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Let's Hear From Those Uninhabited Villages

Ivisited Manibeli in March, 1993. Without being spectacular, there was a kind of heartfelt beauty to this little village. Hills were all around; a massive banyan tree shaded the little village square; at the bottom of the gentle slope that began under the furthest-flung branches of the tree, the Narmada river flowed silkily, sinuously, past. There was a kind of passion in the people who lived here, a combination of resolve and bright-eyed awareness. Especially as the sun crept lower in the sky, as the shadows grew longer, as the colours in the sky reflected more and more vibrantly in the river, as you slipped down the slope to bathe in the Narmada, the loveliness of this tiny hamlet hit you like a fist in the stomach.

That's because you knew, if you were there on those March evenings five years ago, that this spot would soon vanish under a sheet of water: the Narmada, as dammed by the Sardar Sarovar dam only a few kilometres downriver.

I met a tribal man called Keshuram Dhedya in Manibeli. I remember chatting with him. I remember him introducing us to his wife in their little hut, a few dozen yards upriver from the banyan tree. So it was with considerable surprise that I recognised his hut in a picture just a few days after I came home from Manibeli. It appeared in an uninspiring magazine called Narmada Vikas Varta, published by the government organisation responsible for building that dam, the Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Limited. It formed part of an article that extolled the wondrous measures the Nigam was taking to rehabilitate those whose houses were going to drown in the rising river. Like the residents of Manibeli.

The caption below the photograph informed me that this was the "last hut in Manibeli" that had been shifted to higher ground: a hut belonging to one Keshuram Dhedya. True enough, it did belong to Dhedya. But I had been inside that very hut only days earlier; much after the date of publication of this magazine. It had emphatically not been moved anywhere, let alone to higher ground. It was decidedly where it had always been, as was Dhedya himself.

The bland lie that stared out at me from that picture also hit me like a fist in my stomach.

But this was not the first time the Nigam had been playful with the truth. The Morse report about the Sardar Sarovar project was released some months before this photograph appeared. In particular, it described the efforts of the Nigam to use the Sardar Sarovar project to take drinking water to thirsty people in parched Gujarat districts. In that context, the chairman of the Nigam made an astonishing acknowledgement to the Morse Committee. The number of villages in Saurashtra and Kutch districts that he claimed would get drinking water from the project, the chairman wrote to Morse, "are statistical figures which include 236 uninhabited villages."

Yes, project officials not only fudge figures, sometimes they even admit to it. Believe it or not.

The history of the dam projects on the Narmada is filled with instances like these two. While they can be recited ad nauseum, the government of Gujarat, in particular, is still insistent about completing the Sardar Sarovar dam. Still insistent, too, that their efforts to do so are above any reproach. So insistent, that they are almost violently opposed to questions. So opposed, you can only wonder: what, that's above reproach, must be kept so firmly hidden?

A body called the World Commission on Dams announced recently that it would conduct hearings on large dam projects around the world. This body was set up at the urging of the World Bank and various proponents and critics of dams. It is headed by a man called Kader Asmal, South Africa's water resources minister. It has representatives from the Chinese government, from large corporations like Asea Brown Boveri, and others. It also has Medha Patkar of the Narmada Bachao Andolan, the movement that has been fighting the Narmada dam projects since the mid-1980s.

By no stretch of the imagination can the WCD be described as utterly opposed to large dams, even with Patkar's presence. Besides, it is a purely advisory body. It has no compulsive powers over governments or even the World Bank. In any case, the World Bank stopped funding the Sardar Sarovar dam in 1993.

I mention that, of course, because one of the dams the WCD proposed to review is the Sardar Sarovar dam. They were scheduled to do so in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, on the 19th and 20th of September. But in the weeks before that, increasingly noisy noises began coming out of Gujarat. The people of Gujarat were united in opposing the WCD, we heard. They did not want any hearing on the dam, we heard. They had already tolerated the Morse Report that was so critical, we heard; they did not want another critical report. The WCD would not be allowed to set foot in Gujarat, roared the government of Gujarat. The Bhopal hearing must not be allowed to happen, they screamed.

At which point, to its discredit, the Government of India capitulated and withdrew its invitation to Kader Asmal and his team.

This very brief history, to make you ask: why exactly is the government of Gujarat so sure that whatever report the WCD produces will be critical? Why were they so afraid of this hearing? After all, they also tell us everything they are doing on this dam project is by the book. They make wonderful claims about their efforts to spread benefits from the dam to those who need it the most. So what earthly reason might they have to rail against this quite toothless body?

I'll admit, Medha Patkar's presence on the WCD is certainly a red flag to the bulls in the government. Her opposition to the dam is loud and well-known. But there are several others on the panel, several who have no particular reason to oppose dams. Why not let the WCD into Gujarat, let them see this marvellous project for themselves? Why not let the people of Gujarat speak to them of their hopes and fears? Why is the Gujarat government so reluctant to do that?

Easy. Because it is hard for anyone to take more than a cursory look at the Sardar Sarovar project and not see the huge gap between claims and reality.

Back in the days when the Gujarat government seemed naively sure nobody could possibly find fault with their work on Sardar Sarovar, Morse and his colleagues took a quite detailed look at the project. They saw that huge gap quite clearly. That's why they wrote in their report, among much else:

* "The Sardar Sarovar Projects are likely to perpetuate many of the features that the Bank has documented as diminishing the performance of the agricultural sector in India in the past."
and
* "The Sardar Sarovar Projects will not perform as planned."

The government of Gujarat was shell-shocked by such revelations. But they learned their lesson well. Now you may think that means they resolved to address and solve the problems with the project that Morse pointed out. Not quite. Instead, they have resolved to prevent people taking a good look at the project. Today, that means the WCD.

I returned to Manibeli in June, 1993. This time, there was a huge expanse of water that had submerged everything, even the banyan tree, even such notions as openness and transparency in government actions. There was something irretrievably sad about the sterile panorama before us. It was hard to imagine the pretty spot filled with so much life that I had known only three months earlier.

Then I saw a little hut. It was still right where it had been, still with the same people living in it, though it was now only just above the water level.

Yes, it was Keshuram Dhedya's hut. The irony of it all cheered me up. Oddly, it also nearly made me weep.

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