Short clips

In this second short clip of Girishbhai, he talks about the issue of the lands originally acquired for the Sardar Sarovar Project staff colony, the Kevadia Colony, now being diverted and used for tourism purposes. Kevadia Colony has now been renamed Ekta Nagar and is home to the world’s tallest statue, the Statue of Unity.

Girishbhai talks of how, in most ‘developmental projects’, more lands than required are acquired and how later these lands are used for entirely different purposes, other than those for which they were originally acquired.

Girishbhai questions the change of purpose to which the acquired lands are being put to use and argues that such lands should be returned to the oustees since they are not being used for the purpose for which they were acquired.

For more about Girishbhai and his detailed interview, please go to the “Strategies” section on the website.

It is important to note here that as the founding member of the NBA, Girishbhai raised the fundamental question- “The Narmada Project: For Whom and at Whose Cost”. These issues concerning the SSP have been written by Girishbhai and is printed in a booklet in Gujarati titled, ‘Kona Mate Kona Bhoge’, and can be accessed here.

Interview Duration: 0:02:48

Language: Gujarati and English, Subtitles in English

Sitarambhai Patidar was a senior leader of the NBA and a member of the Samarpit Dal, the ‘dedicated squad’ of the movement. In this clip he talks about the impact a dam has on a river and why it is important for a river to remain free flowing.

For the detailed interview of Sitarambhai on the topic, Life by the Narmada, click here

Interview duration: 0: 01:30

Language: Hindi, Subtitles in English

Pinjaribai, a senior woman adivasi leader of the NBA explains how women do not get same rights as the men and adult sons of land holders although they are equal contributors to the family income and welfare.

Interview duration: 0:03:00

Language: Pawari, Subtitles in English

In this short clip excerpted from Parasmalji’s long interview, he talks of how in the late seventies the senior members of the Nimad Bachao Andolan challenged the inclusion of Rajasthan as a party to the Narmada Water Dispute in the Supreme Court, because it was not a riparian state. He also speaks of the response of the Supreme Court to their petition, which was argued before the court by renowned lawyer Late Shri V.M.Tarkunde.

For more about Parasmalji and his detailed interview please go to the ‘Early History of the Movement’ section on the website.

Interview duration: 0:03:53

Language: Hindi, Subtitles in English

In this short clip excerpted from her long interview, Champaben who has been living in the resettlement site Dharampuri for nearly thirteen years after her village was submerged by the Sardar Sarovar dam waters, explains how and why she has never felt the Dharampuri resettlement site to be her home.

For more about Champaben’s and her  detailed interview please go to the ‘Impact of Submergence’ section on the website.

Interview duration: 0:02:23

Language: Gujarati, Subtitles in English

In this clip Keshavbhau talks of the irreversible impact that the damming of the River Narmada has left on the age old religious tradition of the Narmada Parikrama, the circumambulation of the river Narmada. He talks of the tradition of how thousands of parikramavasis (the circumambulators) were fed by the villagers living on the banks of the Narmada, and how he and his family served them for years. The Narmada is considered to be one of the holiest rivers, and this clip is important because it helps us understand how the Sardar Sarovar dam has disrupted the religious practices associated with the river.

Interview duration: 0:01:59

Language: Hindi, Subtitles in English

In this short clip excerpted from his long interview, Muljibhai explains the early struggle in the 1960s and 1970s when the lands of six adivasi villages, namely, Kevadia, Gora, Kothi, Limdi, Waghadia, and Navagam, were taken away from them for the construction of staff colony, named Kevadia Colony, for the then Navagam Dam which later was to become the mega Sardar Sarovar Project. He speaks of the struggle of the adivasis soon after the foundation stone for the project was laid by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru at Navagam, Gujarat. Muljibhai was elected sarpanch of his village Kevadia five times.

For more about Muljibhai and his detailed interview on the early history of the struggle, click here

Interview duration: 0:05:18

Language: Gujarati with English Subtitles

This is a short video clip of the interview taken of Chaganbhai in Nov 2024. A detailed interview done earlier of Chaganbhai in 2008 could be heard in the section, Life by The River.

Chaganbhai Kevat of Village Sondul near Badwani in Madhya Pradesh explains the number of old temples that got submerged in the Sardar Sarovar Dam waters in his village and how the government has not relocated a single one. This is the case in most of the 245 villages that submerged on the banks of the holy River Narmada when it was dammed by the mega dam named after Sardar Patel in Gujarat. Hundreds of historical temples including the most revered and many even considered swayambhu like the Shulpaneshwar, remain submerged in the dam waters. The Statue of Unity, world’s tallest statue of Sardar Patel, faces the dam now, a dam that has left unimaginable destruction of historical, religious, archaeological, cultural and spiritual sites in the Narmada valley. The Sardar Sarovar dam has also submerged the age old route of the Narmada Parikrama, the circumambulation of the river done by thousands of Hindus on their spiritual journey of one of the holiest rivers in India, revered as Goddess Narmada, now turned into a reservoir, a stagnant water body at several places along its way due to series of dams built on the river and its tributaries .

Interview duration: 0:01:40

Language: Hindi, subtitles in English

This is a short clip of the Interview of Mayajiji taken in Nov 2024.

Mayajiji  belongs to village Sondul near Badwani in Madhya Pradesh. She explains the change in the fish catch and fish variety once the Sardar Sarovar Dam got built  on the river Narmada, turning the free flowing river into a reservoir by impounding water. Earlier, before the dam was constructed, thousands of fishing families found occupation and earned their livelihood from catch and sale of fish, both in the upstream and downstream of the Sardar Sarovar Dam. Ten thousand fishing families have been impacted in the downstream of the dam alone. There is no rehabilitation policy to rehabilitate the fisher people, keeping their occupation in mind, either impacted by the reservoir or in the downstream of the dam, where the Narmada river remains almost dry for most of the year till it meets the sea in Gujarat. This has  caused devastating impact on the lives of the fishing families as well as the fresh water fish that once thrived in the flowing Narmada, before it turned into a stagnant reservoir.

For more details on the fish in the river Narmada and the impact due to SSP, see page https://oralhistorynarmada.in/the-fish-variety-in-the-river-narmada/

Interview duration: 0:01:35

Language: Hindi, subtitles in English

This is a short clip of the Interview taken of Deepak in Nov 2024. Deepak of Village Kundia near Badwani in Madhya Pradesh explains how his village Kundia was first shown within the submergence area of Sardar Sarovar Dam and later removed even from the list of villages affected by the back waters of the dam. Some families of the village have been allocated house plots at a resettlement site near Badwani in the late 1990s and in the decade of 2000 and some cash compensation has been paid to them too, before the village was removed from the list of affected villages by the dam. But, there are many families who remain in the village as the village is now considered not in the submergence area! What people feared actually happened and in the year 2023, Kundia was devasted by the rising waters of the Sardar Sarovar Dam. What happened on that fateful night is explained by Deepak as the government continues to deny that the submergence was caused as the dam waters rose like it was anticipated in the government’s older records, which showed Kundia in the submergence zone of SSP.

Interview duration: 0:03:00

Language: Hindi, subtitles in English