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dam-l LS: Arundhati Roy, 'For the Greater Common Good' (pt 5)
-mail your answers to the Government that Cares dot com.
At the risk of losing readers, (I've been warned several times-'How can
you write
about irrigation? Who the hell is interested?') let me tell you what the
Wonder Canal
is-and what she's meant to achieve. Be interested, if you want to snatch
your future
back from the sweaty palms of the Iron Triangle.
Most rivers in India are monsoon-fed. 80-85 per cent of the flow takes
place during
the rainy months-usually between June and September. The purpose of a dam, an
irrigation dam, is to store monsoon water in its reservoir and then use
it judiciously
for the rest of the year, distributing it across dry land through a
system of canals. The
area of land irrigated by the canal network is called the command area.
How will the
command area, accustomed only to seasonal irrigation, its entire ecology
designed
for that single pulse of monsoon rain, react to being irrigated the whole
year round?
Perennial canal irrigation does to soil roughly what anabolic steroids do
to the human
body. Steroids can turn an ordinary athlete into an Olympic medal-winner,
perennial
irrigation can convert soil which produced only a single crop a year into
soil that
yields several crops a year. Lands on which farmers traditionally grew
crops that
don't need a great deal of water (maize, millet, barley, a whole range of
pulses)
suddenly yield water-guzzling cash crops-cotton, rice, soya bean, and the
biggest
guzzler of all (like those finned '50s cars), sugarcane. This completely
alters
traditional crop-patterns in the command area. People stop growing things
they can
afford to eat; start growing things they can only afford to sell. By
linking themselves
to the 'market' they lose control over their lives.
Unfortunately, ecologically, this is a poisonous payoff. Even if the
markets hold out,
the soil doesn't. Over time it becomes too poor to support the extra
demands made on
it. Gradually, in the way the steroid-using athlete becomes an invalid,
the soil
becomes depleted and degraded, the agricultural yields begin to wind
down. In India,
land irrigated by well water is now almost twice as productive as land
irrigated by
canals. Certain kinds of soil are less suitable for perennial irrigation
than others.
Perennial canal irrigation raises the level of the water-table. As the
water moves up
through the soil, it absorbs salts. Saline water is drawn to the surface
by capillary
action, and the land becomes water-logged. The 'logged' water (to coin a
phrase) is
then breathed into the atmosphere by plants, causing an even greater
concentration of
salts in the soil. When the concentration of salts in the soil reaches
one per cent, that
soil becomes toxic to plant life. This is what's called salinisation.
A study by the Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies at the Australian
National University says that one-fifth of the world's irrigated land is
salt-affected.
By the mid-'80s, 25 million of the 37 million hectares under irrigation
in Pakistan
was estimated to be either salinised or water-logged or both. In India
the estimates
vary between 6 and 10 million hectares. According to 'secret' government
studies,
more than 52 per cent of the Sardar Sarovar command area is prone to
water-logging
and salinisation.
And that's not the end of the bad news.
The 460-km long, concrete-lined Sardar Sarovar Wonder Canal and its 75,000 km
network of branch canals and sub-branch canals is designed to irrigate a
total of two
million hectares of land spread over 12 districts. The districts of Kutch and
Saurashtra (the billboards of Gujarat's Thirst campaign) are at the very
tail end of this
network.
The system of canals superimposes an arbitrary concrete grid on the
existing pattern
of natural drainage in the command area. It's a little like reorganising
the pattern of
reticulate veins on the surface of a leaf. When a canal cuts across the
path of a natural
drain, it blocks the natural flow of the seasonal water and leads to
water-logging. The
engineering solution to this is to map the pattern of natural drainage in
the area and
replace it with an alternate, artificial drainage system that is built in
conjunction with
the canals. The problem, as you can imagine, is that doing this is enormously
expensive. The cost of drainage is not included as part of the Sardar Sarovar
Projects. It usually isn't, in most irrigation projects. Here's why.
David Hopper, the World Bank vice-president for South Asia, has admitted
that the
Bank does not usually include the cost of drainage in its irrigation
projects in South
Asia because irrigation projects with adequate drainage are not
economically viable. It
costs five times as much to provide adequate drainage as it does to
irrigate the same
amount of land. The Bank's solution to the problem is to put in the
irrigation system
and wait for salinity and water-logging to set in. When all the money's
spent, and the
land is devastated, and the people are in despair, who should pop by? Why, the
friendly neighbourhood Banker! And what's that bulge in his pocket? Could
it be a
loan for a Drainage Project?
In Pakistan the World Bank financed the Tarbela (1977) and Mangla Dam (1967)
Projects on the Indus. The command areas are water-logged. Now The Bank has
given Pakistan a $785 million loan for a drainage project. In India, in
Punjab and
Haryana it's doing the same.
Irrigation without drainage is like having a system of arteries and no
veins. Pretty
damn pointless.
Since the World Bank stepped back from the Sardar Sarovar Projects, it's
a little
unclear where the money for the drainage is going to come from. This
hasn't deterred
the government from going ahead with the Canal work. The result is that
even before
the dam is ready, before the Wonder Canal has been commissioned, before a
single
drop of irrigation water has been delivered, water-logging has set in.
Among the
worst affected areas are the resettlement colonies.
There is a difference between the planners of the Sardar Sarovar
irrigation scheme
and the planners of previous projects. At least they acknowledge that
water-logging
and salinisation are real problems, and need to be addressed.
Their solutions, however, are corny enough to send a Hoollock Gibbon to a
hooting
hospital.
They plan to have a series of electronic groundwater sensors placed in
every 100 sq
km of the command area. (That works out to about 1,800 ground sensors). These
will be linked to a central computer which will analyse the data and send out
commands to the canal heads to stop water flowing into areas that show
signs of
water-logging. A network of 'Only-irrigation', 'Only-drainage' and
'Irrigation-cum-drainage' tubewells will be sunk, and electronically
synchronised by
the central computer. The saline water will be pumped out, mixed with
mathematically computed quantities of freshwater and recirculated into a
network of
surface and sub-surface drains (for which more land will be acquired). To
achieve
the irrigation efficiency that they claim they'll achieve, according to a
study done by
Dr Rahul Ram for Kalpavriksh, 82 per cent of the water that goes into the
Wonder
Canal network will have to be pumped out again!
They've never implemented an electronic irrigation scheme before, not
even as a pilot
project. It hasn't occurred to them to experiment with some already
degraded land,
just to see if it works. No, they'll use our money to install it over the
whole of the 2
million hectares and then see if it works. What if it doesn't? If it
doesn't, it won't
matter to the planners. They'll still draw the same salaries. They'll
still get their
pension and their gratuity and whatever else you get when you retire from
a career of
inflicting mayhem on a people.
How can it possibly work? It's like sending in a rocket scientist to milk a
troublesome cow. How can they manage a gigantic electronic irrigation
system when
they can't even line the walls of the canals without having them collapse
and cause
untold damage to crops and people?
When they can't even prevent the Big Dam itself from breaking off in bits
when it
rains?
To quote from one of their own studies: "The design, the implementation and
management of the integration of groundwater and surface water in the above
circumstance is complex."
Agreed. To say the least. Their recommendation of how to deal with the
complexity:
"It will only be possible to implement such a system if all groundwater
and surface
water supplies are managed by a single authority."
Aha!
It's beginning to make sense now. Who'll own the water? The Single Authority.
Who'll sell the water? The Single Authority. Who'll profit from the
sales? The Single
Authority. The Single Authority has a scheme whereby it will sell water
by the litre,
not to individuals but to farmers' cooperatives (which don't exist just
yet, but no
doubt the Single Authority can create Cooperatives and force farmers to
cooperate?).
Computer water, unlike ordinary river water, is expensive. Only those who can
afford it will get it.
Gradually, small farmers will get edged out by big farmers, and the whole
cycle of
uprootment will begin all over again.
The Single Authority, because it owns the computer water, will also
decide who will
grow what. It says that farmers getting computer water will not be
allowed to grow
sugarcane because they'll use up the share of the thirsty millions at the
tail end of the
canal. But the Single Authority has already given licences to 10 large
sugar mills
right near the head of the canal. On an earlier occasion, the Single
Authority said only
30 per cent of the command area of the Ukai Dam would be used for
sugarcane. But
sugarcane grows on 75 per cent of it (and 30 per cent is water-logged). In
Maharashtra, thanks to a different branch of the Single Authority, the
politically
powerful sugar lobby that occupies one-tenth of the state's irrigated
land uses half the
state's irrigation water.
In addition to the sugar growers, the Single Authority has recently
announced a
scheme that envisages a series of five-star hotels, golf-courses and
water parks that
will come up along the Wonder Canal. What earthly reason could possibly
justify
this?
The Single Authority says it's the only way to raise money to complete
the project!
I really worry about those millions of good people in Kutch and Saurashtra.
Will the water ever reach them?
First of all, we know that there's a lot less water in the river than the
Single Authority
claims there is.
Second of all, in the absence of the Narmada Sagar Dam, the irrigation
benefits of the
Sardar Sarovar drop by a further 17-30 per cent.
Third of all, the irrigation efficiency of the Wonder Canal (the actual
amount of water
delivered by the system) has been arbitrarily fixed at 60 per cent. The
highest
irrigation efficiency in India, taking into account system leaks and surface
evaporation, is 35 per cent. This means it's likely that only half of the
command area
will be irrigated. Which half? The first half.
Fourth, to get to Kutch and Saurashtra, the Wonder Canal has to negotiate
its way
past the 10 sugar mills, the golf-courses, the five-star hotels, the
water parks and the
cash-crop growing, politically powerful, Patel-rich districts of Baroda,
Ahmedabad,
Kheda, Gandhinagar and Mehsana. (Already, in complete contravention of its own
directives, the Single Authority has allotted the city of Baroda a
sizeable quantity of
water. When Baroda gets, can Ahmedabad be left behind? The political clout of
powerful urban centres in Gujarat will ensure they get their share.)
Fifth, even in the (one hundred per cent) unlikely event that water gets
there, it has to
be piped and distributed to those 8,000 waiting villages.
It's worth knowing that of the one billion people in the world who have
no access to
safe drinking water, 855 million live in rural areas. This is because the
cost of
installing an energy-intensive network of thousands of kilometres of
pipelines,
aqueducts, pumps and treatment plants that are needed to provide drinking
water to
scattered rural populations is prohibitive. Nobody builds Big Dams to provide
drinking water to rural people. Nobody can afford to.
When the Morse Committee first arrived in Gujarat they were impressed by the
Gujarat government's commitment to taking drinking water to such distant,
rural
outposts. They asked to see the detailed drinking water plans.
There weren't any. (There still aren't any.)
They asked if any costs had been worked out. "A few thousand crores," was the
breezy answer. A billion dollars is an expert's calculated guess. It's
not included as
part of the project cost. So where is the money going to come from?
Never mind. Jus' askin'.
It's interesting that the Farakka Barrage that diverts water from the
Ganga to Calcutta
Port has reduced the drinking water availability for 40 million people
who live
downstream in Bangladesh.
At times there's something so precise and mathematically chilling about
nationalism.
Build a dam to take water away from 40 million people. Build a dam to
pretend to
bring water to 40 million people.
Who are these gods that govern us? Is there no limit to their powers?
The last person I met in the valley was Bhaiji Bhai. He is a Tadvi tribal from
Undava, one of the first villages where the government began to acquire
land for the
Wonder Canal and its 75,000 km network. Bhaiji Bhai lost 17 of his 19
acres to the
Wonder Canal. It crashes through his land, 700 feet wide including its
walkways and
steep, sloping embankments, like a velodrome for giant bicyclists.
The Canal network affects more than 200,000 families. People have lost
wells and
trees, people have had their houses separated from their farms by the
canal, forcing
them to walk two or three kms to the nearest bridge and then two or three
kms back
along the other side. About 23,000 families, let's say 100,000 people,
will be, like
Bhaiji Bhai, seriously affected. They don't count as 'Project-affected'
and are not
entitled to rehabilitation.
Like his neighbours in Kevadia Colony, Bhaiji Bhai became a pauper overnight.
Bhaiji Bhai and his people, forced to smile for photographs on government
calendars. Bhaiji Bhai and his people, denied the grace of rage. Bhaiji
Bhai and his
people, squashed like bugs by this country they're supposed to call their own.
It was late evening when I arrived at his house. We sat down on the floor
and drank
over-sweet tea in the dying light. As he spoke, a memory stirred in me, a
sense of
deja vu. I couldn't imagine why. I knew I hadn't met him before. Then I
realised
what it was. I didn't recognise him, but I remembered his story. I'd seen
him in an
old documentary film, shot more than 10 years ago, in the valley. He was
frailer
now, his beard softened with age. But his story hadn't aged. It was still
young and
full of passion. It broke my heart, the patience with which he told it. I
could tell he
had told it over and over and over again, hoping, praying, that one day,
one of the
strangers passing through Undava would turn out to be Good Luck. Or God.
Bhaiji Bhai, Bhaiji Bhai, when will you get angry? When will you stop waiting?
When will you say 'That's enough!' and reach for your weapons, whatever
they may
be? When will you show us the whole of your resonant, terrifying, invincible
strength? When will you break the faith? Will you break the faith? Or
will you let it
break you?
To slow a beast, you break its limbs. To slow a nation, you break its
people. You
rob them of volition. You demonstrate your absolute command over their
destiny.
You make it clear that ultimately it falls to you to decide who lives,
who dies, who
prospers, who doesn't. To exhibit your capability you show off all that
you can do,
and how easily you can do it. How easily you could press a button and
annihilate the
earth. How you can start a war, or sue for peace. How you can snatch a
river away
from one and gift it to another. How you can green a desert, or fell a
forest and plant
one somewhere else. You use caprice to fracture a peoples' faith in ancient
things-earth, forest, water, air. Once that's done, what do they have
left? Only you.
They'll turn to you, because you're all they have. They'll love you even
while they
despise you. They'll trust you even though they know you well. They'll
vote for you
even as you squeeze the very breath from their bodies. They'll drink what
you give
them to drink. They'll breathe what you give them to breathe. They'll
live where you
dump their belongings. They have to. What else can they do? There's no
higher court
of redress. You're their mother and their father. You're the judge and
the jury.
You're the World. You're God.
Power is fortified not just by what it destroys, but also by what it
creates. Not just by
what it takes, but also by what it gives. And Powerlessness reaffirmed
not just by the
helplessness of those who have lost, but also by the gratitude of those
who have (or
think they have) gained.
This cold, contemporary cast of power is couched between the lines of
noble-sounding clauses in democratic-sounding constitutions. It's wielded
by the
elected representatives of an ostensibly free people. Yet no monarch, no
despot, no
dictator in any other century in the history of human civilisation has
had access to
weapons like these.
Day by day, river by river, forest by forest, mountain by mountain, missile by
missile, bomb by bomb-almost without our knowing it, we are being broken.
Big Dams are to a Nation's 'Development' what Nuclear Bombs are to its
Military
Arsenal. They're both weapons of mass destruction. They're both weapons
governments use to control their own people. Both Twentieth Century
emblems that
mark a point in time when human intelligence has outstripped its own
instinct for
survival. They're both malignant indications of civilisation turning upon
itself. They
represent the severing of the link, not just the link-the
understanding-between
human beings and the planet they live on. They scramble the intelligence that
connects eggs to hens, milk to cows, food to forests, water to rivers,
air to life and
the earth to human existence.
Can we unscramble it?
Maybe. Inch by inch. Bomb by bomb. Dam by dam. Maybe by fighting specific
wars in specific ways. We could begin in the Narmada valley.
This July will bring the last monsoon of the Twentieth Century. The
ragged army in
the Narmada valley has declared that it will not move when the waters of
the Sardar
Sarovar reservoir rise to claim its lands and homes. Whether you love the
dam or
hate it, whether you want it or you don't, it is in the fitness of things
that you
understand the price that's being paid for it. That you have the courage
to watch
while the dues are cleared and the books are squared.
Our dues. Our books. Not theirs.
Be there.
ENDS