Vijayan MJ
What is bigger, a dam or the Prime Minister’s integrity? You can’t help asking this question when you find the nation’s most prestigious institutions lying to its people, proving right the Marxian theory about the ruling elites aligning to defeat and marginalize the poor and the oppressed. Or is it that the old welfare state is changing its composition, moving to a market driven one thereby causing a shift from democracy itself!
Democracy versus oppressive development
The issue has now gone beyond Sardar sarovar, Narmada Bachao Andolan, Narendra Modi, or even the Shunglu Committee. It is about the relationship between the nation state and the people. One is forced to choose between believing the Narmada Bachao Andolan statistics and the reports by the elected Gram Sabhas vis a vis the Shunglu Committee report. And what should one understand of the Prime Minister after the contradictory and self-belittling statement he has made to the Supreme Court in the context of resuming the dam construction!
The Supreme Court on 10th July 2006, directed that the dam work should not be stopped as the PM on the basis of the OSG (Oversight Group headed by former Comptroller and Auditor General, Mr. Shunglu) report has recommended that there is no sufficient grounds to do so. But this is neither the beginning nor the end of the struggle against the dam or the debate about it. There is some consolation for those who await the floods in the Narmada valley, the dam ‘may not’ proceed beyond 119 metres this monsoon! It seems irrelevant here that the Project Affected Famillies (PAFs) coming under the 110 metres height of the dam are yet to get rehabilitation!
The Shunglu Committee report makes it clear that almost 60% of rehabilitation facilities are ‘average’ or ‘poor’ as there is no irrigable land bank available in MP. But the same report ironically concludes that “provisions in the NWDTA” and “absence of threat of submergence among PAFs” are preventing the people from shifting to R&R sites. Read this along with the fact that Shunglu Committee visited and interviewed 25000 PAPs in their villages, making it clear that they have not been rehabilitated. It is better, Mr. Shunglu & Co, to accept that almost every family is still in their villages, yet to be rehabilitated and majority of them are going to get drowned if there is that “once in a hundred years flood”.
Shift to ‘future’
The Prime Minster’s submission to the Supreme Court as well as the Shunglu Committee Report have interestingly become very future-centric. Conveniently forgetting that the task of the OSG was to assess the rehabilitation related work carried out and to give a status/progress report, the Report carries many references to what ‘should be done’. Interestingly, Mr. Shunglu does not appear to realize that by saying that many things need to be done, he is actually stating that they are not done. Some excerpts from the OSG conclusions and PM’s letter:
The Shunglu Report conclusions 4.5 read as: “… Over 4000 cases have been referred by GRA (Grievance Redressal Authority) to NVDA (Narmada Valley Development Authority). Progress in disposal of these cases requires to be expedited…”
And 4.9 says: “…Deficiencies at most sites can be removed by developing uneven plots and by proper maintenance and repair of roads and buildings…”
Lines 6&7 of para 2 of the PM’s letter to SC says: “…considering also the fact that the shortcomings in R&R work brought out in the report can be remedied by accelerated pace of implementation…”
One can only wish that the respected members of the Shunglu Committee should have tried to understand their role better so that an embarrassment of this sort, to democracy, could have been avoided.
Contempt of Court?
It is the prerogative of the Supreme Court to find out the truth with regard to what was presented to it through the Shunglu Committee. To many, including experts on the issue, what was presented to the court through the office of the Prime Minister was nothing but a justification for the ongoing injustice and corruption. But it will be interesting if the SC finds out the truth and takes up the Shunglu Committee recommendations as ‘contempt’ as it justifies the Special Rehabilitation Package (SRP), thereby trying to completely over-run the Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal Award (NWDTA) and the previous orders and directives of the Apex Court. Any water disputes tribunal is expectedly the ultimate authority on the issues related to it and constitutionally, even the Supreme Court does not surpass the tribunal award. In the case of NWDTA, the Supreme Court also upheld each decision of the NWDTA, whether on the issue of ‘land for land’ or ‘complete rehabilitation of all PAFs six months prior to construction’. However, the Shunglu Committee and the PM’s submission have not only sabotaged these, but the recommendations of the Committee include a review of the very tribunal jurisdictions.
Eg: 4.7 of conclusions justifying SRP opines: “The offer of the Government land in place of land acquired did not meet the requirements of PAFs and was the most significant reason for their option for SRP...” And 4.8: “SRP, in the opinion of GRA, is a legitimate substitute for providing land for land as stipulated in the NWDT Award…” (SRP was an alternative to ‘land for land’ brought in by NVDA, to counter NWDT Award and the SC directives)
Accepting lack of ‘land for land’ or ‘availability of irrigable/cultivable land’ is the biggest blunder committed by the Shunglu Committee report (Eg. 4.7 quoted above). But it should be remembered here that Shunglu Committee was not authorized to evaluate the jurisdiction of the NWDTA or comment on issues already settled by the Apex Court, but was only asked to check the implementation related ground reality. It is here that the Shunglu Committee and the related processes became part of a political gimmick than an exercise meant to find out truth. But for Mr. Shunglu and other members of the intelligentsia who were part of the committee, their part in this play is over, having ‘overseen’ the violations and the violence against people.
Reality stays!
No agency including the PMO will negate now that the arguments put forth by the Gram Sabhas or the independent experts’ panels (not even the NSSO), can be brushed aside. But what is unacceptable to the government is the solution of stopping the work of the dam till R&R is complete and people are safely and in a dignified way resettled, which is the present argument of the NBA. It is this contradiction and anti-people stand that is going to be judged by the people and the verdict ultimately lies with them.
But hail the UPA government and its allies as the decision ultimately was ‘above political considerations’! Even though it was the Narendra Modi Government that was out to complete the dam on the dead bodies of people who will get submerged, the Congress led government at the centre was the one who gave the orders at the behest of “larger public interest” (PM’s letter to CJI)! Let us all look forward to this newly found ideological unanimity between the mainstream national parties and hope that they remain in power to take us through the millennium development goals, etc and make India a super power by 2020. One can only worry about the number of poor Indians who will remain alive in this elimination round of ‘development’ to see that day of India’s glory!
A quote from Ali Sardar Jafri (from a poem inspired by Mirza Ghalib) will be most appropriate in the present scenario:
“We hear that governance now will have a different cadence
Tyranny will now be the protector; cities will be without walls or doors
Innocence will now be a punishable crime
Judges will profess ignorance of criminal deeds…
Executioners will be in charge of funerals, killers will organize mourning…
If this be the realization of India’s ancient dreams
Then soon, there will neither be India, nor any of its connoisseurs…”
(The author is associated with DELHI)
