File spoon-archives/seminar-12.archive/transl-asia_1998/seminar-12.9807, message 5


Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1998 00:04:37 +0200
From: John Hutnyk <John.Hutnyk-AT-urz.uni-heidelberg.de>
Subject: [Fwd: Medha's rejoinder in latest issue of India Today.]


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Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1998 12:48:22 -0800
From: Himanshu Thakkar <cwaterp-AT-del3.vsnl.net.in> (by way of patrick-AT-irn.org
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Subject: Medha's rejoinder in latest issue of India Today.
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Medha Patkar's rejoinder in the latest issue of India Today, dated July
27, 1998.

Dam and Dissent
Anti-dam activists are not crazy. Their protest are rooted in reality.
Medha Patkar

Tavleen Singh ("Luddite Sisters", June 22) is at it again. Not
really at any of the environmental issues that have aroused serious
debate in public fora and in the media but at us -- the activists. She
boasts about being a non-activist and invariably equates that with being
developmentalist. Apart from her own connotative logic and linguistics,
she seems to be ideologically bankrupt, conceiving every pro-poor,
pro-downtrodden and anti-exploitation move or thought as only
"socialist".

In Tavleen's perspective, all socialists, alternatively
activists, who question decisions, actions and projects which affect the
disadvantaged -- the poor, farmers, tribals, Dalits -- are against
development. Full stop. Her basic premise -- actually, an allegation --
ends just here.

Like many "successful" column-mongers, she picks up a sentence
here and a sentence there. These are not even from our books or
bulletins but from "interviews", which have first-hand distortions
already. But she doesn't care (or dare?) to discuss the factual analysis
or the ideological questioning behind our opposition to certain
developmental plans and policies -- even if only a handful of hundreds
and thousands of those. What should she be called? Anti-activist?

Not only that, she is openly and overtly pro-rich. According to
her, urban land and, hence, wealth should have no limits. There is no
need for redistribution of riches even if almost half the Indian
population suffers from hunger and poverty. She doesn't want any curb on
the real-estate business. She jokes about the need for 50 million houses
nationwide and makes the sarcastic suggestion of abandoning government
houses.

She obviously listens to the unquestioned and unverifiable claims
of the dam builders -- whether in the Sardar Sarovar project or the
Maheshwar one, whether the Government of Gujarat or the S. Kumar Group
-- who are closer and accessible to her. But there is no place for the
sigh and grief of the dam affected. That's Tavleen -- and she can
continue to be herself as long as some elite sections, a real minority
really, opt to read her ill-ideological rhetoric.

Tavleen gets caught when she enters into a discussion on some of
the features of the schemes we challenge. Take the Maheshwar project.
Said to be on the anvil for 30 years, Tavleen, in her article, stays
away from disclosing many aspects: no financial closure as yet; no plans
for resettlement as data on "available land" is proved to be false by
local villagers who are knowledgeable about every acre in the area.

She doesn't care to know the process and take cognisance of the
details of how people, to be affected directly or indirectly, are denied
the right to know about plans which may be afoot for one decade or
longer. Nor are revealed the honest scientific analyses of not only the
social and environmental impact, but even economic costs and benefits.
Also avoided is any mention of how fictitious are claims of the benefits
-- whether of large-scale irrigation being facilitated by big dams or
cheap hydro-power being generated through Maheshwar and clean power
through the Enron project.

Without reference to all these, Tavleen goes on. She ridicules
the impact of the Maheshwar Dam on "just 2,000 families". She suggests
the builders are only awaiting our suggestions on rehabilitation and
nothing else. She presumes we don't want electricity or, more so, don't
want the poor to use it.

She never brings to her readers solid facts that can show the
dollar-linked cost of Maheshwar's big, privatised hydel project will not
be less than Rs 10 per unit. Or that the 85,000 mw power capacity of
India has still left 30 to 50 per cent of households in Maharashtra and
Uttar Pradesh unelectrified.

Tavleen herself is in the dark as far as this dark side of poor
India is concerned. She represents a mindset which sees each and every
typical development symbol -- huge dams, power projects, urban concrete
jungles -- as naturally beneficial. This leads to claims that not less
than 60,000 mw of additional electricity will be needed just to light
bulbs in the houses of the needy. Hence, she recommends this generation
at any and anyone's cost. But not hers. This is typical of an urban
energy-exploiter, who buries the truth of inequality -- and even
destruction of lives and livelihood of the majority -- under the
glittering life in his or her backyard.

Tavleen asks whether or not the basic 21st century amenities
should reach every poor family. Whom does she address this question to?
Those of us who are striving to take basic education, community health
centres, minimum sources of energy and other such amenities to the
ever-neglected tribals, the rural poor and women facing drudgery?

Despite using ridiculing and rhetorical language, Tavleen can't
conceal her ignorance and arrogance. These sentiments are baseless,
without her having known us from a closer distance. They're truthless as
they do not analyse facts and figures. They are rootless as they bear no
relation to the powerless majority in this country. If not to her
readers, at least to anybody who is sensitive and realistic Tavleen's
ideas will only be laughable.

The author is convener, Narmada Bachao Andolan, and well known as
an opponent of big dams.










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