"If you are to suffer, you should suffer in the interest of the country …" -- J. L. Nehru, speaking to villagers who were to be displaced by the Hirakud Dam, 1948
"We will request you to move from your houses after the dam comes up. If you move it will be good. Otherwise we shall release the waters and drown you all."
Morarji Desai, speaking at a public meeting in the submergence zone of the Pong Dam, 1961
In the post-independence era, the Dams were touted as the ‘Temples of Modern India’ that would make India rush up the ladder of development. In the contemporary, India is the world’s 3rd largest dam builder; 46% of all the Big Dams in the world is being built in India. However, one-fifth of the Indian population do not have safe drinking water and two-third lack basic sanitation. However, even though the grand project began as a means to emulate the Mississippi, by the time India was hypnotizedly building dams, the leader – the U.S. – had started demolishing dams on the Mississippi. The fact that big dams do more harm than good is no longer mere conjecture. “They are a government’s way of deciding who will get how much water and who will grow what where” (Roy). Do we know that the government of India does not have any official figure of the number of people its dams displaced? How can it then even start rehabilitating them? However, according to a study done by Indian Institute of Public Administration (and Roy halves the number to put all skepticism of intentional anti-state propaganda at bay) 33 million people at least till now – displaced, dispossessed … all for the good of the nation. And they stand outside of this nation one guesses? The unofficial official number is 50 million. And the most interesting bit is that a huge percentage of these patriotic are adivasis (58% in the Narmada case) – “include dalits and the number becomes obscene.” I now quote Roy in toto: “According to the Commissioner for Scheduled Castes and Tribes, it’s about 60%. If you consider that adivasis account for only 8% and dalits another 15% of India’s population, it opens up a whole other dimension to the story … India’s poorest are subsidizing the lifestyle of the richest.” World’s biggest democracy???? And this democracy, after displacing millions, does not even have a National Rehabilitation Policy. So much for the socialist Nehruvian dream.
Well, to cut the story short here, suppose this same is done to me, to you. And then it is done to our community. And while we are thrown out with nothing, the rich get richer. They now own the river. And we have to buy our water for drinking. And when we fools one day take up the gun and say that enough is enough, we want our land, our water, our air back – and a crazy writer says she feels for them, we all cry foul. We say we are being wronged. We say the adivasis are the tresspassers, the violators. After all, the writer is one of us…she is rich, could afford to become richer, travel the globe in executive class and attend high-end parties, even write scripts for Bollywood…she ought to be on our side. She cannot grovel with the dirty poor fools….this is betrayal! And we call her mad.
Serves her right for betraying her “class”! Period.
yep, let's do away with democracy for good. after all we won't have another leader with the balls to venture even close to saying "If you move it will be good. Otherwise we shall release the waters and drown you all."
ReplyDeletelet's actually do away with any recognized forms of government. as it is we Indians like to be 'indigenous'; we spend billions on defence R&D projects that fail to get out of the drawing board, whereas the rest of the world moves on!
well, damn the dams! why don't we just let the locals demolish whatever there is and reuse to build their homes. is land an issue? well just move into a private property or better the airports. imagine acres of land being used to provide transportation services for the rich...what a shame, what a waste. India can never be anything better than the 'anus of the 3rd world' (picked the phrase up from a movie), so why even pretend to be any better? open up the bank vaults and let it be all free-for-all. and think about how much more can be channelized towards social uplift-ment if the security services were closed down, they don't do anything good anyways! now that's real democracy!
Well Mayukh, I am not sure if that will also solve the problems; the problem is mismanagement of power. and the reasons, I believe are also psycho-social and not merely cultural-historical. And yes, land was always THE issue! The one issue why private property came into being, why the institution of marriage and kinship then fell in line, why then we needed the authority and why now we are declaring war against each other...it is to gain land...and now people want to but land on the moon as well!!
ReplyDeleteSome limits to insanity and greed? Not much one feels!
To begin with, I am envious of those who are born with such confidence and strong convictions -no matter if they haven't cared to read a single line on the things they have 'opinions' on and on which vast amount of literature exists -theories, facts and well-researched material (as opposed to opinions born out of thin air!). In spite of having read a line or two on these issues I am scared to so flamboyantly expree 'opinions' on anything ranging from democracy, marriage, power, to understandings of land, or rights. I guess mere mortals like us have a long way to go to gain such 'confidence' - not that I ever wish to!
ReplyDeleteP.S.- this 'opinion' of mine too is not arbitrary, based on this one comment in your blog, or just a whim of the day...it has been harbored and then expressed after quite a long gestation period -of experience.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/index.htm