Narmada Bachao Andolan JHABUA, M.P.
We have been struggling for the past 10 years. Because we wish to save future generations from destruction … We want them to be here, where we have lived. That is why men and women are both struggling…The M.P. sarkar has not, in so many years, even given us a handpump. How dare they tell us to leave our lands? They have no right to come into our villages. When sarkari people come here, they think, these adivasis! How can they live on stony lands like these? Whatever it be, this land is like our mother. And a mother is a mother, whatever she may be like…We live here, we will not leave … our village, our forests, we will never leave them… we get whatever we need here. You see the hills in our area. It is here that we get ghee, bhaji, milk. Our cattle get fodder here. The compensation sarkar gives us cannot even equal the bhaji we have eaten all our lives. What does the sarkar have then, for the next generation? We are determined not to leave. The big kisans of Gujarat have sold their land. Why? To resettle adivasis? It is a pack of lies. Sarkar tells us we are buying land from big farmers for you. Another lie, we don’t believe any of it. Has the sarkar ever bought land like this for adivasis? That is impossible. We gain strength from the decision not to move. We do not let anyone enter our villages to cut down forests. Neither do we allow them to make roads. Or to evacuate us. We will continue to sit here even when the waters come…