A Road to the River
Varna Sri Raman
A Journey for the Mind
Until very recently, one of the things that I was very proud of was my firm resolve about things. I could make a decision and stand by it, come what may. This was until recently. This firm belief in my capacities arose perhaps from being able to come through trying times fairly unscathed.
It is not so anymore.
My capacity to stick by what I think is right and to act upon it by itself remains unchanged — if anything, it has only grown in strength. It has, though, seen resolves far greater than itself, and the feeling of being small in comparison is perhaps what has widened the many avenues I now see.
Twelve days is a short time in a city. It is even shorter in the Narmada Valley. Northwest India is not entirely new to me. But then again, I didn’t go to northwest India. I went to the people. I have always found myself getting lost in labyrinths of thought. My visit to Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat didn’t quite give me enough time to start walking down unexplored paths of unasked and unanswered philosophies of life. Now would be a very good time to tell you about where I went and why I went where I went. I had set out on a journey to see a contemporary people’s struggle.
It so happened that this place was the Narmada Valley. Narmada’s waters are meant to alleviate the suffering of people in drought-prone regions of Kutch and Saurashtra through 3,000 dams, small and big. A very noble thought from any angle and as the wife of the CM of Gujarat said, “The affected people MUST sacrifice to bring about development and equality to others in the country.”
What they haven’t told you is this: A dam has a life. The Sardar Sarovar Project and almost every other dam forming the extensive canal network will last little over 25 years, after which they will cease to work due to natural silt accumulation. The construction of these dams will take 25 years. So, when will the water reach the people? Never.
The Narmada Tribunal has said that a villager must get land for land; the governments in question have no land to give them. The governments can afford to give the aadivaasi stones and a thin layer of black soil as compensation — where will the crops grow? The governments must substitute peoples’ means of livelihood — so land for land to the farmer. But where will they get water and fish for the Kewats, the local fishing community? The government wants to build dams for irrigation — by canals to lands that are undulating and do not require canal irrigation. Is someone listening?
We cannot ask what kind of development the government is attempting — when the area that requires power needs it during the summer months. The dam provides power when it rains. The government should not be questioned about its intentions when it cannot afford to pay Rs. 1.25 per unit of electricity. How will it pay Rs. 8 or even Rs. 32 per unit of the power that the dam generates?
The government wants the aadivaasi to leave his land and move to the city, where he will be a slum dweller, where the water he gets will be black as pith but that’s okay, he’ll be a ‘City Dweller’. That’s development, that’s globalisation. The aadivaasi won’t move. He’ll sit on his rightful land till the waters come and then he’ll die. That’s a crime, because in this country even killing oneself is a crime.
The government officials, the SMDs, the Collectors cannot speak against the system because they are a part of it, they maintain law and order. Their office is two kilometres away from the dam. They do the implementation and yet say, “We have no papers!” This is the ‘Information Age’.
“We’ve offered them paise ka muaavzaa (compensation in money).” What would an aadivaasi do with money? But that’s beside the point. The government should not be questioned. Not even if the price of one acre of land is Rs. 1 lakh and the aadivaasi has been given Rs. 10,000. Not even if the farmer who owned fifty acres of land, who grew his own food and lived his own life, became a beggar in the city because ‘he’, the ‘aadivaasi’, was not money-wise!
No, the government cannot be questioned on its application of the urgency clause. The government can acquire any piece of land it fancies within 48 hours without being questioned and that’s the law, so it’s okay. The government should not also be questioned on the time it has taken to build the dams. Three years became ten years and the tax-payer paid and paid and still pays for the rising cost of construction with his wages and his life. On paper, government schools have been running in 65 villages in the Valley for the past 15 years when in reality there is not even half that number.
Don’t get me wrong: I am not against dams, development or against providing drought-prone regions water per se. In fact, I am for dams and development.
A basic rainwater harvesting structure is a dam. It stops the natural run-off of rainwater and collects it. In the Narmada Valley too, groups of villages have got together and built small dams about 5 to 10 mts in height out of entirely natural substances like gravel and soil to facilitate ground water recharging. We saw wonderful micro-hydel projects, costing around Rs. 15,000 to install, where a small pool of water generates four hours of electricity for 17 houses per day. There are schools which obtain lighting through 11- watt CFL bulbs, pedalling on a cycle for 15 minutes to generate power for the next one hour.
This is development, this is technology used intelligently, rightfully called “appropriate technology.” This is where the purpose of my trip became obvious — alternatives. Development is necessary; there are few who deny this fact. There is available to us a plethora of technologies, resources and ideas. It remains for us to use our skills so as to empower and not cripple the mainstay of our economy — the agriculturalists.
The question is: Is there is an alternative way to solve our problems and satisfy our needs? Can we modify our lifestyle to accommodate the survival and contentment of all citizens of this nation equally? Can we tackle our problems in smaller proportions? Thirty five per cent of all the power produced in India is lost in transmission. Can we, for example, try and minimize this loss? Can we substitute 60 and 100-watt bulbs with CFL 11 watt lights in our cities, which will ensure enough power for the next 10 years.
Are we — you and I — willing to modify a little something about the way we live to accommodate those who feed us? Are we willing to acknowledge their presence and give them some dignity? Are we willing to let them know that we are not privileged people; we possess what we do because they have been denied.
When I set off from Chennai, I wasn’t looking to sample a struggle or observe village life. In fact, a theory which endorses “looking” at a struggle reminds me of a hypocrite who talks about loving animals but will not compromise on social stature and so wears mink fur.
In fact, there is nothing such as an unbiased location. The moment you take a location, you make a choice. Any and every choice is, without choice, biased. In being neutral you make a choice and that is your bias.
“We may not be participants in the planning but we are beneficiaries of the consequence.” If that is true, then it is high time we took responsibility of being that beneficiary and stopped reaping the benefits. There is that choice, and we should consciously recognize it and act.
One of the things fundamentally wrong with cities is that they tend to build around you an illusion so real that you almost start believing that to be the reality. For me going to a village, to the hills, forests or lakes is ‘going away’. I will enjoy it, marvel and feel most openly — but still it will be unnatural. I will still go ‘back’ to the city. The trouble is just that. We city dwellers tend to imagine the whole of India to be a big city — of whatever kind.
If you are a local bus traveler, you start expecting local buses and bus stops and tickets in the rest of India. If you are someone who lives in a palatial house, then you imagine the rest of India to be a city full of palatial houses. That is not so. In fact, there is a large part of India which is rural, where water is drawn out of wells and hand operated pumps, where there are mountains and jungles, and where boats are a means of transportation and not for luxury joyrides.
If asked, “Did you enjoy yourself? Was it a nice trip, fun?” I’d probably say no. The fact is that this wasn’t a “trip” in the conventional sense at all.
The fact is that I have realized how dangerous a consumerist attitude can be. This is why I refuse to call my visit a mere journey. Defining it that way, I would take away from it all the value and learning I gained. I don’t wish to reduce what I felt to a series of experiences tucked away in some comfortable corner of my brain, readily recollected when I feel the need to play the prophet. This is why I feel a compelling need to share with those not in the know. I say those not in the know because I am young and I still believe in the humane side of humanity. I believe that people who know will rise and make a difference, that there will be a day when people will not have to struggle for an identity and be labeled a class called ‘the faceless minds’.
We are all consumers, consumers of products, consumers of experiences and consumers of lives, and it is only in realizing that we are not the centre of the universe, that life does not begin and end with us that we can afford to call ourselves the educated.
Before I left for the Narmada, I had decided to take with me an open mind that will not be biased or opinioned in one way or the other, but which will allow me the freedom to look and comprehend. I had also asked myself a question, one that has been on my mind for a long time, to which I have not had an answer all these years; I still have not found the answer.
Who am I? A young articulate sixteen-year-old? A person who follows ideals, thoughts and people? A person defined by ever-convoluted relationships of friends and enemies, family and strangers? A city dweller, a paranoid soul, an indifferent, uncaring heart, an emotional, expressive yet superficial mould?
Many a times I stand in front of the mirror and laugh. I have always questioned rules and often bent and reshaped them. But then, I look and see that this different me is the same, because everybody is different and in the difference lies the similarity and in the similarity the difference… and I could go on in an endless rigmarole of words and seemingly philosophical thoughts till all that becomes hollow too. And so I dig and dig deeper and deeper through all the layers, scarping away all the social positions, the relationships, the dependencies, the money and the lack of it, the filth, the emptiness. Till I come upon something good and beautiful that I’m not ashamed or proud of in the correct context. Something about you and me that could vanish in moments like words writ on water.
My short visit to the Narmada Valley and meeting its people has done just that — helped me to find that one beautiful thing, a small start, a stepping stone, a foothold in the ladder of life. Never before have I found myself in a situation where the genuineness of my feeling — the pain, the joy, the fear in my tears — has so overwhelmed my articulation that I felt in boundless flight and yet felt chained, with enough space to move but not to gallop away to the clouds.
Never before have I come across a strikingly familiar face pushing me into an uncontrollable journey of memories that I have worked hard to leave behind and resolved never to remember again. Never have I witnessed so much love for anything, be it land or people, that I felt my heart would break because I just could not comprehend it. Never have I met so many unsung heroes and heroines whose every third word brought marvel to my thought and tears to my eyes. Never have I been struck by anybody’s simplicity as that of the people of the Narmada valley. They didn’t have to embark on a journey to a faraway land to find out who and what they were. They were happy, complete and honourable people. Such qualities are rare in people like me. I had come upon an alternative way to live, where I could attempt to look the common man in the eye without feeling ashamed and guilty. I had come upon my dignity, which lay in dignifying the existence of those who worked fifteen hours a day, so I could have an identity in a city built on their bones and thankless contributions.
For the first time I realized that globalisation is global in its impact, it deprives the remotest villager. Our symbols of prosperity — five star accommodation, colas, coffee, cars, branded clothing and snobbery — are symbols that signify poverty of every kind. Poverty of the soul, poverty of morals, poverty of strength, poverty of character, poverty of dignified livelihood, poverty of self-sustainable technologies, poverty of land, poverty of identity, poverty of respecting each other and each other’s culture, poverty of a dignified and unashamed existence.
I have realized the value of love and relationships. They can do things which seem impossible. I realize that criticism and cynicism is not the way to fight a system you dislike, because that is cowardice. You face the system. Join it and change it. I realize that real strength lies in being able to laugh through tears and from there is born the will to live and survive.
Most importantly, I realize that this privileged location which I possess is privileged only when it matters to those whom I have denied. Today, when I close my eyes, I can see the sun glinting on the Narmada, its waters silent yet loud, I can see the borders of two different states across a huge mass of water, with one people and their wish to live a dignified life.
