stand where it is and still move ahead

stand where it is and still move ahead

It may appear contradictory.

On June 17th 2017, the gates of the Sardar Sarovar Dam, commissioned in the mid eighties, were closed at a height of 138.68 meters. 192 villages, one township and 40,000 families have been affected by this decision – flooded, drowned out. A history, landscape and community willfully destroyed by its government. Most of them have no place to go or call home. No homes or civic amenities have been created. The refugees of this disaster are to be shifted to rehabilitation sites that consist of tin sheds, temporary food camps and not much else.

Facts, commissions, reports, letters and petitions over the years stated that the Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP), including the dam, is ineffective; that rehabilitation and compensation on this scale is impossible, that the economic costs does not equate its returns, that the environmental and social costs to be incurred have not been adequately measured, that the adverse impacts of the dam outweigh its presumed benefits of electricity generation and irrigation, that there is mass corruption in the process of awarding compensation and rehabilitation, that, as the Supreme Court ruled on several occasions, dam construction may proceed only after rehabilitation; but as the flood of evidence damning the project increased, so did the height of the dam.

These photographs, taken from the NBA archives stand testament to the 32 years of the Narmada Bachao Andolan’s existence. As the months of June, July and August see severe state repression at play in the Narmada Valley, the response of the movement and its supporters has also gained momentum. As women and men of the Valley go on indefinite fast, the state responds with lathi charges, forced hospitalization, false cases and arrests. But the Andolan holds its ground and still moves ahead.

ST: Regarding the NBA’s future, do you have any concrete plans…what are your next steps in the coming months?

And where would you like to see yourselves, say one or two years down the line?

MP: Where I would be I don’t know. The river is flowing and much water is flowing into it. But one thing is very clear.

NBA on one hand has to stand where it is and still move ahead. It may appear contradictory.

In solidarity with NBA Images and text: Narmada Bachao Andolan Archives nba.badwani@gmail.com