Indian Villagers Defy Rising Waters

"We will drown, but we will not move!"

The Indian government is battling its own people over the construction of a series of dams in western India. The Narmada Valley Development Project includes 30 large dams, 135 medium dams and 3,000 "small" dams. Construction and flooding already has uprooted 40 million people and caused untold damage to the environment.

Mass protests stopped construction of the $8.1 billion Sardar Sarovar Dam in 1995. Last February, however, India's Supreme Court ruled that the dam - an even larger version of it - could be built.

Following the court decision, government officials confessed that there was no land available to resettle 12,000 farmers from 60 villages whose lands would be flooded by the dam.

In response, the anti-dam Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) organized protest marches, dharnas (sit-ins) and fasts that continued through the spring and summer.

In July, a seven-year-old girl died when she became mired in silt deposited by dam construction.

In May, internationally renowned author Arundhati Roy (The God of Small Things) stepped forth to challenge the government's policies in an essay called "The Greater Common Good." "For over half a century," Roy declared, "we've believed that Big Dams would deliver the people of India from hunger and poverty. The opposite has happened. Big Dams have pushed the country to the brink of a political and ecological emergency." Roy lamented that millions of people had been driven from lands where their ancestors have lived for thousands of years. "They have lost everything. Everything. It is their children that you see begging on the streets. "Not a single Big Dam in India has delivered what it promised," Roy continued. "Big Dams have converted huge tracts of agricultural land into water-logged salt wastelands, submerged hundreds of thousands of hectares of prime forest, and pushed the country deep into debt."

"The era of Big Dams is over," Roy concluded. To underscore her indignation, Roy donated the entire proceeds from her Booker Prize award ($35,000) to provide relief to tribal families made homeless by the submergence.

"As the century comes to a close," Roy stated, it is time "to say 'No' to these massive, obsolete, human-crunching, money-guzzling, technological disasters. Time to learn to step lightly on the earth."

In July, a tight-knit group of villagers and activists announced a satyagraha (non-violent mass action) campaign. They occupied two threatened homes in the Domkhedi and Jalsindhi and declared: "We will drown but we will not move!"

On September 18, Goldman Environmental Prize Award Winner Medha Patkar joined 135 other members of a samarpit dal (dedicated squad) that refused to leave a home rapidly filling with water. Police pulled them from waist-deep waters and jailed them.

As soon as they were released, they reconvened at the home of a villager named Luhaia Shankaria to stand with the homeowner and village leaders as the waters rose. After 10 hours, the rising waters had reached their shoulders. The water rose so high that the doors became impassible. Police had to break through a wall of the house to arrest the vigilers, who had spent more than 28 hours standing in muddy waters. Patkar and others were kicked, slapped, dragged and beaten by police before they were taken away. A total of 386 protesters (including 55 women and 11 children) were jailed.

As the Journal went to press, the both the waters of the Sardar Sarovar and the passion of the Narmada's defenders continued to rise. For the latest news, check the NBA website: www.narmada.org - GS

What You Can Do: Write letters of concern to Hon. A. B. Vajpayee, Prime Minister of India, South Block, New Delhi 100 004 [fax: +91 (11) 301-6857 or -9545].