Activist Medha Patkar
Medha Patkar, on a hunger fast in Delhi, has been forcibly taken by the police to a hospital some hours ago. Here’s a report on the website of Outlook magazine:
The Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) leader Medha Patkar had been on an indefinite hunger strike that had entered its eighth day. She had refused to take any food or receive medical treatment ever since she began her fast on March 29 to protest the government decision to raise the height of Sardar Sarovar dam, demanding rehabilitation of those displaced by the project, as per the Supreme Court directives. Her condition had been deteriorating. The doctors who last examined her had warned that the next 48 hours would be very critical for her. But she was determined this time not to break her fast on empty assurances.
To contact Narmada Bachao Aandolan, go here. To learn more, go here. These are contacts in the US. To write or call members of the Indian government, go here. (Let me add as an aside that, at the time of writing, you wouldn’t learn anything about Medha Patkar if you went to the website of the Times of India. All I managed to learn there was that the “actress Cameron Diaz won a court-battle to keep her topless photos out of the public eye.”) Here is an eye-witness account from Sunday.
Post-script:
The Outlook story makes mention of the fact that the ruling powers “panicked” in the face of the “public mobilization … in these post-Rang De Basanti times.” It is not the film, but the frail activist who is behind one of the most momentous political movements in India; and yet, I’m glad that Patkar’s life as well as her political goals should find help because of a Bollywood film. “Rang De Basanti” has touched a nerve. Last month, Somini Sengupta had written in a story in the New York Times about a protest over the acquittal of men accused in a murder:
For nearly two weeks, the Jessica Lall story has dominated Delhi’s newspapers and magazines, providing both a window on the world of the privileged and a morality tale about the perils of Indian justice. The latest issue of the newsmagazine The Week blazed on its cover: “How the Rich Get Away with Murder!”
A 24-hour news channel, NDTV, stepped well beyond news gathering to start a campaign urging viewers to petition for a new trial; in a matter of days, more than 200,000 cellphone text messages had poured in.
Indians have flocked into the streets for marches and rallies, including a candlelight vigil at the capital’s most famous monument, India Gate, that resembled a scene from a movie. That was because it was lifted from a scene from a recent Bollywood blockbuster called “Rang de Basanti,” about a group of Indian college students rising up against an inept state bureaucracy.
But isnt it pertinent here that the only protest they have allowed in many years near india gate is the vigil against jessica lal. I enjoyed range de basanti immensely as well, but I do find it difficult to see the middle class outrage against the politician bunch that the film and the j lal episode evokes and that the media and the courts gleefully fan, translating into support of a campaign against rural or urban displacement caused by the nature of India’s current economic development. To repeat, such sentiments in the media and courts are relentlessly anti-political
Comment by anuj — April 6, 2006 @ 6:26 pm
The Narmada dam thing is such a mess. The government has continued to claim that monetary reimbursments were appropriated to those being relocated while the people being relocated have claimed they have received little if any. In the midst of this “your word against mine” battle, the purpose of the Narmada dam (1)harbor monsoon driven rain water to generate electricity and (2)irrigate drought areas of Gujurat to reduce influx of rural population moving into cities is entirely forgotten.
NGO now sit around and celebrate their 20 years of fighting against the dam. Its rubbish really. Can’t the NGO, for all the money they have thrown in into organizing and raising awareness for the issue, themselves donated that money to the relocated masses? Talk about inefficiency: an NGO(essentially being run as a corporation with their work serving as marketing) is only prolonging the suffering of the relocated victims.
I KNOW, I am looking at it from a simplist viewpoint; however, the NGOs fighting Narmada dam have achieved nothing in the past 20 years and instead wasted resources which they could have donated to better the lives of those relocated.
Comment by Vikash Singh — April 7, 2006 @ 4:34 pm
Vikash Singh says: the purpose of the Narmada dam (1)harbor monsoon driven rain water to generate electricity and (2)irrigate drought areas of Gujurat to reduce influx of rural population moving into cities is entirely forgotten.
True, that “entirely forgotten.” Most of all by the supporters and cheerleaders of the dam.
For one thing, electricity was never the main reason for the Sardar Sarovar dam, and the electricity it is supposed to generate is a small and decreasing fraction of the benefits from it.
For another thing, if dam authorities truly want to “irrigate drought areas” of Gujarat, why are they not doing it right away? Why, for example, was it that the first major thing they did with Narmada water was to feed it into the dry Sabarmati River in Ahmedabad just before the December 2002 elections? Filling the Sabarmati was never part of the plans for the Sardar Sarovar.
As for “NGO”s donating money to “relocated masses” … there’s so much wrong here, I don’t know where to start. For one thing, there isn’t that kind of money. For another, this is hardly the job of a NGO. For a third, the Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal itself, while making plans for the dams in the late ’70s, specifically ruled out handing out money as compensation, observing that it tends to ruin the displaced people’s lives even more, and laid down that R&R should be land for land. (It’s a different matter that MP, for one, has announced that they have no land and are trying to change the NWDT Award to go back to cash).
I could go on, but perhaps I’ll do the shameless plug and ask you to take a look at my book The Narmada Dammed.
Comment by Dilip D — April 10, 2006 @ 4:48 am