The day of judgement
The Supreme Court of India found against The People, in favour of The Dam. Maggie Black opens her dossier on destructive development in the Narmada Valley.

They only ‘hold pen’
Official indifference to the plight of dam oustees is breathtaking. First stop: Bargi, near the Narmada River’s source.

A temple
too far
‘We do not want the dam.’ And so far, the people are winning. Second stop: Maheshwar.

NARMADA – THE FACTS
The river, 30 dams, and the Narmada
Bachao Andolan (Save Narmada movement).

Not even a fig-leaf of legality
The Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh has ordered the violation of his own state laws and policies. Third stop: Maan.

Resettled by registered mail
If you receive a letter by registered mail offering you a useless piece of land, the authorities regard you as resettled. Fourth stop: Domkhedi.

At the end of the line
The Sardar Sarovar dam is supposed to end water scarcity in drought-stricken Saurashtra and Kutch. Who is fooling whom? Fifth and final stop.

Artist Lucy Willis, who drew and painted in Narmada for NI, has painted extensively in India, and in Egypt, Senegal, Morocco, Yemen and Zanzibar. She won the 1992 BP Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery, London.
She has a website: www.lucywillis.f9.co.uk
and is represented by the Curwen Gallery, London.

Pergau, Narmada, Ilisu – so much big dam controversy that a World Commission on Dams was set up to sort it out. I was hired to write their report. So I went to Narmada, privately, to see what the fuss was about. An artist friend, Lucy Willis, came too.

People’s determined resistance to dams in the Narmada Valley is truly amazing – and it’s their voices the magazine is a platform for, not mine, not Lucy’s. I don’t have a particular axe to grind about large dams – though I doubt the World Commission believed this. I don’t actually think that a body with a ‘world’ remit is likely to be very useful, as if generic statements about dams – or power stations, roads, or most things – can be universally valid.

What is happening in Narmada is a gross injustice against millions of people, perpetrated in the name of ‘development’. That’s what matters here. A concept about the advance of human society and its poorest members has been appropriated by vested interests to promote their own agenda. Does this happen elsewhere? Yes.

In the end I didn’t write the Commission report. Instead, I wrote this. I hope, after reading it, that you’ll want to get involved – even go to Narmada – too.

Maggie Black
for the New Internationalist
Co-operative
maggie@black.win-uk.net