The End of Imagination

  Besides McCully, Silenced Rivers, see the CSE’s State of India’s Environment, 1999, 1985, and 1982; Nicholas Hildyard and Edward Goldsmith, 1984, The Social and Environmental Impacts of Large Dams (Cornwall, UK: Wadebridge Ecological Centre, 1984); Satyajit Singh, Taming the Waters: The Political Economy of Large Dams (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997); World Bank, India: Irrigation Sector Review (1991); and Anthony H. J. Dorcey, ed., Large Dams: Learning from the Past, Looking to the Future (1997).

  Mihir Shah, Debashis Banerji, P. S. Vijayshankar, and Pramathesh Ambasta, India’s Drylands: Tribal Societies and Development through Environmental Regeneration (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), 51–103.

  Ann Danaiya Usher, Dams as Aid: A Political Anatomy of Nordic Development Thinking (London: Routledge, 1997).

  $1 US = Rs 43.35. A crore is 10 million. Equal to Rs 2,200,000 crore, at constant 1996–97 prices.

  D. K. Mishra and R. Rangachari, The Embankment Trap and Some Disturbing Questions, Seminar 478 (June 1999), 46–48 and 62–63, respectively; CSE, Floods, Floodplains and Environmental Myths.

  Shah et al., India’s Drylands, 51–103.

  Singh, Taming the Waters, 188–90; also, government of India (GOI) figures for actual displacement.

  At a January 21, 1999, meeting in New Delhi organized by the Union Ministry of Rural Areas and Employment, for discussions on the draft National Resettlement and Rehabilitation Policy and the amendment to the draft Land Acquisition Act.

  Bradford Morse and Thomas Berger, Sardar Sarovar: The Report of the Independent Review (Ottawa: Resource Futures International [RFI], 1992), 62.

  GOI, 28th and 29th Report of the Commissioner for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes [New Delhi, 1988–89].

  Indian Express (New Delhi), April 10, 1999, front page.

  GOI, Ninth Five Year Plan, 1997–2002 (1999), 2:437.

  Siddharth Dube, Words like Freedom (New Delhi: Harper Collins, 1998); Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy, 1996. See also World Bank Poverty Update, quoted in Business Line, June 4, 1999.

  National Human Rights Commission, Report of the Visit of the Official Team of the NHRC to the Scarcity Affected Areas of Orissa, December 1996.

  GOI, Award of the Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal, 1978–79.

  GOI, Report of the FMG-2 on SSP (1995); also see various affidavits of the goverment of India and government of Madhya Pradesh before the Supreme Court of India, 1994–98.

  Central Water Commission, Monthly Observed Flows of the Narmada at Garudeshwar (New Delhi: Hydrology Studies Organisation, Central Water Commission, 1992).

  Written Submission on Behalf of Union of India, February 1999, p. 7, clause 1.7.

  Tigerlink News 5, no. 2 (June 1999): 28.

  World Bank Annual Reports, 1993–98.

  McCully, Silenced Rivers, 274.

  Ibid., 21. The World Bank started funding dams in China in 1984. Since then it has lent around $3.4 billion (not adjusted for inflation) to finance thirteen Big Dams that will cause the displacement of 360,000 people. The centerpiece of the World Bank’s dam financing in China is the Xiaolangdi dam on the Yellow River, which will singlehandedly displace 181,000 people.

  Ibid., 278.

  J. Vidal and N. Cumming-Bruce, “The Curse of Pergau,” Economist, March 5, 1994; “Dam Price Jumped 81 Million Pounds Days after Deal,” Guardian, January 19, 1994; “Whitehall Must Not Escape Scot Free,” Guardian, February 12, 1994; quoted in McCully, Silenced Rivers, 291.

  McCully, Silenced Rivers, 62.

  For example, see Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam (SSNNL), Planning for Prosperity (1989); Babubhai J. Patel, Progressing amidst Challenges (1992); C. C. Patel, SSP, What It Is and What It Is Not (1991); and P. A. Raj, Facts: Sardar Sarovar Project (Gujarat: Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam, 1989, 1990, 1991 editions).

  Ibid.; also Rahul Ram, Muddy Waters: A Critical Assessment of the Benefits of the Sardar Sarovar Project (New Delhi: Kalpavriksh, 1993).

  Morse and Berger, Sardar Sarovar, 319. According to official statistics (Narmada Control Authority, Benefits to Saurashtra and Kutch Areas in Gujarat [Indore: NCA, 1992]), 948 villages in Kutch and 4,877 villages in Saurashtra are to get drinking water from the Sardar Sarovar Projects. However, according to the 1981 census there are only 887 inhabited villages in Kutch and 4,727 villages in the whole of Saurashtra. The planners had simply hoovered up the names of villages from a map, thereby including the names of 211 deserted villages! Cited in Ram, Muddy Waters.

  For example, the minutes of the various meetings of the Rehabilitation and Resettlement subgroups of the Narmada Control Authority, 1998–99. Also, Morse and Berger, Sardar Sarovar, 51.

  Ram, Muddy Waters, 34.

  See for example, the petition filed by the NBA in the Supreme Court, 1994.

  SSNNL, Planning for Prosperity; government of Gujarat.

  S. Dharmadhikary, “Hydropower at Sardar Sarovar: Is It Necessary, Justified, and Affordable?” in Towards Sustainable Development? Struggling over India’s Narmada River, ed. William F. Fisher (Armonk, NY: M. F. Sharpe, 1995), 141.

  McCully, Silenced Rivers, 87.

  Ibid., 185.

  World Bank, Resettlement and Development: The Bankwide Review of Projects Involving Resettlement 1986–1993 (Washington, DC, 1994).

  World Bank, Resettlement and Rehabilitation of India: A Status Update of Projects Involving Involuntary Resettlement (Washington, DC, 1994).

  Ibid.

  Letter to the president in Morse and Berger, Sardar Sarovar, xii, xxiv, xxv.

  Morse and Berger, Sardar Sarovar, xxv.

  Minimum conditions included unfinished appraisal of social and environmental impacts. For details, see Lori Udall, “The International Narmada Campaign,” in Toward Sustainable Development? Struggling over India’s Narmada River, ed. William F. Fisher (Armonk, NY: M. F. Sharpe, 1995); Patrick McCully, “Cracks in the Dam: The World Bank in India,” Multinational Monitor, December 1992, http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/hyper/issues/1992/12/mm1292_08.html.

  See the letter from the GOI to the World Bank, March 29, 1993; press release of the World Bank dated March 30, 1993, a copy of which can be found in the campaign information package of International Rivers Network, Narmada Valley Development Project 1 (August 1998).

  The date was November 14, 1992. Venue: outside the Taj Mahal Hotel, Bombay, where Lewis Preston, president of the World Bank, was staying. See Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, Unacceptable Means: India’s Sardar Sarovar Project and Violations of Human Rights: Oct. 1992–Feb. 1993, 10–12.

  On the night of March 20, 1994, the NBA Office at Baroda was attacked by hoodlums simply because of a (baseless) rumor that one member of the Five Member Group Committee was sitting inside with members of the NBA. Some NBA activists were manhandled, and a large collection of NBA documents was burned and destroyed.

  Ministry of Water Resources, GOI, Report of the Five Member Group on Sardar Sarovar Project, 1994.

  Writ Petition 319 of 1994 argued that the Sardar Sarovar Projects violated the fundamental rights of those affected by the project and that the project was not viable on social, environmental, technical (including seismic and hydrological), financial, or economic grounds. The Writ Petition asked for a comprehensive review of the project, pending which construction on the project should cease.

  Frontline, January 27, 1995, and January 21, 1995.

  In January 1995 the Supreme Court took on record the statement of the Counsel for the Union of India that no further work on the Sardar Sarovar dam would be done without informing the Court in advance. On May 4, 1995, the Court allowed construction of “humps” on the dam, on the plea of the Union of India that they were required for reasons of safety. The Court, however, reiterated its
order of January 1995 that no further construction will be done without the express permission of the Court.

  Report of the Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal with Its Decision (1979), 2:102; cited in Morse and Berger, Sardar Sarovar, 250.

  Morse and Berger, Sardar Sarovar, 323–29.

  Raj, Facts: Sardar Sarovar Project.

  Medha Patkar, “The Struggle for Participation and Justice: A Historical Narrative,” in Toward Sustainable Development? Struggling over India’s Narmada River, ed. William F. Fisher (Armonk, NY: M. F. Sharpe, 1995), 159–78; S. Parasuraman, “The Anti-Dam Movement and Rehabilitation Policy,” in The Dam and the Nation, edited by Jean Drèze, Meera Samson, and Satyajit Singh (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 26–65; and minutes of various meetings of the R & R subgroup of the Narmada Control Authority.

  On my visit to the valley in March 1999, I was told this by villagers at Mokhdi who had returned from their resettlement colonies.

  Kaise Jeebo Re, documentary film directed by Anurag Singh and Jharana Jhaveri, Jan Madhyam, 1997; also, unedited footage in the NBA archives.

  Letter to Independent Review from a resident of Parveta resettlement colony, cited in https://www.facebook.com/attn/videos/1006281599407299/159-160.

  Narmada Manavadhikar Yatra, which traveled from the Narmada Valley to Delhi via Bombay. It reached Delhi on April 7, 1999.

  Told to me by Mohan Bhai Tadvi, in Kevadia Colony, March 1999.

  Morse and Berger, Sardar Sarovar, 89–94; NBA interviews, March 1999.

  NBA interviews, March 1999.

  Morse and Berger, Sardar Sarovar, 277–94.

  McCully, Silenced Rivers, 46–49.

  For a discussion on the subject, see the World Bank, India Irrigation Sector Review (1991); A. Vaidyanathan, Food, Agriculture and Water (Madras: MIDS, 1994); and McCully, Silenced Rivers, 182–207.

  World Bank, India Irrigation Sector Review, 2:7.

  Cited in McCully, Silenced Rivers, 187.

  Shaheen Rafi Khan, “The Kalabagh Controversy” (Pakistan, 1998), http://www

  .sanalist.org/kalabagh/a-14.htm; E. Goldsmith, “Learning to Live with Nature: The Lessons of Traditional Irrigation,” Ecologist 6, no. 5 (September–October 1998).

  Shah et al., India’s Drylands, 51; also in Goldsmith, “Learning to Live with Nature.”

  Operations Research Group (ORG), Critical Zones in Narmada Command: Problems and Prospects (Baroda, 1981); ORG, Regionalisation of Narmada Command (Gandhinagar, 1982); World Bank, Staff Appraisal Report, India, Narmada River Development—Gujarat, Water Delivery and Drainage Project, Report 5108-IN (1985); Core Consultants, Main Report: Narmada Mahi Doab Drainage Study, commissioned by Narmada Planning Group, government of Gujarat (1985).

  Robert Wade, “Greening the Bank: The Struggle over the Environment, 1970–1995,” in The World Bank: Its First Half Century, ed. Devesh Kapur, John P. Lewis, and Richard Webb (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1997), 661–62.

  Khan, “Kalabagh Controversy.”

  CES, Pre-feasibility Level Drainage Study for SSP Command beyond River Mahi (New Delhi: CES Water Resources Development and Management Consultancy for government of Gujarat, 1992).

  Rahul Ram, “The Best-Laid Plans . . . ,” Frontline, July 14, 1995, 78.

  Core Consultants, Main Report, 66.

  Ibid.

  For example, see GOI, Report of the FMG-2; or Ram, “Best-Laid Plans.”

  Called the Economic Regeneration Programme, formulated to generate funds for the cash-strapped Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam. Under the program, land along the main canal of the Narmada Project will be acquired and sold for tourist facilities, hotels, water parks, fun world sites, garden restaurants, etc. Cf. Times of India (Ahmedabad), May 17, 1998.

  World Bank, India Irrigation Sector Review.

  Written Submissions on Behalf of the Petitioners (NBA) in the Supreme Court, January 1999, 63; Times of India (Ahmedabad), May 23, 1999.

  Ismail Serageldin, 1994, Water Supply, Sanitation and Environmental Sustainability (Washington, DC: World Bank, 1994), 4.

  Morse and Berger, Sardar Sarovar, xxiii.

  Ibid., 317–19.

  McCully, Silenced Rivers, 167.

  7. Power Politics: The Reincarnation of Rumpelstiltskin

  Stephen Fidler and Khozem Merchant, “US, India Announce Deals of Dollars 4bn,” Financial Times, March 25, 2000, 10.

  Peter Popham, “Clinton’s Visit Seals Future for Controversial Indian Dam,” Independent, March 28, 2000, 16; “S. Kumars Ties Up with Ogden for MP Project,” Economic Times of India, December 14, 1999.

  See 119–20, above; World Commission on Dams, Dams and Development: A New Framework for Decision-Making—The Report of the World Commission on Dams (London: Earthscan, 2000), 117 (hereafter WCD Report); Steven A. Brandt and Fekri Hassan, “Dams and Cultural Heritage Management: Final Report—August 2000,” WCD Working Paper, http://www.dams.org/docs/html

  /contrib/soc212.htm; and WCD, “Flooded Fortunes: Dams and Cultural Heritage Management,” press release, September 26, 2000. See also “Do or Die: The People versus Development in the Narmada Valley,” New Internationalist 336 (July 2001), http://newint.org/issues/2001/07/01/; documentation at the Friends of the River Narmada site, http://www.narmada.org/nvdp.dams/.

  Second World Water Forum: From Vision to Action, The Hague, March 17–22, 2000.

  One billion people in the world have no access to safe drinking water: United Nations Development Program, Human Development Report 2000: Human Rights and Human Development (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 4 (hereafter UNDP 2000).

  See chapter 8, note 5, above.

  “Bolivian Water Plan Dropped after Protests Turn into Melees,” New York Times, April 11, 2000.

  “Develop Infrastructure to Cope with Digital Revolution: John Welch,” Hindu, September 17, 2000; “Welch Makes a Power Point,” Economic Times of India, September 17, 2000.

  World Resource Institute, World Resources 1998–1999 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 251; UNDP 2000, table 4, Human Poverty in Developing Countries, 170.

  Peter Marsh, “Big Four Lead the Field in Power Stakes: The Main Players,” Financial Times, June 4, 2001, 2.

  US Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration, International Energy Outlook 1998, Electricity Report (DOE/EIA-0484[98]), http://www.eia

  .doe.gov/oiaf/archive/ieo98/elec.html.

  “India: Bharat Heavy Electricals–GE’s Refurbishment Centre,” Hindu, March 17, 2001; “BHEL Net Rises 10% to Rs 599 Crore,” Economic Times of India, September 30, 2000.

  Abhay Mehta, Power Play: A Study of the Enron Project (Hyderabad, India: Orient Longman, 2000), 15; Irfan Aziz, “The Supreme Court Upheld the Ruling That the Jain Diary Constituted Insufficient Evidence,” Rediff.com, July 22, 2000, http://www.rediff.com/news/2000/jul/22spec.htm; and Ritu Sarin, “Ex-CBI Official Accuses Vijaya Rama Rao,” Financial Express, May 11, 1997.

  See figures in “Clinton’s India Sojourn: Industry Hopes Doubling of FDI, Better Access to US Markets,” DHAN.com News Track, March 27, 2000; and George Pickart (senior adviser, Bureau for South Asian Affairs), “Address to the Network of South Asian Professionals,” Washington, DC, August 9, 1997 http://www.indiainc.org.in/h0809971.htm.

  P. R. Kumaramangalam, speech at the Conference of the Power Minister of India, March 2, 2000. See also “India: Power Problems,” Business Line, June 21, 2000.

  Ritu Sarin, “Disappearing Power,” Indian Express, March 28, 2000. Hereafter Sarin, “Disappearing Power.”

  Neeraj Mishra, “Megawatt Thieves,” Outlook, July 31, 2000, 54; Sarin, “Disappearing Power”; “India: Power Problems,” Business Line, June 21, 2000; Louise Lucas, “Survey—India: Delays and Bur
eaucracy Force Investors to Flee: Power,” Financial Times, November 6, 2000; and “India’s Power Generation to Increase over Next 3 Years: Minister,” Asia Pulse, April 27, 2001.

  Sarin, “Disappearing Power”; “Red Tape and Blue Sparks,” Economist 359, no. 8224 (June 2–8, 2001); “A Survey of India’s Economy,” Economist 359, no. 8224 (June 2–8, 2001), 9–10; and Sunil Saraf, “At Last, the Selloff Gets Underway,” Survey—Power in Asia 1996, Financial Times, September 16, 1996, 5.

  Mehta, Power Play; Human Rights Watch, The Enron Corporation: Corporate Complicity in Human Rights Violations (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1999), https://www.hrw.org/report/1999/01/01/enron-corporation/corporate-complicity-human-rights-violations; Tony Allison, “Enron’s Eight-Year Power Struggle in India,” Asia Times Online, January 18, 2001, http://www.atimes.com/reports/CA13Ai01.html; Scott Baldauf, “Plug Pulled on Investment in India,” Christian Science Monitor, July 9, 2001, 9; S. N. Vasuki, “The Search for a Middle Ground,” Business Times (Singapore), August 6, 1993; Agence France-Presse, “Work to Start in December on India’s Largest Power Plant,” September 14, 1993; and Agence France-Presse, “Work on Enron Power Project to Resume on May 1,” February 23, 1996.

  Scott Neuman, “More Power Reviews Likely in India,” United Press International, August 5, 1995.

  Agence France-Presse, “India, Enron Deny Payoff Charges over Axed Project,” August 7, 1995, which acknowledges “a remark by an Enron official that the company spent 20 million dollars on ‘educating Indians’ about the controversial deal.”

  “Former US Amabassador to India Joins Enron Oil Board,” Asia Pulse, October 30, 1997; Girish Kuber, “US Delegation to Meet Ministers on Enron Row,” Economic Times of India, January 23, 2001; and Vijay Prashad, “The Power Elite: Enron and Frank Wisner,” People’s Democracy, November 16, 1997.