By Sean Healy
Scores of Indian villagers are threatening to drown themselves in the rising waters of the remote Narmada River in protest against the construction of the Sardar Sarovar Dam.
The villagers, organised in the Narmada Bachao Andolan (Save the Narmada Movement — NBA), have mounted wave after wave of protest. But the looming monsoon threatens finally to drown their villages; water levels are already rising.
By the evening of August 10, the waters in the village of Dhomkhedi had reached the house where the protesters were gathered. Soon, 50 to 60 protesters were up to their waists in water. On August 11, after demonstrators had been 15 hours in the water, police moved in, beating people, dragging them out of the building and arresting 62, including NBA leader Medha Patkar.
As soon as the arrests were made, more protesters took their place. Protesters also remained in place in the nearby village of Jalsindhi, which is also being slowly drowned. "The people will resist their unjust displacement and threats of submergence even at the cost of their lives", a statement by the protesters said.
The Sardar Sarovar Dam, when completed, will be the second largest in the world. It is the biggest of 30 large, 135 medium-sized and 3000 small dams planned for the Narmada River, on the borders of the north-west Indian states of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.
The Sardar Sarovar Dam will inundate 37,000 hectares of forest and farmland, and displace between 200,000 and 300,000 villagers, many of them adivasis (indigenous people) living in extreme poverty.
Those displaced by the dam have been promised land of equal worth in nearby regions. They were also promised resettlement at least one year before inundation. The promises have not been met.
In 1993, the World Bank was forced to withdraw funding for the project after its own review found that the rehabilitation and resettlement policy was inadequate, environmental and health safeguards were missing and relevant statistical information was wrong. Construction stopped in 1995 under court order.
In April, the Supreme Court allowed construction to resume and further allowed the height of the dam to rise
from 81 metres to 88 metres.
The state and federal governments have claimed that the dam is necessary for development, especially for irrigating water-starved Gujarat state. They have played a game of divide and rule, telling peasants in the Kutch and Saurashtra regions of Gujarat that villagers on the Narmada River are robbing them of their livelihood and inciting action against the NBA.
But according to the Play Fair Europe! group, which has been prominent in organising international opposition to the Narmada dam project, "The share of Kutch and Saurashtra in the command area of the [project] is only 1.6% and 9% respectively. Moreover, these areas are at the tail-end of the command and would get water only when all the areas along the canal path gets their share of the water, and that too after 2020."
In response to the Supreme Court's order, the NBA organised a series of sit-ins in Bhopal, the state capital of Madhya Pradesh, a hunger strike by 11 villagers (which ended when police force-fed the strikers) and a "rally for the valley", which began on July 29.
The rally began in Delhi, led by writer Arundhati Roy and a range of prominent Indian intellectuals, writers and actors, before proceeding to the frontline villages. From the beginning, the rally was harassed and intimidated by police.
The villages facing submergence are in a remote and inaccessible area which has no electricity or roads. The only way in is by boat or on foot. The government of Gujarat first issued advice that the river was swollen and therefore impassable. When this failed to deter participants, the government threatened Gujarati boat operators with seizure of their boats if they assisted the rally in any way. Finally, it closed the border altogether.
Not deterred, Roy and 500 others marched for five hours through the forests to reach the rally site. Anil Singh, writing in the August 12 Times of India, reported that they "received a tumultuous welcome wherever they went. Entire villages turned up with drums, cymbals and banners."
Many villagers, including Patkar, then vowed to stay and face submergence. Patkar said "We don't know what will happen. But we will not move."