Ashok (Bhai) Shrimali

Ashokbhai is a senior member of SETU (Centre for Social Knowledge and Action (SETU), Ahmedabad, Gujarat). He is a leading social-political activist of Gujarat and the General Secretary of the broad alliance ‘Mines, Minerals & People’.

Ashokbhai talks about his experiences as a social and political activist in Gujarat in the early 1980s. His participation in the many struggles in the state at that time explains his subsequent involvement in the Narmada issue, both as an individual and as part of SETU. Ashokbhai explains the political and social issues in Gujarat in the early eighties, and gives us a detailed picture of the important people, organisations, academics and activists in Gujarat working on the issues of marginalised communities at the time. He also describes how early attempts were made to form alliances between movements and organisations through ‘Lokayan’, how SETU came to be established, and how it attempted to work with people’s movements in Gujarat.

More importantly, he also describes SETU’s work from 1985-86 with the people to be affected by the Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP), which forms an important backdrop for the later emergence of Narmada Bachao Andolan. 

His talk helps us understand the important role of SETU and its activists in building up a people’s organisation in the submergence villages of Maharashtra and in the formation of the Narmada Dharangrast Samiti (NDS) in the mid- eighties. He brings out the many intricacies and challenges faced in the formation of the NDS as well as the role of civil society groups in consolidating the NDS and making the issue of SSP a statewide issue in Maharashtra. 

Ashokbhai also explains the role played by SETU in taking the issue of the people to be displaced by the SSP from a micro to a macro perspective and from local to international forums.

Interview Duration:
01:17:00

Language:
Audio in Gujarati, Subtitles in English

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