Editorial»
Protest project
NOV 05 - Iam deeply and genuinely worried about an issue that does not concern me directly. Had I not read “The algebra of infinite justice” by Arundhati Roy at around the same time when the worrying news inundated the newspaper pages, I would not have read beyond the headlines.
The aforementioned book is exemplary, but if I had not been in a hurry while purchasing the book (I bought it because I had liked the author’s first novel) I wonder if I would have purchased it at all. The book is a compilation of essays and I felt disappointed. But once I started reading it, I knew I had stumbled upon a goldmine of enlightenment. There might be those who did find out beforehand that Arundhati’s second novel is nothing but a series of political essays and so decided not to buy or read it.
What has been gnawing in the rather dormant civic conscientious part of my mind is the possibility that India might actually go ahead with its river linking project. “There is apprehension in Nepal and Bangladesh that the two countries may be denied their share of water flowing from the Himalayas if India’s ambitious proposal to link its rivers goes through” reads the first paragraph of a news report on the fifth page of a national daily. And there is reason to be apprehensive. The Farraka Barrage that diverts water from the Ganges to Calcutta Port has reduced the drinking water availability for forty million people who live downstream in Bangladesh.
The project aims to link major rivers flowing from the Himalayas and divert them south to drought-prone areas. But this is not about sharing (water) and loving thy neighbour; the project is hideously ambitious and would redraw the subcontinent’s hydrological map with immense ecological and social consequences. It could flood thousands of hectares of land and displace millions of people.
The essay “The greater common good” included in Arundhati’s book is full of criticism of big dams and illuminates on the threats they pose to the lives of Adivasis; she writes about the people who were forced to resettle as a consequence of the construction of dams. Similarly, the project may also overlook the plights of the indigenous people.
I find it worrisome that mankind should try and bend the flow of nature to such an extent. I find it worrisome that the gravity of the matter dawned on me after so many accidental coincidences. I find it worrisome that the ministerial-level alone should exercise a nation’s riparian rights. As Roy succinctly puts it: “Who are these gods that govern us…(pretending) to take water to forty million people while taking it away from another forty million people.”
For fear of spoiling diplomatic relations there can be no compromise on the matter of acknowledging the faults of the project. Anything that is well-known is well-criticized. Thus there is need for popularizing the concept of “Protest Project”. The issue needs to be discussed, written and talked about till it gains enough attention, and is re-assessed. Posted on: 2003-11-04 10:03
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