“Anti-dam activists are romantics”
B.G.Verghese, journalist and former editor of The Hindustan Times and Indian Express, has for the better part of the last decade, been studying the use of water for social advancement. Among his works are the landmark Waters of Hope (Oxford IBH 1990), and the more recent Winning the Future: From Bhahra to Narmada, Tehri, Rajasthan Canal, and Converting Water into Wealth (1996, which he co-edited).
HSA's Mitu Varma met Mr Verghese in New Delhi to seek his views on the need for large water projects such as Narmada.
The Narmada Bachao Andolan´s major quarrel with the $3 billion Sardar Sarovar Project is that it will displace more than 200,000 people. What are your own views?
People in that region are already being displaced by hunger because of inadequate harvests resulting from uncertain rainfall, lack of irrigation facilities and the environmental degradation caused by population pressures. The harvest is not sufficient even in a good year. Seasonal migration is common and sometimes entire families leave in search of livelihood. They land up in the cities as unskilled labour. When they are being moved in a planned manner and given a better deal than at present, I do not see any cause for protest. It is true that displacement from one´s natural environment is traumatic and that people should be dealt with compassion, sympathy, understanding and generosity, but it doesn´t make sense to abandon a project which will actually improve their standard of living.
Are there any studies of migration patterns to support this argument?
I do not know why the project authorities have failed to undertake a survey of migration patterns, but the fact that such migration is rampant is evident if one visits the area repeatedly.
What do you see as the benefits of the project which would offset the negatives?
The biggest benefit will be the provision of potable water to at least 30 million people in a semi-arid region. People in the command area who migrate every second or third year when there is a drought will no longer have to leave their homes. The women will be saved the drudgery of trudging miles in search of water, and the health of the people will improve. Flooding in surrounding areas and downstream will be prevented.
But anti-dam activists suggest that a series of smaller dams would mean less human displacement and suffering.
The Narmada Tribunal says that no number of small dams can store as much water as this project envisages. It is fanciful to suggest that a similar quantity of water can be provided with the same level of water security and at the same cost through smaller dams.
As for displacement and suffering, there are those who say that such large-scale rehabilitation of people is not physically possible. This argument defeats the very basis of human progress and the desire to aspire and achieve. What we should do, of course, is to move ahead and then deal with the shortcomings in an appropriate manner.
The trouble with the antidam activists is that they are philosophically opposed to the pattern of development envisaged in the building of big projects like this one. But their idea of small-scale decentralised development will not work for two reasons—firstly, the large population factor is a given, and, sec- ondly, if you are poor and helpless in a predatory world, your margin for manoeuvring is limited.
The anti-dam activists are romantics and they have a nostalgia for the past. However, their ideas have been overtaken by events. You cannot, for instance, supply water and electricity to a city like Delhi through a small scale project. This romanticising of the way of life of the indigenous people of the region who have actually been suffering hunger, degradation, squalor and poverty, is a dangerous thing.
What about the arguments for not letting an alien pattern of development thrust upon the indigenous people?
But what right has anybody to deny them the alternative of a better way of life and an oppor tunity to break out of the cycle of poverty? The problem is that we are not an achieving society. No one is counted among the ´people´ unless they are poor and underprivileged. The project will benefit a larger number of people in the long run than the short-term costs that some of the displaced persons will have to suffer. The cost-benefit ratio favours the project in both money and human terms. The cost of not building the project will be far more than the cost of building it. If the project displaces 100,000 people by the year 1995, not doing anything would displace half a million or more because of hunger and poverty.
On Narmada, those displaced complain about resettlement, particularly about the inferior quality of the compensatory land.
The land quality is definitely much better in the rehabilitation areas, and irrigation will come with time. The promised irrigation facilities have been delayed because the project itself has been delayed. Besides, the project is also providing housing assistance, markets, schools, electricity and water supply for the people being rehabilitated. Temporary problems of grazing, firewood and fishing will be there, but they will definitely be balanced out. The people will move from well below the poverty line to near or above it. The current problems are teething troubles that can be rectified with proper supervision and care.
Both the greens and the NBA point to the large environmental costs´of the project.
For every tree lost, the project envisages planting at least a 100 more. No endemic species will disappear that cannot be replaced. Some fishing may be affected but this will be more than compensated by stocking the reservoir. Compensatory afforestation will improve the catchment area, while the formation of five new sanctuaries envisaged by the project will provide a new home for the displaced species.