A Poetic Licence

1. Once the dam is 110 m high, irrigation and power benefits would flow. And that could expose the hollowness of the NBA's claims. 
2. Arundhati asserts traditional crops are being replaced by water guzzlers like cane. But the planned irrigation delta won't permit its farming and the existing factories are outside the SSP command 
3. The NBA: Conjuring up two problems for every solution Why's the NBA playing an obstructive and not a catalytic role on the Narmada project? Is it because facts may soon contradict their prejudices? Are the poor a constituency some can't afford to lose? Arundhati's idealisation of the tribal lifestyle reeks of glorification of the noble savage. This is what she ordains for them: grubbing for roots, deprived, impoverished, and 'protected '  by the NBA. Does Arundhati know 60% of the water she drinks in Delhi comes from the Bhakra system; even sceptics who thought the Rajasthan canal would never reach the far end of the desert have been belied.

THE poetry was charming; the facts wrong; more rhyme than reason. Arundhati Roy, the poet laureate of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), allowed poetic licence to run away with her in writing about the ssp or the Sardar Sarovar Project (The Greater Common Good in Outlook, May 24). Having denuclearised herself in an earlier article, she is here at the barricades as 'Big Dams are to a Nation's Development' what nuclear arms are to its Military Arsenal...both weapons of mass destruction ' . The Indian state/democracy is a pestilential 'poverty-producing machine '  made to order by rich urban elites to grind down the rural poor.

This 'state secret '  unearthed, Arundhati sounds a clarion call to the wretched to 'break faith '  with the system that has operated Big Dams to 'devour ' , displace and devastate 50 million of them. She would 'unscramble '  the 'malignant '  conspiracy, 'Bomb by bomb; Dam by dam... begin(ning) with the Narmada valley ' . Strong stuff, this.

Arundhati denies any neo-Luddite impulse or arcadian, pre-industrial, anti-development dream. Yet this is what appears to drive her argument. Let's unscramble it.

Dams displace. So does acute deprivation, as in the Narmada Valley, but in a far higher ratio. The ssp displaced are a charge on the project with a generous plan, budget and organisation for their rehabilitation. The distress migrants are just damned.

'Words, '  exclaims Arundhati, echoing the Andolan's petition on the basis of which it won a stay from the Supreme Court more than four years ago. However, in February '99, the court permitted raising the height of Sardar Sarovar above 80 metres (where it had been frozen) in five-metre slabs to 85 metres and more, pari passu with actual resettlement of those displaced at each incremental five-metre contour. Justice P.B. Desai was appointed by the court as the Grievance Authority to report on the ground realities of relief and rehabilitation (r&r).

Why not await these findings? They have been submitted and will soon be made known. But it might be inconvenient if his conclusions do not match the NBA's prejudices. Who knows? And so, preempt the court and the Authority. The NBA has charged the Sardar Sarovar Nigam with making false claims before the court; there have been hunger strikes and dharnas against the dam and other upstream projects; and citizens, more eminent than informed like Arundhati, have petitioned the President of India to stop the dam.

The NBA has made rehabilitation the major issue. Yet an ssp official, Madhavbhai Raval, was reportedly stripped, beaten and paraded by NBA activists on March 21 in Barda village in Madhya Pradesh, while on r&r duty. This is not the first time the NBA has resorted to violence and subterfuge to enforce its will. The implications of such coercion become apparent against the ssp's statement that of the 3,143 project-affected families who would need rehabilitation at 85 metres, 88 per cent have been resettled. The others have not responded despite being given due notice to move and offered land at any of the 61 sites equipped with the stipulated civic amenities.

Indeed, the Centre's r&r sub-group has certified that land and facilities are available for resettlement of all project-affected peoples (paps) up to Elevation 90 metres. Who is holding them back and why? Is it because once the dam attains a height of 110 metre " and this could happen by the end of 2000 " irrigation and power benefits would begin to flow, transforming promises into reality and exposing the hollowness of claims that Sardar Sarovar will not work? Have the poor become a constituency that some are afraid to lose?

The paps are receiving far more and more productive irrigable land of their own choice in the ssp command on relocation " two hectare at a minimum, or more than the median holding in Gujarat. With the superior amenities provided at the new locations, they are beginning to enjoy an enhanced quality of life. Regular r&r monitoring and evaluation reports by the Centre for Social Studies, Surat, show a rising curve of production, income generation and social consumption despite delayed irrigation from the project. There are problems; but also a mechanism for dealing with such teething troubles.

Ah, but the paps 'have been dumped in rows of corrugated tin sheds which are furnaces in summer and fridges in winter '  in place of their original spacious, airy tribal homes, says Arundhati. Wrong. This temporary accommodation has been provided at their own request to enable displaced persons (DPs) to cultivate allocated lands at the new site even before they are statutorily bound to move from their old site. So, the favour sought becomes an accusation when conceded.

'People stop growing things they can afford to eat; start growing things they can only afford to sell. By linking themselves with the market they lose control over their lives. '  So speaks Arundhati who idealises the tribals' 'self-sufficient and free '  lifestyle as hunter-gatherers, 'insured '  by the forest and river when the rains fail, protected from money and hand-pumps which would 'yoke them to the whims of a world you know, nothing, nothing about ' . Yes, there it is, the glorification of the noble savage. That is what Arundhati ordains for 80 million tribal Indians " the joy of grubbing for roots, deprived, impoverished, 'protected '   by the NBA from a 'world '  which 'they '  must not enter so that 'we '   can continue to champion them.

The National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) was criticised for years on similar grounds: that the rural poor were being encouraged to market their milk instead of feeding it to their sickly babies. Would anybody suggest that Operation Flood has impoverished India?

Arundhati laments traditional crops being replaced by water-guzzlers like cotton, rice, soya and, especially, sugarcane. Alongside low irrigation efficiency and the demands of rich Patels, urban elites, five-star hotels and golf courses en route, this must preclude water reaching drought-prone North Gujarat, Saurashtra and Kutch. Waterlogging and salinity will destroy farming. As for the promise of drinking water, this is an utter hoax. Altogether, a picture of shameful thuggery and incompetence.

Sorry Arundhati. The planned irrigation delta will not permit cane farming, which is discouraged. The 14 existing sugar factories are outside the ssp command. However, she predicts waterlogging and salinity and scoffs at the measures taken to monitor and prevent this happening. The idea of automated systems linked to observation wells to control the water table is 'corny enough to send a Hoollock Gibbon to a hooting hospital ' . Ha, ha. Conjunctive use is derided as foolish and expensive. And how can these mutts manage anything so sophisticated when they cannot even build the dam or line the canal without its breaking and collapsing in turn? Splendid satire, were it not so mendacious. But don't spoil the chorus: 'Dammed if you do and dammed if you don't. ' 

We have it on Arundhati's supreme authority that only half the ssp command can be irrigated for lack of water. And that half, she suspects, will not be the tail-end in distant Saurashtra and Kutch. Really! Why not wait and see?

Worse, when the Narmada Tribunal announced its award 'there was no mention of drinking water ' . It was only when the project ran into political trouble that the government 'suddenly discovered the emotive power of thirst ' . False. Gujarat had sought and the tribunal allocated it 0.86 million acre feet (maf) of drinking water and 0.20 maf for industrial use. No afterthought that.

But then, how can anyone take the drinking water project seriously when the government comes up with different figures of the population and number of villages to be covered? Arundhati laughs at the inclusion of 236 uninhabited villages. Lack of water has compelled migration from Kutch and provision of water supply could bring deserted villages back to life. Every project looks at several options before the final parameters are frozen. Perhaps Hoollock Gibbons do things differently.

The master plan prepared by the Gujarat Water Supply and Sewerage Board caters to 8,215 villages and 135 urban centres in Saurashtra, Gujarat and Kutch. This will cover a population of 20 million rising to 30 million or more over the next 30 years. Work has commenced.

Yes, this will be a separate project, separately funded, to construct an elaborate pipeline and delivery network. That is standard practice. Further, thousands of village tanks en route will be replenished by the Narmada canals. The ssp was never intended to build and operate a water supply scheme. Its canals will, however, provide the primary carrier systems and deliver stipulated supplies at designated points.

Arundhati probably does not know that about 60 per cent of the water she drinks or uses in Delhi comes from the Bhakra system. Sceptics like her who insisted that the Indira Gandhi Canal would never reach the far end of the Rajasthan desert now gratefully drink the water brought from 600 to 800 km away to Barmer, Jaisalmer, Pokhran, Jodhpur and Bikaner.

Okay, but then of course the Farakka Barrage 'has reduced drinking water availability for 40 million people who live downstream in Bangladesh ' . More nonsense. Does Arundhati know about the massive dredging project under way in Bangladesh to channelise water releases under the acclaimed Ganga Treaty into the Gorai river whose intake on the Ganga was choked even prior to the construction of the Farakka Barrage? Even Bangladesh has not made such an allegation.

Energy output is confused with the ssp's 1,450 MW installed capacity in asserting that the ssp 'will end up producing only three per cent of the power that its planners say it will. 50 MW ' . Let that gaffe pass. This, Arundhati says, is inevitable because of the mutual conflict between irrigation and power. Wrong again. The 250 MW canal-head powerhouse will keep generating to the extent of the releases made for irrigation. So a steady output is assured here. The 1,200 MW riverbed powerhouse will also not suffer a diminution of output as abstractions from the Narmada steadily increase over the years. Reversible turbines are being installed to provide pumped storage with the Garudeshwar weir, 12 km below the Sardar Sarovar dam, providing the necessary pondage.

Yes, yes, but then the hilsa and the freshwater prawn will surely be destroyed by ecological changes below the dam throwing 40,000 fisherfolk out of work. The Morse Commission, we are told, was appalled at the lack of studies on downstream effects. A '95 report on 'Environmental Assessment of Changes Downstream of Sardar Sarovar Dam '  by Wallingford found that while Gujarat and Rajasthan could be utilising their full 9.5 maf allocations by 2024, the slower pace of development in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh would entail no more than 70 per cent utilisation of total stream flows by 2024. A situation of zero flow below Sardar Sarovar might only prevail by 2067 before which it is recommended that a compensatory release of 28.3 m cubic metres (0.72 maf) per annum be provided for, as originally proposed by Gujarat.

Quite apart from the controversy over the Narmada's hydrology, additional sources of water will be available in the medium term.

The Sardar Sarovar dam will not affect hilsa and prawn migration as it is situated upstream of their breeding sites. But reduced discharges below the dam and corresponding changes in water quality some decades hence could matter. However, the value and volume of reservoir fishery and the employment that generates will be far larger than from traditional fishing.

As for the Morse report, this has been fully answered by several commentators, including this writer in his Winning the Future (Konark, 1994).

Then there is the tired and empty taunt of the ssp and other Narmada valley dams being the country's 'Greatest Planned Environment Disaster ' . Twenty years ago, one heard of the Mitti Bachao Andolan at the Tawa project which was then labelled a disaster. Ask today.

However, Arundhati tells us, 13,000 ha of 'prime forest '  is going to be submerged by the Sardar Sarovar dam. As usual, no distinction is made between forest lands " an administrative term " and forests or tree cover. It is officially estimated that the dam will submerge 4,523 ha of mostly degraded forests bearing 981,000 trees. As against this, the project plans to plant over 11 million trees in forest upgradation, compensatory afforestation and canal bank plantations. So the replacement ratio will exceed 100:1. Millions of these trees are already standing tall. Narmada will actually give Gujarat considerable additional green cover. Six wildlife and marine sanctuaries are also being developed.

The tendency to denigrate engineers and engineering projects as necessarily venal, exploitative and anti-poor is fashionable in some quarters. The ssp is a considerable engineering feat, and no crime for that. The cost will be considerable, but nothing like the NBA's Rs 40,000 crore that Arundhati cites. Costs have little meaning unless weighed against corresponding benefits. These will be far greater on any count. It is not for nothing that the ssp has been labelled Gujarat's lifeline. Tribals, marginal farmers and women will be among major beneficiaries of the transformation it effects.

Arundhati takes a sideswipe at the upstream Maheshwar dam in Madhya Pradesh (400 MW for peaking power) being built by a private entrepreneur, S. Kumars. Stipulated norms are being followed for rehabilitating 2,252 fully and partially affected families at a cost of Rs 130 crore. Here too, the NBA has taken to disruption and coercion.

'No one has been consulted or informed, '   parrots Arundhati, taking her cue from the NBA. Yes, some of these things could and should certainly be done better. The country is on a learning curve and things are improving. But to suggest that there has been absolutely no consultation or information would be a gross exaggeration.

Arundhati and the NBA can play a watchdog role, educate and inform the affected people and ensure that they are given their due. Other ngos in Gujarat are playing such a catalytic role. But if the object is to obstruct and spread disinformation, conjuring up two problems for every solution, then they do no service to themselves or their 'cause '  " the underprivileged in whose name they claim to speak.

Also See: Arundhati Roy's original piece, The Greater Common Good, to which this was a response and her own response to this piece: The Greater Common Good II