~3 minutes
For more than half a century, ever since the foundation stone of the project was laid in 1961, the people of the Narmada Valley affected by the Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP) have been conducting a series of intense struggles against the project. This series of resistance movements in the Narmada valley has eventually culminated into the powerful people’s movement popularly known as the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA).
Though the NBA began with the issue of the displacement and resettlement of the affected people, it went on to raise many broader issues, ultimately questioning the very paradigm of development represented by the SSP. The NBA has raised several important issues: the issue of the ecological impacts of the project; the issue of how other than those affected by submergence, almost as many other people have been adversely affected by the project; the issue of the financial costs of the project; the issue of the adverse cost-benefit ratios; issues of equity and the question of who really benefits from such projects; the issue of the fact that many of the drought-prone areas of Gujarat are left out of the ambit of the project even though it was being justified in their name; and most importantly, the fact that there were several alternatives available which could deliver benefits without such massive impacts, and that such alternatives were not examined in the project decision making process. The NBA also raised issues of the right of the affected people to participate in the decision making of the project, and the issue of transparency in all aspects of decision making of the project.
The NBA is active in the affected areas in all the three states, and thousands of people are part of the movement. It also has a large support network all over the country and even in other parts of the world. The NBA has spread all over the Narmada valley, from the areas affected by the SSP to the areas affected by other dams.
The resistance of the people of the Narmada Valley, along with similar other struggles, has contributed significantly to the development-environment discourse in the country. Many of the important ideas that are a part of the discussion today, like right to information, consent and participation of affected people, environmental flows , find their roots in early days of the struggles. The non-violent struggle against SSP spanning many decades has used several innovative strategies that have demonstrated how a mass movement of the marginalised can translate into a powerful force against established and dominant interests.