Social performance

The intensity o f debates in this arena is reflected in a vast and expanding literature on the Sardar Sarovar project. The most comprehensive volumes on this topic are Towards Sustainable Development edited by Fisher (1997) and The Dam and the Nation edited by Drèze, Samson and Singh (1997).

Official figures claim the Sardar Sarovar dam will lead to the displacement o f 22,000 families from 245 villages in the states o f Gujarat, Maharastra and Madhya Pradesh. Two thirds o f those due to be displaced are tribal {adivasi) people who will be moved from the hills to the plains, to live amongst villagers long exposed to the market economy and engage in livelihood practices typical o f mainstream rural Indian culture rather than the adivasTs domestic subsistence economy.^^ Baviskar (1997) describes Narmada tribal people as having their own structures o f organisation and social relations organised in an egalitarian fashion through webs o f favours, obligation and reciprocity.

These ties are expressed and reproduced in all areas o f life from agricultural practices, through structures maintaining law and order to marriage customs, all producing a sense o f cohesion/"^ Although tensions arise in daily life these actions and arrangements give the community an identity.

Much o f the literature espouses the view that the movement o f tribal, particularly Bhil people, away from the economic and socio-cultural milieu o f the hills, will be an attack on both economic and social fronts leading to their annihilation. For example, Alvares and Billorey (1988) assert that the uprooting o f tribals from their forest and river will be very traumatic and that many o f them will just not survive when forcibly dispersed in far-flung, adverse environments:

Besides serious economic deprivation, the displacement will affect the tribals’ very culture and basis o f livelihood - their beliefs, myths and rituals, their festivals, songs and dances, all closely associated with the hills, woods and streams. As these disintegrate in their new harsh surroundings, so too will the jo y o f their existence. Are such human rights atrocities permissible? (1988: 18). Pallit and M ody (1992) come to equally pessimistic conclusions believing the tribals will become part o f the mass, cheap labour work-force, that they will fall into debt and that their social customs will become non-viable. The Narmada Bachao Andolan support this view.

However, it was not until August 1988 that the organizations working in the submergence villages o f Madhya Pradesh and Maharastra declared their total opposition to Sardar Sarovar. Prior to that they had worked in parallel with their counterparts in Gujarat, notably ARCH-Vahini and Oxfam, to lobby the W orld Bank to intervene and secure an appropriate resettlement and rehabilitation policy from the government over and above that decided by the Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal. Although the resettlement package decided by the Tribunal in 1979 was groundbreaking in that it provided land-for-land rather than cash compensation, it did not go far enough to safeguard the majority o f tribal families, as most do not formally own the land they cultivate. The NGOs demanded that ‘encroachers’ be provided with alternate land and that this provision should he applied to all adult males aged 18 years and over.^^ The

two organizations working to mobilise the tribals in Maharastra and Madhya Pradesh made virtually identical demands, but the M aharastra organisation N armada Dharangrast Samiti pressed for an additional concession, to allow the tribals to resettle on denuded forest land. The M aharastra tribals had identified this land in their region as somewhere they would be willing to resettle if entitlement to the resettlement package was extended to include ‘encroachers’.

Until the World Bank was alerted to these demands by letters from ARCH-Vahini and Oxfam, they were unaware o f the fact that such large numbers o f people by virtue o f their classification as encroacher would be left out by the existing resettlement policies o f the three states.^^ In August 1983 the World Bank sent Professor Thayer Scudder (a leading international expert on resettlement and rehabilitation) on a mission to India to assess the situation. Scudder confirmed the facts presented by the NGOs and recommended the encroachers be given the same entitlements as land-holders otherwise the Bank would not be honouring its own requirement to ensure that the standard o f living o f displaced people should be regained if not improved following resettlement. This principle had been established in 1980 in the first comprehensive World Bank policy on the issue o f development-induced displacement and resettlement, the World B ank’s Operational Directive on Resettlement and Rehabilitation.

Although the Government o f India and the state governments vehemently resisted the pressure to include encroachers in the terms o f the loan agreement with the World Bank, they had to accede in order to secure funding for the Sardar Sarovar project, as it had become the main sticking point to finalising the deal. Even then the state governments dragged their heels. The tribal people backed by the NGOs continually applied pressure on the state governments, and in December 1987 an announcement was made by the Government o f Gujarat that all adult males aged 18 or over in 1987 would be entitled to 2 ha (5 acres) o f land regardless o f their land-ownership status. Patel (1997a and b) describes this as a significant victory and in the resulting wave o f enthusiasm the Gujarat NGOs began working on ensuring proper implementation o f the policy. It was regarded as the most liberal and revolutionary policy on resettlement Gujarat had ever seen.

Soon after the announcement in Gujarat, Patel (1997: 189) notes how the organizations working in Maharastra and Madhya Pradesh ‘stopped looking for the ways to achieve similar policies in their own states and started raising doubts about the policy o f Gujarat’, questioning whether it could be implemented. This was followed in August 1988 by these organisations announcing their total opposition to the project, which was labelled as a ‘planned disaster’, claiming that the tribal peoples would rather ‘die in the lap o f the Narmada’ from submergence than resettle. The Narmada Bachao Andolan (Save the Narmada Movement) was bom and it was at this point that NGOs supporting the oustees divided into two main groups (Singh 1997). Members o f ARCH-Vahini challenged this ‘U -tum ’, questioning whether it was really led by the tribal people. The most damning evidence that the NBA placed the interests o f the tribal people secondary to attacking the Sardar Sarovar Project is provided by the Taloda forest argument. NBA activists (who had previously demanded the release o f denuded forest land in Maharashtra during their campaign for better resettlement policy) opposed the move to release the Taloda forest land on which some tribals had wanted to resettle.

According to Patel (1997b) withholding information from the tribal peoples is consistent with the goal o f the anti-dam activists to fulfil their prophecy that resettlement is impossible. Others have also argued the NBA tried to thwart the process o f successful resettlement and rehabilitation. Gill (1997) provides an account o f how the "gaon bandhi ’ (closed village) policy o f the anti-dam movement that restricted access o f all those involved in resettlement to the submergence villages was responsible in part for poor implementation. The ban on entry was not just restricted to senior civil servants; Dhagamwar (1997) recalls how her research team stopped going to the valley in 1989 as they were told by NBA activists that they were not welcome. ‘They did not want people to be informed about the resettlement offered under the NW DT Award, as this information would probably induce potential oustees to think o f accepting resettlement, which in turn would weaken the movement’ (Dhagamwar 1997: 95). Although ARCH- Vahini have in recent years become decidedly less enthusiastic and disillusioned about their role in resettlement due to problems they encountered in working with the government and politicking o f everyone involved (including oustees), Singh (1997: 8-9)

argues that their ‘success depends on achieving a collaborative relationship between the government and the oustees, which the anti-dam movement is seen to obstruct, while the N B A ’s success largely depends on the continued failure o f resettlement measures which ARCH-Vahini is trying to prevent’.

Medha Patkar, leader o f the NBA, defended complete opposition to the SSP in her interview with Kothari (1997). They began to see the ‘bigger picture’, leading them to conclude that the SSP was yet another unequitable and unsustainable form o f development. Although Gujarat had espoused a liberal policy, M adhya Pradesh and Maharastra have not. This disparity renders meaningless the oustees’ supposed ability to resettle in their own state if they so choose, since oustees are pressured to resettle in Gujarat by its more attractive resettlement and rehabilitation policy. Furthermore, only those displaced by submergence from the reservoir are entitled to benefit, whereas those displaced by the construction o f the Kevadia colony (government quarters where those working on the SSP live) and those displaced to make way for the main canal from the dam are not. She also claimed that they are justified in believing that adequate resettlement policies are not available as Madhya Pradesh has yet to provide evidence that they can provide enough land for resettlement.

This view was given backing by Morse and Berger (1992). Their involvement marked the first time the World Bank had commissioned an independent review o f one o f the projects it was funding. Although their report acknowledged some success in the resettlement o f tribal people in Gujarat, its overall assessment o f the situation was that the prospects for achieving successful resettlement and rehabilitation were slim. Environmental issues were also not addressed adequately (Morse and Berger 1997). The Review stated that the Bank had failed to ensure the borrower complied with the regulations set out in the loan agreement and had allowed standards to be flouted, typical o f the Bank’s ‘approval cultural’ (see Wapenhams report 1992). Their findings and recommendations have however been vigorously attacked on many grounds (Alagh and Buch, 1997; Blinkhom and Smith, 1997; Gill, 1997; Patel, 1997). Fisher (1997a)

concludes that the Independent Review fanned the flames o f controversy rather than extinguished it.

W hether or not oustees have been properly resettled (at least according to the Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal criteria) has been and continues to be a source o f debate. The NBA, with the backing o f the Madhya Pradesh State government, took this argument (and others) to the Supreme Court o f India in 1994.^^ In 1995 the Court prevented any further construction until the Gujarat government proved that the grievances o f those already resettled had been addressed. The grievances in question included disputes over whether or not the land received was fit for cultivation. Later in the same year the court gave conditional clearance to raise the dam height from 80 to 88 m, but the final verdict came in October 2000. The court felt satisfied with the evidence provided by Gujarat about the work on resettlement and lifted the injunction on dam construction (Gullet 2001).

Analysis o f the Narmada literature shows that some o f the negative trends in the experience o f development-induced displacement and resettlement identified by Hemadri et al. (2000), do not feature particularly in the Sardar Sarovar case, whereas others do.

The Multiple Action Research Group (a Delhi-based NGO) found that state governments had failed to inform and consult oustees about the SSP (MARG 1992). Thukral (1989) found they had been given defective information about their choices.

Second, the Narmada Bachao Andolan have continually argued there is inadequate planning for resettlement and rehabilitation demonstrated by the fact that Madhya Pradesh cannot show where they are to resettle all remaining oustees (NBA 1998).

Given that oustees were given land for land, relatively little is made o f the issue o f compensation, except to say that communal resources such as grazing land are not adequately compensated.

The fourth trend identified by Hemadri et a l - that is the inability to handle cash compensation - is happily not an issue, or at least does not feature in the literature on the Sardar Sarovar case, as oustees were given land (instead o f cash to acquire land), a subsistence allowance per family and other agricultural grants. Also money for house construction is provided into bank accounts in installments as construction progresses, preventing it from being frittered away.

The provision o f land for land by the Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal reduces the possibility o f the fifth trend occurring, that is the failure to acquire alternate land. The literature does, however, explain how the richer farmers in M adhya Pradesh, owning more than 8 acres will not see full replacement o f their land due to the land ceiling (Dwivedi 1999). There is also reference to those losing land to make way for Kevadia Colony (new mini-town housing Sardar Sarovar project staff) and the irrigation canals, as in neither case will alternate land be provided.

Six, Bela Bhatia argues that the tribal people did experience traumatic relocation if one uses an expanded definition o f forced eviction. This includes ‘displacement without the full satisfaction o f stipulated requirements, or under circumstances in which the displaced persons were unable to exercise their own free will and judgem ent’ (Bhatia

1997: 267).

Seven, problems at the resettlement sites are documented in a whole host o f literature. Under the loan agreement the three states were to commission independent research institutes to carry out bi-annual monitoring and evaluation reports. In Gujarat the Centre for Social Studies carried out this task, producing 24 reports covering 120 sites occupied by Gujarat oustees. The Gujarat Institute o f Development Research (GIDR) undertook a similar exercise for the Madhya Pradesh and M aharastra oustees resettled in Gujarat. These reports highlight a gamut o f problems at the resettlement sites needing to be addressed, concerning for instance, the number o f people receiving poor quality land, the sites lacking amenities such as school rooms, tree platforms etc. The Gujarat government also had to prove that grievances brought to the attention o f the Supreme

Court by the NBA had been dealt with and this requirement resulted in a series o f field- visit reports on the status o f resettlement. There are many other reports by other researchers and research teams about conditions at the resettlement sites that come to overwhelmingly negative conclusions. Sometimes they highlight problems that are capable o f a solution, but some also to make the point that the SSP is simply unworkable. These include Parasuraman’s 1999 report on Parveta resettlement site, hosting oustees from Maharastra, Dixit and Karamchandani (undated) on Kamet resettlement site and the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (1995) on conditions in a large number o f sites. There are many more studies o f this kind asserting that, although the resettlement package looks good on paper the reality is very different.

Eight, the subject o f multiple displacements is not apparent in the literature, although that is not to say it has not occurred.

Nine, pro-dam supporters argue that the failure to provide alternative livelihoods (the ninth trend in Indian experiences o f development-induced displacement) is negated by the land-for-land provision, as oustees continue to make their living from farming. Others do not see how resettlement on small plots o f land in the plains provides oustees’ with sustainable livelihoods (Pallit and Mody 1992).

Ten, problems with host communities are noted in the report by Morse and Berger (1992), but it is mostly dam critics who report this as an issue.

Lastly, it seems the Sardar Sarovar case has not escaped the problem o f special vulnerabilities, identified as another trend in the experience o f large dams in India by Hemadri et al. (2000). Many studies critique SSP on the grounds that it exacerbates inequality. As noted earlier, two-thirds o f those to be displaced are tribal people; this is regarded an attack on the most vulnerable group in society. Singh (1992) objects to the fact that women are not recognised as a separate entity in the resettlement policies o f the states. Their dependence on men therefore makes them more vulnerable at the vasahats.

disallows intensive water use, many new sugar factories are planned or underconstruction in the command area, signaling the intention o f big farmers and the landed elite to switch production to growing water-guzzling sugar cane.

In short much o f the literature on the social performance o f SSP, like the Independent Review, comes to the negative conclusion that it is not possible to resettle and rehabilitate such large numbers o f people adequately.

Whilst not all writers are promoting a case either for or against the dam, the literature review on the technical, economic and social performance o f the Sardar Sarovar project reveals the differences between those who are. The anti-dam lobby believe that the project is not one that has gone wrong, but a typical project bom o f a flawed model o f development, with the only difference being one o f scale. So extreme is their concern about this that Alvares and Billorey (1998: 49) go as far as saying that the project paves ‘the way for the planned execution o f what m ay eventually turn out to be the w orld’s worst human and environmental tragedy’. Whereas Patel (1997b) and others argue that the project has suffered from a tendency to attract the general critique o f large dams and poor experiences o f the past, without substantiating whether or not this is legitimate i.e. without sufficient evidence that the general critique holds true. Thus the debate on SSP rages.

2.6 Current positive thinking on large dams: W orld Bank policy, World