File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/marxism-international.9712, message 92


From: "Siddharth Chatterjee" <siddhart-AT-mailbox.syr.edu>
Date: Fri, 5 Dec 1997 20:08:35 +0000
Subject: M-I: Open Letter - Narmada Dam



The following letter was written by Medha Patkar about the Narmada 
Dam. Ms Patkar is a well-known social activist in India and she 
played a prominent role in opposing the Narmada Dam project. It 
refutes recent conjectures in this list about the supposed benefits 
(which does not include the costs) to the tribal people who would be 
displaced by the Narmada project. Contrary to what James Heartfield 
asserts, major opposition to the dam came from the masses of people 
organized by the NBA (Save Narmada Movement) whose lives would be 
massively disrupted by the dam. Much more information about the 
various aspects (including technical) of the Narmada project is 
available at: http://home.dti.net/foil/economy/ecology/nbapg.htm

Sid
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An Open Letter from Medha Patkar (written in 1994)


Dear Friends, 

You may have already heard and or read about the eight year old
struggle against Sardar Sarovar Project, the Gigantic dam under
construction on the river Narmada. The dam, located in the state of
Gujarat, Western India, is being challenged, not only by the tribal
and peasant communities in the Narmada valley, who are to be deprived
of land, forest, river mother Narmada but also hundreds of people's
organizations of the poor and downtradden, with growing numbers of
scientists, professionals, and common people. This challenge and
opposition to the dam is not an emotional appeal of urban individual
environmentalists or conservationaists, nor is it a move intending to
oppose each and every development activity. It is a result of a three
year long study of the project - its costs and benefits, its
implications for the drought problem of Gujarat (Kutch, Saurashtra,
and North Gujarat regions) as also the decision making process at the
roof. It was only after a long dialogue with the government officials,
technocrats, and politicians on the one hand and the World Bank
consultants, mission members (who were their party to the project) on
the other, that we decided to oppose the project against all the giant
forces and vested interests. 

As individuals and groups concerned about India, its development
policies and reality, its citizens and their struggles, we would like
to brief you about our findings and conclussions related to Sardar
Sarovar Project. This was certainly long due and yet has become much
more necessary today, since you too are being drawn into it, through
propoganda or appeal for funding by the project authorities and
pro-dam politicians. 

The first and the foremost is that Sardar Sarovar claims to but cannot
solve the water crisis of Gujarat. The project is planned, they claim
to irrigate 14 percent of Gujarat's cultivatable land and to supply
drinking water to 8215 villages and 135 towns and cities in Gujarat.
It is pertinent to note here that the claimed SSP command area
includes only 9.24 percent cultivable land of Saurashtra and 1.5
percent cultivable land of Kutch. In any case, 86 percent of Gujarat's
land will, therefore, be out of its benefitted area (command area)
which include the most draught-affected districts and talukas
(administrative blocks) in Gujarat such as Jamnagar, Junagadh, Amrali
in Saurashtra and 98.5 percent cultivable land of Kutch. These regions
therefore will require an alternative plan-project other than SSP
anyway. There are such projects - small, short term, decentralized,
based on available land and water resources in each region not only
for the 86 percent but also the 14 percent to be benefitted from SSP -
but those are neglected and shelved without a political will and funds
as both are reserved for and flowing into just one central plan, that
of Sardar Sarovar. You may know that more than 80 percent of the
irrigation budget of Gujarat is being used for SSP. How would this
solve the drought problem which is so severe when only a small part of
Saurashtra and Kutch is planned to get the water and when the water
cannot even reach the parts of Saurashtra and Kutch till the year 2020
(Saurashtra) and 2025 (Kutch) even as per the reports of the Gov't of
India and the World Bank? 

But the most tragic realization of ours is that even their claimed
irrigation and drinking water benefits can't be accrued. Drinking
water is an aspect - they have begun publicising much more during the
last two to three years than before since the other benefits have been
exposed to be unfounded. And yet, you may be shocked to know (but
that's the truth, accepted by the highest authorities every now and
then) that not one paisa is allocated for water supply (lifting
pipeline etc.) in Sardar Sarovar Project. This clearly indicates the
Governemnt's priority for drinking water benefits which are left to
the mostly bankrupt Gram-Panchyats and Municipal councils as well as
for corporations to implement. The fact is that drinking water, as was
stated in the Gujarat's proposal to the Narmada Water Dispute Tribunal
(NWDT) was never a priority or planned benefit for the rural Gujarat.
Only the Municipal areas were to recieve some water along with
industries therein (the combined magnitude being about one ninth of
Gujarat's share from SSP, not even clearly divided into two
sub-categories). The number of villages said to be recieving drinking
water is swollen merely on political grounds, including all villages,
in Kutch and Saurashtra, without any basis, neither any change in
allocation of water nor finances. 

All this is not only tragic, but cheating of the drought - affected
people of Gujarat, as the Kutchis unitedly, in a mass-rally organized
in June, 1993, and in an advertisement published in the name of a
newly formed but mass-based organization (Kutch Jalsankat Nivaran
Samiti), unhesitatingly announced. They further came to realize slowly
but steadily that the promises used to estimate the benefits,
themselves are false and wrong. The water available in Narmada is not
28 Million Acre Feet - 28 MAF (as presumed for designing the project)
: Narmada Sagar, the storage dam in the upstream, is not being built
simultaneously with SSP and can't be , reducing SSP - benefits by 25
to 30 percent and the presumption of 60 percent water efficiency and
volumetric control of water in the initial reaches are over optimistic
assumptions, all this indicates the overestimation of benefits,
demanding realistic amendment- review as we call it. 

Review of Sardar Sarovar - all its aspects, social and environemntal
impacts, economic and financial viability and the real solutions to
drought problems in Gujarat or alternatives to SSP -is on. The Central
Government, through its memorandum of August 5, 1993, has appointed an
independent group before whom both the Andolan and the Government of
India have presented their case. Gujarat and Rajasthan have especially
boycotted the process with a view that it is a violation of the
Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal Award. 

This indeed is untrue, to say, the least. The review with it's report
not being mandatory is not a direct action towards modification of the
project. Nor is the Tribunal Award so sacrosanct that it cannot be
changed. As any serious issue realised, raised in the case of other
projects, those have already resulted in change or rejection of the
similar tribunal's decision as in the case of Boghghat dam on
Godavari. The Government's decision to avoid review, when they did
participate in the Independent review, when appointed by the World
Bank earlier, is with a fear that report would go against them and any
committment to keep people of Gujarat in the dark about the real
issues and success of agitation in getting the decision-makers accross
the table. But, the Review is still on - as an achievement of Andolan
and the report will be ready in January 1994 and made public in
February, 1994. (The report has yet to be made public as of today, May
11, 1994). 

In this context, you will be curious to know about the social and
environmental impact and compensation plans. The facts are simple.
Studies and plans on these have fallen much behind the progress on
construction. The impact on the downstream, uprooting 10,000 (at
least) fishworker's families; the impact on the soils in the command
area and the situation in the catchment and the treatment needed,
seismological studies and also, the scale of total displacement and
rehabilitation with the required magnitude of land and monetary
resources is yet to be fully and fairly assessed. This is evident from
the minutes of every meeting of any sub-group of or the Narmada
Control Authority (NCA) itself, right till the latest of December 7
th, 1993. On December 7th , the environmental sub-group refused to
grant permission to close the construction sluices of the dam (at
river-bed land, 18mts above M.S.L.) and asked the authorities to stop
further construction of the dam on the ground that the environmental
and social impact studies and planning has fallen behind the progress
on construction and 'Pari-Passu' condition in the clearance of the
project is violated. 

It will be most instructive to quote here what the person who signed
the conditional clearancy letter by the environment, ministry has to
say about the status of studies today. In a symposium in Delhi in
December 1993, Dr. S. Naudgel, had said, "Notwithstanding the
assurances given by the authorities to no less than the Prime-Minister
of the Country to submit all requisite environmental action plans by
the end of 1989, a commitment later stipulated in the conditional
clearance granted in July 1987 studies and surveys are still going on
for their formulation in 1993". 

The human issue of displacement, however, has gained tremendous
importance as the impact is unprecedented. Not less than 10 lakhs of
people- tribals in the Satpuda and Vindyas in the catchment, farmers
on the prime agricultural land of Madhya Pradesh to be submerged with
the best yielding horticulture and agriculture, the 1,70,000
landholders to be affected by the canals, others by project colonies,
sanctuaries, national parks, afforestation, power houses, etc. project
related works are neither surveyed nor is their rehabilitation with
land or alternate source of livelihood planned for. 

A few thousand tribal families, almost all from Gujarat, were
compelled to shift but the majority of them are not fully
rehabilitated, even after 14 years since they entered the process. Our
experience and dialogue during the first three years before we began
opposing the dam and displacement, has led us to conclude the
impossibility of rehabilitation what we have seen subsequently has
only strengthened our views. The thousands of families are organized
and determined not to leave their lands, forest, river, their socio-
cultural milieu. 

And the Government that didn't heed to the warning by the Morse
committee, the independent Review Commission sent by the World Bank,
that the project cannot progress, unless pushed through by
unacceptable means, is doing just the same. Since 1990-1991,
increasingly brutal force is being used. Three Adivasi women were
raped, calling was many a times resorted to, false legal cases were
filed against us....and even firing was not spared. The most
unprecedented and shocking repression came in recently. On November
19, 1993, firing of 47 rounds against the tribal men-women-children
opposing the survey imposed through 500 strong police force killing
one tribal boy of 15 years followed by the brutal caning on the most
peaceful marchers on the 22nd, leaving more than 200 injured, 124 of
whom were bleeding and 25 with fractures. 

And still, the project is on! Although it has lost much of its
credibility amongst not just the people in the valley but of Kutch,
Saurashtra and even most sensible people and people's organizations in
India and when the financial position of the Sardar Sarovar
Corporation, Government of Gujarat and the party states is such that
25,000 crores - the final project cost - can in no way be met and the
project would be left incomplete as are other more than 180 big dams,
the politics is proving to be a bit more powerful to stop it! But the
people's movement has also brought forth the issues, exposed the
falsity and conveyed the truth not just about Sardar Sarovar but of
alternative development policies and plans. Land and water can be much
better used with just and right priorities and without so much
destruction and displacement, if used in a decentralized way. It can
be, it's proved, much cheaper and faster too. 

The politicians - bureaucrats - contractors, however, are now trying
to sell the project, borrow the money, earn the credibility through
unimaginable ways and means - costliest advertisements, highest
interest ratebonds and what not! You are their target too! 

May we, therefore, appeal to you to look into the project and the
related issues, the people's struggle and the official claims much
more carefully and factually than you might have tried to, till now.
This is a very, very critical phase that the project and the struggle
are passing through. 

If you give your consent and/or money for the Sardar Sarovar Project,
the injustice and falsehood will prevail, the drought - affected will
remain thirsty and the valley will almost die. If you don't, you will,
through very many acts of support and solidarity, save the valley.
Gujarat, the people to be otherwise worst affected by the mirage; and
this country too from the faulty, nonsustainable, unjust ways of
natural resource management and development. 

With regards and hopes of receiving response at the earliest. 

Medha Patkar 
NBA, Uday Nivas, Shivaji Road, Nr. Pothiwala Dairy, Dandia Bazaar,
Baroda, India 390 001 Ph- (+)91-265-558963 Fax C/o (+) 91-265-451963
ATTN. : NBA. 

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