Mishal Husain:
But don't the people in the drought-stricken villages, some of which we saw, have an equal right to their way of life being preserved in those villages which now have no water as Luharia does to his way of living?
Arundhati Roy:
Yes, they do. And so they should be fighting the processes that create that drought in their villages, which is contractors clear-felling mangrove forests which is the chaotic exploitation of ground water. The fact that there are rivers so much closer to Kutch and Sarashtra than the Narmada and their waters have been dammed and taken elsewhere. So Luharia must pay the price for that? And the other thing is you take a state like Rajasthan, it is a desert state. It is a state which has a civilization that has been used to living in that ecology. Suddenly you take the India/Gandhi Canal there and say, "Now, you can grow rice." You're destroying something there, and then saying, you have an equal right to grow rice in Rajasthan as the people in Kerala have to go grow rice there. Is that true? We have learned to live within our ecologies and within our eco-systems. So it's not just that the Indian government built big dams, but also destroyed traditional water-housing systems.
Mishal Husain:
But in that way, you sound as if you are anti-development and that you want the status quo in all these places to remain?
Arundhati Roy:
No, I don't. But I'm just saying that when it comes to the poorest people, when it comes to Luharia, you're prepared to say that Luharia must pay the price for people in Kutch to have water. But you're not prepared to say that Bilash should give up all his money and distribute it for water-housing systems in Kutch or that Reliance should clean its bank account and distribute it to the drought-prone areas in Sarashtra...
Mishal Husain:
The big industrialists.
Arundhati Roy:
Yes, you're not prepared to say that. But when it comes to the poorest people, yes, of course, they must pay the price for the greater common good, you know?
Mishal Husain:
Some of the critics of the movement that you're a part of have said that activists like yourself have forgotten the famine that India suffered in the 40s and the problems that India had in food security and that dams are a way to safeguard India's future and to make sure that it never suffers like that again.
Arundhati Roy:
Well, you know, I would buy that argument, if I could find a single study that supported it. And I would have thought that given that it was such a controversial subject and there's been such a big movement, there will be something to back that up. But in fact, there isn't a study that tells you that it is indeed big dams that have made India food self-sufficient. How much of that food comes from the mechanical exploitation of ground water, use of hybrid seeds, of chemical fertilizers? The only study that I know of was done by someone called Himanshu Patkar and presented to the World Commission on Dams. And it worked out that 12 percent of India's food grain production came from irrigation from big dams -- and 90 percent of the beg dams in India are irrigation dams. And oddly enough, the Ministry of Food and Civil Supply says that 10 percent of India's stock of food grain is eaten every year by rats, which is a non-statistic. So, the point is if this were not true or if this were contested, I would imagine that it's the government's responsibility to at least make that case. And even still, we're still talking about the fact that there are other alternative forms of irrigation. Like, say, in the Punjab, there was a canal system put in by the British well before the Bakra Dam was built. And you don't know what the Bakra contributed and what those canals contributed and of course the fact that the whole lot is water-logged or getting water-logged now.
Mishal Husain:
If we look at the reality of this situation of Luharia and his community, clearly there are big issues with the quality of lands that they would receive in compensation. What do you think of cash compensation? Is that something that you think could be adequate?
Arundhati Roy:
Well, look, the issue of land for land is something that even the Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal specified in its rehabilitation policy -- that you must give them land for land. Now the point is if you're not going to give them land for land, then the government is trying to distribute cash to some people, especially in order to break the movement, to some and not to others and so on. And obviously now if the choice is between giving nothing and getting cash, it's better to get cash. But it isn't right. It isn't fair. And especially in the case of the Adivasi community, we must remember that the Adivasis, it's not like the women own the land. So, what happens is that the cash compensation is given to the men. The women are left with nothing. These are not communities that live in a market economy. Within a year, that money is drunk away in some squatter settlement in the edge of some big city. And it's over. So, is that a fair deal? I don't know. Maybe it's better to drink yourself into oblivion for a year than not. I don't know.
Mishal Husain:
But the government's argument would be if that money is going to be misspent, that's not the government's fault.
Arundhati Roy:
Yes, it isn't. But you know the point is that it is the government's policy to give land for land primarily is because this is not a community that traditionally deals with money. And on what basis are you giving that money to the men or to the head of the family? It's a way of destroying a community. Now, the government can argue what it wants. They know that this is the way and this is what will happen. So, for us to sit and discuss whether it's fair or not is irrelevant in a way. I mean presumably it's better that they get some money than they just get kicked out with nothing at all. But you know it's illegal. The point is that the Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal is on power par with the Supreme Court, and it is illegal, what is being done.
Mishal Husain:
Now, you rose to fame as a writer of fiction, as a novelist. And today, you speak out on a range of political issues. How does that balance feel to you? The difference between being an artist and now in effect being a political figure?
Arundhati Roy:
Oh, precarious and difficult. I've often said that the fiction dances out of me, and the political writing is wrenched out by what I think is a world in turmoil right now and a world where something in me seeks to intervene urgently and the noise in my head doesn't stop. But I hope that it won't be a permanent condition.
Mishal Husain:
Clearly, you have immense power when you choose to become involved with issues and in terms of the attention they then receive. Are there responsibilities that go along with that?
Arundhati Roy:
Well, I guess the responsibility is to know what you're doing. The responsibility is to understand that I'm not an actress or a football star that's endorsing a cause. I'm a player. I'm making the argument. And I better know it -- otherwise it would be damaging, if I didn't. If I was going there as a bleeding heart endorsing some cause that I didn't fully understand, I could do more harm than good. So, I suppose that is a kind of responsibility. And beyond that, does art have a responsibility, an inherent responsibility. But part of it is to remain a free-thinker, to remain somebody who says what they believe in and who's prepared to conceded a point if you think that it should be conceded and to stick to your guns if you think you should do that.
Mishal Husain:
And why this cause?
Arundhati Roy:
Which one?
Mishal Husain:
This Narmada cause.
Arundhati Roy:
Like I said, I think it is the key to understanding the modern world in all its complexity. So I think to me it-- it formed the bedrock of understanding much of the tumultuous politics of the world today.
Mishal Husain:
Someone say that you have a slightly romanticized vision of the issue, of keeping all of that intact.
Arundhati Roy:
The one thing that I can't be accused of is having a romanticized notion of village life. Because I grew up in a village and I'm fully aware of the brutality of village life in India. I dreamed of escaping. I prayed every day that I wouldn't be stuck there. So that I am in no doubt about. And you know, if I have romanticized anything it's the anonymity of a big city. For an Indian woman certainly it provides shelter. No, I have nothing against romance. I believe that we must hold on to the right to dream and to be romantic. But an Indian village is not something that I would romanticize that easily.
Mishal Husain:
Is it not possible then that the next generation, say Luharia's children, might have a better life if they do end up in an urban area.
Arundhati Roy:
They might. They might not. But that has nothing to do with putting a gun to his head and saying, "We're going to drown you." Nobody drowned me out of my village. There's a difference between forced displacement and migration.
Mishal Husain:
Are you going to stay involved with the cause of the Narmada Valley?
Arundhati Roy:
I don't look at these things as something as huge as this as a cause. For me, it's a kind of politics. It's a way of seeing the world. And when I go to the valley, I often say, look, it's not my land or my farm that's being drowned. But if a farmer has land, a writer has a world view, and that's what's being submerged. So, it's not a cause or a badge that I wear on my coat. Obviously, it's a kind of politics. It's a kind of way of seeing. And you know it was a way of seeing that evolved from long ago and will continue to evolve and mature, I hope, as one goes on. So it's not like you pick this cause up and then chuck it and pick another one and then chuck it. It's not like that. It informs everything that one does and the way one thinks. And it informs everything about me.
Mishal Husain:
Arundhati, thanks very much for joining us.
Arundhati Roy:
You're welcome.
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