This was done indiscriminately, to rich and poor alike. People had the option of challenging the award in a civil court (and spending more on lawyers’ fees than the compensation they hoped to receive). The other option was to bribe the patwaris and revenue inspectors. The poor simply did not have the liquid cash to pay the going rate—“Hum feelgood nahin kar paaye.” (We couldn’t afford to pay them any “feelgood”). So they fell out of the basket. Those who managed to make the patwaris “feelgood” managed to get their cattle sheds entered as palatial homes and received handsome compensation (in lakhs, or hundreds of thousands) for them.
Of course, much of this made its way back to the officials as more Feelgood. Even this unfair, absurd compensation that was promised has not been disbursed. So in the villages and in Harsud, thousands of people continued to cling to their homes.
On May 14, Uma Bharati announced a grant of Rs 25,000 (roughly $500) (or up to 10 percent of the allotted compensation) to people who demolished their houses and moved out of town before June 30. People still didn’t move. On June 8, the Harsud Doobvasi Sangharsh Morcha filed a petition in the Jabalpur High Court asking that water not be impounded in the reservoir until proper compensation is paid and rehabilitation completed. Annexed to their petition were carefully compiled documents that clearly showed the extent of criminal malfeasance that took place in Harsud.
The townspeople’s hopes were pinned on the court’s response. At the first hearing, government lawyers cautioned the judge that there was nothing anybody could do about the fact that the water was rising and the situation could turn dangerous. It cautioned the judge that if the court intervened, it could have a disaster on its hands. The state government knew that if it could break Harsud, the despair and resignation would spread to the villages. To break Harsud once and for all, to ensure that people never came back even if the monsoon failed and the town was not fully submerged, meant demolishing the town physically. In order to create panic they simulated a flood by releasing water from the Bargi reservoir upstream.
On June 23, the water in the Kalimachak tributary rose by a meter and a half. Still people didn’t move. On June 27, over three hundred police and paramilitary forces staged a flag march through the terrified town. Companies of mounted police, the Rapid Action Force, the paramilitary, and armed constabulary paraded through the streets. On June 29, the High Court issued a tepid, cautious interim order. Morale in Harsud sank. Still the deadline of June 30 passed without event. On the morning of July 1, loudspeakers mounted on vehicles crisscrossed the town announcing that the Rs 25,000 ($500) grant would be given only to those who demolished their homes that very night.
Harsud broke. All night people smashed away at their own homes with crowbars, hammers, and iron rods. By morning it looked like a suburb of modern-day Baghdad. The panic spread to the villages. Away from the gaze of the media, in place of the lure of Rs 25,000 ($500), the government resorted to good old-fashioned repression.
In fact, repression in the villages had begun a while ago. In village after village—Amba Khaal, Bhawarli, Jetpur—people told us in precise, heartbreaking detail how they had been cheated by patwaris and revenue inspectors. Fearing what lay in store for them, many had sent their children and their stocks of grain away to relatives. Families who had lived together for generations did not know when they would ever see each other again. A whole fragile economy had begun to unravel. People described how a posse of policemen would arrive in a village, dismantle hand pumps, and cut electricity connections. Those who dared to resist were beaten. (This was the same technique the Digvijay Singh government used two years ago in the submergence zone of the Mann Dam.)
In each of the villages we visited, the schools had either been demolished or occupied by the police. In Amba Khaal small children studied in the shade of a peepal tree while the police lay about in their classrooms. As we traveled further inland toward the reservoir, the road got worse and eventually disappeared. At Malud there was a boat tethered to the Police Assistance Booth overlooking a rocky outcrop. The policeman said he was waiting for the Flood.
Beyond Malud we passed ghost villages reduced to rubble. A boy with two goats told us about twenty monkeys that were marooned on a clump of trees surrounded by water. We passed Gannaur, the last village where a lone man was loading the last few bricks of his home onto a tractor. Beyond Gannaur, the land slopes down toward the edge of the reservoir. As we approached the water, it began to rain. It was quiet except for the alarm calls of frightened lapwings. In my mind, the man loading his tractor in the distance was Noah building his ark, waiting for the Deluge. The sound of the water lapping against the shore was full of menace. The violence of what we had seen and heard robbed beautiful things of their beauty. A pair of dragonflies mated in the air. I caught myself wondering if it was rape.
There was a line of froth that marked the level up to which the water had risen before it receded in the government-induced Bargi flood. There was a small child’s shoe in it. On our way back we took another route. We drove down a red gravel road built by the Forest Department and traveled deep into the forest. We arrived at a village that looked as though it had been evacuated some years ago. Broken houses had been reclaimed by trees and creepers. A herd of feral cows grazed in the ruins. There was no one around to tell us the name of the village—this village that must have been loved and lived in. That must still be loved. And dreamt about.
As we turned to go, we saw a man walking toward us. His name was Baalak Ram. He was a Banjara. He told us the name of the village—Jamunia. It had been uprooted two years ago. My friend Chittaroopa from the NBA was visibly disturbed when she heard this. She remembered tractorloads of people from Jamunia who came to support NBA’s rallies against the Maheshwar Dam. And now they were gone. Swallowed by their own, more terrible dam.
Baalak Ram was a laborer who had been sent back by the land-owning Patels of Jamunia to try and round up their cows. But the cows wouldn’t go. “They pay me, but it’s not easy, the cattle have become wild. They refuse to go. They have grass and water here, the river and the forest are close by. Why should they go?” He told us how cows and dogs had returned to Jamunia from distant places. He seemed happy, alone in the forest with the almost-wild cows. We asked him if he ever felt lonely. “This is my village,” he said, and then, after a moment “Only sometimes … when I think where has everyone gone? Are they all dead?”
A tiny boy arrived. Dark. Glowing. He attached himself to Baalak Ram’s legs. He clutched a bunch of beautiful wildflowers. We asked him who they were for. “Khabsurat the” (They were beautiful). As though Beautiful was someone who had died recently. At a meeting of the Harsud Doobvasi Sangharsh Morcha, desperate people discussed the possibility of filing a Public Interest Litigation in the Supreme Court. I realized with some sadness that I no longer associate that institution with the idea of justice. Power, yes. Strategy, maybe. But justice?
Phrases from justice B. N. Kirpal’s judgment on the Sardar Sarovar flashed through my mind: Public Interest Litigation should not be allowed to degenerate into becoming Publicity Interest Litigation or Private Inquisitiveness Litigation.
Though these villages comprise a significant population of tribals and people of weaker sections, but majority will not be a victim of displacement. Instead, they will gain from shifting.
The displacement of tribals and other persons would not per se result in the violation of their fundamental or other rights.
Thus were the thousands displaced by the Sardar Sarovar Dam doomed to destitution.
I thought of how the same judge, one day before he retired as India’s chief justice, while he was the sitting judge on another, entirely unconnected case, ordered the government of India to begin work on the River Linking Project! In an affidavit submitted in response, the central government said the project would take forty-three years to complete and would cost Rs 560,000 crore ($115 billion).
Justice Kirpal didn’t quibble about the cost, only asked that the
project be completed in ten years! And so, a project of Stalinist proportions, potentially more destructive than all of India’s dams put together, was born. Justice Kirpal subsequently clarified that it was not an order—just a “suggestion.” Meanwhile, the government began to treat it like a Supreme Court order.
How can one man, whoever he is, order the ecology of a whole country to be irreversibly altered? How can a country that calls itself a democracy function like this? (Today Justice Kirpal heads the Indian Environmental Council of Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverage Pvt. Ltd. Earlier this year, he publicly criticized a Kerala High Court order which refused to grant a stay on the Kerala government’s directive restraining Coke from mining groundwater in Plachimada. A Contempt of Court case has been filed against him.)
So. Should the people of Harsud approach the courts? It’s not an easy question to answer. What should they ask for? What could they hope to achieve? The concrete section of the Narmada Sagar Dam is 245 meters high. The radial crest gates take the dam wall up to its full height of 262.13 meters.
According to the Narmada Control Authority’s own figures, a huge part of the submergence will take place between 245 meters and 262 meters. Can we look to the courts to explore the possibility of blasting open the sluice gates (as was done in the case of the Mann Dam), keeping them open until the rehabilitation process is complete according to the NWDTA stipulations? Can we look to the courts to order the reopening of the diversion tunnel so that water is not impounded in the reservoir this monsoon? Can we look to the courts to arraign every politician, bureaucrat, and NHPC official who has been involved in criminal malfeasance? Can we look to the courts to order the removal of the four existing gates (and stay the installation of the rest) until every displaced family has been rehabilitated? Will the courts consider these options or will they give us more of the same?
A pseudo-rap on the government’s knuckles for shoddy rehabilitation (Bad boy, Fido! Naughty dog!) and a stamp of approval for project upon project that violate the fundamental rights of fellow human beings?
What should we expect? The charade of yet another retired judge setting up yet another Grievance Redressal Authority to address the woes of yet another hundred thousand people? If so, the question must be asked. Which institution in our wonderful democracy remains accountable to people and not to power? What are people supposed to do? Are they on their own now? Have they fallen through the grid?
We left Harsud at dusk. On the way we stopped at the Baad Raahat Kendra. There were very few people around, although a couple of families had moved into the tin sheds. One of the tin doors had a sticker that said Export Quality. It was hard to make out the man sitting on the floor in the dark. He said his name was Kallu Driver. I’m glad I met him. He was sitting on the floor. He had unstrapped his wooden leg. He used to be a driver, but fifteen years ago he lost his leg in an accident. He lived alone in Harsud. He had been given a check for Rs 25,000 ($500) in exchange for demolishing his mud hut. His pregnant daughter had come from her husband’s village to help him move. He had been to Chhanera three times to try and cash his check. He ran out of money for bus fare. The fourth time he walked. The bank sent him away and asked him to come back after three days. He showed us how his wooden leg had chipped and splintered. He said every night officials threatened him and tried to make him move to New Harsud. They said that the Baad Raahat Kendra was for emergencies only. Kallu was incoherent with rage. “What will I do in that desert?” he said. “How will I live? There’s nothing there.” A crowd gathered at the door. His anger fueled theirs. Kallu Driver does not need to read news reports or court affidavits or sly editorials (or fly-by-night PhDs pretending to be on the inside track of people’s movements) to know which side he’s on. Each time anybody mentioned government officials, or Digvijay Singh or Uma Bharati, he cursed. He made no gender distinctions. Maaderchod, he said. Motherfucker. He is not aware of feminist objections to derogatory references to women’s bodies.
The World Bank, however, disagrees with Kallu Driver. It has singled the NHPC out for high praise. In December 2003 a team of senior World Bank experts visited the Narmada Sagar Project. In its Draft Country Assistance Strategy (CAS 2004), the Bank said: “While for many years the hydropower business had a poor reputation, some major actors (including the NHPC) have started to improve their environmental and social practices.”
Interestingly, this is the third time in six months (since January 2004—after it was clear that the Narmada Sagar Dam wall had been raised with no attention to rehabilitation) that the Bank has singled the NHPC out for praise.
Why?
Read the next sentence in the CAS: “Given this … the Bank will work with the Government of India and its PSU’s [Public Sector Units] to seek possible new areas of support on a modest scale for hydropower development.”
Then again, on February 15, 2004, in a report that praises the NHPC for “completing projects like the Narmada Sagar within time and within budget,” the Economic Times quoted a World Bank official saying: “The NHPC is moving towards global corporate performance standards and is improving its financial performance. We have done due diligence on the corporation and are impressed by the performance.”
What makes the World Bank so very solicitous? Power and Water “Reforms” in developing countries are the twenty-first century’s version of the Great Game. All the usual suspects, beginning of course with the World Bank, the big private banks, and multinational corporations, are cruising around, looking for sweetheart deals.
But overt privatization has run into bad weather. It has been widely discredited and is now looking for ways in which to reincarnate itself in a new avatar. From overt invasion to covert insurgency. Over the last few years the reputation of Big Dams (both public and private) has been badly mauled. The World Bank was publicly humiliated and forced to withdraw from the Sardar Sarovar Project. But now, encouraged by the Supreme Court judgments on the Sardar Sarovar and Tehri Dams, it’s back on the block and is looking for a back door entry into the industry.
Who better to cozy up to than the biggest player in India’s hydropower industry—the NHPC? The NHPC, which has left a trail of human rights abuses in its wake—Loktak (Manipur), Chamera Phase I (Himachal), Koel Karo (Bihar), Omkareshwar (Madhya Pradesh). The NHPC, which is eyeing a number of other dam projects (including the Maheshwar Dam) and aims to install 32,000 MW of power over the next thirteen years.
That’s the equivalent of thirty-two Narmada Sagars.
But the World Bank is by no means the only shark in the water. Here’s a list of international banks that have financed NHPC projects: ANZ, Barclays, Emirates, Natwest, Standard Chartered, Sumitomo. And a list of bilateral export credit and financing agencies that support it: Coface (France); Export Development Canada and Canadian International Development Agency; Japan Bank for International Cooperation and Nippon Export and Investment Insurance (Japan); the former Official Development Assistance (now Department for International Development; United Kingdom); Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency and Swedish Export Credit Agency.
What’s a few human rights abuses among friends? We’re deep into the Great Game.
It is dark on the highway back to Khandwa. We pass truck upon truck carrying illegal, unmarked timber. Trucks carrying away the forest. Tractors carrying away the town. The night carrying away the dreams of hundreds of thousands of people. I agree with Kallu Driver. But I have a problem with derogatory references to women’s bodies.
First published in Outlook, July 26, 2004.
PUBLIC POWER IN THE AGE OF EMPIRE
When language has been butchered and bled of meaning, how do we understand “public power”? When freedom means occupation, when democracy means neoliberal capitalism, when reform means repression, when words like empowerment and peacekeeping make your blood run cold—why, then,public power could mean whatever you want it to mean. A biceps building machine, or a Community Power Shower. So, I’ll just have to define “public power�
� as I go along, in my own self-serving sort of way.
In India, the word public is now a Hindi word. It means people. In Hindi, we have sarkar and public, the government and the people. Inherent in this use is the underlying assumption that the government is quite separate from “the people.” This distinction has to do with the fact that India’s freedom struggle, though magnificent, was by no means revolutionary. The Indian elite stepped easily and elegantly into the shoes of the British imperialists. A deeply impoverished, essentially feudal society became a modern, independent nation-state. Even today, fifty-seven years on to the day, the truly vanquished still look upon the government as mai-baap, the parent and provider. The somewhat more radical, those who still have fire in their bellies, see it as chor, the thief, the snatcher-away of all things.
Either way, for most Indians, sarkar is very separate from public. However, as you make your way up India’s complex social ladder, the distinction between sarkar and public gets blurred. The Indian elite, like the elite anywhere in the world, finds it hard to separate itself from the state. It sees like the state, thinks like the state, speaks like the state.
In the United States, on the other hand, the blurring of the distinction between sarkar and public has penetrated far deeper into society. This could be a sign of a robust democracy, but unfortunately, it’s a little more complicated and less pretty than that. Among other things, it has to do with the elaborate web of paranoia generated by the US sarkar and spun out by the corporate media and Hollywood. Ordinary people in the United States have been manipulated into imagining they are a people under siege whose sole refuge and protector is their government. If it isn’t the Communists, it’s Al-Qaeda. If it isn’t Cuba, it’s Nicaragua. As a result, this, the most powerful nation in the world—with its unmatchable arsenal of weapons, its history of having waged and sponsored endless wars, and of being the only nation in history to have actually used nuclear bombs—is peopled by a terrified citizenry, jumping at shadows. A people bonded to the state not by social services, or public health care, or employment guarantees, but by fear.
My Seditious Heart Page 35
