Feedback from visitors
Water Practitioners Network
is happy to present to its readers these tales of struggles and endurance. The love and co-existence of the people and their river is eloquently captured in the Oral History of Narmada. Do give it a visit!Oral History Narmada
is a phenomenal effort to capture the memories and living voices of several decades of struggle in Narmada valley. This website puts together a treasure of people’s personal histories, reminiscences and stories of the mass struggle for survival against rising adversity. This arduous compilation has been planned and carried out by Nandini Oza. As a participant in the struggle and afterwards, over several years, Nandini has painstakingly recorded, compiled and edited these oral history narratives for public consumption. The website is a portal that leads to the lived experiences of the people directly affected by the dam. It helps us understand the profound influence that people’s struggles have on the development debates the world over on large dams.
https://www.waterpractitioners.org/post/oral-history-narmada-the-lived-experiences-of-the-people-of-the-narmada-bachao-andolan
New resource alert! An Oral History of the Narmada Movement. Curated by Nandini Oza, formerly an activist with the Narmada Bachao Andolan, this site documents the oral histories of the key people in a powerful people’s struggle against the plan to dam the Narmada River in India. The oral histories include voices of local leaders from the affected communities. The people’s movement against big dams in the Narmada valley in India has helped raise critiques of ‘development’ to a global level. https://www.oralhistorynarmada.in
Resource Alert by South Asia Journal of South Asian Studies, UNSW, Sydney, Australia
Amazing & unique website that provides authentic grassroots voices about History of #Narmada movement. Great work
On Twitter by @Indian_Rivers : South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People
We are aware of the dedicated and selfless hard work that you have put in to make the world aware of the personal loss that the communities of age old settlements that were submerged underwater as a result of mega dams that are constructed in the name of development. These poor people have for ever lost their unique identity and way of life. Now that the irreversible damage has been done, your effort is all the more laudable because their oral accounts recorded and transcribed so laboriously by you, would have been lost and forgotten for posterity, and the outside world would have remained ignorant and unaware of the personal sacrifices that these communities have made, as memories fade are forgotten for ever. Well done and best wishes. Kudos to your dedication
From: Captain I.N (Retd) Vijay Prasada, Vitthalwadi, Pune, Maharashtra.
Many of you must have read about the struggle against the big dams in Narmada valley, but have you heard about this movement through the voices from the Narmada valley?
Avli Verma, Manthan Adhyayan Kendra, Pune, Maharashtra.
Nandini Oza’s website documents this iconic people’s movement of India through oral history. It’s probably the only one in India where the narrators are the victims and the protectors!
A new website, that documents oral history of one of India’s most important post-independence movements, the struggle against big dams in the Narmada valley. This movement helped raise critiques of ‘development’ to a national and global level, inspired many more such movements, and galvanised (along with others) the search for radical alternatives.
Ashish Kothari, Kalpavriksh – Environment Action Group, Pune, Maharashtra.
As far as I know this is the first such attempt at a comprehensive oral history of a social movement in India, and particularly valuable because the testimonies include many people from local communities affected by the project and at the centre of the movement. Its creator, Nandini, once a core member of the Narmada Bachao Andolan, has put in years of labour and love into this, and the results are remarkable.
I owe my political awakening to the Narmada struggle and my engagement with it. That seed changed my perception of many a thing about the world and in turn led me to learn and educate myself about socio-economic and political issues that in turn shaped many of my life choices further down the line.
Subbu Sastry, Principal Software Engineer, Wikimedia Foundation.
Nandini Oza used to be a full time activist with the Narmada Bachao Andolan has been working in recent years on an oral history project to document some of the history of the movement via voices of people we normally don’t hear. The oral history strategy lets some of these people speak for themselves without needing others to speak for them or interpret their stories. I am yet to fully explore the content, but am looking forward to doing so.
Some of you who have been inspired by or interested in the work of the NBA and associated struggles and issues might find this of interest. Some of my work colleagues and those interested in the free knowledge movement and trying to engage with the question of bringing oral histories to the Wikimedia projects might also find this of interest.
South Asia @ London School of Economics
http:// https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/southasia/2020/01/13/giving-voice-to-the-marginalised-online-oral-history-and-the-sardar-sarovar-project-in-western-india/
Rahul Banerjee an activist and writer has said about the oral histories of women on the website, particularly about the interviews of those women belonging to the scheduled tribes: “Adivasi women activists, they are all organic intellectuals who have contributed much to dispel the myth that the NBA was a creation of urban romantics.”
K L M Doyle, “Excellent and very significant documentation. Must submit to the United Nations committee for crime against ingenious people’s. As also an alternative blue print such that the burden of damages incurred can be reduced & shared. Such error in history must be severely criticized via extensive documentations for further planning. India’s track record in corruption, human development,crime against women, minorities and the oppressed classes is well known. Unlike a decade ago”