>From kamal@imsc.ernet.in Thu Jul 28 18:44 IST 1994 X-Organisation: Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi. From: kamal@imsc.ernet.in (Kamal Lodaya) Message-Id: <9407270944.AA09720@imsc.ernet.in> Subject: Acknowledgement To: abeyg Date: Wed, 27 Jul 1994 15:14:02 +0530 (GMT+5:30) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21] Content-Type: text Content-Length: 8908 An article I wrote finally appeared in The Hindu on Sunday (24 July). Here it is. Kamal FROM MANIBELI TO MADRAS At Manibeli, the children from the Jeevanshala -- a school run by the Narmada Bachao Andolan -- wave goodbye as Arjanbhai rows the boat across the river to Vadgam, on the opposite shore in Gujarat. Manibeli is in Maharashtra. The policemen who jeep down from their camp in the hill above the village make loudspeaker announcements twice a day in Marathi. The residents of Manibeli speak Bhilali, a tribal language related to Gujarati and Marathi. They only catch some of the words of the announcement. Narayanbhai, the sarpanch of the village, laughs and says, ``They are telling us the village will be flooded after the rains. Haven't we seen it with our own eyes last year?'' At Vamipada, another part of the village on the other side of the hill, the village children greet the police jeep with cries of ``Sardar Sarovar kya karega? Sabka satyanash karega.'' (What will Sardar Sarovar bring? Destruction for everyone.) Gangaram Baba, who has come from Nimar, upstream in Madhya Pradesh, to support the people at Manibeli, asks: ``When they know that so many villages will get submerged, why are they still going ahead raising the dam more and more?'' The boat goes past the Shoorpaneshwar temple, one of seven forming a pilgrimage on the Narmada. The temple was submerged last year and remains under water. Recently the Manibeli villagers flushed out some of the water in the garbhagriha (sanctum) and managed to perform a puja. No political party is going to make a fuss about temples here, the dam comes first. Shoorpan and Mokhdi were among the earliest resettled villages. Nine years later, in May this year, the villagers went on a hunger strike in Kevadia Colony, pointing out how shabbily they have been treated, and how resettlement remains a dream for many of them. The fat was really in the fire when they talked about how, had they joined the NBA, they might have got a better deal. The government quickly rushed in to negotiate, promising their matters would be looked into immediately. Vadgam is one of the few villages which remained united. The villagers were resettled, but the resettlement site was bad. So they came back to Vadgam. The Gujarat government was forced to agree that they had not abided by the terms of the resettlement: they have now offered a better site and the people are moving there. They ask affectionately about the people at Manibeli. East of Vadgam, on the Gujarat side of the river, is Gadher. Segjibhai Surajiya had for years been refusing to move until he got proper resettlement land. ``I have 25 cattle,'' he says. ``How am I going to move them? I have to arrange for their grazing and fodder.'' His family, like most of the Gujarat oustees, stayed away from the NBA. On June 4, a party of officials and `middlemen' (villagers paid by the government to assist resettlement) accompanied by 50 labourers in 11 trucks arrived at the family's house. Segjibhai reiterated his stand and refused to move. He was hit by some of the middlemen. The terrified family ran away and the labourers then demolished their house. Over the next two days more trucks came and took away the house and its contents. Segjibhai does not know where their belongings have been taken. Some of their animals have also disappeared. On the opposite bank of the river, people from Dhankhedi village watched the demolition helplessly. Many of their families had finally moved in May, after being told that land was ready for them at Simamli, Gujarat. However only two of the 89 families have been given the documents to their new land. Out of the remaining 87, only 28 have even been shown plots of land. Interestingly, this turns out to be the same land where tribals displaced by the Ukai dam in the 1970s have been resettled! Fed up with the situation, unable to survive without being able to grow food, the families are now trickling back to Dhankhedi. ``We will face the waters but we don't want to go back there,'' they say. >From Vadgam there is a road to the site of the dam at Navagam. It takes three hours to walk. On the way, a downpour catches me. There is no tree to protect you -- all the trees have been felled and removed in view of the impending submergence. The ``road'' becomes a squelchy morass of mud and stone. Little streams flow across it at will. I get completely drenched. Navagam has a bazaar, a cluster of hastily built tin sheds where you can get a cup of tea. A private bus operator has already realized the potential of the site. Three busloads of tourists are being shown the dam. I would not be surprised if water sports have already been planned for the huge lake, the Sardar Sarovar, formed by the dam. There is a bus service from Navagam to Kevadia Colony, where the engineers and administrators involved in the construction of the dam live. The conductor takes one look at my rain-bedraggled appearance and shouts, ``We don't take any of you Medha Patkar people,'' and the bus drives off. The drivers of the construction trucks are more helpful and I get a lift to Kevadia. People look askance at my backpack in Kevadia. It doesn't quite fit the sedate government-built housing colony look of the place. A private jeepwallah slyly asks me, ``Coming from Manibeli?'' There are shops where I can make purchases, a restaurant offering idlis and an STD booth from where I can make a phone call. Kevadia Colony is proof of the fact that for the people whom it chooses, the government can make a comfortable enough place to stay. A State Transport bus takes me to Dabhoi (where there is a host of narrow gauge railway lines unaffected by Mr. Jaffar Sharief) and on to Baroda. Now I am back in the world of computerized rail reservations, of icecream parlours, of supermarkets and chain stores. ``Oh, you were in Manibeli?'' a friend asks. ``Hasn't everybody left from there?'' Baroda has one of the most attractive railway stations on Indian Railways. Fast trains take you to Bombay, and I am once again able to access my friends across the world by electronic mail. ``How come you went to a tribal area, just like that?'' asks a relative. ``Did these Narmada people pay for your travel?'' >From Bombay there are several flights to Madras: two private airlines compete with Indian Airlines. I take the long journey home by train. On reaching home, I start setting up my establishment again. It is not a ``water day,'' so I have to manage with the few buckets of water I had carefully filled up before leaving the city. In the evening, at a friend's home, there is the usual discussion about when the water from the Krishna river is going to become available to the population of Madras. For the first time, I wonder about the people who are going to be displaced because of the project. * * * At every stage of this journey lies a distanciation. A few lakh tribals leading quiet, self-dependent lives: we don't see them, we don't hear them, they don't even constitute a market for the goods we produce. For us what matters is the Narmada and how many cusecs of water it carries. We can generate so much electricity, we can supply water enough to grow sugarcane in Gujarat's Kheda district: why, we ask, are the tribals opposed to all this? It must be a conspiracy! It is only when you go there, you see that Manibeli has no electricity, no toilets, no doctors, no schools (except for the impromptu one run by the NBA). The Ankleshwar oilfield is a couple of hundred kilometres away, but getting kerosene is still difficult in these villages. The water from the Narmada doesn't come in taps, it has to be carried up, every foot of the way. We are not offering the villagers any of these conveniences, conveniences which the Kheda farmers already have. The only thing these people depend on is the land on which they grow their millets and maize. That we want to take away for the dam, and in the name of rehabilitation we hand them Rs 3000 and dump them under a tree on the outskirts of a hostile Gujarat village. Is it any wonder that they oppose this, that they prefer to stay on in their villages despite the submergence awaiting them? A sharp spell of rain will flood the road in front of your house and you will be complaining of the drainage in the city of Madras. Out there, with the flooding of the Narmada, the already built section of the dam will make the water rise by as much as an eight-storey building. The villagers will be struggling to protect their houses, move their grains, herd their cattle, save their families -- and facing arrest from the police. Kamal Lodaya -- Ontario Public Interest Research Group - Carleton, 326 Unicentre, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel by Drive, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, K1S 5B6, (613) 788-2757. "The more I learn, the less I believe."