Narmada Bachao Andolan - in Its Strident Protests To Resettle Adivasis, It Strengthened Democracy

18/03/2024, 00:04 Narmada Bachao Andolan: In its strident protests to resettle Adivasis, it strengthened democracy
oundSupport
TheScroll.in
India Fix Eco India The Latest The Reel The Field Magazine
Become aVideo
Member Trend
Subscribe Sign in
DEVELOPMENT AND ENVIRONMENT
In its efforts to ensure justice for

Adivasis, Narmada Bachao Andolan
strengthened Indian democracy
India’s flawed development process does not include the cost of
restoring the lives and livelihoods of the displaced communities.
Vikramaditya Thakur  
Oct 25, 2022 · 09:00 am
OTHERS ARE
Reading
1 Is shouting 'Pakistan zindabad' illegal? An SC order
clarifies
2 India’s latest GDP growth num
‘mystifying’, says former chief
https://scroll.in/article/1035152/in-its-efforts-to-ensure-justice-for-adivasis-narmada-bachao-andolan-strengthened-indian-democracy 1/35
ound The India Fix Eco India The Latest The Reel The Field Magazine Video Trend
A protest in November 2000. | Reuters
The issue of a viable resettlement, particularly for the Bhils, a Scheduled Tribe
group displaced by the Sardar Sarovar Dam Project on the Narmada river, has been
the focus of an acrimonious debate for nearly four decades.
Early in September, columnist Swaminathan SA Aiyar wrote two articles in The

Times of India claiming that Adivasis displaced by the project, which spans Madhya
Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat, became “crorepatis” due to their generous
resettlement packages. This outrageous claim is at complete variance with the
situation on the ground.
ADVERTISEMENT
OTHERS ARE
Reading
clarifies
Nevertheless, it affords the opportunity to take a fresh look at the long-running

squabble on development-induced displacement as a political process. The mass
struggle for a viable resettlement, first in terms of getting policies made and then to
have it implemented, strengthens democracy at the margins of society.
The struggle also highlights how India’s flawed development process and imperfect
democracy do not include the cost of restoring the lives and livelihoods of the
displaced communities, often the society’s weakest, while planning projects.
Lives and livelihoods

I am drawing here on over two decades of study since 2001 focused on
Maharashtra, where I lived in the resettlement and hill villages for over six years,
besides time spent in rural Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh.
As per the laws of the state governments of Gujarat and Maharashtra, the
agricultural land given as compensation for the people displaced by the Sardar
Sarovar Project cannot be sold.
ADVERTISEMENT
Until 2012 in Maharashtra, that land could not even be mortgaged for bank loans as
per their
OTHERS
Reading
ARE
1
title deed –IsForms 7/12 orzindabad'
shouting 'Pakistan sat-bara
clarifies
asAnitSCisorder
illegal? known in Marathi.
India’s latest
2
ThisGDP growth num
provision
ound was Fix
The India included to prevent
Eco India Advisasis
The Latest The of
Reelbeing
Thedispossessed
Field of the Video
Magazine land Trend
under pressure from the dominant local groups in areas where the Bhils got
resettled.
Aiyar fails to note this point. He claims that land prices in these areas have touched
Rs 30 lakh per acre – but that is meaningless. Given that land is the primary asset
that farmers possess, selling it would render them landless.
A protest in Maharashtra's Nandurbar. Credit: Nnnamaharashtra, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia

Commons
If his point is that they are crorepatis by virtue of cultivating cotton, the traditional
cash crop in western India, on plots that vary in size from two and a half to five
acres, then Maharashtra (or even Gujarat) should have had a per-capita income
exceeding that of Switzerland.
In Ground Down by Growth, a book of which I am a co-author, I note that access to

formal education has improved in the hill villages over the last two decades due to
functional government schools and the Jeevan Shalas in Maharashtra run by the
OTHERS ARE
Reading
clarifies
Narmada
ound Bachao
The India Fix Andolan
Eco India – whose leaderThe
The Latest Medha
Reel Patkar has been
The Field roundly
Magazine and Trend
Video
unfairly criticised by Aiyer in his articles.
ADVERTISEMENT
But I also found that in the plains’ resettlement villages, a resettled generation of
Bhil youth with college degrees are stuck in agriculture due to negligible
government hirings and the absence of white-collared jobs.
The cost of development

The principle of resettlement was explicitly contained in the Narmada Award of
1979 by the Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal, formed to adjudicate on the division
of water between Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat. These riparian states
had been squabbling about their share of water ever since the Sardar Sarovar
Project’s launch in 1961.
It allowed Gujarat to construct a 138-meter dam while stipulating that all those
whose farms would be submerged by the project would receive other plots as
compensation. This provision was quite radical for a time when cash compensation
on an ad hoc basis was the norm.
The Indian government, despite having displaced or disrupted the livelihood of

over thirty million people in its first 50 years since independence till the year 2000
OTHERS ARE
Reading
clarifies
due to The
ound various development
India Fix Eco India projects
The Latestaccording
The Reelto some studies,
The Field does notVideo
Magazine maintain
Trend
any comprehensive record of displacement figures.
ADVERTISEMENT
The various Scheduled Tribe groups comprise 8% of India’s population but 40% of
those displaced. India did not even have a resettlement policy till 2013.
Maharashtra was an exception with its resettlement act of 1976 offering land
compensation but it did not apply to the inter-state Sardar Sarovar venture.
However, most of the Bhils in the three states, inhabiting the hill villages around the
Narmada, did not have land titles. Their habitations were deemed to be
encroachments on Forest Department land due to the iniquitous colonial forestry
laws. The Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal too did not offer them anything.
The resettlement effort is largely a failure in Madhya Pradesh, which as per

government records has the largest number of displaced people – over 23,000
families.
Shoddy resettlement efforts

For years, the state government made no effort at finding land for resettlement,
offered cash compensation in breach of the Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal
Award or encouraged the displaced people to accept land in Gujarat, a different
OTHERS ARE
Reading
clarifies
state with
ound a different
The India Fix Ecolanguage.
India Recent
The Latest efforts to build
The Reel The resettlement
Field colonies
Magazine VideohaveTrend
resulted in uninhabitable complexes and huge corruption scandals.
ADVERTISEMENT
The long and chequered history of resettlement of those displaced by the project
began, as Aiyar correctly points out, through the pioneering efforts of ARCH Vahini,
an NGO of middle-class youth with professional degrees who chose to live and work
among the Bhils of Gujarat even before the Sardar Sarovar dam controversy arose.
OTHERS ARE
Reading
clarifies
Protesters during an agitation against the construction of the Sardar Sarovar dam, in Bhopal in
September 2000. Credit: Reuters.
In 1984, ARCH led a protest march of Bhils facing displacement. If the Bhils did not
receive agricultural plots in compensation for being displaced, they would oppose
the project, they said.
Patkar, who became active only later, in the Maharashtra portion of the project, was
comparatively sedate with a request in 1986 for resettlement in forest department
land in the nearby plains through the Narmada Dharangrast Samiti.
It was only in 1988, when her team of urban activists mobilised the Bhils and
farmers in the prosperous Nimari plains of Madhya Pradesh as well under the new
banner of the Narmada Bachao Andolan that the no-dam stand was taken. The
failure of the Madhya Pradesh government partially vindicated the Andolan’s
argument
OTHERS
Reading
ARE
1
about resettlement being
Is shouting 'Pakistan impossible.
zindabad'
clarifies
illegal? An SC order India’s latest GDP growth num
2 ‘mystifying’, says former chief
ound The India Fix Eco India The Latest The Reel
ADVERTISEMENT The Field Magazine Video Trend
Policy changes
The ARCH ensured major policy changes in Gujarat through a mix of dharna
protests by the affected Bhils, court cases and tough negotiations with the
government. Even more crucial was their direct involvement with the resettlement
process by working with the Chimanbhai Patel-led Congress government. They
ensured that the Bhils from all the three states got fertile agricultural plots and the
resettlement colonies, initially uninhabitable, improved over time.
The organisation withdrew from the resettlement process both in Gujarat and
Maharashtra in 1995 when the BJP replaced the Congress in power.
The World Bank, during its truncated involvement with the Sardar Sarovar Project
till 1993, had pressed the state and central governments to work on resettlement. It
pushed Gujarat to take resettlement seriously.
In July 1990, the central government released degraded forest department land in
Maharashtra for resettlement, as the Narmada Dharangrast Samiti had demanded.
Maharashtra saw several state legislations on resettlement and a dedicated official
team to implement it due to direct intervention by Chief Minister Sharad Pawar.
1 2
ADVERTISEMENT
OTHERS ARE Is shouting 'Pakistan zindabad' illegal? An SC order India’s latest GDP growth num
Reading clarifies ‘mystifying’, says former chief
The biggest gain for the displaced Bhils was they became united and politically
vocal because of the initial mobilistion by the ARCH, the Narmada Bachao Andolan
and other groups. From a life in the remote hills where government meant only
terrifying visits from the forest department’s beat guard, they learned about the
democratic state and ways to push for their rights as citizens.
In Maharashtra, Bhil youth leaders broke away from the Narmada Bachao Andolan
to accept resettlement for 12 villages in 1991. They faced several problems such as
two people being allotted the same plot and names being missed on the
government resettlement roster.
In 1995, the youth leaders allied with local activists, Pratibha Shinde and Sanjay
Mahajan to form the Punarwasan Sangharsh Samiti. Over two decades, the samiti
mobilised the relocated Bhils through dharnas and worked with the government to
ensure the implementation of the resettlement process.
Resettlement for most Bhils in Gujarat and Maharashtra has become a viable
experience. While those who relocated as children prefer it to life in the hills, many
who were above 30 when they relocated miss their submerged villages. From 2001,
as the dam neared completion, the Narmada Bachao Andolan shifted from its anti-
dam stand to working on resettlement.
ADVERTISEMENT
OTHERS ARE
Reading
clarifies
While most of its old time-members have left except for Patkar, its strident anti-
state tone persists even as it has worked with the government on resettlement and
health challenges in Maharashtra.
Politics in India, as elsewhere, is about optics.
This is the second of a two-part series. Read the first part here.
Vikramaditya Thakur is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at

the University of Delaware.
Buy an annual Scroll Membership to support independent journalism and

get special benefits.
PICK AN AMOUNT
₹2,500 ₹5,000 ₹10,000 ₹25,000 Other
No ads Evening Edition newsletter

Members-only events Weekly Edition newsletter
Merchandise
Continue to payment Already a member? Sign in
We
Reading
1
welcome your comments
OTHERS ARE
at letters@scroll.in.
Is shouting 'Pakistan zindabad' illegal? An SC order
clarifies

Narmada Bachao Andolan - in Its Strident Protests To Resettle Adivasis, It Strengthened Democracy

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Narmada Bachao Andolan - in Its Strident Protests To Resettle Adivasis, It Strengthened Democracy

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

18/03/2024, 00:04 Narmada Bachao Andolan: In its strident protests to resettle Adivasis, it strengthened democracy

DEVELOPMENT AND ENVIRONMENT

In its efforts to ensure justice for

A protest in November 2000. | Reuters

Early in September, columnist Swaminathan SA Aiyar wrote two articles in The

Nevertheless, it affords the opportunity to take a fresh look at the long-running

Lives and livelihoods

A protest in Maharashtra's Nandurbar. Credit: Nnnamaharashtra, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia

In Ground Down by Growth, a book of which I am a co-author, I note that access to

The cost of development

The Indian government, despite having displaced or disrupted the livelihood of

The resettlement effort is largely a failure in Madhya Pradesh, which as per

Shoddy resettlement efforts

Politics in India, as elsewhere, is about optics.

Vikramaditya Thakur is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at

Buy an annual Scroll Membership to support independent journalism and

₹2,500 ₹5,000 ₹10,000 ₹25,000 Other

No ads Evening Edition newsletter

Continue to payment Already a member? Sign in

You might also like