Once again, the Indian State has betrayed the Adivasis and farmers in the Narmada valley by its cruel andpresumptuous decision to impose the submergence and destitution on its own people. It is nothing but theintra-border terrorism by the Indian state on its own people It will not merely be a doob (submergence),but a doom unleashed on the innocent civilians.
In yet another atrocious and illegal step, the Indian government has decided to raise the height of theSardar Sarovar Project from 95 meters to 100 meters, threatening the lives of over 12,000 tribal and farmerfamilies in the Narmada valley with no hope of resettlement. Along with the nefarious designs of the infamousGujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, the anti-people role played by the two Congress Chief Ministers-Sushilkumar Shinde of Maharashtra and Digvijay Singh of Madhya Pradesh- has also been equally hideous.
Not less than 12,000 tribal and peasant families on the banks of the Narmada will be compelled to facesubmergence due to this decision. The fact was well established through repeated surveys and governmentappointed fact-finding missions. Knowing this fully well, the bureaucrats and political bosses in thegovernments of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra have connived to bring in flood and devastation beyondlast years' calamitous submergence to make the people destitute.
With hardly any progress on rehabilitation with land, as provided in the policies, this rising of theheight and consequent submergence is illegal, unjust and a clear contempt of Supreme Court's Judgment of 2000.
It will be literally a kind of water war in the Narmada Valley, before it is witnessed by the world, asmore than one hundred thickly populated villages in Nimad (Madhya Pradesh) and twenty-six in Maharashtra, thatwill be affected at 100 meters cannot be vacated and people cannot be resettled by any means before theflooding occurs in the coming monsoon.
The people will face it and the governments too will have to face nationwide and worldwide infamy for yetanother genocide - perpetuated in the name of Gujarat this time by its infamous Chief Minister and, fullysupported by the so-called secular governments! The decision is an absolute deception on behalf of Maharashtraand Madhya Pradesh Governments, as they have submitted outright before the all-powerful Modi, who could imposehis will even on the Prime Minister's office.
The Central government, the Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra governments, along with the Narmada ControlAuthority (NCA), which has given the 'conditional' consent, have violated every single provision, norm, lawand even the Supreme Court order of October 2000 regarding the resettlement of displaced people.
The land-based resettlement is a cardinal provision of Narmada Water Dispute Tribunal (NWDT), to which thestate governments had sworn allegiance. The land-based resettlement was endorsed by the Supreme Court verdictin October 2000. None of the states have resettled the affected people.
Betrayal by Singh
These two Chief Minister - Shinde and Singh - know fully well that they have no land for the resettlementof over 3, 000 tribal families in Maharashtra and atleast over 5, 000 more families in Madhya Pradesh, whichwill face submergence due to the 100 meters dam (+ 3 meters of humps). This 103 m. height will engulf all the33 tribal villages in Maharashtra, and large and well settled villages in the plains of Nimad, like Nisarpur,Bhavanriya, Chikhalda, Chhota Badada.
Everyone concerned knows that it is practically impossible, even otherwise, to resettle the Nimad villagerswith fertile land and large, well-settled villages bustling with agrarian, commercial and social activities.There is simply no cultivable land available to resettle them. The so called 5000 hectares land, identified bythe state government, had already been rejected by the people three years back, after a joint inspection alongwith the officials, as it was totally uncultivable. The M.P. government was in fact resorting to illegal meansof forcibly disbursing cash compensation to the oustees - which is a clear violation of the NWDT and SupremeCourt order.
Even very recently, Digvijay Singh had committed in his written reply to our letters that his state wouldensure strict compliance with the Tribunal Awards and the Supreme Court Judgment. But his acquiescence forfurther construction without resettling his own people exposes the rhetoric and absolutely inhuman attitude bythis media savvy and so called Green Chief Minister. This is the height of dishonesty and betrayal by theDigvijay Singh Government of his own people. It is the same government, which had filed a separate suite inthe Supreme Court in 1998, for decreasing the height of the dam. It had then claimed that it wanted to saveits fertile Nimad land, and had no land to resettle all these people, that the state has no money and nobenefit from the dam.
Maharashtra's Duplicity
The previous Vilasrao Deshmukh government in Maharashtra had at least maintained that it had no land forthe resettlement of the tribal oustees of the state. It had also appointed a Joint Task Force, in September2001, with the participation of Narmada Bachao Andolan and other organizations, to assess the extent andmagnitude of the displacement, and the status of the resettlement of tribals in Maharashtra. The Task Forcehad finished its job in 2002 itself and had come out with shocking revelations.
Accordingly, there has been no complete resettlement of the oustees even below 90 m. Over 800 ousteesshifted to the 'resettlement sites' are yet to be fully rehabilitated. This alone will require 4000 hectaresof land for their land-based resettlement. Thousands of tribals are still to be resettled and there is no landavailable for their resettlement. Nor is there any plan ready for their resettlement. Also, there is an urgentneed to revise the estimates and lists of the project-affected persons (PAPs), declaring the left-out families(undeclared) as the PAPs, to identify over 4000 hectares of land for their resettlement, and to expedite theprocess of Planning Committee of NBA and the government.
The NBA and other organizations had a meeting with the Chief Minister Mr. Shinde, on April 29 and again onMay 8, where he announced that Maharashtra will not allow increase in the height, until the people below thatheight are resettled according to the NWDT. He agreed that the people would be shown land and will be fullyrehabilitated before any increase in the dam height. But he seems to rely more on his officials and it isaudacious to set aside the Task Force recommendations for updating and revising records of oustees, on thebasis of the official resurvey done by a Task Force involving the NBA. Without doing all this, the state hasallowed flooding of the lands and houses, bringing in destruction, much beyond last years' submergence.
The Maharashtra bureaucracy has been hostile to the tribals in Narmada valley and it wants to 'teach alesson' to the valiant tribal villagers who have made their life miserable by insisting on the law and theirrights and entitlements. Mr. Shinde made a choice against the tribals, in favour of bureaucracy -- and Modi.It is shameful for Maharashtra and for the nation that a Chief Minister who flaunts his being a dalit on hissleeve, to agree to the destruction of life and livelihood of tribal brethren..
It is obvious for both the Congress Chief Ministers (as also Gehlot, Chief Minister of Rajasthan), thatthey will gain very little benefit, uncertain electricity benefits -- especially when Gujarat has taken awaywater beyond original plans through lower level bypass tunnel -- and not a drop of water from Sardar SarovarProject. Yet they have decided to sacrifice their people for the political and financial benefit of ModiGovernment and his mainstream Gujarat, not the people from the drought affected region of Kutch and Saurashtra.
The people of Saurashtra and Kutch in Gujarat will have to wage a battle against the giant urban-industrialelites and the capitalist powers, like the people in the valley have been struggling for last 18 years. Beyondall of this, the nation will have to reconsider the investment of thousands of crores of rupees in such anunviable and disastrous project (total cost 44.000 crores), with rampant corruption. Sardar Sarovar Projectwill prove to be a great social and economic disaster for Gujarat and India. Drowning people will not drownthe truth, nor can it wipe out the people's struggle.
The Narmada struggle is a test case for all of us to see that the people's rights are upheld. For thegovernments and the petty bureaucracy also, it is a test case -- nay, matter of prestige -- to see that peopledo not assert their rights. What are we going to choose?
As far as NBA, we will keep fighting against the injustice, oppression and fraud -- symbolised by theSardar Sarovar.
