By ANNE McILROY
Southam News
BAMNI, India High in the dry, yellow hills above the
sacred Narmada River, 100 tribal villagers crouch under a shade
tree. They are waiting for the visitor to speak.
``My name is Tom Berger. I've come to find out how you
feel about leaving Bamni. I am are here to learn what you
think.''
The villagers stare at the former British Columbia
Court judge as a translator twists his loud, clear English into
the language of the Bhil, one of India's indigenous tongues. A
cow snorts. A baby starts to wail. The people don't break their
gaze.
This is the stranger they were told would come; a Canadian
they hope will stop construction of giant dam they have fought
most of their lives.
Its reservoir will submerge the hilltop where they now
sit and where their ancestors have lived for hundreds of years.
The blue-green waters, so clear and so swift in the valley below,
will swallow their crops and the woven huts that are the same
subtle shades as the earth.
Berger is here to do an independent review of the
Sardar Saravor dam one of the most controversial construction
projects in the world.
Already one-fifth complete, the dam will flood an
estimated 100,000 people out of their homes and create the
largest irrigation canal on the planet. The total Narmada project
entails more than 150 medium-sized dams and 3,000 small ones and
is expected to cost $11 billion.
Most of the people who live in the submergence area are
tribals India's little known indigenous people.
The World Bank is paying about 15 per cent of
approximately $6 billion needed for the Sardar Saravor dam. The
bank, already under fire for funding environmental and social
disasters in other countries, has bowed to pressure and appointed
an independent review panel to look into this one.
It is the first time that the largest donor agency in
the world has opened itself to outside scrutiny.
The bank's funding is crucial: Opponents of the dam
believe if it pulls out construction will stop.
Those who want the dam want it badly. They say it is a
lifeline for vast, parched stretches of Gujarat and the road to
the dam is plastered with slogans extolling its virtues.
Proponents say it will feed 20 million people now
plagued by famine, provide 15 billion gallons of water daily,
irrigate 11,000 square kilometres of land and generate 1,450
megawatts of electricity enough to power a industrial
revolution across the entire state of Gujarat.
Those opposed say it will be a catastrophe, ruining
forests, farmland and fertile valleys without delivering many of
the promised benefits. They say the environmental reviews of the
dam were flawed and that resettlement plans for thousands of
people are incomplete and underfunded. Even senior Indian
government officials have gone to court, fighting their own
administration to stop the project.
The Narmada is India's James Bay, but the fight against
the project has become much more than a fight against a dam. It
has become symbol in India for those opposed to ``development''
that helps the rich, hurts the poor and damages the environment.
Aided by environmental and social activists from the
cities, the tribals are engaged in an ugly, high profile battle
with the national and three state governments building the dam.
They have held giant rallies, endured police beatings
and last year refused to move from their homes even when waters
blocked by the incomplete dam rose near their doorsteps.
When the monsoon season hits in several months, they
say they will stay put, with their families, and drown.
``We know we have to fight this battle even if we
drown, because it dooms both the tribals and the nation,'' a
woman tells Berger, cursing continuously, although the
translator, blushing, says she doesn't know the equivalent
English swear words.
Berger listens to the woman, as he listened to the men
who spoke before her some wise, some witty, some angry.
``Our gods do not walk. We have to stay where he
lives,'' says one man, jumping to his feet and gesturing around
him.
Berger may be far from home, but he is in familiar
territory. In the mid '70s, he pioneered environmental assessment
in Canada when he travelled through the Western Arctic as head of
the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry.
It took more than two years, but he visited every
village affected by a proposal to build a pipeline and energy
corridor across lands claimed by native people. He also listened
extensively to the industry proposing the project, but eventually
recommended a 10-year moratorium on development.
It is a long way from Inuvik to Bamni, but
unbelievably, Berger's reputation proceeds him.
``We were very skeptical at first. But we looked into
Berger, we know about his inquiry into the Mee-keen-zee Valley,''
says Himanshu Thakkar, one of the leading activists in the Stop
the Narmada Movement.
Their office is in Baroda, a small but teeming city in
Gujarat, about two hours drive from the dam. Their attic office,
reached by climbing two sets of ladders, overlooks a street
stuffed with shops selling turnips, soccer balls, underwear and
tricycles.
There is a wedding below, and the revelers are letting
off fire crackers.
``It is good that they are here. BANG. The people in
the villages draw strength from it. BANG,'' says Medha Patkar, a
leader in the movement.
There is no question the review team is in explosive
territory: Imagine a team of foreigners coming to northern Quebec
to review James Bay 2.
Still every inch a judge, Berger says nothing that
reveals which way he is leaning. He is vice-chairman and will
write the final report with chairman Brad Morse, the former head
of the United Nations Development Program.
The two remaining members are Canadians, although the
team likes to play down nationalities.
Don Gamble, an expert in water issues from Ottawa, is
in charge of the environmental and technical side.
Hugh Brody, an anthropologist, film-maker and writer
who splits his time between Vancouver and Great Britain, is
handling the human side. Both men also worked on the Mackenzie
Valley inquiry, and find this task daunting and at times
overwhelming.
The team had only six months to carry out its review
a short time for an incredibly complex task.
The river flows through three states, through parched
highlands as well as fertile fields with huge, successful farms
with banana groves. One state, Gujarat, stands to benefit far
more than the two others Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra and
has a much more generous plan to compensate those who would lose
their homes.
Some people who have already given up land say they
were cheated by the government, or forced to live in cramped,
dirty shacks far removed from the lives they once knew. The
Indian press calls them the ``nowhere people.''
But not all of those who will be flooded out oppose the
project. Some people in Gujarat simply want to make sure they get
fair value for what they are losing.
And it is far from clear how much impact the review
team will have. The crown corporation building the dam doubts it
will change much.
``It doesn't matter what they say, we will go ahead,''
says chairman C.C. Patel.