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dam-l Sardar Sarovar Article on Hindu edit page today, by V R Krishna Iyer. (fwd)
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From cwaterp@del3.vsnl.net.in Tue May 25 00:53:10 1999
Date: Tue, 25 May 1999 10:25:19 +0530
From: Himanshu Thakkar <cwaterp@del3.vsnl.net.in>
Reply-To: cwaterp@del3.vsnl.net.in
Organization: Centre For Water Policy
Subject: Sardar Sarovar Article on Hindu edit page today, by V R Krishna Iyer.
The Hindu, May 25, 1999.
The Sardar Sarovar Project
By V. R. Krishna Iyer
HIGH DAMS be damned if a sacrifice of the human rights of the voiceless
many and the environmental annihilation of the rare woods and ecological
elimination are inevitable. Central to global progress is the human
being and his/her habitation and habilitation rank above some material
advance for the kulaks and tycoons. Sustainable development strikes a
just balance between the `illth' of the masses and the wealth of the
classes.When we discuss developmental projects, we should never devalue
the displaced people or their lands and homes and ethos and community
culture. The Land Acquisition Act treats the oustees as commodities and
cash as convertable into a condition of life, forgetting that in law and
life ``man is more than meat and body than raiment''. Humanism and
compassion are integral to migration and eviction. Every huge project
which moves or vacates human numbers must be judged from this holistic
perspective.
The developmental paradigm relevant to Third World countries cannot be a
simian reflection of Western projects and prescriptions. Growth of
wealth is one component of development; a fair sharing of such assets by
the marginalised human sector, by way of distributive justice, is the
other component. Giant projects, welcomed by the proprietariat, may
alienate or annihilate the basic right to life of the proletariat, the
humblest among them being the havenot nomads dwelling in the dark woods
with dismal prospects of survival. The new just world order,
jurisprudentially emerging from the nidus of U.N. instruments, insists
on deep concern for the equal right of everyone to life, environmental
equity and preservation of the flora and fauna, especially forests and
rivers and the habitat, ethnos ethos and the cultural autonomy of the
Adivasi fraternity.
Deforestation, huge submersion and desertification are suicidal to
development. The vulnerable and marginalised human categories have a
right to their own mores, nourished from ancestral times, without being
flooded by vast and deep reservoirs through perilous dams blocking the
venerable riverine majesty of the Narmada, as it rolls on blessing life
and land with equal mood and mien. This integrality of nature and
humanity is a guarantee of the Constitution and of global jurisprudence.
Viewed in the compassionate dimension, the Sardar Sarovar Project has to
be subjected to humane scrutiny and empathetic engineering so that the
impounded waters, regulated flows and friendly canal systems engender
power and production but do not endanger tribal life. Sustainable
development, not developmental extravagance, is the goal of social
justice, which is a basic feature of the Constitution.
The little Indian, large in numbers, is the first charge on the
conscience of the Constitution, as illumined in the Preamble. I drive
home this point because the touchstone of development is not massive
production but production by the masses, that dignity, as implied in the
Right to Life, explained by the Supreme Court luminous fashion, is the
quintessence of the right to development. The lucre-loony chase of huge
dams and high-tech factories and other massive projects must be
contained and tested on the anvil of basic human rights of the
near-billion Indians. The bells of the Constitution toll for the
famished, the fettered and the forsaken. Him the country must salvage,
to him the country must lend dignity, by restoring shelter, food and
clothing.
Irrigation and power generation are welcome. But the first consideration
is human life. Development should be totally dedicated to the promotion
of the basic needs of the people. So we must explore, as a sine qua non
of progress, alternatives which, on balance, will least disturb,
diminish or destroy human happiness of the humblest in vast numbers. The
second consideration is, in case some projects with dams, reservoirs and
canals are to be constructed and some displacement of human settlement
becomes an inevitable evil, the effort must be to engineer the evil to
the minimum, to devise alternative schemes whereby the eco-environmental
injury will be minimised. More than all, no work shall be sanctioned, no
project, however tempting to augment huge storage, and no plan for
making the wealthy wealthier at the expense of the havenot society,
shall commence unless and until the last adversely affected Indian human
is habilitated with a home and some employment to get his family
wherewithal.
Displacement, or worse, being drowned in the gush of mountain torrents,
is morally sinful, Constitutionally untenable and globally violative of
human rights, ecology and the environment. It is indubitable that the
Narmada Valley is the homeland of tribals, rich with unique oriental
forests and woods of species not found in other parts of the world. The
Indian republic is a trustee of not only its multitude of people but
also the rarest of the rare bio-diversity and eco-species belonging
globally to humanity. A study of the Sardar Sarovar Project is not
complete by looking at the bare bones of legality but only by a study of
a conspectus of factors, including the socio-cultural tryst.
Narmada is a glory, not a tragedy, but if greed gormandises its course,
reckless of the afflictions on the needy human numbers, a river of
sorrow may terrorise the people into trauma and tears. Here comes the
role of judicial creativity, sensitivity and Operation Social Justice.
It is surprising and shocking to Gandhian humanists to witness
helplessly colossal dam construction, fraught with potential disaster,
coming up despite protests and portents of calamity. In other countries,
such hazards are opposed by the people.
They argue that such largescale projects destroy not only the
environment but also the lives of those people at whose cost they are
built. Besides, large dam projects have proved unreliable. In fact, a
study indicates that one per cent of such projects fail every year. For
example, when the 23-metre high Jonhstown dam in Pennsylvania broke, it
led to the death of 2,000 to 10,000 people. Another common feature is
the `overtopping with Maichu II dam in Gujarat in 1979 which caused the
death of 1,500 people. In recent years, the relationship between large
dams and earthquakes has come under renewed scrutiny as large reservoirs
have proved to be inducing earthquakes.
In Sweden, Switzerland and Norway, widespread public opposition has
stopped the construction of all largescale projects. In France, the
proposed Serre de la Fare dam on the Loire River was scrapped in 1994.
In Canada, a planned expansion of the massive James Bay project was
cancelled after intense opposition led by the affected indigenous
peoples.
The International Union of Conservations of Nature and the World Bank
had a workshop on large dams and a world commission on dams was set up
to verify the safety, feasibility and humanity of high dams. This is a
positive measure of global dimension to prevent later catastrophe. The
Indian Government did not permit the visit of the Commission - an
obdurately elite unconcern and allergy to the Daridranarayana's
creational attitude will be futile and people will protest, resist and
repel. The court must first ensure that rehabilitation of the victims of
displacement is actually habilitated. Consultation with NGOs,
verification by court commission and involvement of Ms. Medha Patkar are
a sine qua non for raising the height of the dam. Every metre of
concrete wall that goes up will spell doom for tens of thousands of
tribals, and trees of the rarest species and the culture of the locals
will be lost irreversibly. Beware, what is now a wonder may tomorrow be
an irreparable blunder. It is heartening we have a sensitive and
well-informed court system whose only constituency is social justice,
not mega-projects which ignore the right to life of the last, the least
and the lost.