort towards social renaissance, this is also our share in
the international fight against the ‘global powers’ out to
capture new ‘consumer markets’. It’s a battle leading us into
a real war.