Submergence village: Vadgam, Resettlement site: Dhefa, Gujarat
2–3 minutes
Rasikbhai, an oustee himself, belongs to Vadgam in Gujarat, the first out of a total of 245 villages in the Narmada Valley to be submerged by the Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP). Rasikbhai has been a full time activist and a leading member of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA). As an activist, Rasikbhai has taken up several responsibilities in the movement from mobilising people across the over 100 resettlement sites in Gujarat, to data collection, media briefings and helping the hundreds of visitors that came to the NBA on field visits to understand the issues raised by the movement. Rasikbhai’s work as an NBA activist has been particularly challenging because he has had to work very close to the SSP site and in a state which has remained exceedingly hostile to the movement.
Rasikbhai’s interview is unique not only because he is a leading member of NBA but also because he is himself an oustee belonging to the village Vadgam, in Gujarat, which defied the state and refused to move even as most Adivasi families from the other 19 Gujarat villages from the first batch of submergence villages had accepted rehabilitation. Vadgam and its families including Rasikbhai had to face unprecedented hostility because the government and the general public in Gujarat considered SSP to be the state’s lifeline that would turn Gujarat into a Nandanvan (paradise) by conveying Narmada waters to every household and every field. Rasikbhai belonged to the first batch of oustees in Vadgam to face the dam waters with the NBA strategy of, ‘We Shall Drown but Not Move’, from the time it was first conceptualised.
In this interview excerpted here, Rasikbhai explains the many strategies of the NBA and the impact these have had on the movement. Rasikbhai talks about the movement’s strategies like legal actions, fasts, jalsamarpan and the implications of these strategies for the people of the Narmada Valley.
Interview Duration: 0:25:00
Language: Gujarati, Subtitles in English
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