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The judiciary must take up cudgels on behalf of India's poorest

The Supreme Court has delivered its verdict in the Narmada Dam case. My colleague Rajeev Pai made an interesting observation. "If today some activists say after the verdict they will seek the verdict of the people, then what happens tomorrow if, say, the VHP decides it will not accept a verdict that goes against its decision to build a Ram temple?" he asked.

Perhaps the Narmada Bachao Andolan and its leader Medha Patkar would do well to consider the fact that having chosen the option of going to the Supreme Court clearly implies it accepted the Supreme Court's power to decide. After all, every decision usually satisfies only one of the parties to the litigation, rarely both. One hopes the NBA will not defy the court but find an alternative way of ensuring that the project-affected people get their fair share.

Having said that, it is my humble opinion that the honourable justices of the Supreme Court, with the notable exception of Justice S P Bharucha, erred in their judgment.

Yet, the same Supreme Court, along with the high court and lower courts, have also shown in recent times not to be bound by the rules that govern them, leading to the coining of the phrase 'judicial activism'. Time after time, the courts have passed verdicts when politicians and the government of the day failed, the most wonderful example of late being the Supreme Court refusing to let the Karnataka and Tamil Nadu governments free some prisoners in exchange for hostage Rajakumar.

So how does one explain these two differing stances? How is it that a court that has invariably been the voice of the people, is involved in policy decisions, and is in the vanguard of change and liberalism, suddenly passes a judgment that is so conservative, overriding the cost that it imposes on India's voiceless poor? What made the Supreme Court disregard the fact that in the Narmada case, rehabilitation has failed, and -- in what must be the complete failure of natural justice -- that poor tribals are being deprived further for the benefit of rich farmers.

Never before was so much lost by so many due to a single judgement! Yet, there could be another, perhaps, deeper reason. The people who hail judicial activism the most are actually the middle class of India, not the poorer classes, and certainly not the ruling classes (whether political or otherwise) who have often been at the receiving end.

The Narmada dam has the support of the middle class, who are organised and politically active, and who stand to benefit from the waters that the dam is supposed to bring to the parched regions of Saurashtra. While a miniscule amount of this water may quench the thirst of the people (for which one hardly needs a dam so huge), the bulk of the water will water the fields to produce more crops, which in turn will make the better off people in this region even richer.

On the other side, the poorest segment of India, the tribal people who possess little but live a life of quiet dignity in the Narmada valley eking out a subsistence living, will be deprived of their homes, rehabilitated on parched and fallow land unfit for any productive purpose, given some pitiful compensation, and, worse, join the ranks of India's utterly destitute.

If this sounds melodramatic, read on. In the early 1980s, in Baroda city, one fine morning one of the city's smaller parks was suddenly overrun by a large group of tribals. The Baroda rural police had, I later learnt, picked up the tribal people from their villages and brought them to the city since their village had been acquired from some project.

In the city park, living in makeshift tents without basic amenities like water, food, toilets… the poor tribals were a wretched site to behold. The Baroda rural police, following orders, simply left them in the part to their fate, saying that once in the city, it was no longer their responsibility.

Two days later, the Baroda city police arrived and told them that since the park was public property, they could not stay there. Since tribal welfare is not the city police's responsibility, the latter simply evacuated them from the park and the tribals probably became part of the city's growing slum population, working as house maids and city cleaners. Whereas earlier at least they could at least provide for their livelihood, now they were dependent on others' mercy, adding to Baroda's slum population and India's poverty list.

This is how the poor tribals were "rehabilitated," and only after the redoubtable Medha Patkar arrived on the scene did the word rehabilitation take on a some semblance of reality. This is how huge projects and dams rob the poor to help the rich!

Alas, a tragic reality of India is that its middle class, its better off, don't really care about the poorest lot. They are seen as a despicable lot who prevent India from becoming the "superpower" that the middle classes aspire for. As P Sainath points out in his fantastic book Everyone Loves a Good Drought, over 90 per cent of the people affected by projects in India have been tribals! Unbelievable.

When did the middle class EVER make a sacrifice for any project that would have benefited India's tribals?

The middle class has gained far more than the poor in the name of the "common man," in the name of the "greatest good for the greatest number" (in the Narmada case, is it the greatest number who gain or the greatest moneybags who do?) Thus it is development over tribal's livelihood; subsidised higher education which benefit middle class children and non-existent primary education that deprives the poor of their right to education; fancy hospitals (so good that foreigners come to India for 'medical tourism') and yet millions of (poor) children who die of malaria and TB; a planned trip to the moon and villages where starvation is an annual ritual… Simply because the middle class decides India's priorities, and in their list, the poor are voiceless.

The judiciary has helped (middle class) Indians in the past with its judgments that forced the Indian governments to actually do some work. Now the hope is that the judiciary takes up the cudgels on behalf of India's poorest, so that their plight is mitigated, so that there is some hope for them in India.

For a start, would the honourable justices take the trouble of finding out how truthfully to the letter and spirit are the tribals being rehabilitated; are they being given a life comparable and better to what they had earlier; have they been given occupation commensurate with their skills; do their children have education (an earlier Supreme Court bench asked the Narmada Dam authorities to provide them playgrounds?!?); and last, but not the least, are they being "paid" for their sacrifice which will enrich the farmers and kulaks of Saurashtra. Or do they, as has been the norm, get nothing in return for the devastation wreaked upon them?

It is time the Supreme Court ensured that India's poorest, most destitute, received some measure of justice so long denied to them by the nation's politicians and people.

Amberish K Diwanji