Suggestions: Oral history is a participatory process, therefore suggestions and feedback as well as other inputs to make the website better and more accessible are welcome.
Dissemination
I (Nandini Oza) request well-wishers and supporters to help disseminate the material and the website so that the voices of the people of the Narmada Valley and their important struggle questioning the current development paradigm can reach a wider audience. I request writers, journalists and social media activists to write about and also review the website. Talks and discussions on the website and the oral history of the Narmada struggle could be arranged to reach diverse audiences, particularly academic institutions, movements of communities based on natural resources, organisations working on human rights, environment, developmental and policy issues and the like.
I also request friends to help find publishers for Ladha Narmadecha to be translated and published in other languages. It has been translated and published in English and Hindi but it needs to be published in other languages also, especially Gujarati. And I request friends to help find publishers for other books based on these oral histories that are right now ‘work in progress’. Most immediately, help is required to identify a publisher for the next book, titled ‘Understanding the Rise of the Gujarat Model: Conversations with Girish Patel’, the manuscript of which is ready.
This work requires diverse support. Apart from help in transcriptions and translations, friends of the Narmada struggle could share photographs, particularly of the early years of the struggle when there was no digital photography and it is hard to get photos from that period. Important recordings, audio and video recordings that have not yet been put in the public domain could also be shared. Recording of the songs of the struggle are also welcome.
Interviews of people taken by others could also be shared. Copies of important documents related to the struggle would also be useful.
Financial support from individuals has helped this work remain independent and while I do receive institutional support, I appeal to friends to continue to support this work in order to maintain its independent nature and to support diverse work related to Oral History of the Narmada Struggle.