No regrets on opposing Narmada dam: Patkar

Two decades later is the Narmada Bachao Andolan a failure or is than an unfair comment? That is the key issue Karan Thapar discussed on Devils Advocate with the movement’s principal leader Medha Patkar.

Karan Thapar: Twenty-three years after you got involved with the Sardar Sarovar Dam, the dam has reached a height of a 121 metres and it is now just a couple of years away from completion. So can you accept that you have failed to stop the dam?

Medha Patkar: One doesn’t know when the dam will be completed but recently Ministry of Water Resources has commented that it may go beyond the Five Year Plan. However, it is clear that after 122 meters, the height that was permitted illegally, submerging the people and was against Supreme Court judgments….

Karan Thapar: One thing is certain that the dam will be completed, whether it takes one year or two years or more. You and I know that. It is only 17 meters from its full desired height. You haven’t stopped it and you know you will never be successful in stopping it.

Medha Patkar: Only 17 metres and if that happens, then two and a half lakh people in the submergence area residing in the villages and townships would only be drowned and not done justice.

Karan Thapar: That happens with development. What about the people of Gujarat, whose depend on irrigation for agriculture. One million, seven hundred and ninety-two thousand hectares in Gujarat alone, not to mention the other states that are dependent or the 5 million farmers who are dependent. When you tried to stop the dam, you did not think of them?

Medha Patkar: Let me answer that question. The Gujarat people know better than you and me that the water has not reached Kutch despite the fact that it was possible even at the height of 110 metres.

Karan Thapar: Because of the delays you imposed…

Medha Patkar: No, not at all. Even after the dam reached the height of 110 meters, the waters were diverted to Gandhinagar and the Comptroller and Auditor General of India has even commented on this. The benefits did not materialise even at the height of 110 metres. Only 10 per cent of the expected benefits have come true.

Karan Thapar: I accept that the Gujarat government has perhaps done wrong and injustice that they have diverted waters. But I am no talking about that. I am talking about the fact that you tried to stop development. 5-million farmers depend on irrigation water. You forgot that their agriculture is drought prone and needs water.

Medha Patkar: Five million is just their figure. Even at the present height, whatever numbers they propose and project has not come true. Only 10 per cent of the expected benefits have come true. This is the analysis of the researchers within Gujarat. And the opposition came first from the ministry of environment much before we began to protest.

Karan Thapar: But look at the position you put yourself in. You began as someone who was fighting for victims of development and you ended as someone who is opposing development to a full stop.

Medha Patkar: Isn’t it logical and rational?

Karan Thapar: To oppose development? Is that logical and rational?

Medha Patkar: It is not opposing development. Development is a change, which is desirable, which comes through after you put together the natural and human resources.

Karan Thapar: What is the alternative, but irrigation for drought prone farmers in Gujarat? You are stopping development.

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Medha Patkar: In Gujarat, the farmers themselves have shown the way. Some farmers recharged more than 3 to 4 lakh wells. In Rajkot and in Kutch people have shown the alternative way of managing local natural resources.

Karan Thapar: In most of Gujarat, in a lot of parts in Maharashtra and in almost entire Deccan, the rainfall is less that 500 millimetres per year.

Medha Patkar: So?

Karan Thapar: So rain harvesting and recharging of wells is a joke. It is a cruel joke that people of Kutch can harvest water. Where is the water?

Medha Patkar: Anyone who knows about water management knows that even if it is 300 millimetre of rainfall, they can harness water, first to satiate the drinking water needs and secondly for crop protection to all farmers instead of building large centralised bodies and then leaving the needy farmers away.

Karan Thapar: If you are correct, then why does the eminent sociologist Gail Omvedt say that it is a cruel joke on the drought-prone farmers of Kutch?

Medha Patkar: She used to say it. She doesn’t say it anymore.

Karan Thapar: She said it in writing.

Medha Patkar: She said it long ago.

Karan Thapar: So what, the point has not changed.

Medha Patkar: No, it has changed. Everything is exposed. Gail has been a conscientious sociologist. She at that point in time was taking the side of farmer’s organisation, those that have already experienced now that the waters are not reaching the areas, despite water being filled in the reservoir.

Karan Thapar: Let me put this way, Paranjape and Joy came up with an alternative design for the dam which would have met many of your concerns. It would have allowed the dam to exist, it would have allowed the Kutch farmers in drought prone areas to get water and would have taken care of your concerns. Instead of pushing for that, you opposed it, and opposing it you ensured that the dam would happen anyway.

Medha Patkar: We did not oppose it. We engaged into a dialogue with them. Paranjape is still working with us even on the Krishna issue. We are forming a committee where Paranjape is one of the members. But then we only took a position, that when they were proposing 107 metres, we had to take care of the adivasis, farmers already affected at 69 and 80 metres, who were also not rehabilitated then. So we only said that at that point in time we couldn’t vouch for 107 meters.

Karan Thapar: But if you had played your cards successfully, you might have been successful in changing the design of the dam, instead you opposed the dam. You took a maximal position and when you lost, you lost maximum.

Medha Patkar: It was not my individual decision. Thousands of people engaged in the process in which, every time we reviewed the situation, and when they were not ready to rehabilitate even one village, we took that position. Only because of that at least a few thousand families were rehabilitated. However, even today, they do not have their own land.

Karan Thapar: Can I point out to you what the Dalit intellectual Chandra Bhan Prasad says about the position that was taken by you: 'The NBA opposed modernity. It glorifies the past in the manner of the RSS'. About you particularly he says, 'Medha Patkar represents the most ugly face of the Brahman world'.

Medha Patkar: Who is Chandra Bhan Prasad? I don’t know him.

Karan Thapar: He is an eminent Dalit intellectual and scholar.

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Medha Patkar: He has his own way of thinking and looking at it.

Karan Thapar: So you dismiss him that easily?

Medha Patkar: What the thousands and thousands of downtrodden see in NBA is a representative face, not in me, but in the Andolan.

Karan Thapar: This is Chandra Bhan Prasad. Let me quote Gail Omvedt. You said she is a colleague of yours.

Medha Patkar: I did not say that. I said she is a conscientious person.

Karan Thapar: She says that the NBA has become the voice of eco-romanticists, not that of Adivasis, Dalits and Bahujan farmers of the valley.

Medha Patkar: You probably don’t know that Gail’s own husband takes this position on most of the large dams in Maharashtra.

Karan Thapar: I am talking about Gail, an eminent sociologist who says you are an eco-romanticist.

Medha Patkar: So what? There are so many sociologists who support social movements, including NBA and the farmer’s movements, for asserting their rights to life and livelihood, which is a constitutional right.

Karan Thapar: Let me quote you Vasudha Digambar, you worked together at one point in time. She says that you were so determined to oppose the dam that at one point of time you refused to even let the people who were going to be evacuated to know about the compensation and benefits. Because you were scared that they might accept it and you may fail. As a result, those who could get compensation did not get it.

Medha Patkar: You ask what Vasudha's own colleagues, Meenakshi Ganguly, Kawaljeet Singh, and all those who worked with her said about the Andolan. Vasudhaji took a position, which is fair enough. She said that she couldn’t oppose the dam. For the first time when I went to the valley, we were together but she was not in the movement. She said that she would like to only file a case, while we thought that a mass movement was necessary. And imagine what would have happened if we had gone to the court.

Karan Thapar: But you are not answering the point she made. I want to quote her words to you. 'They did not want people to be informed about the resettlement offered as this would have induced the potential oustees to think of accepting the resettlement, which in turn would weaken the movement. That’s the charge.

Medha Patkar: That is the job of the government and the SC also asked the government to inform each of the oustees. We on the other hand took up the job of the government and informed them about the policies. We translated the policies for the first time. Only those who know this can say this.

Karan Thapar: Dr Anil Patel of ARCH-Vahini also agrees and I am quoting him. 'Tribals in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh were completely in the dark about the R and R policy of Gujarat and the true magnitude of the implementation’. He said that in these villages NBA was vigorously propagating information that was in complete variance with the real situation. Did you deceive, did you hide or did you manipulate people to keep your movement going?

Medha Patkar: You really want to know? You should also know that Anil Patel was also at one point of time opposing the dam and then he became a member of the Gujarat government's committee, which is fine. His organisation helped some Adivasis to get the rehabilitation who are now fighting the battle with along with us.

Karan Thapar: Is the charge against you correct?

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Medha Patkar: You are not listening to my answers.

Karan Thapar:You are not answering my question. Is the charge against you correct?

Medha Patkar: I am countering the charge and I must be given enough time and opportunity to answer. The people, Adivasis from Gujarat, who got whatever they could get, many of them are fighting along with us today against the land which they got. The land they got was uncultivable and they are yet to get some amenities. The villages near the dam are now being evicted.

Karan Thapar:I let you answer fully, but its only fair that you explain this to me. If you are right, are you saying that Anil Patel, Vasudha Digambar, Gail, Chandra Prasad, all your critics are wrong. And they are a handful more I can quote.

Medha Patkar: But I can give you hundreds of names such as Kuldip Nayar, Ramaswamy Iyer, the former secretaries, former judges, the economists, sociologists, former commissioner for SC and ST, all of them have been supporters.

Karan Thapar: You know what they are saying?

Medha Patkar: Even the collectors and many officials who know the Andolan from the first moment and how we have taken a very rational and legal position support us.

Karan Thapar: The point that your critics are making, firstly they say that you haven’t simply fought for the victims of the development, you were opposed to development. In opposing dams, you forgot about agriculture and drought-prone areas. You forgot about the needs of poor farmers and then worst of all you deceived the people for whom you were working, because you did not want them to find out about the rehabilitation. On both grounds, you are guilty they say.

Medha Patkar: Sardar Sarovar is going to finish the agriculture, best of the lands, not even like the saline lands in the Kutch or the non-irrigable lands in Gujarat, which they claim that they would irrigate with this project. This is the best of the land—oldest of the civilisation in the world as the archaeologists have approved—and the farmers born there are being killed. So we fought with farmers against other farmers. What we are fighting is what has been brought to the farmers in India through the so-called Special Economic Zones.

Karan Thapar: Do you have any regret about the fact that you might have delayed irrigation for 5 million farmers?

Medha Patkar: Five million is no number on any rational basis.

Karan Thapar: Any regret about the fact that you did not inform many people about compensation because you were scared that they would accept it and your movement would fail?

Medha Patkar: Whatever they have got is better than many other dams and still the justice remains to be done.

Karan Thapar: You have no regrets?

Medha Patkar: No regrets. No second thoughts.

Karan Thapar:Everything that you did was right?

Medha Patkar: I am not saying that. But whatever strategic decisions of the movement taken together with my colleagues, comrades, adivasis and farmers have been democratic processes.

Karan Thapar: Have they been right processes? They may have been democratic but were they right?

Medha Patkar: We do not regret most of our decisions. For small things, we may have changed positions and reworked and reviewed our decisions. We have known the state well for the last 22 years as all the development affected people have come to know now. The people are with us.

Karan Thapar: Now that the dam is just a couple of years away from completion, how do you see your future?

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Medha Patkar: I am not just with NBA but ‘Desh Bachao Movement’, which is a national alliance of people’s movements. It is not my individual future but the future of people’s movements in India. It is something that worries me, because the political parties are so dominant, arrogant and anti-people in their policies and so pro-corporate in their economic decision-making, it is we who represent the people, not as individuals but as movements.

Karan Thapar: You are involved in peoples movements. Not only NBA, but also all such movements, do you think they are actually making an impact?

Medha Patkar: Yes they have. Has Nandigram not made an impact? It was a people’s non-violent movement.

Karan Thapar: But you have left the people of Nandigram in the same poverty they were in. The chemical hub could have made an enormous difference. It could have brought prosperity and jobs. You have denied them all of that.

Medha Patkar: How many jobs, for what category, for whom? Do you have any details?

Karan Thapar: Jobs for those who don’t have it, any job doesn’t matter. At least they would have a livelihood.

Medha Patkar: Can you prove this? Even a small project of auto car making in Pune displacing 125 families, could not give jobs to a single affected person. And this was Tatas. You think Salim of Indonesia was ever committed to give jobs or committed to his own profits.

Karan Thapar: You did not give him a chance to prove him.

Medha Patkar: But there was no proposal for that matter. I did not start Nandigram movement nor did I lead it. I was only a supporter when they faced martyrdom.

Karan Thapar: You give me this impression that you are against modernisation, against development. You give me this romantic image that people in their natural condition, even though poor, even though miserable are best of. You are protecting some sort of rural imagery and you are opposing modern development.

Medha Patkar: Rather we are for development—development which will give roji, roti, kapdaa, makaan, shiksha, swasthya (bread, butter, shelter, education, health) to everyone.

Karan Thapar: How do you do that without industry or development?

Medha Patkar: We are for industrialisation but industries which will be labour intensive. You have to start with the village to small scale (industries) and whole of that range.

Karan Thapar: So modern manufacturing plants, chemical hub and car companies are all projects you don’t like?

Medha Patkar: No, not at all. Certain of those projects can come up without killing agriculture, without killing the human communities who have a right to agriculture. Manufacturing in the SEZ Act itself is so defined to include agriculture, pisciculture, horticulture but one kind of manufacturing is being to killed for another kind. You look at the proposals of all these industrial projects that are coming up they have no guarantee of job. They only guarantee training of tens of people and that doesn’t fill the stomach. Displaced people have experienced that they don’t get jobs.

Karan Thapar: And you say you are not an eco-romanticist?

Medha Patkar: Not at all.

Karan Thapar: Is this not the view of an eco-romanticist?

Medha Patkar: No, not at all. We don’t say don’t touch water—we are for harnessing water. We built micro-hydel projects in the Narmada Valley on which Swadesh film is made. We have taught the first learner generation through twelve residential schools, which we are running as Narmada Bachao Andolan and which have all earned praise.

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Karan Thapar: In 2004 you launched the People’s Political Front. It didn’t win any seats, will it contest the 2009 elections?

Medha Patkar: No. Right now when a small section of the people’s movement is with the People’s Political Front we took a decision jointly that some people will have to remain with the National Alliance of People’s Movement. And I am one of them. But whether People’s Political Front or any alternative within the electoral politics thinks that the people’s movement is playing a complimentary role then that is how it’s going to be.

Karan Thapar: Will Medha Patkar in particular in 2009 contest for a Parliamentary seat?

Medha Patkar: Not decided to contest at all.

Karan Thapar: Not decided means you may.

Medha Patkar: No, I don’t have that decision made. As on today I can give you this decision of this moment and nothing else. I feel electoral politics is going haywire and Right to Left if the same economic policies are followed. Ours is a vigil of more equitable and sustainable development with natural resources and human rights—but in a democratic way.

Karan Thapar: Medha Patkar, a pleasure talking to you.