Details of Module and its Structure

Module Detail

Subject Name Sociology

Paper Name Ecology and Society

Module Name/Title Environmental Movements Part III : Narmada Bachao Andolan

Pre-requisites

Objectives

Keywords Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP), NBA, Narmada, NVDP, NCA, NVDA, NWDTA

Structure of Module / Syllabus of a module (Define Topic / Sub-topic of module)

Summary This module narrates Narmada Bachao Andolan, as an environmental movement in . Right from independence, there were several proposals to harness the waters of the river Narmada. In 1961, Nehru laid a foundation stone for a dam near the village Navagam in . This module engages with the history of the protest movement against Narmada Valley Development Projects

Role Name Affiliation

Principal Investigator Prof Sujata Patel University of Hyderabad

Paper Coordinator Himanshu Upadhyaya Azim Premji University

Content Writer/Author Himanshu Upadhyaya Azim Premji University (CW) Content Reviewer (CR) Savyasachi Jamia Milia Islamia Language Editor (LE) Savyasachi Jamia Milia Islamia

This module talks about Narmada Bachao Andolan (Save the river Narmada movement) as an example of environmental movements in India.

Resistance Movements prior to Narmada Bachao

While the Narmada Bachao Andolan is believed to be the most talked about resistance movement challenging the large dam, it would be wrong to assume that large dams in India were always celebrated as ‘modern temples of India’ and had not met with protests. McCully (2001: 299) states that, “Harakud, the first huge multi-purpose dam project completed in independent India, provoked opposition from local politicians and bureaucrats as well as the people to be evicted”. McCully’s brief narrative on resistance movements against large dams in India, in his book Silenced Rivers, informs readers that around 30,000 people marched in protest against Hirakud Dam in 1946. Mentioning another incident, McCully reports that “in 1970, some 4000 peope occupied the Pong dam construction site to demand resettlement land, and the work was stopped for more than two weeks”. McCully narrates to us the widespread popular resistance by people affected from large dams in the state of Bihar in late 1970s, on the banks of Subarnarekha river. He refers to a protest march by around 1 lakh people to the site of Chandil dam. A month after this spectacular mobilisation, police had opened fire at a demonstration by around 8000 affected people killing three protestors. In the decade of 1970s, there arose protests against the proposed Tehri dam on Bhagirathi and from the people affected by Chandil and Icha dams on Subarnarekha. There were also movements by downstream people affected by construction of Sipu and Dantiwada dam, led by Gandhian activists, raising concerns about water security.

Around 1980s, the earlier romanticism of looking at large dams as temples of modern India was losing an appeal, and as we have discussed while talking about hydroelectric power and large dams, Nehru was a precursor to the critique of large dams as representing “disease of gigantism”. In addition to that, Gandhian activists such as Jugatram Dave, who conceptualised a school and commune at Vedchhi, to exhibit Gandhi’s ideas on Nayi Talim, had started to rethink the earlier impressions on large damsi.

Planning to Harness Waters of River Narmada

Way back in late 19th century during the British Raj, the idea of harnessing the waters of Narmada rivers had grabbed attention of colonial irrigation planners. The first Irrigation Commission of India, which was constituted soon after the devastating famine of the year 1900, mentions a proposal to construct a barrage near Bharuch. However, the soil condition at the proposed site was found to be unsuitable for flow irrigation and hence the scheme got shelved.

Inter-State Water Sharing Disputes and Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal’s Award

The Sardar Sarovar Project [SSP] is one of the 30 large dams planned to be built on the . During the early years of its long history [1964-'65], the rationale used for SSP height of 530 feet was to prioritise the requirement of irrigation water for arid zones in Gujarat and Rajasthan over power.ii However, this proposal of Khosla commission to allocate 13.9 Million Acre Feet (MAF) water to Madhya Pradesh and 10.6 MAF to Gujarat was not agreeable to upstream riparian state and the proposal got mired into disputes. So under Inter State Water Disputes Act (1956),

Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal [NWDT] was constituted in 1969. After hearing the arguments from different riparian state, and a non-riparian beneficiary state that was made party along the proceedings for ten years, NWDT passed Award in 1979 apportioning Narmada water between four states, fixed the height of SSP at 138.68 metres [455 feet] and laid down binding rehabilitation clauses by promising oustees cultivable and irrigable land and alternative housing with civic amenities.

While much proverbial water has flowed down the river basin since then and also through turbines in the last one decade, in writing accounts and narratives about the Narmada controversy, authors in recent times slip into the tendency to present the discourse as a "minefield", "bibliographer's nightmare", "voluminous and tendentious" and the stand taken by opponents and proponents as "confrontationist" and "attrition of forces" whereby a middle ground of dialogue and compromise is lost. However, those narratives have seldom tried to probe the responses from the proponents and State, who wielded propaganda, hate speech and emotive power of thirst aiming at "discourse breaking", rather than responding to criticism and alternative proposals – such as the one put forward by Joy and Paranjpe (1995) - in a discursive fashion. Many a time such narratives are also seen faltering at the review of literature chapter itself.

For example in his book, The Politics of Water Resource Development in India: The Narmada Dam Controversy, John R. Wood’s narration of the NWDT years with singular focus on how different state governments and opposition parties in state level politics perceived and participated in the process. However, he neglects to draw upon the Vidhan Sabha resolution dated November 24, 1967 and letter sent by Madhya Pradesh MPs to Prime Minister on December 16, 1967. Wood (p. 112) says, "periodically, the Tribunal and its Assessors toured the disputant states to investigate…they made a point of not meeting politicians. They did not hold public hearings… Hearings and consultations had never been held before, nor remarkably were they asked during 1969-'78," but fails to draw from the petition submitted by Nimad Bachao Samiti to the chairman of NWDT dated October 28, 1974. Sangvai [2002: 16] describes how there were widespread protests during the visits of NWDT Assessors to Nimad drawing upon newsclips from Indore edition of two newspapers - Sandesh and Nai Duniya.

Wood (p. 120) says, "fairness in whose eyes was a question rarely asked in 1969-'78…there was some grumbling on both sides", while ignoring to narrate immediate response to NWDT Award's announcement - August 18, 1978 - in the form of 10000 people taking out a protest rally in Badwani and 5000 farmers from Nimad taking part in protest demonstration at Bhopal on 23rd and 28th August respectively. Khagram (2002: 206-231) not only describes the protests that followed NWDT Award's announcement but also reviews events that took place between '78 and '81 drawing upon newsclips from Bhopal edition of The Statesman and The Times of India. Isn't it surprising that an academician whose "news clipping files on Narmada and Indian water resources development now go back 30 years and fill many feet of filing cabinet space" should have picked up clips only from Ahmedabad edition of The Times of India while writing about NWDT process and ignored two books on the subject that have been in public domain for many years before the publication of his book! Sangvai and Khagram engages with the first phase of resistance against the large dams under the banner of Nimad Bachao Andolan, which couldn’t sustain the mobilization beyond initial few years.

Narmada Valley Development Projects and consolidation of resistance

The full details of the Narmada valley Development Projects (NVDP) started to emerge only towards mid-1980s, when an ambitious plan to construct 30 large dams, 135 medium dams and 3000 smaller dams was announced.

The next prominent event was the World Bank decision in 1985 to provide US $ 450 Million to finance the construction of dam and canal network. The Planning Commission accorded investment approval to the project in October 1988 for Rs. 6,406.04 crores at 1986-‘87 price levels. Environmental clearance was denied to the project in the year 1983. But, after considerable correspondence between Union Ministry of Water Resources and Ministry of Environment and Forest, the conditional environmental clearance was accorded to the project on June 24, 1987.

Narrating the history of the second phase of resistance where people got mobilised with a view to seek full information about the extent of submergence and displacement to be faced by affected villages and the promised rehabilitation, McCully (2001: 301) states:

“Medha Patkar was a 30-year-old social activist, when she first came to the Narmada valley in 1985 to work in the villages to be submerged by the . Over the next few years, Patkar travelled by foot, bus and boat throughout the nearly 200-kilometre long submergence zone, which includes parts of three states and people speaking five different languages. Patkar lived with the villagers to be displaced, listened to their fears for the future, and urged them to organise to force the government to respect their rights… Her oratorical and organisational skills helped build the trust of many local people and also attracted a committed coterie of young outside activists to come to the valley. These activists, who included engineers, social workers and journalists, were to pay a vital role in the Narmada movement”.

During those initial years, there were different formations that had started to emerge with a concern on the proposed dams over the river Narmada. In Gujarat, several NGOs had been petitioning the state governments and the World Bank to cover those getting affected indirectly by the construction of dam under the rehabilitation process. Early in 1986, in Maharashtra, an organisation of displaced persons had acquired considerable visibility under the banner Narmada Dharangrast Sangharsh Samiti. Medha Patkar had worked in North Gujarat before relocating to the Narmada valley with prominent social activists like Bhanubhai Adhwaryu, Achyut Yagnik and Girishbhai Patel and had seen the efforts to organise communities affected by large dams in places such as Shamlaji and Ukai.

On 18th August 1988, several such formations working on the issue of social and ecological impacts of Narmada dams came together and resolved to announce their total – but strictly non- violent – opposition to the terminal Sardar Sarovar dam and Narmada Sagar Dam. Almost a year after this, on 28th September 1989, at Harsud a massive rally took place where several thousand affected people participated and debated the nature of development. Harsud Sammelan brought many social movements of India together and was a major milestone in formation of nation-wide coalition of people’s movements in early 1990s called Jan Vikas Andolaniii.

Solidarity forged on International Front

Parallel to this there was an internationalisation of the cause and environmental movements in other parts of the world got to learn more about the Narmada controversy thanks to two trips by Medha Patkar to Washington in 1987 and 1989. Narrating about the events that unfolded on international front, McCully (2001: 302) states:

“Lori Udall from the Environmental Defense Fund was inspired by Patkar to take the lead role in raising the NBA’s concerns with the World Bank. Udall also helped build a network of committed and informed activists in North America, Europe, Japan and Australia who become known as the Narmada Action Committee”.

McCully (2001: 311) also tells us that “Bruce Rich from Environment Defense Fund and Marcus Colchester of the UK based Survival International both visited the Narmada valley before Patkar’s first trip to the US, and were the first to lobby actively against the World Bank support of the project”.

In March 1990, NBA had decided to petition government to suspend the construction pending a comprehensive and independent review. Later that year in May 1990, NBA organised a protest in front of Prime minister, VP Singh’s residence in New Delhi, which convinced prime minister to reconsider the project. The next big protest, was a long march on feet starting from Rajghat bridge on 25th December 1990 on Narmada near Badwani in Madhya Pradesh which resolved to reach the dam site and carry out non-violent demonstration to get the construction work on Sardar Sarovar stopped. When the protestors reached a village named Ferkuva, which marked Madhya Pradesh-Gujarat boundary, they were stopped by armed policemen. An angry month long stand- off ensued. In a non-violent protest action, NBA volunteers repeatedly sent teams of volunteers, with their hands tied with a rope to face the barricade and face the violent police repression, reminding people of the days of Dandi Satyagrah. Medha Patkar and six other began fast and on 29th January of 1991, the twenty-first day of fast came the news from Washington DC that the World Bank would institute an independent commission to review the project.

On 1st September 1991, an independent review mission headed by Bradford Morse and Thomas Berger began the review process and submitted a voluminous report to the World Bank president on 18th June 1992. Independent Review (1992: xxiv-xxv) concluded that:

“Important assumptions on which the projects are based are now questionable or are known to be unfounded. Environmental and social trade-offs have been made, and continue to be made, without a full understanding of the consequences. As a result, benefits tend to be overstated, while social and environmental costs are frequently understated … We have decided that it would be irresponsible for us to try to patch together a series of recommendations on implementation when the flaws in the project are as obvious as they appear to us. As a result we think that wisest course would be for the World Bank to step back from the project and consider them afresh. The failure of the Bank’s incremental strategy should be acknowledged.”

The report by independent review mission remains an important document that has gone into

details of the social and ecological impacts that would be caused by Sardar Sarovar Dam. Following independent review, October 1992 meetings of the World Bank’s executive directors witnessed several directors calling for suspension of loans. However, majority voted to continue financing the project, and authorised management to proceed with a six-month action plan to address the environmental and social problems. Six months later, when the conditions of that patchwork action plan had not been fulfilled and it became crystal-clear that the World Bank will be forced to withdraw financing the dam, Government of India announced as a face saving measure that it wished to cancel the remaining balance of the World Bank assistance.

Away from the events unfolding in Washington DC and New Delhi, in the Narmada valley affected people had staretd to bear the brunt of continued construction work. NBA now announced that in the face of rising waters and imminent submergence, a committed group of activists will rather embrace drowning by water than move out. A series of violent repressive actions began to unfold, but the police couldn’t locate Medha Patkar and her colleagues, who had declared that they would commit Jal Samarpan (drowning by water) on 4th August, 1993.

On the eve of that protest action, on August 5, 1993 Union Water Resources Ministry appointed the Five Member Group. However, project authorities soon whittled down committee’s mandate and pro-dam groups in Gujarat approached Gujarat High Court to set aside the ministry’s memorandum and restraining the government from releasing the report to the publiciv. High court passed an order in October 1993, which substantially restrained the government from releasing the report to the public. This was challenged in the Supreme Court, which eventually allowed the report to be made public in December 1994.

In the meanwhile, in November 1993, project proponents announced an issue of high interest bearing Deep Discount Bonds to raise Rs 300 crores through market borrowing. These bonds had a long maturity period and at the expiry of twenty years return to be paid to investors itself amounted to be higher than the project cost of Rs 6406 crores, but that point was conveniently missed in euphoric propaganda that had made SSP some sort of “article of faith”.

The dam construction was stopped at a height of 80.3 metres since January 1995, with Madhya Pradesh assembly taking a unanimous decision to this effect, after 26 days of fast by representatives of Narmada Bachao Andolan on December 16, 1994. While the Supreme Court had first declined to stop the work on dam in May 1994, a year later in its order dated May 5, 1995; it agreed to the suspension of the work and maintained this stand for nearly four years. Thus unsustainable interest liability of dam building corporation – Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Limited [SSNNL] was of its own making.

Supreme Court’s nod to go ahead and afterwards

In an interim order in February 1999, the Supreme Court allowed the height to be raised to 88 metres [85 metres + 3 metres humps]. On October 18, 2000 court gave a split verdict (2:1), with a majority – and thereby operative – judgement allowing the dam height to be raised to 138.64 metres, but in stages after ensuring compliance with NWDTA’s provisions for rehabilitation and compliance with the environmental issues as required under the Ministry of Environment and Forest clearance conditions. Minority judgement by Hon Justice S P Bharucha, however asked project authorities to seek environmental clearance a fresh. While allowing the construction to

proceed in the stages, the court had reposed a considerable amount of faith on a condition, an innocent looking linguistic phrase called pari passuv.

Soon after the dam wall started rising, and one and a half year later, project authorities clinched a clearance to raise the dam height from 90 to 95 metres on May 14, 2002 by inventing further linguistic tyranny due to an arbitrary distinction between temporarily and permanently affected that led to diminishing number of PAFs in Madhya Pradesh. Similarly, the dam height was raise to 100 metres and to 110.64 metres following a clearance in May 2003 and April 2004 respectively.

On March 15, 2005 Supreme Court gave a judgment that was critical of the resettlement and rehabilitation process and reiterated the binding nature rehabilitation clauses of NWDTA, by ruling that they have to rehabilitate “temporarily affected” PAFs, major sons and unmarried daughters. The judgment also reiterated “land for land” rehabilitation and lamented the SRP mechanism. A year later, on March 08, 2006; project authorities once again clinched the clearance to raise the dam height to 121.92 metres. Union Water Resources Minister immediately decided to review the decisionvi. While this led to intense debate over the state of resettlement and rehabilitation, political expediencies put haze over the discourse. Although, the construction stopped at 119 metres at the onset of monsoon, by December 2006 the dam height was further raised to 121.92 metres.

The seven year period (2007-2014) witnessed repeated efforts by project proponents - some of those even before they carried out inspection of status of radial gates that are lying in stockyard at dam site for last fifteen years - to get the clearance to install the radial gates and raise the height of the dam to 138.64 metres.

In June 2014, Narmada Control Authority granted clearance to raise the dam height to the final 138.64 metre level, by installing gates, even as affected people have been arguing that rehabilitation of displaced persons remains far from over. In its three decades of existence as an environmental-social movement, NBA has articulated the pertinent questions on the development, has forced powers that be to review the destructive development paradigm and urged for exploring alternatives. Concluding his narrative on the history of NBA, McCully (2001: 306) states:

“The NBA sees its role as much more than challenging a single dam or even dam building in general. Patkar and other NBA leaders have travelled throughout India supporting other struggles against destructive state and corporate development projects which strip the poor of their right to livelihood. Together with other leading environmental, women’s, lower- caste and Gandhian groups, the NBA has helped establish a National Alliance of People’s Movement (NAPM). In March 1996, representatives from around 100 groups in 17 states drew up a ‘People’s Resolve’, a common ideological platform for the NAPM around which it is hoped India’s many thousands of diverse people’s organisations can unite in a ‘strong, social, political force’”.

NBA continues to raise the violations in rehabilitation process by knocking the doors of courts through legal petitions. In a recent judgment, Supreme Court of India upheld the argument by NBA that legal entitles promised to major sons cannot be diluted by Madhya Pradesh state government. While in the submergence zone villages, communities keep the struggle asserting their right to life and livelihood and willing to put up resistance against rising waters that have drowned their homes more than once during monsoon, on the side of command area, governments have de-notified land

that were supposed to get irrigation water to industries. The progress on canal network has been such that Gujarat has repeatedly failed to optimally use the waters stored behind dam wall in Sardar Sarovar. Recently, communities in immediate downstream of the controversial dam has also mobilised in protest against the proposed Garudeshwar weir that is slated to submergence lands in 61 villages. Downstream communities have also sought justice from National Green Tribunal on the continued violation of environmental norms and has challenged the Statue of Unity project and other eco-tourism proposals.

The questions raised by Narmada Bachao Andolan will continue to haunt the development planning and would continue to work as magnifying glass for them showing them the words uttered by Gandhiji appealing to behold the face of last man while taking decisions. In October 2010, Delhi Solidarity Group – a formation that commits to stand in solidarity to contemporary social movements around India – published a book titled, Plural Narratives comprising historical narratives on the history of Narmada Bachao Andolan articulated by various activists in the form of long conversations. In the year 2015, Andolan published a calendar giving a snapshot history of the thirty years of struggle and an academician found in that act, an effort “to speak memory to silence, conscience to indifference and truth to the centrality of power”vii.

References

Joy, K J and Paranjpe, Suhas (1995) Sustainable Technology: Making Sardar Sarovar Project Viable, Centre for Environmental Education, Ahmedabad.

Khagram, Sanjeev et. al. (2002) ‘Trans-national struggle against large dams’, in Restructuring World Politics, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, pp. 206-231.

McCully, Patrick (2001) Silenced Rivers: The Ecology and Politics of Large Dams, Zen Books, London.

Sangvai, Sanjay (2002) The River and Life, Earthcare Books, Mumbai and Calcutta.

Wood, John R. (2007) The Politics of Water Resources Development: The Narmada Dam Controversy, Sage, Delhi

i For details see his autobiography, Mari Jivankatha (Navjivan Prakashan). Also see, Upadhyaya, Himanshu (forthcoming) Challenging Temples of Modern India: An Obituary to Technological and Political Dreams and Plea for Gandhian Ethics. ii Khosla, A. N. 1965 Report of the Narmada Water Resources Development Committee, Government of India, ministry of Irrigation and Power. iii For more on Harsud Sammelan, see Kumar, Madhuresh (2010) ‘Ordinary People: Extra Ordinary Movement: 25 Years of Struggle and Quest for Alternatives in Narmada Valley’, Movement of India, Vol 5, No 3, November 2010, http://napm-india.org/sites/default/files/MOI_NOV%2010.pdf iv Special Civil Application No 9366 of 1993, Narmada Abhiyan and others Vs Union of India and others. v A phrase that means “side by side,” first occurs in the discourse when the environmental clearance was awaited. This phrase envisaged that construction work will not outpace environment mitigation measures and completion of rehabilitation of all oustees. In other words, it had envisaged that pace of construction will be determined by the pace of environmental mitigation measures and rehabilitation of oustees and not the other way round. As we have discussed below, even the supplementary agreement with Jaiprakash Associates that SSNNL entered into within two

month after the Supreme court verdict was violating pari passu condition. vi Parsai, Gargi Centre puts on hold the decision on Narmada Dam, The Hindu, March 11, 2006. vii For details see, Viswanathan, Shiv (2015) ‘Chronicles of a struggle retold’, The Hindu, August 06, 2015 http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/chronicle-of-a-struggle-retold/article7504666.ece