Extractive projects like Sardar Sarovar have hit many people.
The
Gujarat government has filled up the Sardar Sarovar this year, flooding
the Narmada. In Madhya Pradesh alone, reportedly, more than 28,000
families still live in the submergence zone. They have not been given
due rehabilitation or compensation. However, despite opposition by many
groups, the Gujarat and Union governments are going ahead with this
forced mass displacement of communities. Disturbing videos are
circulating. In one, a woman is seen refusing to leave her home, even as
it is flooded to waist level. In another, two childhood friends are
seen consoling each other as they watch the only place they’ve called
‘home’ go under water. There are thousands of such scenes along the
Narmada. Crops grown over the season have been destroyed and around
13,500 hectares of forests are being drowned by this developmental
mayhem.
Ingress of sea water
Beyond Sardar Sarovar,
the once mighty Narmada is now a seasonal drain that carries sewage and
industrial effluents. At the mouth of the river in Gujarat, because of
lower freshwater pressure on account of the dam, the sea water has
ingressed several km inland, rendering vast fertile lands saline. With
some 10,000 hectares of agricultural land having been destroyed, the
farmers of the area are devastated. Just in Bharuch, a fishing community
of around 30,000 has lost its livelihood. The estuary’s once-thriving
population of the coveted Hilsa fish is in danger due to the ingress. In
response, the Gujarat government has built a barrage which,
paradoxically will only end up destroying the breeding grounds of the
Hilsa.
When the dream of the Sardar Sarovar was sold to the
people of Gujarat, these features of the dam were not mentioned. Even
today, when proponents continue to defend the project after all that has
happened, they fail to report these ‘gifts’ of the dam.
But how
was such a disaster allowed to unfold? For years, industrial lobbies
constantly pushed politicians to build the dam despite activists raising
important questions about it. The politicians found it opportune to go
along with the industrialists’ agenda.
The Sardar Sarovar was
promised as a new lease of life for farmers across Gujarat. Even the
Supreme Court, in allowing the project to go ahead in a 2000 verdict,
relied pivotally on the argument that there was no other way to provide
water to the dry areas of Gujarat. Farmers as far as Kutch were promised
Narmada waters. They are still waiting as the canals leading to their
agricultural lands have not been built as yet. Instead, the situation
has worsened. As Gujarat neglected its own water resources and the
changing climate, farmers, fishermen and herders have begun leaving,
signalling the beginnings of a climate refugee crisis.
Please click here to read more.