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Today's
Stories
September 21,
2004
Paul Craig
Roberts
Attention
Deficit America
September 20,
2004
Cockburn /
Buncombe
Get
Fallujah
David Price
Relying
on Phonies: What If The Problem with Phone Polls is That They
Are Phone Polls
Dave Lindorff
How
Dems Fight: Tigers Against Nader, Pussycats Against Bush
Harry Browne
Pre-Nup at Leeds: Talked Out, But Does IRA Give Up?
Mark Wesibrot
Bush's
Ownership Society: No Taxes for Owners, Only Workers
Karyn Strickler
The Keys to the White House v. the Shrum Curse?
Uri Avnery
The Temple Mount Bombers
September 18
/ 19, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Forgeries,
Fingerprints and Forensic Fakery
Jeffrey St. Clair
High Plains Grifter: Bush's Mask of Anarchy
Patrick Cockburn
Into the Abyss: the Week Iraq's Dream of Peace Fell Apart
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: Financial Torture (Asset Forfeiture)
Joe Allen
The Comrades Kerry Abandoned: the Real Story of Vietnam Vets
Against the War
George Corsetti
Poletown Revisited: Finally, Some Vindication
Scott Handleman
The Knock-Knock of a Sledgehammer: Sequestered in Nablus
Richard Ward
Two Weeks in Beit Arabiya
Conn Hallinan
Ashcroft and Indonesia
Lori Smith
Health Care in America: And Then I Got Sick...
Dave Zirin
Hold the Booyah!: SportsCenter Out of the Middle East
John L. Hess
Rather Will Take the Heat, As Bush's War Deteriorates
Brian J. Foley
W is for Wimp: So Why do Manly Men Love Him?
Mickey Z.
Pat Tillman and Osama bin Laden: Odd Juxtapositions
Poets' Basement
Vest, Landau & Albert
Website of the Weekend
Eye on the NYTs
Sex,
Drugs & the Blues!
Serpents in the Garden
CounterPunch's
Sizzling New Book on Culture and Sex is Now Available
Click here to purchase
Septemeber
17, 2004
Ray McGovern
Gossing
Over the Record
Patrick Cockburn
The New Iraqi Economy: Baghdad's Thriving Kidnapping Industry
Lee Sustar
The State of Working America: an Autopsy of the American Dream
Mike Whitney
John Kerry: 195 Lbs. of Political Helium, Not an Ounce of Sincerity
Victor Kattan
Black September
Ray Hanania
Israel's Demographics
Greg Bates
Nader's Victories: a Mid-Campaign Assessment
Website of
the Day
The Road to Hell
September 16,
2004
Landau / Hassen
Meet
the New Villain: Syria
Joanne Mariner
Inside
Darfur: a Photo Essay
Patrick Cockburn
US
Offers Conflicting Accounts of Baghdad Bloodbath
Greg Moses
Four Million Children Might Be News
Joshua Frank
Nader in the Battleground States
Christopher Brauchli
The Bush Drug Lottery Flops
David Himmelstein
Folke Bernadotte: a Rosh Hashonah Remembrance
Website of the Day
The Abu Ghraib Index
September 15,
2004
Patrick Cockburn
Hell
on Haifa Street
Ron Jacobs
Oppose War, Not Just Bush
David Lindorff
Blanking Out Dissent
Joanne Mariner
Talking About Darfur: Is Genocide Just a Word?
Angela Godfrey-Goldstein
An Open Letter to Madonna: Please Don't Support Israeli Apartheid
Dave Zirin
Is the NFL Ready for Us?
Yigal Bronner
"They
Are Building Walls Around Us"
September 14,
2004
Gary Leupp
The
Problem of Chechnya
Jennifer van
Bergen
What's
Wrong with Torture?
Stan Goff
Wake Up and Smell the Jungle Rot
Patrick Cockburn
The
Punishment of Fallujah: US Precision Strickes...on Ambulances
Anis Memon
Nader
in Michigan
Michael Donnelly
The Nuance Comes Off: Former Naderites Beg for Kerry Votes
Werther
Zell Miller: the Peckerwood Pericles
Website of
the Day
Osama Bin Forgotten?
September 13,
2004
Gabriel Kolko
Elections,
Alliances and the American Empire
Phillip Cryan
How Do You Say "Death Squad?": Language in Colombia's
War
Patrick Cockburn
One of Baghdad's Bloodiest Days: "I'm a Journalist! I'm
Dying! I'm Dying"
Noah Leavitt
The War on Civil Liberties
Robert Jensen
Highjacking Catastrophe: Bush, the Neo-Cons and 9/11
Mike Whitney
Alan Greenspan: Fed-Master to the Wealthy
John Chuckman
Stop Talking About the "Election"
Mike Burke
Kerry/Edwards Website Censors Discussion of Israel/Palestine
Issues
CounterPunch
Wire
The Quotations of David Cobb: "I Don't Care How Many Votes
I Get"
Website of the Day
Keep It In Your Pants: the Bush Plan to Combat Teen Promiscuity
September 11
/ 12, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Swatting
at Flies
Fred Gardner
Yet Another Prozac Scandal
Saul Landau
When Our Assassins Go Free
Jennifer Van Bergen
How to Beat Bush: a Simple Strategy for the Average American
Roger Burbach
/ Jim Tarbell
The Real Dead Enders: Iraq and the Crisis of Empire
Christopher Reed
9/11 in an Historical Context: a Minor Event When Compared to
Worldwide War Casualties
Francisc Catalin
An ABC of American Interventions
Carl Estabrook
Big Science and Government Terror
Bernard Chazelle
Anti-Americanism: a Clinical Study
Sharon Smith
Third Party Blues
Dave Lindorff
Perhaps This Time We're the Silent Majority
Mike Whitney
Fallujah: an Iraqi Beslan?
Frederick B.
Hudson
Their Sons Perished in the Flames, But Not Their Faith
Mickey Z.
Round Up the Usual Suspects: a Look Back at 9/11
Ron Jacobs
Redneck Music for the New Century
Greg Moses
Soap Opera Moments in Texas School Funding Trial
Benjamin Dangl
/ Andrew Kennis
An Interview with Leslie Cagan
Poets Basement
Del Papa, Albert, Gelman
September 10,
2004
Patrick Cockburn
Disappointment
at Samarrah?
Michael Donnelly
Democrats v. Democracy
Alan Farago
Mosquitoes in a Hurricane
Doug Giebel
Karl Rove's Terror Playbook
Mike Whitney
Bob Graham's Political Tsunami
David Domke
God's
Will, According to the Bush Administration
September 9,
2004
Joe Bageant
Karaoke
Night in Bush's America
Ed Kinane
Abducted in Baghdad
Peter Bohmer
The Cuban Revolution: Present and Future
Todd May
The Emerging Case for a Single-State Solution
Jeremy Scahill
The New York Model: Indymedia and the Text Message Jihad
Joshua Frank
Green House Party Gasses
Fran Shor
The Crisis in Public Dissent: When Protest is Considered a Terrorist
Act
Patrick Cockburn
Welcome
to the Dirtiest City in the World: Despair in Baghdad
Website of
the Day
Liberty Street Protest: No to War at Ground Zero
September 8,
2004
Patrick Cockburn
This
Doesn't Smell Like Victory: A War on Two Fronts in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
Bush Confuses; Kerry Mute: Spinning 1000 Dead
Bulent Gokay
Russian and Chechnia After Beslan
Lisa Viscidi
Land Reform and Conflict in Guatemala
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Byrd's Eye View
Mike Whitney
Afghanistan: American's Drug Colony
Stan Goff
Body
Count: 1001
Website of
the Day
Bush and the Love Doctors
September 7,
2004
Diane Christian
Hostage Tactics: a Game of Mortal Poker
Joshua Frank
Greens
Unravel from Within
Patrick Cockburn
Fallujah
Erupts Again: US Death Toll in Iraq Nears 1000
Ron Jacobs
Bush and Putin: "We're Not Girlie Men"
Chris Floyd
Cry Havoc: Bush's Own Personal Janjaweed
Dr. Carol Wolman
No Blood for Oil at Paul Bunyan Day Parade
John Ross
The
Politics of Darkness North / South
September 6,
2004
Alexander Cockburn
An
Anti-Labor Day That Lives in Infamy: How Many Democrats Voted
For Taft-Hartley?
Ralph Nader
The
Cruel Legacy of Taft-Hartley: a Labor Day Call for Rights for
Working People
Lee Sustar
What's Driving the Attack on Pensions?
Kathleen and
Bill Christison
Dual
Loyalties: the Bush Necons and Israel
September 4-5,
2004
Alexander Cockburn
Elephants
and Gramsci
Ted Honderich
The
Way Things Are
Sasan Fayazmanesh
The
Holy Empire: Who We Are and What We Do
Douglas Valentine
What the World Should Know About Guantanamo
Patrick Cockburn
New Iraqi Police State Flexes Its Muscles
Gary Leupp
Neo Cons Under Fire
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: the Hempstead T-Shirt
William A.
Cook
The
Day of the Lemming
Dave Zirin
Kobe Bryant and the Price of Freedom
John Chuckman
The Day the World Ended
Karyn Strickler
God Save the Endangered Species Act
Vanessa Jones
Bad Day with an Ikea Cup
Mike Whitney
Kerry: the "Better" War Candidate
Mark Donham
Dear John (Kerry): Start Explaining and Fast
Mickey Z.
McBypass Nation: Feeling Clinton's Pain
Alan Farago
Can the Everglades be Fixed?
Poets' Basement
Landau and Albert
September 3,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: Jesus Told Him Where to Bomb
Rahul Mahajan
Bush's RNC Speech: an Annotated Response
Carl Estabrook
The
Book of Slaughter and Forgetting
Joshua Frank
The Florida of the Northwest: Oregon Dems Sabotage Nader Again
Gary Leupp
Music to My Ears: Sunday's March
James Hollander
Deja Vu in Manhattan: Assisted Political Suicide?
Mark Engler
Republicans
Among Us: a Week at the RNC, Inside and Out
Jesse Sharkey
Making Students and Teachers Pay for the Crisis in Education
Jane Stillwater
Calling the Cops on Your Own Kid
Stephen Green
Serving
Two Flags: the Bush Neo-Cons and Israel
September 2,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: Part 3: More Pricks Than Kicks
Max Gimble
Et Tu, Menchu? Extrajudicial Killings and Clandestine Graves
in Guatemala
James Petras
President Chavez and the Referendum: Myths and Realities
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush and the Afghan Electoral Model: "If They Want to Vote
Twice, Let Them"
Todd Chretien & Jessie
Muldoon
Will the Democrats Expel Zell Miller?
Jack Random
Spite and Venom Day: the Turncoat and the Profiteer
Alan Maass
The Real Vietnam
Christa Allen
Contre Bush
Website of
the Day
[Redacted]
September 1,
2004
Alexander Cockburn
The
Stench of Doom
Kathleen and Bill Christison
Poor Larry Franklin
Dave Lindorff
Kerry's Litmus Test
Josh Frank
Protest in White: Not All of New York Rises Up
John L. Hess
Moles, Scoops and Flip Flops
Mike Whitney
Deconstructing Arnold
Jack Random
Kindergarten Night at the RNC
Andrew Wilson
War on the Pachyderms: Why Do Elephants Hate Us?
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: Part Two: Mark His Words
August 31,
2004
Joseph Nevins
Escapism
and Global Apartheid: The Dominican Republic & the NYTs
Matt Vidal
Beyond
Bush's Rhetoric on the Economy
Neve Gordon
Kerry and the Middle East
Dave Lindorff
Bush
the Peace Candidate?
Mike Whitney
NPR Leads the Charge for War Against Iran
Jack Random
Opening Night: Playing the War Card
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: the Life and Crimes of George W. Bush (Part One)
CounterPunch Photo of the Day
Pete Seeger in NYC
August 30,
2004
Justin Podhur
The
Disappeared Mayor
Shaun Joseph
The
Hypocrites at TheNaderbasher.com
Mike Whitney
Israeli Moles in the Pentagon: What More Could They Possibly
Want?
Ron Jacobs
Live, From New York: the Majority of Protesters Claimed No Candidate
David Lindorff
Sunday in Manhattan: the Sound of Marchin', Chargin' Feet, Boy
Dave Zirin
USA Basketball: The Team White America Loved to Hate
Sam Husseini
Israeli Spying on the US: a Long History
August 28 /
29, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Zombies
for Kerry
Patrick Cockburn
Najaf Ceasefire Good for Iraq, But Weakens Allawi and US
Ray McGovern
Blowing Smoke on Intelligence
Dr. Juan Romagoza
From El Salvador to Abu Ghraib: Reflections of Torture Survivor
Ray Hanania
An Israeli Spy in the Pentagon? Ridiculous!
Fred Gardner
Eddie Lepp Busted by DEA: Facing Life for Growing Medical Pot
Diane Christian
Big Men: the Better Leader Lets You Live
William S. Lind
The Desert Fox
Paul D'Amato
The Left Takes a Dive for Kerry
Joshua Frank
Greens at the Crossroads
Mickey Z.
Media Declares War on Anti-War Protests
Winslow T. Wheeler
Sen. McCain's Pork Chops: an Exchange
Justin E.H.
Smith
The New Age Racket and the Left
Thomas St. John
Burning Slaves at the Stake: On "Sinners in the Hands of
an Angry God"
Ali Tonak
Help the NYPD?
Mark Engler
New York Says "No"
Justin Felux
Haiti: the Attica of the Americas
Poets' Basement
Gelman, Albert, Ford and Hamod
August 27,
2004
Gary Leupp
Neocon
Musings
Robin Cook
The
Ghosts of Abu Ghraib
Diane Christian
Disarming
Michael Donnelly
Situational Democracy: the Show Me the Green Party?
Jack Random
4F and Other Heroes: an Army of War Resisters
Mike Ferner
"To the Swift Boats!"
Mazin Qumsiyeh
7000 Palestinian Political Prisoners
Veronza Bowers, Jr.
"You Won't Be Leaving Tomorrow"
August 26,
2004
M. Shahid Alam
The
Clash Thesis: a Failing Ideology?
Diane Christian
War
Rules: Bush is No Sun Tzu
Derek Seidman
"They're As Bad As Wal-Mart:" Starbucks Workers Get
Organized
David Lindorff
Court to RNC Protesters: Drop the Rally
Christopher
Brauchli
Signs of Dissent: the Bush in the Bubble
Stew Albert
Reporting Suspicious Activity
Mark Donham
Judgement in Athens: Give the Koreans Their Day in Court
Saul Landau
Pinochet:
the Al Capone of the Southern Cone
Website of
the Day
The Kerry 527 Ad You'll Never See
August 25,
2004
Amelia Peltz
Can
I Have 9.8 Seconds of Your Time?
Noah Leavitt
Defining and Redefining Torture
Ron Jacobs
Takin' It to the Streets: It's Not About the Election, It's About
Democracy
James Brooks
Coronado Crosses the Jordan
Akiva Eldar
How to Win the Jewish Vote: Turn Gaza into a "Mini-Afghanistan"
Gemma Araneta
Chavez's New Brand of Populism
Philip Cryan
Uribe's Boys: the Death Squads of Colombia
CounterPunch Wire
Cheney Opens the Closet Door
August 24,
2004
Jeremy Scahill
John
Kerry: the Warchurian Candidate
Gary Leupp
"We
Want Them to Go Away"
David Domke
God
Willing: an Echoing Press and Political Fundamentalism
William Loren Katz
The Meaning of Hugo Chávez: Black and Indian Power in
Venezuela
Jonah Gindin
With Chavez? Reading the International Private Media
Fran Schor
Denying Atrocities: From Vietnam to Fallujah
Joe Bageant
Driving
on the Bones of God
Website of the Day
The Great America Lockdown: a Primer for the RNC
August 23,
2004
Winslow Wheeler
Don't
Mind If I Do: Porkbarrel and the War on Terror
John Pilger
Bush
May Be the Lesser Evil
Stan Goff
Swift
Boat Dogfight
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
Notes
from the West Bank: Build, Demolish, Rebuild
Mike Whitney
The Unraveling of Afghanistan
William Blum
Brave
New World of Iraqi Sovereignty
Ralph Nader
A Letter to the Washington Post: a Shameful and Unsavory Editorial
August 21 /
22, 2004
Cockburn /
St. Clair
"They
Want Blood:" The Bi-Partisan Origins of the Total War on
Drugs
Landau / Hassen
Failing
the Mission? Form a Commission
Brian Cloughley
The
Bush Team in Iraq: Moral Cowardice, as Practiced by Experts
Josh Frank
Nader as David Duke? The ADL Wants You to Think So
Mike Whitney
Reincarnating Mengele: the Torture Doctors of Abu Ghraib
Ron Jacobs
Day Labor Blues
Mickey Z.
Shooting at Whales: 40 Years After Tonkin
Fred Gardner
Dr. Wolman Comes Out: The Cannabis Consultants
Dave Zirin
Uprising in Athens: Iraqi Soccer Team Gives Bush the Boot
Josh Saxe
Witnessing Police Brutality in LA
Yanar Mohammed
Letter from Baghdad: a Democracy of Killings and Bombings
Helen Williams
Ali's Story: a Taste of Reality from Baghdad
Michael Donnelly
Elemental and NaturalForests, Fire and Recovery
Elizabeth Schulte
The Crisis in Affordable Housing
Poets' Basement
Adler, Albert, Virgil, Ford and Krieger
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
|
September 21, 2004
"The Narmada
Gave Us Life; They Have Turned Her Against Us"
Large
Dams in India: Temples or Burial Grounds?
By
ROBERT JENSEN
How do we measure progress? How are
lives improved by progress? Who benefits from -- and who suffers
the consequences of -- progress?
These are central questions today as nation-states and corporations
pursue what are typically called "development" projects.
One of the most controversial of these in recent years is a series
of more than 3,000 dams in India's Narmada River Valley. Government
officials say these dams and an extensive irrigation system will
bring electricity and water to areas of the country suffering
from drought, and the technocrats insist that it will work.
But other voices challenge this rhetoric of technological triumph,
most notably the Narmada Bachao Andolan (Save the Narmada Movement).
Arguing that the government exaggerates the benefits and underestimates
the costs, this nonviolent people's movement since the mid-1980s
has focused attention on the human suffering and environmental
damage that comes with "big dams." These dams flood
vast areas and displace hundreds of thousands, mostly peasants
and adivasi (tribal) people, while promises of relocation and
resources usually prove to be illusory. Just one of the dams,
Sardar Sarovar, could uproot as many as a half-million people.
In August 2004, Angana Chatterji was one of three members of
an independent commission who went to the Narmada, visiting villages
and listening to more than 1,400 people at hearings. The commission
investigated violations in resettlement and rehabilitation policies
connected to the Narmada Sagar, one of the Narmada dams. Chatterji,
N.C. Saxena (a member of the Indian government's National Advisory
Council and former secretary of the Planning Commission of India),
and Harsh Mander (former director of ActionAid India) will submit
their report this fall to the National Advisory Council, headed
by Congress Party leader Sonia Gandhi.
Chatterji, a Calcutta-born anthropology professor at the California
Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, described the
situation in the Narmada Valley as desperate and cited one villager's
statement to sum up the sense of despair: "There is no future
here; we are living out our days, focused on survival. The Narmada
gave us life; they have turned her against us."
Despite the setbacks, Chatterji not only continues but intensifies
her advocacy work through her association with the Narmada Bachao
Andolan and groups such as the U.S.-based International
Rivers Network, for which she is a board member. Chatterji
is passionate and sharp-tongued, with an ability to bring the
complex issues into clear, and sometimes painful, focus. In a
play on an often-quoted comment of India's first prime minister,
Jawaharlal Nehru, Chatterji began our conversation by saying,
"Dams are not the temples of India. They are her burial
grounds." In an interview in September, she explained why
the Narmada struggle remains crucial.
Robert Jensen: Before we talk about specifics of the Narmada
project, explain the larger context. What's at stake?
Angana Chatterji: Adivasi and peasant movements reject the assumption
that development justifies cultural annihilation. Since 1947,
4,300 large dams alone in India have displaced over 42 million.
Adivasis are about 8 percent of India's population but more than
40 percent of the country's displaced. India's record of irresponsible
development has placed its most vulnerable in peril -- 1,000
more dams are being built, even as food, security, and self-determination
remain out of reach for 350 million of India's poorest citizens.
In postcolonial India, the promise of progress, of freedom, has
been linked to techno-economic control by the state, which provides
a comfortable life for its elite. But the disenfranchised experience
this development as a war against them. Their lands and livelihood
have become collateral for the dreams of the privileged.
In the Narmada Valley, different imaginations of nation building
collide. The confrontation with state-sponsored big development
leaves marginalized people voiceless in decision-making, as local
dreams of self-determination and survival, of respect, heritage
and history, are jettisoned. The key questions remain: Whose
lives matters? Who has a right to life? The Narmada struggle
leads us to ask: What good is a nation if it refuses to protect
all its citizens?
RJ: Let's start with the question of water in India. Advocates
of big dam projects say they are the only way to provide the
water needed to help regions facing droughts.
AC: Droughts are a harsh reality, and the need for water is immense.
India needs to provide water to the fields, villages, towns and
industries throughout the year, without placing some communities
at risk to benefit others. It needs cost-effective and environmentally
responsible technologies for water and power. Rajender Singh's
work in watershed
management exemplifies a bioregional approach that is ethical
in scale, and there are other options. Their success will depend
on the inclusion of local knowledge, participation, and ownership,
and the nation's capacity to ensure the rights of the poor. The
Narmada dam projects proceed in exactly the opposite way.
RJ: Explain the scope of the project.
AC: The Narmada project was first broached in the 19th century.
The Narmada Valley Development Plan, formulated in the late 1980s,
decided that the river -- 1,312 kilometers through the states
of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat -- and her tributaries
would be the site of 30 large, 135 medium and 3,000 small dams.
These dams would turn the river into a sad series of lakes, devastating
the lives and livelihood of 20 million peasants and adivasis
who call the Narmada watershed home, whose subsistence is linked
to their land, forests, and water.
RJ: One of the most controversial of these many dams is Sardar
Sarovar. Why?
AC: Sardar Sarovar is one of two gigantic dams expected to irrigate
5 million acres of land, generate 1,450 megawatts of power, and
supply water to 8,000 villages and 135 towns through the Mahi
pipeline in Gujarat. Like many assertions of the Indian government,
these are highly controversial claims. The Sardar Sarovar will
cost about $10 billion, almost half the irrigation budget of
India since independence. The 133-mile-long reservoir of the
Sardar Sarovar will flood 91,000 acres of land, 28,000 acres
of which are forest. The canal network will mangle another 200,000
acres. The reservoir will displace 200,000 people, most forcibly,
and affect another 200,000. More than 1 million lives will be
decimated if the project is carried out. About 56 percent of
those affected will be adivasi people, the familiar victims of
"progress" -- 15.4 million adivasis live in Madhya
Pradesh alone, from over 40 tribes.
In the Narmada Valley, people are under siege. Stranded, eliminated.
Displaced. Put out of place. Without place. Displacement's violence
plunges people into unfamiliar worlds over which they have no
control. When cultures die, languages, memories, spiritualities,
ways of being and caring for the earth die with them. Adivasi
and peasant cultures of the Narmada Valley are expected to join
this death. The displaced are expected to vanish into the crevices
of city slums or resettlement colonies, to become -- quietly
-- a statistic. Unable to raise families, crops or livestock,
build homes, send children to school. They are unable to dream
any other life but that of righteous resistance. Their burden
is to be the conscience abdicated by the state.
RJ: There was an attempt to limit the height of the Sardar
Sarovar. What happened?
AC: Following a petition by the Narmada Bachao Andolan in1995,
the Supreme Court of India limited construction of the dam to
80.3 meters. Since 1999, the Court has allowed successive jumps,
even as it upheld the Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal Award,
mandating land-for-land rehabilitation of impacted families six
months prior to any increase in dam height. This was never enforced.
Resettlement and rehabilitation is yet to be completed at the
85 meters level. Officials in New Delhi, Gujarat, Maharashtra
and Madhya Pradesh have remained silent. Narendra Modi, the chief
minister of Gujarat who was complicit in the murder of 2,000
Muslims in the state in 2002, has used the dam's apparent "success"
to deflect attention from that carnage.
Today the dam stands at 110.64 meters. As the dam rises, the
reservoir grows in size and more villages are submerged. On Sept.
9, 2004, the Narmada Control Authority met in New Delhi to explore
the possibility of raising the Sardar Sarovar to 121 meters.
Perhaps the plan is to erect the dam to the original height of
138 meters!
India is intent on building large dams even as other nations
decommission them. As the government deliberates "national
interest," people are fleeing back to their villages from
rehabilitation sites, which are devoid of facilities and livelihood
opportunities. In response, earlier this month, the police torched
adivasi homes in Vadgam village in Gujarat, warning that if others
attempted to return to their original homes they would be met
with similar brutality.
RJ: The World Bank provided financing for the project but
later withdrew. Does it have any role today?
AC: Yes it does. In 1985, the World Bank approved $450 million
for the Sardar Sarovar project, and construction began in 1987.
The Indian government violated the loan and credit agreements,
and in June 1992 the Morse Commission charged the project with
grievous flaws in resettlement and rehabilitation, and environmental
impact. International activism led to the Bank's withdrawal in
1993 and cancellation of the remaining $170 million loan amount.
That existing project loan will not be repaid until 2005, and
the terms of the loan are still legally binding. But Bank management
failed to supervise the project with respect to the environmental
and social conditionalities of the loan. The Bank's India country
director has confirmed that the Bank generally does not monitor
projects beyond the disbursement of capital to the borrower.
This approach neglects the terms for resettlement and other policies
supposed to alleviate the long-standing impacts of Bank-financed
projects. By failing to ensure that funds are being used in compliance
with the conditions of the loan, the Bank is abandoning its responsibilities,
ignoring its commitment to mitigating poverty. (For more, see
jensen04222004.html)
The World Bank has, through
its negligence, endorsed the Indian government's decision to
increase the dam height. The Bank's acceptance of forcible displacement
and inadequate resettlement and rehabilitation violates its own
policies, as well as international agreements on livelihood security
and human rights affecting the poor. The Bank remains arrogant,
as a recent report by the International Rivers Network demonstrates,
planning a defiant return to financing high-risk infrastructure
projects that allow governments and corporations to marginalize
civil society in decision-making.
RJ: In August you and the other commissioners visited some
of the communities affected by the Narmada Sagar Dam. What did
you learn?
AC: The Narmada Sagar (formally called the Indira Sagar Pariyojana)
is the second mega-dam, a multipurpose project under construction
for decades. We spent time with people from 10 villages, a town
and seven resettlement colonies, listening to testimonials of
egregious human-rights violations. Some came from Gulas, Abhera,
Jabgaon, Nagpur -- places that only exist in the register of
dead settlements.
The Narmada Sagar is upstream from Sardar Sarovar in east Nimar
in Madhya Pradesh. When completed, at 92 meters, 262.19 meters
above sea level, it will create the largest reservoir in Asia.
The dam is failing to generate the electricity promised. The
numbers here are also staggering: It will submerge 249 villages,
displace 30,739 families. The dam will destroy 91,348 hectares
of land (41,444 hectares of which are forests), to irrigate 123,000
hectares of land, a quarter of which is already irrigated! The
resettlement and rehabilitation policy includes a land-for-land
clause. But even in its present and inadequate form, these provisions
are being systematically violated.
RJ: Say more about the experience of the people being displaced?
AC: In the past few months, bulldozers have razed homes in Khandwa
district, and people's belongings were dragged out and damaged.
Police camps are up and running in resettlement sites, terrorizing
citizens. Activists told us that if they protest, the police
beat them and threaten families. One resident, Atma Ram, said:
"We are like waste to the government. You do not rehabilitate
waste, you bury it. Our town and souls are being buried. We have
appealed to the government, to the courts, to the country. Our
pleas are thrown away. We are left to decay."
Harsud town was destroyed on July 1, 2004. In her testimonial,
Sunder Bai, an elderly woman, said: "They stood there, the
guards, and ordered me to tear down my home. It felt like my
bones were breaking." Many Harsud residents won,t leave,
believing that the town will not be submerged for another year
or two. The authorities accuse people of getting in the way of
their own rehabilitation. But Laloo Bhai, in whose house I stayed,
said: "Where will we go? We have lived here for generations.
Here I am somebody. When something happens, people come and stand
by us. Elsewhere, we are nothing."
Harsud is partly vacated, partly living. From Laloo Bhai's house
I could see the neighbours courtyard -- a heap of bricks, scattered
with the remnants of life, a child's toy, a fragment of a brightly
coloured sari, a painted window trim, things of meaning, now
lifeless in the ruins of a 700-year-old town.
RJ: So, it's not just a question of being compensated for
houses and land lost?
AC: The struggle to force the government to meet its obligations
for resettlement is important. The Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal
Award requires the government to provide a minimum of 2 hectares
of irrigated land to all those classified as landed and adequate
cash compensation to others. This has not happened for the 85
villages submerged in 2002-03, and 32 expected to submerge this
year. Construction of the remaining 16 of 20 gates to be built
must be stopped until the 132 villages awaiting submergence are
rehabilitated. Cash compensation -- 40,000 rupees for non-irrigated,
60,000 rupees for irrigated land -- is inadequate to purchase
new land, and people have often not been given the authorized
sum. In the absence of livelihood opportunities, the money withers
away quickly, leaving people destitute. They resort to middlemen
and loan sharks, to alcohol.
The landless are not being provided agricultural land; displacement
leaves them impoverished without access to livelihood resources.
Laborers are not provided livelihood opportunities. Seasonal
migrants are often not included in compensatory schemes. In many
instances people are waiting for compensation checks, while others
aren,t allowed access to their money even when it has reached
the bank. Women have not been listed as co-title holders to new
land. Widows and divorcees are excluded. The affected have filed
a case with the Madhya Pradesh High Court. Submerging land owned
by the government is not being assessed for the livelihood resources
that these lands (such as forests) provide the disenfranchised
-- grazing for livestock, fruit, firewood and other sustenance.
The violence of the everyday defies comprehension, as the state's
mistreatment of the poor is intensified by hierarchies of caste,
tribe, religion, and gender. At the core of the resistance is
a desire to protect a way of life. On Sept. 28, 1989, I was in
Harsud at the rally of 30,000 people, as the town echoed with,
"Kohi nahin hate ga, bandh nahin banega" (No one will
move, the dam will not be built). That cry reverberated across
the Narmada Valley, as village upon village committed to the
resistance. This summer, what I saw in Harsud was the destruction
of lives and futures, without consent.
RJ: What are resettlement sites like?
AC: Chanera, a resettlement site with rows of houses in a desolate
location, was like a prison complex, a place of exile. There
is no water, electricity, roads, sewers, bazaars or health care.
There is a temporary school with no teachers. Some homes have
already crumbled. A makeshift shelter of a few tin sheets and
saris stretched into fragile walls threatens to collapse at the
hint of rain. I met a young woman whose husband had died, caught
in the open electrical wires that run parallel to their home.
She is left alone to care for her children, and the authorities
refuse to accept responsibility for his death. In this "new
Harsud" there is no employment. Many wealthy citizens have
moved to distant places -- Indore, Gwalior, Bhopal, Udaipur.
The resettlement camp is populated primarily by the economically
disenfranchised, making it easy for the authorities to dismiss
their concerns.
A mother of three told us: "What shall I do? I received
25,000 rupees and no land. I was forced out of Harsud. My adult
sons were listed as minors. They are 23 and 25. They did not
receive land or money. I showed authorities ration cards, voter
identification. They ignored us. I am alone. My husband left
a long time ago. How will I survive? I was a mazdoor (wage laborer).
In Harsud I paid 300 rupees rent. Here I have to pay 700. I have
been using the compensation money to live. It will run out very
soon. After that?"
RJ: Was what happened to Harsud unusual?
AC: The surrounding villages also are devastated. In Barud half
the village is waiting to sink during these monsoons, with the
rest taken apart by a railway line that was shifted due to the
submergence. Residents have been told that they are not entitled
to land compensation. In Jhinghad, people were informed that
the village would partially submerge. Half its residents were
ordered out, many others left in fear. We stopped at Bangarda
and visited a man whose house caved, injuring and leaving him
bedridden. A woman said that she contemplates suicide. A Gond
adivasi elder said: "I am landless, so they said they are
not responsible. My sons are far away. I am old and very poor.
My wife passed away. They have given me nothing." So many
faces etched with anger and sadness. Parbati Bai's voice echoes:
"There is no future here; we are living out our days, focused
on survival. The Narmada gave us life; they have turned her against
us."
National dreams and global capital have created incredible suffering
and destroyed not just human life, not just part of our cultural
heritage, but also the natural heritage of the Valley. It is
cruel and criminal. We drove to Purni, beyond which the land
is engulfed by an infinite stretch of gloomy water. Narmada Sagar
exemplifies the violence of nation-making in India today -- a
demonic, calculated rush for homogenized, unsustainable futures.
This is what cultural genocide looks like.
RJ: Is the movement to resist these dam projects essentially
over?
AC: No. The Narmada Bachao Andolan continues mobilizing people
to dissent. The Narmada people and allied activists hold the
struggle together in its diversity. Their work is incomprehensible
to most of us. In 1991, Medha Patkar undertook a 21-day fast.
In Maan, one of the 30 large dams, Ram Kunwar, Chittaroopa Palit,
Vinod Patwa and Mangat Verma assumed a 29-day hunger strike in
2002. In Sardar Sarovar, Medha and other activists continue unrelenting
resistance. In Narmada Sagar, Chittaroopa Palit and Alok Agarwal
travel from village through devastated village, day after long
day, seeking to collectivize the struggle. It is an unyielding
commitment to justice, to holding the state accountable. Chittaroopa
emphasizes that the right to life here is linked intimately to
the right to land, to the survival of cropping patterns, water
rights, food and shelter. Land is critical to the capacity of
these cultures to endure.
These are desperate times in the Valley. But that is testimony
to the failure of the state, not the movement. As we left Khandwa,
the echo of, "Hum sabh ek hein" (We are all one) and
"Jete raho, sangharsh karo" (Keep living, continue
struggling) followed us. The resistance lives. As with any struggle
against institutionalized power, there is no quick fix.
RJ: What can people do?
AC: Visit the Valley, if you are able. Be in solidarity. Protest
if your city has invested in World Bank bonds. The
Friends of River Narmada and the Association
for India's Development list actions available to us.
RJ: What would you say to people who ask why we should continue
to have hope?
The Indian state acts with impunity, replacing the British imperial
colonizer, inheriting and regularizing injustice. Conditions
of inequity fuel social suffering across India, disproportionately
acted out on the bodies of women, adivasis and disenfranchised
caste groups. Why we should hope in the face of that? Because
we must. The struggles for justice across the world that link
us together are the only means to produce equity. Freedom is
an ongoing practice, something we work for.
Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University
of Texas at Austin and the author of "Citizens of the Empire:
The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity" from City Lights Books.
He can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu.
Weekend
Edition Features for August 7 / 8, 2004
James Petras
The
Anatomy of "Terror Experts": Meet the Mandarins of
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Fred Gardner
Run
Ricky Run: Football, Pot and Pain
Justin Delacour
Anti-Chavez Pollsters Panic: Fix Numbers; Reinvent Venezuela
Brian Cloughley
Persecuted by All; Supported by None: Who Would Be A Kurd?
Joshua Frank
The
Outsider: a Talk with Ralph Nader
Iain A. Boal
On "Shame": Warmed-Over Orientalism and Racist Projection
Chris Floyd
All About Eve: Open Season on Women in DC and Rome
Andrew Fenton
Fighting for Democracy and Justice in Haiti
Aseem Shrivastava
Saga of an Anguished Afghan
Neil Corbett
See Cuba: Sometimes a Cigar is Just a Cigar, Mr. Bush
Carol Miller
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Rigged Convention; Divided Party: How David Cobb Won with Only
12% of the Vote
Tarek Milleron
Breaking the Principled Voter
Donald Macintyre
The
Battle of Najaf
Ron Jacobs
Spirits of The Dead: Why I Love My Petty Bourgeois Tendencies
Mickey Z.
Kid
Gavilan's Grave: Propaganda Scores a TKO
Poets' Basement
Adler, Ford and Albert
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