drowned out
final script for 75 min version
23/7/02
Man: The forest is ours. The land is ours. The River Narmada is ours. We are not going to leave all this. We will drown, but we will not move.
Villagers: Police go back. Go back. Go back.
Police go back. Go back. Go back.
Arundhati Roy: As a writer I was drawn towards it because instinctively I knew that this was the heart of politics, this was the story of modern India.
Police fight
Luhariya Shankariya: There is anger, but who do we tell?
Because of the dam, everyone will lose their homes. There is such good forest, so much grass and water and food for us.
But everything will be destroyed.
Luhariya & friend ploughing.
The valley of the River Narmada - where a simple story of land versus water, strength versus power, reveals a dark secret hidden in the promise of progress.
Luhariya: The helicopters came twice in two years. I was a child then.
Government officials came here. They said they are constructing a dam and water will come. So your village will be drowned.
Houses on river bank.
Wide pan of valley.
This village will be drowned in the next few weeks - hundreds more will follow over the coming years.
The whole valley has lived under sentence of death for half a century, ever since a decision was made in Delhi to build a giant dam.
Ashok Ghjar, Executive Engineer, Sardar Sarovar dam:
Now Gentlemen, we are observing the second largest dam of the world, in which the volume of concrete to be placed is so large that you can have a road around the equator.
Length is 1.2 km length, 455 feet is the height and the width is 124 metre in the middle portion.
Bulgi: Our lives are being snatched away.
Our field is already in the water.
We were very happy with our life here. But now the dam builders are causing us great problems.
Luhariya and Bulgi Shankariya know that the house they share with their three sons will soon be gone.
But the family does not intend to go down without a fight.
Bulgi: If someone has a disease they will only recover if we perform the necessary rituals. It won’t go away on its own will it?
Similarly we have to fight to solve our problems with this dam.
I feel very worried.
Luhariya: At night I dream about what will happen to us... and how long we have to fight.
Graphic:
MAP ONE
Map of India, zooms in to Jalsindhi and then SSP
The Shankariya’s live in the Central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh - in Jalsindhi village, on the North bank of the River Narmada.
Thirty five km downstream, in the neighbouring state of Gujarat, the Narmada meets the country’s largest construction project: the Sardar Sarovar dam.
Ashok Ghjjar: This dam represents that our Indian engineers have also technical know-how for such a mega project.
Ashok Ghjjar: This is the foundation stone laid by Prime Minister Jawarlal Nehru on 5th April 1961. This is a dream of Sardar Walabhai Patel and Pandit Jawarhlal Nehru. And now we are fullfilling this dream by constructing the Sardar Sarovar project.
Bulgi: People who live in the cities can depend on paper. But we live here in the hills and depend on the land for our livelihood.
We are Adivasis. We live on the land.
The Adivasi are India’s indigenous people. Their relationship to the land has remained essentially unchanged for a thousand years.
Like his father and grandfather before him, Luhariya is the village healer.
Luhariya: This is to cure headaches. Crush it well, boil it and then drink it.
Luhariya: This is used when you have cramps in your stomach. First you have to grind it very thoroughly, then boil it and drink it. It cures troubles with the stomach. It really works.
forest medicine
The sacred Narmada river is worshipped along her entire length: legend has it that whereas one must bathe in the Ganges to purify the soul, one need only look at the Narmada.
But government planners see the river very differently - they envisage a giant staircase of reservoirs, held in place by more than 3000 dams. It is the largest river development project ever undertaken, anywhere in the world.
Sardar Sarovar is the keystone. It sits at the Western foot of the project and will hold up the entire staircase.
Ashok Ghjarr: In my opinion there should be small dams, medium dams and the mega dams on the rivers of our India so that we can be self sufficient in power and in food.
This project aims to provide electricity, irrigation and drinking water to tens of millions of people - that is the government’s confident claim and it is fiercely defended by Gujarat’s Minister for Narmada Irrigation, Mr Jay Narayan Vyas.
Jay Narayan Vyas, Minister for Narmada Irrigation:
We have shown that we can – if anybody else in the world can do it, we can do it better.
Bola: Here earlier was Buta. Buta’s child was Idya. Idya’s child was Sunya. Sunya’s child was Dongria. Dongria’s child was Golya. Golya’s child was Gandhi. Gandhi’s child was Khajya. Khajya’s child was Munda. Munda’s child is me, Bola.
I don’t know about before that, but I know for the last twelve generations we have been here.
Luhariya: We came into being with this village.
There is so much here for us.
It is all ours by right. We have not bought this from the market.
Our village is ours. We won’t leave it.
Graphic of valley filling etc. Start with Jalsindhi.
Thirty five kilometres downstream, the Sardar Sarovar dam has already blocked the flow of the river, created a reservoir and submerged two villages.
During this year’s monsoon season, the reservoir will swell and Jalsindhi will go under.
The dam currently stands at two thirds it’s intended height - once completed, the reservoir will be 200 kilometres long - and 245 villages will be submerged.
The dam will then divert the Narmada river into a huge canal system which aims to redistribute the water across Gujarat and Rajastan.
Vyas: We have constructed one of the largest canals ever been constructed in the world – 458 kilometres long, 40 thousand cusecs flow, lined canal.
I think this is a civil engineering marvel. And rightly so, therefore, the Time magazine once upon a time described this as one of the Engineering Wonders and Wonders of the World.
cricket, camel. Mention canal early on.
If all goes to plan, the water will travel 500 kilometres north, to one of the world’s most drought-stricken regions.
The groundwater level here is dropping by about 4 feet every year.
Tanker woman: Twenty years ago we relied on our wells. Now our well is dry.
That’s why we have became so helpless.
If the tanker comes we get water. If it doesn’t, we have no water. We don’t even have drinking water.
Abandoned village
With no water, 10s of 1000s of people have been forced to leave their homes. More than 200 villages have been abandoned, the fields left to turn to desert.
Those who remain in the drought area depend on the government’s emergency water supplies.
Tanker drives into village. Women get water.
Jay Narayan Vyas: The basic thing is that we want to provide sustainable water supply to farmers and also the drinking water to 8215 villages and 135 urban habitats. Not a single village will be left out – everybody will get the drinking water.
Tanker woman: We need water to bathe, we need water to wash dishes and clean clothes. Our animals need water.
How can we live without water?
The price of bringing water to the desert regions is being paid by families like the Shankariya’s.
The water is now only a few metres from their home and they have been contacted by the dam builders.
Luhariya: The government employees came. They left this paper when nobody was at home.
I just looked at it. How can I understand it? I can’t read.
They’ve been building the dam about 20 years.
If the government was fair they would have resettled us long ago.
Luhariya goes on boat and jeep
The Government declares that everyone losing their land or their home to the reservoir will be given a place in a ‘resettlement site’.
Luhariya leaves the valley to find out whether the reality matches the government’s promise.
Government promo: The resettlement programme of those ousted by the construction of the dam has been clearly and adequately chalked out by the government, offering the oustees an extremely fair settlement.
They are better off today than they were before.
txt: government promo
Luhariya jeep trip, with music
Vyas: We have so far resettled close to about 9500 familes and they are happy.
You are bringing them out, in a planned organised manner, giving them the land to till, also health facilities, future for their children by way of education facilities.
We have given them the best and put them in the bracket which belongs to the best people. And we should do that because they are our people, they are part of the democratic set up. We can’t wish them away.
Luhariya on bus
txt: Kavetta resettlement site
Luhariya has been offered a place at ‘Kavetta’, about 75 kilometres from Jalsindhi, which is already home to many exiles from the Narmada valley.
Man 1: This is the water we get.
Man 2: We can’t drink it. We’d fall ill. Even the cattle can’t drink it.
Luhariya: It is very salty.
Man: It’s undrinkable.
Having lost their fertile land on the river bank, the villagers are not impressed with the quality of the fields here - nor the way they were allocated.
Man 1: They just sweepingly showed us all the land around here.
Luhariya: They didn’t show the actual plot?
Man 2: We approved that plot of land. But instead of that they gave this. That is how we were cheated.
Man 1: They give us bad land like this.
Luhariya: All these weeds...
Man 2: Even the cattle don’t eat this weed.
Man 1: It’s roots are longer than a person. What can we expect from this kind of land? How are we to eat?
The Narmada villagers have always been independent - taking what they need from their land, river and forest.
But here, water comes in pipes, medicine in tablets and light through wires.
Everything depends on somebody else, and everything has to be paid for. A harsh introduction to the cash economy.
Man 1: Everything depends on money here.
If you don’t use fertilisers on land that has always had fertiliser, nothing will grow.
The crop depends entirely on the amount of fertiliser we buy. Back home, we didn’t have to buy such things.
And we have to buy food for cattle. In the village, they just grazed in the forest.
After so many expenses, not even have 25% of our income is left for us to live on.
Luhariya: I see what you mean.
bus trip between sites
The cornerstone of the government’s resettlement policy is that each displaced family will receive a new plot of land equal in size to that which they lose.
But India is the most densely populated country in the world - so finding fertile land for everyone is not easy.
Luhariya has also been offered a place at Parvetta - a notorious resettlement site where 38 children died within a year of arrival.
This site has been massively oversubscribed and all the land has long since gone.
So Luhariya heads for home.
Luhariya: I didn’t feel good there. There is not even basic support for survival.
Doctors and other facilities... what use are they if there is no land?
Bulgi: They should show land, otherwise what’s the point? They only talk and show land on paper. But we can’t cultivate on paper, can we?
Boat back to Jalsindhi
Even if a plot of land were available, moving to a resettlement site would separate Luhariya and Bulgi from their extended family and the rest of their community.
The Jalsindhi villagers can expect to be split across 5 or 6 resettlement sites.
Luhariya: Why should some people go off and live alone? We need our relatives with us. I need my brothers and everyone else too.
The villagers decide to reject the new life offered by the government - they would rather stay on their ancestral land and drown along with it.
Luhariya: We will stay here.
This is our home.
Even when the Narmada waters rise, we will not move from here.
We would die there anyway. Or we die here with submergence. Either way we are facing death. So what’s the difference?
Bulgi: When the waters rise our children will be with us. Where else would they go?
Whether we live or die, we shall be together.
It is not we who want to die. They are killing us.
Of course we feel like crying. Who would feel like laughing?
music seq
The start of the three month monsoon season and villagers from across the Narmada valley begin to gather in Jalsindhi.
Luhariya’s house is lowest on the banks and will be first to be submerged, so it becomes the focal point for a ‘satyagraha’ - a form of nonviolent protest originally devised by Mahatma Gandhi. The villagers intend to sit together in Luhariya’s house and drown.
Bulgi: Nobody is coming here for fun. They are coming because we are submerging.
On one hand the government does not give land and on the other the water is coming.
The villagers’ stand has given rise to a major social movement.
The ‘Save the Narmada’ campaign - or NBA - is led by a researcher from Mumbai who visited the valley fifteen years ago and never went home: Medha Patkar.
Medha Patkar: Each villager shall affix the name of their village to the tree of resolve. To say that they wish to be with the struggle and are holding firmly to the truth of the satyagraha.
Flashback to 1999
text: september 1999
The resolve of the villagers was tested in 1999, when they stood in the rising waters for 26 hours.
But on that occasion, the police intervened and arrested all those involved, breaking up the satyagraha before anyone could drown.
Luhariya: The rich people are killing the poor tribal people.
They say they have to do it for the progress of the people. That’s what they say. They just do whatever they want to do. Because they know full well there’s nobody to fight for the adivasis.
AR: Hello. I am a writer.
Arundhati Roy - India’s bestselling novelist and winner of the prestigious Booker Prize - has dived head long into the campaign against the dam.
AR: It makes me very happy to see so many of you here. Because this fight is not just your fight. This is a fight for the whole nation.
Arundhati: It isn’t as if people who question this form of development are people who are saying we don’t need electricity or that we don’t want irrigation. Only saying that there are better and more democratic means of achieving it.
Noone that you know personally is paying the price - it’s always someone else. So as long as that remains, there will never be the will to look for an alternative.
AR in march
AR getting arrested
Hague water forum
Arundhati’s articulate support has massively increased awareness of the NBA’s campaign.
Her essays and articles are published worldwide, her arrests are front-page news . . . and she takes every opportunity to challenge the politicians responsible for the dam.
Vyas: Almost about 8.5 billion US dollars have already gone into it. A country like India cannot afford this kind of a dilly dally on this kind of an issue.
Arundhati: Stop being hypocritical, and just say look, these many people need to be dumped for the good of that many people, and we’ll decide who these people are.
Mr Vyas: You are absolutely wrong in telling what you are telling, I beg to differ with you, your reporting is absolutely incorrect.
Arundahati: Think this is absolutely unacceptable. Someone asked me why I came here, I said I just came here to see what power smells like - let me tell you it stinks, it stinks.
Sunrise at Jalsindhi
Luhariya and friends walking through forest
On the bus. Walk into collectors office.
Feeling powerless and frustrated, Luhariya decides to make one last attempt to reason with the government officials.
He sets off on a five hour walk to the bus stop, heading into town to put his case to the local magistrate.
Local magistrate: OK, tell me. Did the other officer send you the information which he was supposed to?
Man: No, that is why we came.
Local magistrate: Well the official has been transferred. Someone new has come in his place.
To make good use of his joining time, he has gone to get his family and luggage.
Local magistrate: As soon as he arrives I will send for you. There’s no point setting a date with you now.
Luhariya: So where will we get information from?
Local magistrate: He’s not yet in a position to tell you anything. He is not yet even familiar with the issues of the area to be submerged.
Luhariya: They have no answers at all, you see. They never give us an answer.
There are so many people remaining here. Don’t they owe us some answers?
clouds over hills.
rain.
The first rains of the monsoon arrive later than usual, but the river quickly starts to rise.
If the rain continues like this, 76 villages will be completely or partially submerged over the next two months.
Arundhati: There’s nowhere for them to go, the water is rising and all of us are having academic discussions about whether this is right or wrong. I don’t know what else to say except that this is a form of remote controlled brutality which ought not to be happening.
You know, there’s a kind of a breaking of the volition of a people involved here. Where a State has the power to say we’re going to take this river from you and give it to you, we’re going to reroute the natural course of this river.
So you have to ask then, development for whom? Who owns the river, who owns the forest who owns the fish?`
The people of Jalsindhi have no radios, no television or newspapers. They don’t even have a postal service. Before the NBA brought them together few villagers would have known that such things existed. But they have been quick to learn how the media works - they know that when Arundhati comes to the valley, the cameras will not be far behind.
Luhariya: Because of the satyagraha, people from other villages, other countries will be able to see why we are fighting.
Chanting, demon drowning.
Luhariya: We submerged the demon of the dam to say ‘let the water run free, let our land be ours’.
Chanting, demon drowning. Luhariya swims
The NBA’s campaign reached a turning point in the late ‘80s when they came head to head with the World Bank. The Bank had kickstarted the dam project by loaning India 450 million dollars - NBA leader Medha Patkar was not impressed with their understanding of the problems facing people like Luhariya.
Medha: We raised about 36 questions when we met them in Washington in 1987. And they had no answers. And we realised that they didn’t even know the complexities of the social cultural aspects of the population in the valley but also the economics of the project. The NBA forced the World Bank to listen by launching another of Gandhi’s protests: hunger strike.
Medha: The fast symbolises the fact that the struggle that we are fighting is really an indefinite one and it is really a question of life and death - nothing less than that.
After five protesters had fasted for 22 days, the World Bank agreed to the NBA’s demand for an Independent Review of the Sardar Sarovar project.
Woman: Medha, Khaja, get up now. End your fast now.
Ending of fast with drinking.
The World Bank sent four experts to India to examine all major aspects of the project.
Investigating the human costs was Dr Hugh Brody.
Hugh Brody: I think we came bit by bit to see the scale of the problems. There wasn’t a moment of revelation, there wasn’t any one thing that I saw that made me think ‘oh this is terrible’ – it, it wasn’t like that. It was much more the, the peeling of an onion.
Dam
The review team set off on an eight month fact finding mission. Their first discovery was that when the government had given clearance to the projects in the ‘80s, they had broken both their own regulations and those of the World Bank.
Hugh Brody: The project had never been properly appraised, that’s what I’ve often referred to as the original sin of the project. The basic facts, the basic information about this project had not been known when the loan was agreed to and indeed was still not known when we were working on the review in 1990-91. That means that a project goes ahead in a rather terrifying ignorance of what it’s most severe consequences are going to be for vulnerable populations.
Hugh Brody: We also found serious problems with the resettlement and rehabilitation plans, or lack of plans. There were far more people than they were prepared for and in Madhya Pradesh there was just not land available, er, and the rehabilitation probably just could not happen. That was a very big finding and a very alarming one. The World Bank consultants clearly found the resettlement plan inadequate.
Then they discovered a group of people who weren’t being offered any resettlement at all.
Vikhrambhai, canal-affected:
I lost some of my land to a small canal. The rest I lost to this big canal. So my whole five acres has gone. All these canals have been constructed on our land.
It is not fair. They should include us for resettlement. We can’t get our land back. But we should get five acres [TURN INTO HECTARES] to replace what we lost.
It’s very difficult to survive.
text: 100 kilometres downstream of dam.
The review team calculated that 140 thousand farmers would lose land to the canal network.
However the government still does not count these people as ‘project affected’.
Nor do they include 10,000 fishing families living downstream of the dam.
Fishing man: The water level decreased after they built the dam. Here the depth of the water used to be 30 to 35 feet.
See how these boats are lying idle? Before the dam was constructed we had so much fish we could hardly eat it all.
Fishing wife: They have not given us any compensation.We are fishing people. They have taken away our livelihood. Before we used to eat two meals a day. Now we have to make do with one.
Hugh Brody: We concluded that the projects were severely flawed as they stood. We recommended that the World Bank take a step backwards. They should pause and look very hard at what to do now with this project.
REVIEW PUBLICATION AND RECOMMEND-ATIONS
Nine months after the review team published The Morse Report, the World Bank withdrew from the Narmada Project.The Indian government ignored all the criticisms, raised the money internally and continued construction work on the dam.
Vyas: See, Morse committee according to us itself was a misguided commission. We never accepted Morse observation.
And then he made certain observations which according to us are not only incomplete but also erroneous.
Medha: We felt that it was really a victory to have the World Bank withdraw from the project and we thought that we have to now take up the challenge and challenge the government in turn.
So in May 1994 the NBA launched a legal case against the dam at the Supreme Court in Delhi.
They argue that the dam should not have been built before the impact assessments had been carried out - and that it should now be decomissioned.
Six years later - July 2000 - evidence is still being heard by three senior Judges.
Throughout this time, construction work on the dam has been suspended.
Luhariya: We have faith in our campaign. We gain strength from it. And it gives us the courage to speak out. Right now, construction on the dam has stopped. That is thanks to all our efforts.
The satyagraha in Jalsindhi is gathering strength with more people arriving all the time.
But the immediate threat of submergence has receded due to an extended break in the rain.
As farmers, the Jalsindhi villagers have always hoped for a good monsoon. But since the dam was built, the rain has become a treacherous friend.
Bulgi: It all depends on the rain. There will be a good harvest only if there is good rain.
We may or may not get submerged, but at least everyone’s crops will grow.
Luhariya: I can’t predict the rain. That is up there and we are down here. Who knows how much it will rain?
The Narmada has risen several metres in the first few weeks of rain - Luhariya’s house is still above the water level, but other parts of their lives have already gone under.
Luhariya: Our Gods have always lived here in things like trees and stones. The God of the whole region lived here, so many people came for a festival each year. The God blessed the childless with a child. And people with farming or any other problems would come here ... to seek God’s blessings.
But now our gods have been submerged. Our Gods... they’ve all drowned.
Big rally through streets. Drumming, singing. Police prepare barricade.
Time is running out for the Jalsindhi villagers.
But as their hopes dwindle, their voices grow. The NBA has turned into one of the biggest people’s movements India has seen since Gandhi swept the country to independence in 1948.
And it is turning indigenous farmers like Luhariya into political activists.
Luhariya speech SYNC: I don’t know whether you all know me. I am from Jalsindhi. When the dam wasn’t there, Mother Narmada used to flow all the way to the sea. At that time she didn’t bring destruction upon her people.
Luhariya speech V/O: Who taught this government that only some people need to benefit? Even though we look after the land, we have no rights to it. The government thinks that all land belongs to them.Somewhere they build a dam, elsewhere they dig a mine or make a factory. Luhariya speech SYNC: But the country does not belong to the government exclusively. It also belongs to adivasis. It belongs to everybody.
Every single living being has a right to life. Nobody has rights over anybody else. A rumour is circulating that the Madhya Pradesh government has accepted that they do not have enough land to resettle everybody. So the NBA has come to the State capital of Bhopal to demand a meeting.
Fight with police.
Policeman into radio: They have crossed the barrier for certain. Over.
Medha Patkar (to policeman): If Chief Minister Singh really wants to talk to us he should come out now, when people from so many villages have come at so much expense.
Luhariya: Even though it’s far, we had to come. If we didn’t come, nothing would get done.
The police succeed in blocking the road to the Chief Minister’s house, so the protesters decide to sit down and wait until he agrees to meet them.
Luhariya: There was no point fighting with them. The fight would have been senseless. What do policemen think? They are just paid to do their job.
txt: May 1993.
Archive footage of police beating protesters
Luhariya is risking personal injury every time he goes on an NBA demo.
There have been rapes, beatings, baton charges and countless arrests and jail sentences. Nobody was killed on this occasion but two protesters have been shot dead.Police lead protesters up road to Singh’s residence. Protesters searched. Enter garden. But this time, there’s little violence: at 10.30pm word has come through that the Chief Minister will meet the protesters – all of them – in the back garden of his official residence.They have one question: does the government have enough land for everyone?
Medha Patkar: So the people from the valley are here and so are you, so I think we should start the talks.
DigVijay Singh: Medha, listen to me. I have to decide my time schedule in advance... now all this.
There is a debate going on in the Supreme Court about this and we can only do something based on its verdict.
As far as resettlement goes, we are trying our best to give land.
But we have already said that we do not have enough land.
Medha Patkar: Do you think that uprooting families and then giving only cash compensation is fair? So are you giving cash or land?
DigVijay Singh: First we want to give land. But if there is no land, then cash.
Uproar.
DigVijay leaves.
The Chief Minister has admitted that there is not enough land for everyone.
But the villagers have heard many stories of what happens to displaced people who only get cash compensation.
Granny: They gave us some money, which we spent and now there is nothing. Here we are empty handed.“Go away. You have got the money”, they said.
Bhugiabai Thakys and her family live in the slums on the edge of a big city. They were displaced by the first of the Narmada dams - the Bargi dam – back in 1990 when their village, Gumti, was submerged.They were given cash compensation for their 14 acre farm, but it wasn’t enough to buy replacement land. Bhugiabai’s son-in-law, Omkar, believes they had no option but to head for the city in search of work.
Omkar: Show me one person who has taken this cash and bought land or built a house. We survived on our fields. We had no other means of livelihood.But that was snatched from us. And it reduced us to this.We have always been farmers. Apart from that, we had no skills.
Hugh Brody: If they lose their lands, they lose their resource base, they lose their food. Now if you give them alternative land, maybe you give them a chance to deal with that. If you don’t give them alternative land, but give them a financial package, the chances are the financial package is small and it will certainly not be enough to deal with even the relocation itself.
Omkar: Do you think this is fair? They have flung us into the gutter here. Into this filth. Nobody thought about what would happen to us.
Now we are city dwellers. But I do not like it. I belong to my village.
Hugh Brody: Once they’ve lost their village life, their tribal identity, their environment in the river valley, they have lost what makes them who they are.
And they go to a place and to a world where the only thing they have to offer is the strength of their hands - they can lift bricks, they can carry bags of cement, they can dig roads.
Omkar: I take a hired rickshaw and some days get (half a dollar). Other days I don’t get anything.
While Omkar drives the rickshaw, his wife Mumta stands on the street corner, hoping for work on a building site. Between them they make about one dollar per day. That has to support a family of nine, including a friend who is unable to work as he has developed TB since moving to the slums.
Mumta: We live in the damp here. Of course diseases will spread. See all these people sitting here? All of them are ill.
Granny: I remember how we used to live before.Only I know how my heart feels.I don’t even die. I say ‘God, please take me now’
Omkar and Mumta’s land has been completely submerged. But other village people chose to stay behind rather than move to the slums in the city.
They now find themselves living on tiny islands in the vast reservoir behind the dam.
Island man: We are in trouble here, big trouble.The government gave us a tiny amount of cash and threw us here in the hills. Our land is submerged. Nothing of ours is left. We are stranded here, with nothing. Nothing at all. There is no transport, nobody ever comes. There is just water all around.
Archive voiceover: Here at last is proof that nature holds no terrors when men organise themselves. It represents the hopes and aspirations of the entire country.
Archive dams
India’s dam building dream was launched back in the 1950s by Prime Minister Nehru.The 3 and a half thousand dams built since then are worshipped as the symbol of progress of 20th century India.
Kids in school: That is why our first Prime Minister, Nehru, called them ‘The Temples of Modern India’.
Mega slums in Mumbai
Mega dams make mega slums
But these textbooks do not mention the true cost of half a century of dam building.Children are not taught that India’s big dams have ruined the lives of at least 16 million people.
Fade into Jalsindhi hills
Luhariya and Bulgi are not tempted by life in the big city. They are adamant that they will not accept cash compensation.
Bulgi: We want land. We don’t want money. If they give us land, they give us our livelihood. Then we can eat and live.
Luhariya: We need fertile land. Without land we are helpless.
Nobody wants to die, everyone likes life. But there’s no means of living for tribal people. If you go to Bhopal or anywhere else, wherever there were tribal people, they are all finished.The future for the tribal people is not looking good. But whether they drown or end up in the slums, not everything will be lost.Fragments of their ancient culture will stay safe.
Vyas: This is the tribal art called Wali paintings. The gentleman who has done this is a national award winning artist who has done this. While the paintings which you are seeing on this side in colour, this is the tribal art from Gujarat and the neigbouring state of Rajastan.
Vyas: We offer water and food for birds because we believe that every living soul on earth deserves to be fed.
Mr Vyas’ house is not currently threatened by any development projects.But he would be willing to relocate if he were asked.
Vyas: Yes, if it was for larger good, I would always be willing to go through a little inconvenience for the much larger benefits to my fellow bretheren.
Ultimately in our culture we are taught that - if it helps the society, then if you have to sacrifice little bit of your own, do it gladly, willingly, smilingly.
Luhariya: They didn’t even ask. They made their decision sitting in Delhi or someplace. They didn’t ask us adivasis anything.
The government argues that the 250,000 people who will be displaced are a fair price to pay for the 40 million people who are supposed to benefit.
Hugh Brody: When you talk about people making a sacrifice for the greater good, you can assume that the greater good is there to be secured. Of course, there are also tough questions to be asked about that. I mean, will this irrigation project work?
The first Narmada dam - Bargi - irrigates only 5% of the land it was designed to, so its main benefit was overestimated by a factor of 20. The human costs were also miscalculated - an extra 61 villages were accidentally submerged.And this is the second tragedy of the Narmada project. When the dams don’t deliver, the sacrifices are in vain.And all the signs indicate that the Sardar Sarovar dam will follow Bargi’s lead.
Hugh Brody: We computer modelled the river in order to er, predict some of the hydrological consequences and we found that the data that we were provided with could not be er, computerisable – there, I mean, there could be no such river, there was something wrong with the data about the hydrology.
There wasn’t enough flow in the river, there wouldn’t be enough water in the dam, for the project as designed to work
The water would not flow through all 75,000 km of the canals, but probably would only work in the lower part of the main canal system.
graphic
map two
If the water only flows into the lower part of the canal system, it will never reach the thirsty people in the drought area of the north west. But it will reach the ‘golden corridor’ industrial belt and four large cities.
Murkesh Patel: Now today in areas where we do not have water, adequate water, clean water, what happens is that though there is potential for development, you see, that development does not come up. Now when water will reach these areas, you see, it will mean that there will be greater potential for the growth and development of those areas. See, more industries, more trade and business activities will come up.
Gujarat has been traditionally very strong in the chemical front – chemicals and pharmaceuticals - and the chemical industry has to depend quite heavily on water.
Big agriculture is also a thirsty business. Water-intensive cash crops like sugar cane have not previously been a good investment in this region, but with the Narmada water just a few years away, many new sugar processing factories are under construction.
Hugh Brody: Governments sell these projects with the view that they are in the interests of the people. And when you look at them closely, it all too often looks as though they’re, they’re in the interests of engineering interests construction er, interests, and people who are already fairly prosperous, rich farmers, er, and industrialists.Now that’s not nobody, but it’s not the group that’s used to justify the projects.
Promo video: The commissioning of the Sardar Sarovar project is the beginning of the End of Thirst.
txt: government promo
Arundhati: Actually when they started building the Sardar Sarovar dam there was no mention of drinking water - that was something that was just thrown in later.
Everything that happens in India has to happen in the name of the poor, it has to. This is, this is, as they keep saying, there’s a lot of money in poverty. And that’s why the drought became the sort of rallying point. There’s nothing like the emotive power of thirst.
drought woman
water parks
Water is scarce in Gujarat. But it is always available to those who can afford it. Sixteen water parks operate here even during the most severe drought.There are few regulations ensuring water is used wisely and little evidence of a concerted effort to alleviate thirst. Indeed, there is a darker suspicion that those in power are pushing the Narmada project ahead in the face of the evidence that it cannot deliver.
Arundhati Roy: You have to follow the logic through and then you see what is happening. It is a way of capturing the natural resources, taking it away from the poorest and giving it to the richest. And that’s my primary objection to it. It’s a way of centralizing authority and power.
Hugh Brody: They promise clean water to people who have no water, they promise irrigation to people who are drought vulnerable, they promise things that all human beings long for if they don’t have them.
It’s one reason why, when they are a trick - when in fact they will not deliver these things and when there are those in power who know they will not deliver these things, but don’t say so - a hideous evil is at work.
Bulgi: The water level is rising and has nearly reached our house.Why aren’t they giving us land? Why are they murdering us? The water comes in my dreams at night. I feel helpless.
Achim Steiner: Ladies and Gentlemen, good morning and welcome to the press conference of the World Commission on Dams.
Launched by Nelson Mandela, the World Commission on Dams brought all sides of the debate together for the first time - including scientists, engineers, dam builders, politicians and the NBA. After three years studying 125 large dams worldwide, all the participants put their names to the final report.
Achim: The findings of the commission, basically were summarised in two very simple sentences. First of all the acknowledgement that dams have delivered considerable benefits for human development. But that in too many cases the price paid to secure those benefits has been unacceptable and often unnecessary. The Commission did not say that no more big dams should ever be built, but they recommended that they be considered only as a last resort. Instead, local solutions to water problems should be developed
Arundhati Roy: In an issue like this, everything has to be designed according to the microclimate of that area. You don’t have this one formula that’s going to be the national cure for big dams – another big solution – there isn’t that.
There is going to have to be the ability to address the particular needs of that particular place in a particular way.
traditional local
In Gujarat’s drought-prone regions there is mounting scepticism, about the Narmada dams. So the people here have started tackling their own water problems...
This village in the heart of the drought area now supplies all its own water needs and no longer relies on the government tankers. Their mini dam cost 15,000 US dollars, but funding local projects is difficult as 85% of Gujarat’s irrigation budget is spent on Sardar Sarovar, which will cost up to 8.5 billion US dollars.
Ashok Ghjjar: We are losing 600 million rupees per day. Only the infrastructures and the manpower are ready to start the work at any moment. We are waiting for the green signal of the Supreme Court.
Montage of rain in Jalsindhi
But the Jalsindhi villagers are hoping for a RED light from the Supreme Court - and that the dam be decommisioned.
Luhariya:The right to live, to life... It is not anybody’s to take or give.
txt: October 18th 2000.
And then after six long years in court, the waiting is finally over. The three Judges deliver a contentious split decision. One Judge voted to stop further work on the dam until detailed assessments of it’s impact have been carried out. But the other two outvoted him and gave permission for the dam to be built up to its full height, on condition that resettlement is completed before each five metre increase.
Vyas: We are happy with the decision. Very happy. It is what we wanted.
Vyas: Everything we’ve said regarding resettlement is true.
Lawyer: The court has accepted it.
Vyas: The court has accepted it. So we welcome the decision.
Luhariya: The right of many generations to live has been snatched away. Our whole right to life has gone. What can we do?
Bulgi: We want to live our full lives. We don’t want to die. So we are not feeling good. They will build their dam and live happily, while we will be left in sorrow. I wish my father was still alive. I feel like crying.
Vyas: Take care to see that it does not seem like too much euphoria. Because those people who are demonstrating will critisice it. So take care not to show too much euphoria.
Medha: We are not weak. But I am certainly disapointed and depressed a little.
Arundhati: Everyone is with the rich. Our courts, our beauracracy, our military, our police, everyone. Just because the Court said so, does not mean we will sit on our hands and go along with it. Absolutely not.
Arundhati’s outspoken comments will lead her into trouble with the Supreme Court in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, the dam builders waste no time in restarting the construction work that was stopped for six years.
Vyas: I welcome you all to this holy bank of the River Narmada. Today is a very happy day for us. Today at this moment, I thank them.
Sun through clouds.
Water up to Luhariya’s house
With the Supreme Court case lost and the dam height increasing, the Jalsindhi villagers have run out of options.
But then the monsoon itself brings an unexpected stay of execution. The rains are very light this year - and the river stops rising just six feet short of Luhariya’s house.
The village is saved - at least, for another year.
Luhariya: Whether we will submerge or not next year creates great tension. We have fear in our hearts.
Bulgi: Next year... I don’t know. We will find out then what happens. If it rains properly the waters are bound to come.
Luhariya: I am tired of all this. But what choice do I have?
If we don’t continue the fight, there will be misery for us adivasi people. But if we do continue, there will also be misery.We will have to continue the fight. Otherwise how will we survive? We’ll get nothing if we don’t fight. No, we’ll get nothing if we don’t fight.
Kids singing: Mother Narmada belongs to us. We adivasis will show the world.The right to life belongs to us. We adivasis will show the world.
(TEXT). In May 2002, the Narmada Construction Authority gave clearance for the dam to be built up to a height of 95 metres.
8000 families who will be submerged at this height have not yet been resettled. Which breaks the regulations laid down in the Supreme Court ruling. The NBA’s campaign has targeted foreign corporations intending to invest in the project. At least six have now withdrawn, including Siemens, Ogden and Enron.On 6th March 2002, Arundhati Roy spent a day in jail after being found guilty of contempt for her criticisms of the Supreme Court verdict.In May 2002, police arrived in Jalsindhi and started cutting down the forest. The trees were burned in front of the villagers. As the monsoon approaches, Luhariya, Bulgi and the other Narmada villagers are preparing for another satyagraha.
They are resolute: “We will drown, but we will not move.”
Boy: We will fight. We will win.
Credits & logo
© Spanner Films Ltd, July 2002
final script for 75 min version
23/7/02
Man: The forest is ours. The land is ours. The River Narmada is ours. We are not going to leave all this. We will drown, but we will not move.
Villagers: Police go back. Go back. Go back.
Police go back. Go back. Go back.
Arundhati Roy: As a writer I was drawn towards it because instinctively I knew that this was the heart of politics, this was the story of modern India.
Police fight
Luhariya Shankariya: There is anger, but who do we tell?
Because of the dam, everyone will lose their homes. There is such good forest, so much grass and water and food for us.
But everything will be destroyed.
Luhariya & friend ploughing.
The valley of the River Narmada - where a simple story of land versus water, strength versus power, reveals a dark secret hidden in the promise of progress.
Luhariya: The helicopters came twice in two years. I was a child then.
Government officials came here. They said they are constructing a dam and water will come. So your village will be drowned.
Houses on river bank.
Wide pan of valley.
This village will be drowned in the next few weeks - hundreds more will follow over the coming years.
The whole valley has lived under sentence of death for half a century, ever since a decision was made in Delhi to build a giant dam.
Ashok Ghjar, Executive Engineer, Sardar Sarovar dam:
Now Gentlemen, we are observing the second largest dam of the world, in which the volume of concrete to be placed is so large that you can have a road around the equator.
Length is 1.2 km length, 455 feet is the height and the width is 124 metre in the middle portion.
Bulgi: Our lives are being snatched away.
Our field is already in the water.
We were very happy with our life here. But now the dam builders are causing us great problems.
Luhariya and Bulgi Shankariya know that the house they share with their three sons will soon be gone.
But the family does not intend to go down without a fight.
Bulgi: If someone has a disease they will only recover if we perform the necessary rituals. It won’t go away on its own will it?
Similarly we have to fight to solve our problems with this dam.
I feel very worried.
Luhariya: At night I dream about what will happen to us... and how long we have to fight.
Graphic:
MAP ONE
Map of India, zooms in to Jalsindhi and then SSP
The Shankariya’s live in the Central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh - in Jalsindhi village, on the North bank of the River Narmada.
Thirty five km downstream, in the neighbouring state of Gujarat, the Narmada meets the country’s largest construction project: the Sardar Sarovar dam.
Ashok Ghjjar: This dam represents that our Indian engineers have also technical know-how for such a mega project.
Ashok Ghjjar: This is the foundation stone laid by Prime Minister Jawarlal Nehru on 5th April 1961. This is a dream of Sardar Walabhai Patel and Pandit Jawarhlal Nehru. And now we are fullfilling this dream by constructing the Sardar Sarovar project.
Bulgi: People who live in the cities can depend on paper. But we live here in the hills and depend on the land for our livelihood.
We are Adivasis. We live on the land.
The Adivasi are India’s indigenous people. Their relationship to the land has remained essentially unchanged for a thousand years.
Like his father and grandfather before him, Luhariya is the village healer.
Luhariya: This is to cure headaches. Crush it well, boil it and then drink it.
Luhariya: This is used when you have cramps in your stomach. First you have to grind it very thoroughly, then boil it and drink it. It cures troubles with the stomach. It really works.
forest medicine
The sacred Narmada river is worshipped along her entire length: legend has it that whereas one must bathe in the Ganges to purify the soul, one need only look at the Narmada.
But government planners see the river very differently - they envisage a giant staircase of reservoirs, held in place by more than 3000 dams. It is the largest river development project ever undertaken, anywhere in the world.
Sardar Sarovar is the keystone. It sits at the Western foot of the project and will hold up the entire staircase.
Ashok Ghjarr: In my opinion there should be small dams, medium dams and the mega dams on the rivers of our India so that we can be self sufficient in power and in food.
This project aims to provide electricity, irrigation and drinking water to tens of millions of people - that is the government’s confident claim and it is fiercely defended by Gujarat’s Minister for Narmada Irrigation, Mr Jay Narayan Vyas.
Jay Narayan Vyas, Minister for Narmada Irrigation:
We have shown that we can – if anybody else in the world can do it, we can do it better.
Bola: Here earlier was Buta. Buta’s child was Idya. Idya’s child was Sunya. Sunya’s child was Dongria. Dongria’s child was Golya. Golya’s child was Gandhi. Gandhi’s child was Khajya. Khajya’s child was Munda. Munda’s child is me, Bola.
I don’t know about before that, but I know for the last twelve generations we have been here.
Luhariya: We came into being with this village.
There is so much here for us.
It is all ours by right. We have not bought this from the market.
Our village is ours. We won’t leave it.
Graphic of valley filling etc. Start with Jalsindhi.
Thirty five kilometres downstream, the Sardar Sarovar dam has already blocked the flow of the river, created a reservoir and submerged two villages.
During this year’s monsoon season, the reservoir will swell and Jalsindhi will go under.
The dam currently stands at two thirds it’s intended height - once completed, the reservoir will be 200 kilometres long - and 245 villages will be submerged.
The dam will then divert the Narmada river into a huge canal system which aims to redistribute the water across Gujarat and Rajastan.
Vyas: We have constructed one of the largest canals ever been constructed in the world – 458 kilometres long, 40 thousand cusecs flow, lined canal.
I think this is a civil engineering marvel. And rightly so, therefore, the Time magazine once upon a time described this as one of the Engineering Wonders and Wonders of the World.
cricket, camel. Mention canal early on.
If all goes to plan, the water will travel 500 kilometres north, to one of the world’s most drought-stricken regions.
The groundwater level here is dropping by about 4 feet every year.
Tanker woman: Twenty years ago we relied on our wells. Now our well is dry.
That’s why we have became so helpless.
If the tanker comes we get water. If it doesn’t, we have no water. We don’t even have drinking water.
Abandoned village
With no water, 10s of 1000s of people have been forced to leave their homes. More than 200 villages have been abandoned, the fields left to turn to desert.
Those who remain in the drought area depend on the government’s emergency water supplies.
Tanker drives into village. Women get water.
Jay Narayan Vyas: The basic thing is that we want to provide sustainable water supply to farmers and also the drinking water to 8215 villages and 135 urban habitats. Not a single village will be left out – everybody will get the drinking water.
Tanker woman: We need water to bathe, we need water to wash dishes and clean clothes. Our animals need water.
How can we live without water?
The price of bringing water to the desert regions is being paid by families like the Shankariya’s.
The water is now only a few metres from their home and they have been contacted by the dam builders.
Luhariya: The government employees came. They left this paper when nobody was at home.
I just looked at it. How can I understand it? I can’t read.
They’ve been building the dam about 20 years.
If the government was fair they would have resettled us long ago.
Luhariya goes on boat and jeep
The Government declares that everyone losing their land or their home to the reservoir will be given a place in a ‘resettlement site’.
Luhariya leaves the valley to find out whether the reality matches the government’s promise.
Government promo: The resettlement programme of those ousted by the construction of the dam has been clearly and adequately chalked out by the government, offering the oustees an extremely fair settlement.
They are better off today than they were before.
txt: government promo
Luhariya jeep trip, with music
Vyas: We have so far resettled close to about 9500 familes and they are happy.
You are bringing them out, in a planned organised manner, giving them the land to till, also health facilities, future for their children by way of education facilities.
We have given them the best and put them in the bracket which belongs to the best people. And we should do that because they are our people, they are part of the democratic set up. We can’t wish them away.
Luhariya on bus
txt: Kavetta resettlement site
Luhariya has been offered a place at ‘Kavetta’, about 75 kilometres from Jalsindhi, which is already home to many exiles from the Narmada valley.
Man 1: This is the water we get.
Man 2: We can’t drink it. We’d fall ill. Even the cattle can’t drink it.
Luhariya: It is very salty.
Man: It’s undrinkable.
Having lost their fertile land on the river bank, the villagers are not impressed with the quality of the fields here - nor the way they were allocated.
Man 1: They just sweepingly showed us all the land around here.
Luhariya: They didn’t show the actual plot?
Man 2: We approved that plot of land. But instead of that they gave this. That is how we were cheated.
Man 1: They give us bad land like this.
Luhariya: All these weeds...
Man 2: Even the cattle don’t eat this weed.
Man 1: It’s roots are longer than a person. What can we expect from this kind of land? How are we to eat?
The Narmada villagers have always been independent - taking what they need from their land, river and forest.
But here, water comes in pipes, medicine in tablets and light through wires.
Everything depends on somebody else, and everything has to be paid for. A harsh introduction to the cash economy.
Man 1: Everything depends on money here.
If you don’t use fertilisers on land that has always had fertiliser, nothing will grow.
The crop depends entirely on the amount of fertiliser we buy. Back home, we didn’t have to buy such things.
And we have to buy food for cattle. In the village, they just grazed in the forest.
After so many expenses, not even have 25% of our income is left for us to live on.
Luhariya: I see what you mean.
bus trip between sites
The cornerstone of the government’s resettlement policy is that each displaced family will receive a new plot of land equal in size to that which they lose.
But India is the most densely populated country in the world - so finding fertile land for everyone is not easy.
Luhariya has also been offered a place at Parvetta - a notorious resettlement site where 38 children died within a year of arrival.
This site has been massively oversubscribed and all the land has long since gone.
So Luhariya heads for home.
Luhariya: I didn’t feel good there. There is not even basic support for survival.
Doctors and other facilities... what use are they if there is no land?
Bulgi: They should show land, otherwise what’s the point? They only talk and show land on paper. But we can’t cultivate on paper, can we?
Boat back to Jalsindhi
Even if a plot of land were available, moving to a resettlement site would separate Luhariya and Bulgi from their extended family and the rest of their community.
The Jalsindhi villagers can expect to be split across 5 or 6 resettlement sites.
Luhariya: Why should some people go off and live alone? We need our relatives with us. I need my brothers and everyone else too.
The villagers decide to reject the new life offered by the government - they would rather stay on their ancestral land and drown along with it.
Luhariya: We will stay here.
This is our home.
Even when the Narmada waters rise, we will not move from here.
We would die there anyway. Or we die here with submergence. Either way we are facing death. So what’s the difference?
Bulgi: When the waters rise our children will be with us. Where else would they go?
Whether we live or die, we shall be together.
It is not we who want to die. They are killing us.
Of course we feel like crying. Who would feel like laughing?
music seq
The start of the three month monsoon season and villagers from across the Narmada valley begin to gather in Jalsindhi.
Luhariya’s house is lowest on the banks and will be first to be submerged, so it becomes the focal point for a ‘satyagraha’ - a form of nonviolent protest originally devised by Mahatma Gandhi. The villagers intend to sit together in Luhariya’s house and drown.
Bulgi: Nobody is coming here for fun. They are coming because we are submerging.
On one hand the government does not give land and on the other the water is coming.
The villagers’ stand has given rise to a major social movement.
The ‘Save the Narmada’ campaign - or NBA - is led by a researcher from Mumbai who visited the valley fifteen years ago and never went home: Medha Patkar.
Medha Patkar: Each villager shall affix the name of their village to the tree of resolve. To say that they wish to be with the struggle and are holding firmly to the truth of the satyagraha.
Flashback to 1999
text: september 1999
The resolve of the villagers was tested in 1999, when they stood in the rising waters for 26 hours.
But on that occasion, the police intervened and arrested all those involved, breaking up the satyagraha before anyone could drown.
Luhariya: The rich people are killing the poor tribal people.
They say they have to do it for the progress of the people. That’s what they say. They just do whatever they want to do. Because they know full well there’s nobody to fight for the adivasis.
AR: Hello. I am a writer.
Arundhati Roy - India’s bestselling novelist and winner of the prestigious Booker Prize - has dived head long into the campaign against the dam.
AR: It makes me very happy to see so many of you here. Because this fight is not just your fight. This is a fight for the whole nation.
Arundhati: It isn’t as if people who question this form of development are people who are saying we don’t need electricity or that we don’t want irrigation. Only saying that there are better and more democratic means of achieving it.
Noone that you know personally is paying the price - it’s always someone else. So as long as that remains, there will never be the will to look for an alternative.
AR in march
AR getting arrested
Hague water forum
Arundhati’s articulate support has massively increased awareness of the NBA’s campaign.
Her essays and articles are published worldwide, her arrests are front-page news . . . and she takes every opportunity to challenge the politicians responsible for the dam.
Vyas: Almost about 8.5 billion US dollars have already gone into it. A country like India cannot afford this kind of a dilly dally on this kind of an issue.
Arundhati: Stop being hypocritical, and just say look, these many people need to be dumped for the good of that many people, and we’ll decide who these people are.
Mr Vyas: You are absolutely wrong in telling what you are telling, I beg to differ with you, your reporting is absolutely incorrect.
Arundahati: Think this is absolutely unacceptable. Someone asked me why I came here, I said I just came here to see what power smells like - let me tell you it stinks, it stinks.
Sunrise at Jalsindhi
Luhariya and friends walking through forest
On the bus. Walk into collectors office.
Feeling powerless and frustrated, Luhariya decides to make one last attempt to reason with the government officials.
He sets off on a five hour walk to the bus stop, heading into town to put his case to the local magistrate.
Local magistrate: OK, tell me. Did the other officer send you the information which he was supposed to?
Man: No, that is why we came.
Local magistrate: Well the official has been transferred. Someone new has come in his place.
To make good use of his joining time, he has gone to get his family and luggage.
Local magistrate: As soon as he arrives I will send for you. There’s no point setting a date with you now.
Luhariya: So where will we get information from?
Local magistrate: He’s not yet in a position to tell you anything. He is not yet even familiar with the issues of the area to be submerged.
Luhariya: They have no answers at all, you see. They never give us an answer.
There are so many people remaining here. Don’t they owe us some answers?
clouds over hills.
rain.
The first rains of the monsoon arrive later than usual, but the river quickly starts to rise.
If the rain continues like this, 76 villages will be completely or partially submerged over the next two months.
Arundhati: There’s nowhere for them to go, the water is rising and all of us are having academic discussions about whether this is right or wrong. I don’t know what else to say except that this is a form of remote controlled brutality which ought not to be happening.
You know, there’s a kind of a breaking of the volition of a people involved here. Where a State has the power to say we’re going to take this river from you and give it to you, we’re going to reroute the natural course of this river.
So you have to ask then, development for whom? Who owns the river, who owns the forest who owns the fish?`
The people of Jalsindhi have no radios, no television or newspapers. They don’t even have a postal service. Before the NBA brought them together few villagers would have known that such things existed. But they have been quick to learn how the media works - they know that when Arundhati comes to the valley, the cameras will not be far behind.
Luhariya: Because of the satyagraha, people from other villages, other countries will be able to see why we are fighting.
Chanting, demon drowning.
Luhariya: We submerged the demon of the dam to say ‘let the water run free, let our land be ours’.
Chanting, demon drowning. Luhariya swims
The NBA’s campaign reached a turning point in the late ‘80s when they came head to head with the World Bank. The Bank had kickstarted the dam project by loaning India 450 million dollars - NBA leader Medha Patkar was not impressed with their understanding of the problems facing people like Luhariya.
Medha: We raised about 36 questions when we met them in Washington in 1987. And they had no answers. And we realised that they didn’t even know the complexities of the social cultural aspects of the population in the valley but also the economics of the project. The NBA forced the World Bank to listen by launching another of Gandhi’s protests: hunger strike.
Medha: The fast symbolises the fact that the struggle that we are fighting is really an indefinite one and it is really a question of life and death - nothing less than that.
After five protesters had fasted for 22 days, the World Bank agreed to the NBA’s demand for an Independent Review of the Sardar Sarovar project.
Woman: Medha, Khaja, get up now. End your fast now.
Ending of fast with drinking.
The World Bank sent four experts to India to examine all major aspects of the project.
Investigating the human costs was Dr Hugh Brody.
Hugh Brody: I think we came bit by bit to see the scale of the problems. There wasn’t a moment of revelation, there wasn’t any one thing that I saw that made me think ‘oh this is terrible’ – it, it wasn’t like that. It was much more the, the peeling of an onion.
Dam
The review team set off on an eight month fact finding mission. Their first discovery was that when the government had given clearance to the projects in the ‘80s, they had broken both their own regulations and those of the World Bank.
Hugh Brody: The project had never been properly appraised, that’s what I’ve often referred to as the original sin of the project. The basic facts, the basic information about this project had not been known when the loan was agreed to and indeed was still not known when we were working on the review in 1990-91. That means that a project goes ahead in a rather terrifying ignorance of what it’s most severe consequences are going to be for vulnerable populations.
Hugh Brody: We also found serious problems with the resettlement and rehabilitation plans, or lack of plans. There were far more people than they were prepared for and in Madhya Pradesh there was just not land available, er, and the rehabilitation probably just could not happen. That was a very big finding and a very alarming one. The World Bank consultants clearly found the resettlement plan inadequate.
Then they discovered a group of people who weren’t being offered any resettlement at all.
Vikhrambhai, canal-affected:
I lost some of my land to a small canal. The rest I lost to this big canal. So my whole five acres has gone. All these canals have been constructed on our land.
It is not fair. They should include us for resettlement. We can’t get our land back. But we should get five acres [TURN INTO HECTARES] to replace what we lost.
It’s very difficult to survive.
text: 100 kilometres downstream of dam.
The review team calculated that 140 thousand farmers would lose land to the canal network.
However the government still does not count these people as ‘project affected’.
Nor do they include 10,000 fishing families living downstream of the dam.
Fishing man: The water level decreased after they built the dam. Here the depth of the water used to be 30 to 35 feet.
See how these boats are lying idle? Before the dam was constructed we had so much fish we could hardly eat it all.
Fishing wife: They have not given us any compensation.We are fishing people. They have taken away our livelihood. Before we used to eat two meals a day. Now we have to make do with one.
Hugh Brody: We concluded that the projects were severely flawed as they stood. We recommended that the World Bank take a step backwards. They should pause and look very hard at what to do now with this project.
REVIEW PUBLICATION AND RECOMMEND-ATIONS
Nine months after the review team published The Morse Report, the World Bank withdrew from the Narmada Project.The Indian government ignored all the criticisms, raised the money internally and continued construction work on the dam.
Vyas: See, Morse committee according to us itself was a misguided commission. We never accepted Morse observation.
And then he made certain observations which according to us are not only incomplete but also erroneous.
Medha: We felt that it was really a victory to have the World Bank withdraw from the project and we thought that we have to now take up the challenge and challenge the government in turn.
So in May 1994 the NBA launched a legal case against the dam at the Supreme Court in Delhi.
They argue that the dam should not have been built before the impact assessments had been carried out - and that it should now be decomissioned.
Six years later - July 2000 - evidence is still being heard by three senior Judges.
Throughout this time, construction work on the dam has been suspended.
Luhariya: We have faith in our campaign. We gain strength from it. And it gives us the courage to speak out. Right now, construction on the dam has stopped. That is thanks to all our efforts.
The satyagraha in Jalsindhi is gathering strength with more people arriving all the time.
But the immediate threat of submergence has receded due to an extended break in the rain.
As farmers, the Jalsindhi villagers have always hoped for a good monsoon. But since the dam was built, the rain has become a treacherous friend.
Bulgi: It all depends on the rain. There will be a good harvest only if there is good rain.
We may or may not get submerged, but at least everyone’s crops will grow.
Luhariya: I can’t predict the rain. That is up there and we are down here. Who knows how much it will rain?
The Narmada has risen several metres in the first few weeks of rain - Luhariya’s house is still above the water level, but other parts of their lives have already gone under.
Luhariya: Our Gods have always lived here in things like trees and stones. The God of the whole region lived here, so many people came for a festival each year. The God blessed the childless with a child. And people with farming or any other problems would come here ... to seek God’s blessings.
But now our gods have been submerged. Our Gods... they’ve all drowned.
Big rally through streets. Drumming, singing. Police prepare barricade.
Time is running out for the Jalsindhi villagers.
But as their hopes dwindle, their voices grow. The NBA has turned into one of the biggest people’s movements India has seen since Gandhi swept the country to independence in 1948.
And it is turning indigenous farmers like Luhariya into political activists.
Luhariya speech SYNC: I don’t know whether you all know me. I am from Jalsindhi. When the dam wasn’t there, Mother Narmada used to flow all the way to the sea. At that time she didn’t bring destruction upon her people.
Luhariya speech V/O: Who taught this government that only some people need to benefit? Even though we look after the land, we have no rights to it. The government thinks that all land belongs to them.Somewhere they build a dam, elsewhere they dig a mine or make a factory. Luhariya speech SYNC: But the country does not belong to the government exclusively. It also belongs to adivasis. It belongs to everybody.
Every single living being has a right to life. Nobody has rights over anybody else. A rumour is circulating that the Madhya Pradesh government has accepted that they do not have enough land to resettle everybody. So the NBA has come to the State capital of Bhopal to demand a meeting.
Fight with police.
Policeman into radio: They have crossed the barrier for certain. Over.
Medha Patkar (to policeman): If Chief Minister Singh really wants to talk to us he should come out now, when people from so many villages have come at so much expense.
Luhariya: Even though it’s far, we had to come. If we didn’t come, nothing would get done.
The police succeed in blocking the road to the Chief Minister’s house, so the protesters decide to sit down and wait until he agrees to meet them.
Luhariya: There was no point fighting with them. The fight would have been senseless. What do policemen think? They are just paid to do their job.
txt: May 1993.
Archive footage of police beating protesters
Luhariya is risking personal injury every time he goes on an NBA demo.
There have been rapes, beatings, baton charges and countless arrests and jail sentences. Nobody was killed on this occasion but two protesters have been shot dead.Police lead protesters up road to Singh’s residence. Protesters searched. Enter garden. But this time, there’s little violence: at 10.30pm word has come through that the Chief Minister will meet the protesters – all of them – in the back garden of his official residence.They have one question: does the government have enough land for everyone?
Medha Patkar: So the people from the valley are here and so are you, so I think we should start the talks.
DigVijay Singh: Medha, listen to me. I have to decide my time schedule in advance... now all this.
There is a debate going on in the Supreme Court about this and we can only do something based on its verdict.
As far as resettlement goes, we are trying our best to give land.
But we have already said that we do not have enough land.
Medha Patkar: Do you think that uprooting families and then giving only cash compensation is fair? So are you giving cash or land?
DigVijay Singh: First we want to give land. But if there is no land, then cash.
Uproar.
DigVijay leaves.
The Chief Minister has admitted that there is not enough land for everyone.
But the villagers have heard many stories of what happens to displaced people who only get cash compensation.
Granny: They gave us some money, which we spent and now there is nothing. Here we are empty handed.“Go away. You have got the money”, they said.
Bhugiabai Thakys and her family live in the slums on the edge of a big city. They were displaced by the first of the Narmada dams - the Bargi dam – back in 1990 when their village, Gumti, was submerged.They were given cash compensation for their 14 acre farm, but it wasn’t enough to buy replacement land. Bhugiabai’s son-in-law, Omkar, believes they had no option but to head for the city in search of work.
Omkar: Show me one person who has taken this cash and bought land or built a house. We survived on our fields. We had no other means of livelihood.But that was snatched from us. And it reduced us to this.We have always been farmers. Apart from that, we had no skills.
Hugh Brody: If they lose their lands, they lose their resource base, they lose their food. Now if you give them alternative land, maybe you give them a chance to deal with that. If you don’t give them alternative land, but give them a financial package, the chances are the financial package is small and it will certainly not be enough to deal with even the relocation itself.
Omkar: Do you think this is fair? They have flung us into the gutter here. Into this filth. Nobody thought about what would happen to us.
Now we are city dwellers. But I do not like it. I belong to my village.
Hugh Brody: Once they’ve lost their village life, their tribal identity, their environment in the river valley, they have lost what makes them who they are.
And they go to a place and to a world where the only thing they have to offer is the strength of their hands - they can lift bricks, they can carry bags of cement, they can dig roads.
Omkar: I take a hired rickshaw and some days get (half a dollar). Other days I don’t get anything.
While Omkar drives the rickshaw, his wife Mumta stands on the street corner, hoping for work on a building site. Between them they make about one dollar per day. That has to support a family of nine, including a friend who is unable to work as he has developed TB since moving to the slums.
Mumta: We live in the damp here. Of course diseases will spread. See all these people sitting here? All of them are ill.
Granny: I remember how we used to live before.Only I know how my heart feels.I don’t even die. I say ‘God, please take me now’
Omkar and Mumta’s land has been completely submerged. But other village people chose to stay behind rather than move to the slums in the city.
They now find themselves living on tiny islands in the vast reservoir behind the dam.
Island man: We are in trouble here, big trouble.The government gave us a tiny amount of cash and threw us here in the hills. Our land is submerged. Nothing of ours is left. We are stranded here, with nothing. Nothing at all. There is no transport, nobody ever comes. There is just water all around.
Archive voiceover: Here at last is proof that nature holds no terrors when men organise themselves. It represents the hopes and aspirations of the entire country.
Archive dams
India’s dam building dream was launched back in the 1950s by Prime Minister Nehru.The 3 and a half thousand dams built since then are worshipped as the symbol of progress of 20th century India.
Kids in school: That is why our first Prime Minister, Nehru, called them ‘The Temples of Modern India’.
Mega slums in Mumbai
Mega dams make mega slums
But these textbooks do not mention the true cost of half a century of dam building.Children are not taught that India’s big dams have ruined the lives of at least 16 million people.
Fade into Jalsindhi hills
Luhariya and Bulgi are not tempted by life in the big city. They are adamant that they will not accept cash compensation.
Bulgi: We want land. We don’t want money. If they give us land, they give us our livelihood. Then we can eat and live.
Luhariya: We need fertile land. Without land we are helpless.
Nobody wants to die, everyone likes life. But there’s no means of living for tribal people. If you go to Bhopal or anywhere else, wherever there were tribal people, they are all finished.The future for the tribal people is not looking good. But whether they drown or end up in the slums, not everything will be lost.Fragments of their ancient culture will stay safe.
Vyas: This is the tribal art called Wali paintings. The gentleman who has done this is a national award winning artist who has done this. While the paintings which you are seeing on this side in colour, this is the tribal art from Gujarat and the neigbouring state of Rajastan.
Vyas: We offer water and food for birds because we believe that every living soul on earth deserves to be fed.
Mr Vyas’ house is not currently threatened by any development projects.But he would be willing to relocate if he were asked.
Vyas: Yes, if it was for larger good, I would always be willing to go through a little inconvenience for the much larger benefits to my fellow bretheren.
Ultimately in our culture we are taught that - if it helps the society, then if you have to sacrifice little bit of your own, do it gladly, willingly, smilingly.
Luhariya: They didn’t even ask. They made their decision sitting in Delhi or someplace. They didn’t ask us adivasis anything.
The government argues that the 250,000 people who will be displaced are a fair price to pay for the 40 million people who are supposed to benefit.
Hugh Brody: When you talk about people making a sacrifice for the greater good, you can assume that the greater good is there to be secured. Of course, there are also tough questions to be asked about that. I mean, will this irrigation project work?
The first Narmada dam - Bargi - irrigates only 5% of the land it was designed to, so its main benefit was overestimated by a factor of 20. The human costs were also miscalculated - an extra 61 villages were accidentally submerged.And this is the second tragedy of the Narmada project. When the dams don’t deliver, the sacrifices are in vain.And all the signs indicate that the Sardar Sarovar dam will follow Bargi’s lead.
Hugh Brody: We computer modelled the river in order to er, predict some of the hydrological consequences and we found that the data that we were provided with could not be er, computerisable – there, I mean, there could be no such river, there was something wrong with the data about the hydrology.
There wasn’t enough flow in the river, there wouldn’t be enough water in the dam, for the project as designed to work
The water would not flow through all 75,000 km of the canals, but probably would only work in the lower part of the main canal system.
graphic
map two
If the water only flows into the lower part of the canal system, it will never reach the thirsty people in the drought area of the north west. But it will reach the ‘golden corridor’ industrial belt and four large cities.
Murkesh Patel: Now today in areas where we do not have water, adequate water, clean water, what happens is that though there is potential for development, you see, that development does not come up. Now when water will reach these areas, you see, it will mean that there will be greater potential for the growth and development of those areas. See, more industries, more trade and business activities will come up.
Gujarat has been traditionally very strong in the chemical front – chemicals and pharmaceuticals - and the chemical industry has to depend quite heavily on water.
Big agriculture is also a thirsty business. Water-intensive cash crops like sugar cane have not previously been a good investment in this region, but with the Narmada water just a few years away, many new sugar processing factories are under construction.
Hugh Brody: Governments sell these projects with the view that they are in the interests of the people. And when you look at them closely, it all too often looks as though they’re, they’re in the interests of engineering interests construction er, interests, and people who are already fairly prosperous, rich farmers, er, and industrialists.Now that’s not nobody, but it’s not the group that’s used to justify the projects.
Promo video: The commissioning of the Sardar Sarovar project is the beginning of the End of Thirst.
txt: government promo
Arundhati: Actually when they started building the Sardar Sarovar dam there was no mention of drinking water - that was something that was just thrown in later.
Everything that happens in India has to happen in the name of the poor, it has to. This is, this is, as they keep saying, there’s a lot of money in poverty. And that’s why the drought became the sort of rallying point. There’s nothing like the emotive power of thirst.
drought woman
water parks
Water is scarce in Gujarat. But it is always available to those who can afford it. Sixteen water parks operate here even during the most severe drought.There are few regulations ensuring water is used wisely and little evidence of a concerted effort to alleviate thirst. Indeed, there is a darker suspicion that those in power are pushing the Narmada project ahead in the face of the evidence that it cannot deliver.
Arundhati Roy: You have to follow the logic through and then you see what is happening. It is a way of capturing the natural resources, taking it away from the poorest and giving it to the richest. And that’s my primary objection to it. It’s a way of centralizing authority and power.
Hugh Brody: They promise clean water to people who have no water, they promise irrigation to people who are drought vulnerable, they promise things that all human beings long for if they don’t have them.
It’s one reason why, when they are a trick - when in fact they will not deliver these things and when there are those in power who know they will not deliver these things, but don’t say so - a hideous evil is at work.
Bulgi: The water level is rising and has nearly reached our house.Why aren’t they giving us land? Why are they murdering us? The water comes in my dreams at night. I feel helpless.
Achim Steiner: Ladies and Gentlemen, good morning and welcome to the press conference of the World Commission on Dams.
Launched by Nelson Mandela, the World Commission on Dams brought all sides of the debate together for the first time - including scientists, engineers, dam builders, politicians and the NBA. After three years studying 125 large dams worldwide, all the participants put their names to the final report.
Achim: The findings of the commission, basically were summarised in two very simple sentences. First of all the acknowledgement that dams have delivered considerable benefits for human development. But that in too many cases the price paid to secure those benefits has been unacceptable and often unnecessary. The Commission did not say that no more big dams should ever be built, but they recommended that they be considered only as a last resort. Instead, local solutions to water problems should be developed
Arundhati Roy: In an issue like this, everything has to be designed according to the microclimate of that area. You don’t have this one formula that’s going to be the national cure for big dams – another big solution – there isn’t that.
There is going to have to be the ability to address the particular needs of that particular place in a particular way.
traditional local
In Gujarat’s drought-prone regions there is mounting scepticism, about the Narmada dams. So the people here have started tackling their own water problems...
This village in the heart of the drought area now supplies all its own water needs and no longer relies on the government tankers. Their mini dam cost 15,000 US dollars, but funding local projects is difficult as 85% of Gujarat’s irrigation budget is spent on Sardar Sarovar, which will cost up to 8.5 billion US dollars.
Ashok Ghjjar: We are losing 600 million rupees per day. Only the infrastructures and the manpower are ready to start the work at any moment. We are waiting for the green signal of the Supreme Court.
Montage of rain in Jalsindhi
But the Jalsindhi villagers are hoping for a RED light from the Supreme Court - and that the dam be decommisioned.
Luhariya:The right to live, to life... It is not anybody’s to take or give.
txt: October 18th 2000.
And then after six long years in court, the waiting is finally over. The three Judges deliver a contentious split decision. One Judge voted to stop further work on the dam until detailed assessments of it’s impact have been carried out. But the other two outvoted him and gave permission for the dam to be built up to its full height, on condition that resettlement is completed before each five metre increase.
Vyas: We are happy with the decision. Very happy. It is what we wanted.
Vyas: Everything we’ve said regarding resettlement is true.
Lawyer: The court has accepted it.
Vyas: The court has accepted it. So we welcome the decision.
Luhariya: The right of many generations to live has been snatched away. Our whole right to life has gone. What can we do?
Bulgi: We want to live our full lives. We don’t want to die. So we are not feeling good. They will build their dam and live happily, while we will be left in sorrow. I wish my father was still alive. I feel like crying.
Vyas: Take care to see that it does not seem like too much euphoria. Because those people who are demonstrating will critisice it. So take care not to show too much euphoria.
Medha: We are not weak. But I am certainly disapointed and depressed a little.
Arundhati: Everyone is with the rich. Our courts, our beauracracy, our military, our police, everyone. Just because the Court said so, does not mean we will sit on our hands and go along with it. Absolutely not.
Arundhati’s outspoken comments will lead her into trouble with the Supreme Court in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, the dam builders waste no time in restarting the construction work that was stopped for six years.
Vyas: I welcome you all to this holy bank of the River Narmada. Today is a very happy day for us. Today at this moment, I thank them.
Sun through clouds.
Water up to Luhariya’s house
With the Supreme Court case lost and the dam height increasing, the Jalsindhi villagers have run out of options.
But then the monsoon itself brings an unexpected stay of execution. The rains are very light this year - and the river stops rising just six feet short of Luhariya’s house.
The village is saved - at least, for another year.
Luhariya: Whether we will submerge or not next year creates great tension. We have fear in our hearts.
Bulgi: Next year... I don’t know. We will find out then what happens. If it rains properly the waters are bound to come.
Luhariya: I am tired of all this. But what choice do I have?
If we don’t continue the fight, there will be misery for us adivasi people. But if we do continue, there will also be misery.We will have to continue the fight. Otherwise how will we survive? We’ll get nothing if we don’t fight. No, we’ll get nothing if we don’t fight.
Kids singing: Mother Narmada belongs to us. We adivasis will show the world.The right to life belongs to us. We adivasis will show the world.
(TEXT). In May 2002, the Narmada Construction Authority gave clearance for the dam to be built up to a height of 95 metres.
8000 families who will be submerged at this height have not yet been resettled. Which breaks the regulations laid down in the Supreme Court ruling. The NBA’s campaign has targeted foreign corporations intending to invest in the project. At least six have now withdrawn, including Siemens, Ogden and Enron.On 6th March 2002, Arundhati Roy spent a day in jail after being found guilty of contempt for her criticisms of the Supreme Court verdict.In May 2002, police arrived in Jalsindhi and started cutting down the forest. The trees were burned in front of the villagers. As the monsoon approaches, Luhariya, Bulgi and the other Narmada villagers are preparing for another satyagraha.
They are resolute: “We will drown, but we will not move.”
Boy: We will fight. We will win.
Credits & logo
© Spanner Films Ltd, July 2002