Why India’s tallest leader would have led the struggle against the Narmada Project

On October 31, the birth anniversary for freedom fighter and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, India’s most powerful leaders attend a grand celebration at the Sardar Sarovar Dam where the world’s tallest statue is located: the 182-metre-tall Statue of Unity of Sardar Patel.

The reservoir, brimming with water, promises a bountiful future for Gujarat. Hundreds attend the event, most of them government employees.

At the same time, the police and security forces keep Adivasi leaders, citizens and social workers away from the event – some are even placed under house arrest till the function is over.

Not a word is uttered about how the massive, and expensive, project has displaced people across three states, many of them Adivasis, devastated lives, submerged forests and even affected “Maa Narmada” – as Prime Minister Narendra Modi refers to the Narmada River.

The truth is obscured by the well-lit, decorated statue and publicised tourism, the darkness overshadowed by the advertisement of a “dedipyaman”, or glittery, Kevadia.

As one of India’s tallest leaders, Patel was instrumental in bringing together a secular and united country. During the independence struggle, he led a peaceful movement of farmers in Bardoli in Gujarat against taxation imposed by the colonial British rulers.

A giant statue, built by infrastructure giant L&T at an estimated Rs 3,000 crore, by thousands of labourers and Chinese support, is a hollow tribute to Patel. One wonders what Patel would have done had he known about this history and the unconstitutionally imposed “Statue of Unity Act” that crushed the Adivasis’ right to self-rule through the Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act. He might well have climbed down the hillock and joined their struggle.

Whatever is achieved in more than 39 years of struggle and unity by those affected by the Sardar Sarovar Dam will be the real tribute to Patel, a leader who fought against communalism, stood by farmers and was dedicated to Indians.

An ill-thought plan

Patel’s name was not meant for a 162-feet, or 50 metres, dam whose height was raised to 138.68 metres. The height of the dam was increased to enhance water storage keeping in mind the drought-prone Kutch and Saurashtra regions.

Yet, this decision, opposed for a decade by Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, was followed through despite an ill-based cost-benefit ratio and without a fair and full assessment of social and environmental effects, no complete data and in violation of law. These factors are mentioned in the minority judgement of the Supreme Court ruling that approved the project in October 2000 and before that in the World Bank’s decision to cancel the remainder of its for the project funding in 1993.

In Kutch, most of the micro-canal network remains unbuilt, leading to several farmers and villagers being deprived of supply for irrigation even as water is diverted to private ports and industries, some cities in the region and the major urban centres in Gujarat. In Saurashtra, farmers have grappled with failing canals and breaches even as praises are sung of the “Sauni” scheme – Saurashtra Narmada Avtaran Irrigation Yojana.

Adivasi heritage

The giant statue of Patel stands on the land that has been of religious and cultural significance to the Bhil and Tadvi Adivasi communities. Land from six villages, including Kevadia, were acquired for just Rs 60 to Rs 200 per acre. What little remained with the Adivasis for agriculture and survival was taken over for tourism and on this land now stand malls, VIP cities, urban infrastructure and five-star hotels.

Kevadia is one of the six villages that has lost its identity and did not receive compensation or rehabilitation, as per the government orders of 2013, with land for land. Yet, Kevadia is advertised as a glamorous destination for tourists, who come from afar, believing this myth. They know little, or care to, about the grand tourism projects that affect 72 Adivasi villages and were built by spending thousands of crores as part of the Sardar Sarovar Project.

The massive Narmada project is estimated to be completed in 2025 at an estimated cost of Rs 75,000 crore. It was cleared in 1988 by the Planning Commission with a cost of Rs 6,400 crore, estimating the benefit-cost ratio as 1:1.84. Does that still add up? Is it not necessary to have a truthful review of the project?

Finally, “Unity” is added to the statue, the new law, the township and even the “Ekta” mall, as if to say that India achieved national integrity through this investment. But the past few years of extrajudicial killings, indiscriminate bulldozing, communal riots and politics that weaponise caste and religion across India can’t be overshadowed by lighting a giant statue.

Environmental destruction

A full-page advertisement in an edition of Dainik Bhaskar published in Madhya Pradesh proclaims the dam’s lofty goals of “saving water and nature” and “unity in diversity”. But are these the goals reflected in today’s development paradigm?

What is the ground reality? Hundred-to-200 year-old trees are cut to widen roads. In Chhattisgarh’s Hasdeo forests, trees are being felled for mining projects while protesting Adivasis face brute force. Deforestation has led to devastation, from the Himalayas in Utttarakhand to the Western Ghats. India’s rivers, including the Narmada, brim with polluted water with inadequate sewage treament plants across cities and effluent plants industries. Who are these protectors of water and nature the advertisement speaks of?

Since 2013, the dam has led to sea water ingress, which has salinised the Narmada river up to 60 km, destroying drinking water to fisheries. Temples and pilgrims have also been affected. At the same time, illegal sand mining is taking a toll on the river.

The Forest Conservation Act has been amended to allow for the diversion of lakhs of hectares of forest areas while bypassing the rights of local communities as the Supreme Court hears a challenge. The Biological Diversity Act to conserve natural resources and ensure that they equitably used was also amended in July 2023.

Claims of compensatory afforestation have been exposed in the past, but now, plantation drives are being publicised at the same time as trees are felled and natural forest cover is destroyed.

Take, for instance, the Butterfly Garden at the Statue of Unity. What makes it a symbol of biodiversity protection in the Vindhya and Satpura mountains where thousands of hectares of forest were submerged for the Sardar Sarovar and Indira Sagar dams?

Then there is the “Ekta Cruise”, the latest attraction for tourists to coast along the Narmada river while a few kilometres away, Adivasis affected by the Garudeshwar weir are still awaiting rehabilitation. Water from the river is used for drinking and fishing by riverine communities. It is also supplied to urban and rural residents of Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, including urban cities such as Gandhinagar.

In September 2023, the National Green Tribunal halted proposed cruises in the Narmada river from Badwani in Madhya Pradesh to the Statue of Unity over pollution concerns. The tribunal’s decision was based on a report by the Central Pollution Control Board and was upheld by the Supreme Court in March. But this does not bother tourists who can drink bottled water.

Then again, pollution and its serious health effects are not something rulers or planners concern themselves with. The prime minister himself criticised projects being stalled “unnecessarily” in the guise of environmental protection. “It should be our endeavour that by raising the name of the environment unnecessarily, no obstacle should be allowed to be created in the quest of Ease of Living and Ease of Doing Business,” Modi said at a conference of environment ministers at “Ekta Nagar”, which Kevadia has been srenamed as.

From river cruises to gardens, every part of the tourism project is at the cost of the livelihoods of communities around, from hawkers to farmers, who are evicted and sidelined while providing employment. These communities grapple with drought and floods due to the poor management of water flow from the dams and the changed climate – ecological as well as political.

In 2023, at least 244 villages in Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra bore the brunt of a man made disaster as the Sardar Sarovar dam gates were not opened till September 17, to celebrate Modi’s birthday.

In Madhya Pradesh, at least six people drowned, thousands of houses were destroyed and at least six people drowned. When the gates were opened to six metres later, Bharuch and Baroda districts in Gujarat also suffered devastating flooding.

But is there any concern about safety, especially in light of cracks and breaches in the Sardar Sarovar dam wall? Every such violation is insensitive to the repercussions of what may transpire – as environmental disasters show, from Teesta and Kullu Valley, Joshimath to Ladakh in the Himalayas to the Western Ghats.

There are “Maha Aarti”, or prayers, to attract tourists to the new Shoolpaneshwar Mahadev temple. The original temple was in the village of Manibeli, which was long submerged in 1993-’94 – its deity was never shifted to the new shrine. The new temple has been built in the village of Gora – no doubt, a game played for fame.

Had Patel been alive, the upright politician and leader would have objected to the glamorous development in his name that has only wrought displacement, destruction and disparity in the guise of “unity”.

Those who really care for nature and for people over profit, socio-cultural diversity over divisive politics, must remain united, strive for the truth and to be nonviolent, committed activists, not urban or rural “naxals”, but “andolanjivis”, as were Patel and Mohandas Gandhi.

Medha Patkar is a founder-member of the Narmada Bachao Andolan.