Dams, Development and Dispossesion

1. Dams, Development and Dispossesion Dr SupriyaAkerkar

2. In this lecture... • Explore paradigms of development using building of big dams as a case study. • Focus on SardarSarovar and other dams built on Narmada river in India • Ethical questions asked about development by anti Narmada dam struggle • Nature of alternatives represented by anti Narmada trans-national struggle alliance

3. Dams and Development • During the 20th century, large dams symbolic of modernization, economic progress and management of water resources. • There are more than 45 000 large dams around the world. Current estimates suggest that some 30–40% of irrigated land worldwide now relies on dams • Dams generate 19% of world electricity source: Dams and Development: The report of world commission on dams, 2000 Picture: Three Gorges Dam, China http://www.universetoday.com/65498/pictures-of-dams/

4. The big dam debate • Are big dams necessary for development? • What do you think?

5. "Dams are the Temples of Modern India“ • Jawarharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister

6. Dams and Development • Dams were built to provide water for irrigated agriculture, domestic or industrial use, to generate hydropower or help control floods. • But dams also altered and diverted river flows, affecting existing rights and access to water, and resulting in significant impacts on livelihoods and the environment.

7. Yet.... • Project planning and appraisal for large dams was confined primarily to technical parameters and the narrow application of economic cost-benefit analyses. • Historically, social and environmental impacts were left outside the assessment framework even into the 1990s. source: Dams and Development: The report of world commission on dams, 2000

8. Dams, Development and Displacement • The construction of large dams has led to the displacement of some 40 to 80 million people worldwide. • The world’s two most populous countries – China and India, have built around 57% of the world’s large dams – and account for the largest number of people displaced. • Many of them have not been resettled or received adequate compensation. • In India, estimates of the total number of people displaced due to large dams vary from 16 to 38 million people. source: Dams and Development: The report of world commission on dams, 2000

9. Narmada Dam • Amongst the 30 large dams planned for the Narmada, the SardarSarovar dam is the largest. With a proposed height of 136.5 m (455 feet) • Source: http://www.narmada.org/sardarsarovar.html#rehab_status

10. Narmada Dam Pro-Narmada dam Anti Narmada dam Human costs: 3,20,000 displaced people by SardarSarovar dam on Narmada. Ecological costs: thousands of hectares of forests submerged. Cultural costs: displacement of Adivasis or indigenous people • Irrigation : 1.8 million hec • Drinking water to drought prone Kutch and Saurashtra areas • Source: http://www.narmada.org/sardarsarovar.html#rehab_status

11. Anti Narmada Dam Campaign Strategies • Use of Satyagraha • Hunger strikes by leader of AndolanMedhaPatkar and others • Jalsamadhi: attempt to drown in rising dam waters • Rallys, People’s march and mobilisation in thousands • Alternative studies on cost-benefit analysis • Public interest petitions to Supreme Court of India • Transnational alliance to pressure World Bank withdrawal

12. Transnational alliance • The Manibeli Declaration, signed in June 1994 by 326 activist groups and NGO coalitions from 44 countries, calling among other things for a moratorium on World Bank funded large dams until a comprehensive, independent review of all Bank funded dam projects had been conducted.

13. Transnational Solidarity • Silenced Rivers by Patrick McCully of the International Rivers Network, published in 1996, depicts a particularly bleak record of the social and environmental impacts of dams and their underlying political dimensions.

14. Some campaign highlights • 1992: Morse report, a world bank independent review, critiques project and argues that principles of resettlement and ecological protection have not been observed. • Led to World Bank withdrawal from the project • 1995-96 : Supreme Court of India halts the construction of dam • 1997, 2000: Supreme court of India rules no construction till resettlement and rehabilitation of oustees is achieved and environmental impact studies completed. • 2006: campaign receives setback when supreme court allows construction of dam despite no proper resettlement of dam oustees.

15. A snippet about Narmada struggle • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=totnc4fw7Ms&feature=related

16. Alternatives proposed by anti-narmada and big dam struggles • Localised water harvesting systems • Building of small dams • Watershed conservations • Giving oustees lands and benefits in dam command areas: making them partners in development

17. Whose development at whose cost? • At the heart of the Narmada dam debate are issues of • equity, governance, justice and Power • equitable and sustainable development • What do you think?

18. Effect of displacement • .According to Michael Cernea’s Impoverishment Risks and Reconstruction model, displacement epitomises social exclusion of certain groups of people. It culminates in physical exclusion from a geographic territory and economic and social exclusion from a set of functioning social networks. • Thus, affected people face a broad range of impoverishment risks that include landlessness, joblessness, homelessness, marginalisation, food insecurity, increased morbidity, loss of common resources, and community disarticulation that result in a loss of socio-cultural resilience. • Source: Michael Cernea and Mcdowell (2000): Risk and Reconstruction; World Bank Publication.

19. Dam construction.... • SardarSarovar, still on the agenda despite the World Bank withdrawal, continues to be the focus of opposition in India.

20. Other anti dam struggles • In 1973-77, the resistance of indigenous peoples to four dams along the Chico River in the Philippines led the World Bank to withdraw from the project and resulted in the government postponing it indefinitely. • More recent examples of campaigns include the Three Gorges dams in China, the Pak Mun in Thailand, Ilisu in Turkey, Ralco in Chile, Epupa in Namibia, the Lesotho Highlands Project involving Lesotho and South Africa, and Nam Theun II in Laos.

21. Further reflections..... • In the light of the Narmada dam debate, which paradigm of development do you subscribe to and why?

22. Thank You