After screening Anand Patwardhan’s “music video” Ribbons for Peace, Asha volunteers Vidhi Parthasarathy and D.P. Prakash, who had just come from an Asha meeting in Lucknow, announced the Global Peace March led by Sandeep Pandey. Walking from village to village along the 1600 km route (see map above), the Peace Marchers will discuss the health impacts of radiation and the destructive capabilities of nuclear weapons. At the same time they will collect signatures demonstrating the commitment to peace on the part of lakhs of ordinary people.
After screening Simantini Dhuru & Anand Patwardhan’s video documentary
“Narmada Diary,” Sanjay Sangvai took questions.
Q: I appreciate the issues presented here, but how will we provide the electricity?
A: Let us first note, who is asking the question to whom? It is always people with electricity asking people without electricity to give up more. Is it only the responsibility of the people who are facing the displacement to provide the electricity, or of all of us? Since you need the electricity, it is the first responsibility of you to find the alternatives.
Q: What is the alternative?
(FROM AUDIENCE): We can also save electricity. In this
room today, why should we have A/C in January? We feel far too entitled
to the electricity we use. Actually we should feel guilty.
A: Look, you use all the lights, fans, etc that you want.
We don’t tell you how much electricity you should use. But why do
you depend on us? My friend in Jharkhand always says to such
critics who question, ”Don’t’ you want development?” He says that,
it is not the question what do we want. But if you need electricity,
you produce on your own, on the basis of your own resources. Why
the audacity to claim our resources for our use and then ask whether we
want development or not. Have your own development!
About displacement and alternative, an activist from Thailand
once told me, that it is as if you are taking away my wife, and if I resist,
you ask me, “what is the alternative? To hell with your alternative!
First leave my wife alone. I acknowledge that you have a problem,
but that is not my problem.
Despite that, NBA has also looked into the problem of alternatives.
Not alternatives to the dam, but a true solution to the problem.
We have also considered it our responsibility to look for true solutions,
not to legitimize the opposition.
Aravinda: I just have to say this film becomes more and more
emotional for me every time I see it. The first film I saw about
Naramda was called Narmada: A Valley Rises by the Canadian film maker Ali
Kazimi. That film really made me come back to India sooner rather
than larer. But one thing I could never really grasp is this resolve
“dubenge par hatenge nahin” – that is we will drown but we will not move.
I have never lived in one place for more than 2 years in my life.
But the first time I went to the Narmada Valley, I understood it.
Even now, the place is thoroughly deforested, still it is so beautiful.
And the life there is just not like any other that you can move and pick
up where you left off. Have you ever seen stars from a village?
In Nimghavan we could see the whole Milky Way like white paint across the
sky. In the US we see every town is like every other town, same chain
stores, same debit cards. But this Milky Way is invisible.
And we don’t even know what a loss that is.
I think it is also a case of envy.
This place has clean air, clean water, no mosquitos, fewer diseases, low
population density. How can it be that the “poor” are living like
this? Drown them all and put them in resettlement sites or slums
so that they can live as the “poor” are expected to live in India.
Q: Is there any middle ground? Can’t NGOs help to alleviate the problems?
A: People have their own resources and their own intelligence
to find out the way. They have raised the basic issues and these
must be answered. What is the question of compromise? The job
of the people’s movement is to articulate what the people have to say,
not to bring about compromises. Before any of us went there the people
were quite independent and proud, and used to solve their own problems.
People do not want charity.
At the least they can be left alone. Those who were displaced by
the Bargi dam and who are now in the slums of Jabalpur will tell you, “our
hands are only used to giving, never taking. Even when 50 parikrama
vasis came, we welcomed them all to our homes.” That is the kind
of cultural pride they have. They did not need the government nor
any NGO .They are asking for their rights, for the right to live a dignified
life. Tomorrow I will explain the whole history of this dam, and
this movement. But, yes, the government has set up many NGOs to keep
everyone and all the money running in circles – the people have their own
movement, why do they need an NGO?
Kautilya, Artha Sastra