Mishal Husain:
Can that really keep up with the projected increased demands? There's the fact that the demand for water is going to double in India in 20 years.
Arundhati Roy:
Well, today India produces, I think, 50 times more electricity than it did in 1947. So this is marked as a symbol of progress. But 65 percent of rural households don't have electricity. So by saying that the demand is going to double, so therefore we need to produce more and more electricity, or because the demand for water is going to double, we need to build more and more big dams -- doesn't address the issue of how do you use properly the projects that have already been done. How do you minimize transmission and distribution? How do you conserve the kinds of uses of water that you already have? None of this is being addressed. And often, you have one reason to justify these projects and then the benefits go to somebody else altogether, either the sugar farmers or to the big cities. Whereas when you actually make the projection for why you need this project, the reasons you give are something else altogether.
Mishal Husain:
One of the things we saw in the film were some of the drought stricken villages in Gujarat which are completely dependent on water arriving by tanker, which sometimes happens and sometimes doesn't. Now wouldn't life in those villages be transformed by even a limited water supply from a project like Narmada? In Kutch, when some of the water from the Narmada Valley started to rise, people were celebrating.
Arundhati Roy:
They were celebrating. And the point is that if you look at that particular thing, people ask me, "So, you said the water would never go to Kutch, but it has gone to Kutch." If a particular government decides to make a political point of something, you can take red wine by pipe to Kutch if you like, but is that sustainable? Make a huge project like this and then when the dam is empty and the hype that it's supposed to be at where water would reach Kutch if you like, but is that sustainable? If they do it for one month or two months, make it to the papers and then forget about it, that's a kind of charade that was carried out this year by the Modi government. But the point is what are you going to do with the rest of the 99.4 percent of agricultural land in Kutch? Water from the Narmada is not going to go there.
Mishal Husain:
But they're going to do something ...
Arundhati Roy:
No. What I'm saying is that you need to have sustainable local schemes. If you look at what was happening-- not this year because there's a huge monsoon this year, but last year and the year before, you have, say, three villages next to each other which are drought prone; one village where there's been local people getting together, using their initiative to do a rainwater harvesting scheme. And in that village, life is completely different from the next one and the next one, which are waiting for the government to do something for them.
Mishal Husain:
But can schemes like that really cope with the very extreme conditions that exist in so many parts of India, where people are alternatively in different seasons coping with drought and then with flooding? That's something that a dam could address. That kind of control.
Arundhati Roy:
No. That's something that, in fact, dams and embankments have made worse. If you look at a state like Bihar, you know, where traditionally the Gunga overflows during the monsoon and it floods huge areas. And then the water comes back and you have these plains of silt which are temporarily cultivated by farmers. So the government decided that oh, we need to prevent this flooding. And so they're going to build embankments along the river. And those embankments have created hell for people because what happens is that the water floods over, but it can't come back in because of the embankments. So the flood is permanent, you know, and the bottom of the river bed rises because the silt can't go out. It's only the water that goes out. So the floods are not even fertile. The silt is very fertile. And so you have these mass areas where people are just marooned all the year round. So the point is that you must try something. If it doesn't work, then be flexible enough to change instead of just pushing something that has created so much pain, that is so degrading to the environment. I mean, if you look at what is happening in the Punjab now, it's shocking. It's shocking.
Mishal Husain:
Let's just talk for a moment about displacement, something that's a key issue of what's happening in the Narmada Valley. Something that Luharia and his family are facing. It's heartbreaking to see people leaving their homes which they've lived in for centuries. But if you face reality, this is something which is not unique to the developing world. It happens in the West all the time when roads are built. there has been genocide.
Mishal Husain:
But there's always a price for progress.
Arundhati Roy:
Well, but it's negotiable, you know? You're not saying that because Luharia has to move his hut from here to there, we mustn't have the
dam. That's only one of the arguments. And you're not talking about one or two people. You're not talking about even 400,000 people. YouÕre talking about 35 million people. So you're talking about a kind of internal displacement that is on a massive scale. And therefore, you must look at alternatives.
Mishal Husain:
Isn't this a reality, something that one just has to face in the world that we live in?
Arundhati Roy:
Yes, but what kind of an argument is that? That's like you can say, oh, but for years in the history of the world,
Mishal Husain:
If the compensation scheme, if the resettlement was better, would you feel differently about the dam and the displacement?
Arundhati Roy:
Well, as I've said on many a time, displacement as far as I'm concerned is only one of the issues. Even if all the displaced people were given air-conditioned houses in the poshest colony in Delhi, I would still say the dams are inherently flawed and a very bad idea because of what they do to the ecosystem, the fact that they slowly made the command area completely unsustainable. So when I was telling you why I got interested in them, it was because of this -- not just one issue. You see the displacement has become a political issue because it's a motive issue. But the fact is that this is a very, very bad idea for 100 different reasons.
Mishal Husain:
But on the human level, when one looks at the human cost versus the human benefits and one looks at the numbers, as we've done, if the deal that was being offered to Luharia and other people in his community was better, would you feel a little less against the dam?
Arundhati Roy:
I don't know how to answer that because, you know, as I said, it's not something that I think is a good idea. The middle class in India often ask this question to you theoretically and you say, "But you know, the point is that it hasn't happened. It isn't possible. There isn't the land. This community cannot be resettled as a community." So what can I say to that? Theoretically, if everybody had been resettled as a community and if everything was perfect, and there was a God in heaven, everything would be okay. But they are playful questions, because ultimately like yesterday, you know, someone was asking me, "But you know, colonialism wasn't entirely bad." Of course there are benefits. There are, you know. But at the end, you balance things up and you decide whether to say yes or no and you decide which side you're on. And as far as I'm concerned, I don't think that big dams are a good idea at all, not even for the demands of a developing country because I think they destroy rivers in ways which eventually are totally unsustainable for a growing population like this.
Mishal Husain:
Do you think that Luharia's community, the Adivasis community, is easier to displace, easier to move around, or to play around with their lives?
Arundhati Roy:
Of course. Traditionally the Adivasis have been pushed, pushed, pushed, pushed, pushed until they found their places up in the hills. And they are the poorest and the poorest are the most vulnerable always at all times.
put it crudely. And they are fishermen, sand miners and people who don't really count as project affected because they don't have land. But they depend on the river for their livelihoods. So, in actual fact, of the 400,000 people who have been displaced, I think 57 percent are Dalits and Adivasis who are the poorest communities in India. And on the other side of the dam, the people who are displaced by the canals, the fishermen and so on, don't count as project affected at all. Many of them are also fisher folk an
Mishal Husain:
Who are the people who are most affected by the building of the dam?
Arundhati Roy:
Do you mean the Sardar Sarovar?
Mishal Husain:
Yes, in the Narmada Valley.
Arundhati Roy:
Well, the hilly parts that have been submerged, inhabited by Adivasis communities. And in the plains, it is more upper crust farmers, big farmers actually. And also Dalits who are known as the untouchable castes to d Adivasis who have been pushed out of forests to make wildlife sanctuaries and so on.
Mishal Husain:
So, both of these groups, would traditionally be those who are not that well represented in India?
Arundhati Roy:
Yes, the Adivasis and Dalits who are traditionally the victims of big dams are a very powerless and poor community.
Mishal Husain:
Would you say that-- that makes it easier to displace them?
Arundhati Roy:
Of course it does. I mean they are the easiest to push around. So, as I keep saying, it's almost as if you have an expense account. Somebody else pays the bills. And so it's much easier justify. And in India, the fact is that there are no sort of vertical social bolts that connect Adivasis and Dalits to, let's say, the communities that will be deciding to make or design projects like this. So, there's no social connection. They just slough off into the sea. It doesn't really matter. You don't really know them. They don't have names or faces or anything.
Mishal Husain:
And yet the government would say it's very committed to resettling them. They're being offered compensation. They're being offered land elsewhere. Do you not accept any of those arguments?
Arundhati Roy:
Well, you'll have to go and see the re-settlement colonies. You have to see the fact that when the Supreme Court gave its final judgment in 2000, the Madhya Pradesh government itself said that it had no land to give. Not a single acre of agricultural land has been given to a displaced person in Madhya Pradesh where 80 percent of the displaced people are. And it's against the decision of the Narmada tribunal that you should give cash compensation. It's illegal, because the deal is land for land. And here you have an affidavit by the Madhya Pradesh government in court saying we have no land. It was a decision by the tribunal that communities should be resettled as communities. Nineteen of the villages in Gujarat have been scattered in 175 locations.
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