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dam-l LS: Reply from A. Roy to SS Bhalla in Indian Express
Reply from Arundhati Roy to article by SS Bhalla which appeared in Indian
Express on Sept. 6.
---
Indian Express, 20 September
MR BHALLA'S SUMS
Though the saints amongst us may disagree, I'd say that ridiculing someone
is not necessarily a bad thing to do. When that someone is a famous writer
who's won a big prize, you could even argue that it's a good thing. When
that someone is a publicity-seek ing, anti-national, anti-development,
pro-poverty, famous writer (cum Foreign Agent) who's won a big prize, why
then I'd go so far as to say that ridiculing her is, or ought to be, every
right-thinking citizen's public duty. There's only one rule: (For
heaven's sake) get it right.
Don't write a piece so full of basic mistakes that even the people whose
side you're on (in this case the Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam) would not
want to post on their website. In other words, don't do what Mr Bhalla did
(Going wrong with figures in a Big Dam way . Indian Express September 6th
1999) Don't miss the jugular, and hit the funny bone instead.
When I was writing The Greater Common Good, one of the things that shocked
me was that there were no official government records of how many people
have been displaced by Big Dams. The fact that these figures (whatever
they are) do not exist is not just an unpardonable failure on the part of
the Indian state, it is an unpardonable failure on the part of all of us -
the writers, the thinkers, the economists, the planners. (Yes Mr Bhalla.
You and me.) I don't understand how the benefits of Big Dams can be
trumpeted from the roof tops when the costs are not factored into the
arithmetic. How can Big Dams be credited with India's 'development' when
there hasn't been an official audit? Who says that the 140% increase in
irrigation area and foodgrain production is because of Big Dams? Are we
supposed to just accept this unquestioningly as an article of faith? When
we know that huge questions are being raised about the costs, benefits and
impacts of Big Dams? When the only study that's been done (as far as I
know ) says irrigation from Big Dams has contributed only 12% of the total
produce? When millions of hectares of land in Punjab is water-logged? When
we have realized that the agricultural yields in areas supposed to be at
the heart of the green revolution are not sustainable? When public protest
against Big Dams just refuses to shut up and go away? Given all this, I
thought it necessary to make an attempt to put a figure on how many people
have been displaced by Big Dams. To do a back-of-the-envelope calculation.
The point was (and I've said as much in my essay) to throw up a figure so
that we could at least begin to bring some perspective to the debate. I
used a study of 54 Large Dams collated by the Indian Institute of Public
Administration (IIPA) and the Central Water Commission's estimate that
India has built 3,300 Large Dams since Independence. The average number
of displaced people (only reservoir displaced) per dam came to 44,000.
Correcting for the fact that the dams the IIPA chose to study may have
been the larger among the Large Dam projects, and for the spiralling of
population in the last 50 years, I pared down the average number of
displaced people to 10,000 per dam. Using this average, the total number
of people displaced by Large Dams worked out to a scandalous 33 million.
In the interests of "an academic and policy debate", Mr Bhalla swoops down
on this and declares it to be the heart of my argument against Big Dams.
It isn't. I believe that even if the displaced people were resettled in
paradise, there would be a powerful argument against Big Dams. (And
please, being against Big Dams doesn't mean that you're against
irrrigation and electricity). There are economically more viable,
ecologically more sustainable and politically more democratic ways of
irrigating land and generating electricity. But "It is the case that the
larger the number of people that have to be resettled, the greater the
potency of the argument against Big Dams," Mr Bhalla says. Having dumbed
down the debate in this spectacular fashion, he then sets about
demolishing the figure I mentioned, with great statistical flourish. He
outlines several different 'methodologies' for how to calculate the
numbers of displaced people. I won't waste my time (or yours) discussing
each of them. But here's one as a sample. Method No:3 (and by no means the
most absurd). I quote:
All-Dams-As-Bad-As-The- Sardar-Sarovar-Project (SSP) -Method -17 million
The SSP project contains one very large dam and 29 other Big Dams. The
people displaced from this project can be used for an estimate. But this
raises a problem - whose figures does one believe - the government (about
40,000) or the NBA (about 4,15,000)? Neither. Instead, the estimate
provided by the "objective" Morse Commission report is accepted. The
report suggests that 1,00,000 is a "conservative figure" and that the
likely number displaced is about 1,50,000. In stark contrast to the IIPA's
average figure of 44,000 the most controversial project in world history
displaces a relatively low average figure of only 5000 (1,50,000 people,
30 dams). Thus, the SSP based estimate is about 17 million
displaced.(3,300 dams,5000 per dam)
What I have to say is this:
1.The SSP project does not contain one very large dam and 29 Big Dams.
It's just one single very big dam. Any child in the Narmada Valley could
tell you that. Mr Bhalla is confusing the Sardar Sarovar Dam with the
entire Narmada Valley Development Project (NVDA) of which the Sardar
Sarovar is a part.
2.The Government estimate of 40,000 (in 1999) that Mr Bhalla quotes is the
number of households displaced by the Sardar Sarovar reservoir, not the
number of people. So even the Government estimate is 200,000 people.
3.The Morse Commission report (1992) estimate of 1,50,000 people is only
the number of people likely to be directly displaced by the Sardar Sarovar
reservoir. Much of the rest of the report talks about other categories of
people (for instance those affected by the canals) who ought to be counted
as project affected, but aren't. (Which is also what the NBA says and
which is why there is such a huge discrepancy between the government's
figures and the NBA's).
4.Could some one give Mr Bhalla a calculator that says 'people' against
the numbers every time he punches his buttons? 17 million people, 200,000
people. Just to remind him that we're talking about human beings. Not
onions or edible oil. People. Like himself. Like his wife and children.
Like his friends.
What can I say? Mr Bhalla gets his sums wrong. Not just wrong, but
egregiously wrong. (If you were to correct his figures and use his
"method", you'd get a total of 660 million displaced people!). Using his
other 'methodologies' he arrives at figures of 3.4 and 3.7 million people
as the total number of people displaced by large dams. Figures which he
quotes approvingly. We already know that the reservoirs of the 54 large
dams studied by the IIPA (using actual Central Water Commission data)
displaced a tot al of 2.37 million people. This is fact, not speculation
or estimation. So, according to Mr Bhalla's 'methods' the remaining 3,246
dams have, between them, displaced 1 and 1.4 million people. Which works
out to an average of between 308 and 430 people per large dam! Consider
this - Just the dam site and the housing for the officers and contractors
for the Sardar Sarovar Dam in Kevadia Colony displaced nearly 5000 people.
And that was in 1961. (They don't count as Project-affected and haven't
been rehabilitated. They live as squatters on their own land. They work as
servants in what were once their own homes.)
What surprises me is the disdain with which Mr Bhalla dismisses my essay
(my "explosive pamphlet"), without bothering to really read it. At no
point in my explosive pamphlet have I "rounded off" the figure of 33
million and claimed that the total number of people displaced by dams is
50 million. (50 million was the estimate put forward by a former Secretary
of the Planning Commission of the number of people displaced by all
Development Projects in the country) And when I write "Big Dams are to a
Nation's 'Development' what nuclear bombs are to its military arsenal",
it's an analogy for god's sake! It doesn't mean that Big Dams are
radioactive when they explode! (For example when I said "paying cash
compensation to a farmer is like giving a judge a bag of fertilizer" was I
saying that fertilizer is cash? Or that a judge is a farmer?) Clearly, Mr
Bhalla is as loose with language as he is with numbers. And clearly he,
like so many others, has decided to deny my argument even before he knows
precisely what it is. Why ? What has frightened him so? I'd really like to
know. What is a man like him so desperate to protect? What is this
complicity, this deafening silence all about? What makes him want to
dismiss an entire fifteen year old people's movement as a fashion
statement? Like short skirts or puff sleeves. "Everybody in the
chattering class today is an expert on the horrors of Big Dams," Mr Bhalla
complains. If this is true, (though I don't believe it is), all I can say
is Good on you Chattering Classes! Maybe there is hope after all.
Apart from the statistical delights of his calculator based
"methodologies", he also treats us to some challenging rapid fire
statistics - like foodgrain yields have gone up by 140% (I've said so too)
and overall electricity consumption has gone up 25 times. "So much for the
pop fiction of poverty," he says. Omitting to mention of course, that most
of the rural population has no access to electricity. Or that while we
play tricks with the poverty line, and millions of people go hungry,
millions of tonnes of food rots in Government godowns. Everybody knows
that there's enough food in the world to go around. And most people know
that the science of understanding who gets fed and who goes hungry is
called politics. Distribution is not some small, technical glitch in the
system - it's the heart of politics. Do we really need statistics to tell
us whether or not there's something going terribly wrong in this country?
You can feel it in the air, you can smell it on the streets. Put away your
calculator, Mr Bhalla. It'll only let you down. Put away your calculator
and take a good look around you. Pop fiction could well be the truest
thing you ever touched.
As for the gentleman on the side - Mr Jain - he begins his piece (More
'Dam' Facts) with what is fast becoming a mandatory opening gambit when it
comes to matters concerning me :"Since it's next to imposssible for a mere
mortal to match Arundhati Roy's facility with the language" As though
'facility with the language' is something I keep in my closet and wear
when I go out. The implication of course, is that underneath the finery of
good language, I'm a poor cretin who doesn't really understand the real
world. I have news for you Mr Jain, Language is thought. It's what I'm
saying that enrages and intimidates you. Not how I'm saying it.
Having taken his swipe, Mr Jain then categorically says that there can be
no alternatives to Big Dams for generating electricity. Of course this
isn't true - there are alternatives, but as long as those like him and the
powers whose views he appears to represent refuse to consider them, they
will never be allowed to become viable. Alternatives, if they are to be
properly developed, require passion, commitment, research, funds and a
real desire to arrive at a solution. You can't threaten a people with
submergence and when they protest, ask belligerently what alternatives can
suggest. As though it's their duty to come up with a solution to your
needs. Alternative Number One, as far as I can tell is to clean up the
mess that has already been made before causing further destruction.
Complete the canals (of existing dams), install the drainage, maintain the
transformers, minimize distribution and transmission losses, monitor the
siltage. Let's learn to trim the waste. Stop the leaks. Fix the pipes.
Stop the haemorrhaging. Recently, the Chairrman of the Power Finance
Corporation said that more than 40% of the electricity generated is not
gainfully used and is lost in transmission. Also I just wondered - what
are you going to do when you've built all the dams that you can build?
After all, we have just so many rivers, just so much water, just so much
forest. What when it's all used up? (We're pretty far gone already). What
when the waters begin to lap at your own front door. Perhaps then you'll
be willing to at least mention the fact that there ought to be a
management of Demand. Sustainable Development we're allowed to talk
about. But what about Sustainable Consumption? There's nothing like an
economy of shortages to encourage innovation. Let me give you a simple
example. Today, an architect designing an office building, simply assumes
that it will be airconditioned. The building is designed in such a way
that there is almost no natural ventilation. Airconditioning then becomes
a necessity, not a luxury. But if airconditioning were not that easily
available, the architect would be obliged to arrive at a design in which
airconditioning was not vital. But she's not going to do that, unless she
has to. Intellectual laziness can be a super consumer. So can a lack of
information about the huge costs that someone, somewhere faraway is paying
for our wasteful ways.
I'm not sorry that the Indian Express published Mr Bhalla's and Mr Jain's
views so prominently. I'm sure they represent the views of a good section
of the English reading public. It's better they're aired than hidden away.
It's time to be open about these things. As the century comes to a close,
chilling though it is, it's important to know that there those who believe
that the State has the right to submerge the lands and homes of a people
without consulting them. When it runs out of funds for these projects,
does it also have the right to commandeer the bank accounts of its richest
citizens and use the money to complete the construction? If it does will
it exercise that right? Without consulting the people concerned?
Anything, for The Greater Common Good. Right?
Arundhati Roy
September 14th 1999