In the holy chronicle, the Skanda Purana, Markandeya Rishi, narrates stories to extol the virtues of Ma Narmada, "…….In each Kalpa, let alone rivers, even oceans disappear. However, that River which never dies and remains Na-Mrata (undying) through all the Kalpas is Narmada, that which remains lasting forever… It came on Earth for the salvation of all Mankind”.

It should appear then, that with the onset of the Monsoons, the imminent submergence of an entire township, Harsud, in Khandwa district of Madhya Pradesh, by the catchment of the Narmada Sagar Dam, has belied this belief.

Harsud Nagarpalika has a population of about forty thousand. There are about 300 other villages surrounding it that would be submerged. Overall, it has been anticipated that more than fifty thousand villagers are being displaced by the dam that is being built.

So, is the Narmada bringing joy? Or is it bringing sorrow?

As the Collector (District Administrator) of Khandwa district in the critical February 1988 to July 1990 period, when environment clearance had just been awarded and construction of the dam begun and proceedings preparatory to displacement had been started, this was an issue that deeply agitated me. It led me to debate with myself whether displacement of a few was justified for the larger common good. Was the intervention of peoples’ organizations (NGOs) justified and beneficial? Were there not development alternatives that could substitute for this monumental construction? Or colossal travesty!

In the course of my Khandwa tenure, I made innumerable tours to Harsud, the town that would be submerged, and Punasa and Omkareshwar, the sites of the Dams. All along the meandering trajectory of the picturesque Narmada, as it gambolled and gallavanted across the sylvan contours of my district, I interacted at length with villagers, farmers, tribals in the rich-teak forests, petty traders and politicians. I attempted to get a sense of their involvement with the river and their take on being displaced. Could they reconcile themselves to losing their ancestral homesteads?

That was when on 28th September, 1989 the famous environment rally, the “Sankalpa-Mela”, against allowing Harsud to submerge, was organized by the Narmada Bachao Andolan. Dubbed the “Woodstock of Environment”, it drew participation by (perhaps for the first time on a common platform), Medha Patkar, Baba Amte (on a stretcher), Shabana Azmi, Menaka Gandhi, Sunderlal Bhaguna, and a whole phalanx of animated environmentalists and NGO’s from all over the world. Tribes trudged from different parts of the country and largely from the submergence villages. Time, Newsweek and BBC’s Mark Tully and visual and print media from all over the world covered the event. That was the first time that the travails of Harsud were highlighted firsthand to the World.

To understand the dilemma of Harsud, I should recount an unknown episode connected with this show. The State Government was so concerned about the law and order impact of this much-hyped environment rally that it had decided to dispatch by helicopter the Chief Secretary and Director General of Police from Bhopal to immediately conduct an aerial recce of the venue where thousands of tribals had reportedly begun to descend. It was only with considerable persuasion that I managed to get this visit abandoned, explaining that the sight of a helicopter would arouse so much curiosity that even those who had no plan to visit the rally would do so. On the day of the rally, Frontline magazine, in its alluring photo-feature described it as being pleasantly surprising that the district administration was so very discrete and unobtrusive in their presence. The total head count at the rally by the LIB (Local Intelligence Bureau) was barely 12,000. Not a single villager complained about non-receipt of compensation. Nor did a single environmentalist talk about inadequate compensation. Yet, the national and international press exaggerated the attendance figure considerably, reporting presence of over 50,000 people, mostly tribes, “in support of their ill-fated brethren”. Therein lies the tragedy. The elaborate hype of anti-dam opposition confounded and even deceived those who were to be displaced, and also those who were to administer the R & R. Would the dam ever be built?

A few months prior to this event, while passing orders, as the designated authority under the Land Acquisition Act, compensating villagers whose land was being acquired in public interest, we realized that the villagers were being compensated at absurdly low levels. Further scrutiny revealed that since no sales of land had taken place for three decades (in apprehension of the area’s, imminent submergence), there were no transactions of property on record. There were hardly any registered sales in that or even neighboring villages to provide a fair benchmark for the prices of the land government was acquiring. Hence, a real-estate related market failure had clearly occurred. Villagers were thus going to be compensated in places at less than Rs.1000 per acre!

We had then quickly undertaken an exercise to justify widening the definition of geographical contiguity used for determining the benchmark for awardable compensation, and for making out a reasonable case for it’s acceptance by the government. We did succeed. But, only after impressing on Government that such issues would be raised by the anti-dam rallyists, and the State would appear exploitative, unless the principles were made more flexible. As this case illustrates, certainly the NGO’s, and their activities, helped to queer the pitch for a more enlightened settlement of compensation package to the villagers.

The irony is that for people inhabiting this area, knowledge about their impending displacement is actually nothing new. Ever since independence they have been hearing about this dam. They have all been mentally prepared to shift. In fact, nobody had ever undertaken any significant up-gradation in his or her agricultural land or even homes, recognizing the futility of any such effort. Similarly, hardly any sale of land had taken place. Adult sons had gone out in search of jobs elsewhere. Hence, postponing the shifting process was like a Chieftain keeping the sword hanging over the heads of his subjects. Most submergence area villagers were keen that the issue should be settled once and for all. If their land was to go, so be it. Let them be given land for land and start a new life. Which is why it was odd that more than the villagers themselves, it was the NGO’s that were clamoring on their behalf.

A senior officer in a neighboring district, a colleague of mine, had in a confidential letter to the Government, expressed his sympathies with the NGO’s cause. His much-publicised advice was that small dams were better than big ones because they did not cause displacement and prevented large-scale corruption. This is true only to some extent. As any technical expert will explain, the total quantity of water retained in stop dams is not significant, since the depth of water-body is insubstantial. Over the last fifteen years, a very focused exercise has been undertaken, to build check-dams, wherever feasible, in MP, particularly in East and West Nimar, Jhabua and Dhar. And a large part of all rural development devolutions have been used for this purpose. In fact, all rural development agencies, Irrigation, Forest, Agriculture, Soil Conservation, Block Development and Rural-Engineering have been deployed for this task. And yet, the spectre of drought and water scarcity has scarcely been banished from the face of Western Madhya Pradesh. Demand for water and energy continues to increase manifold.

Those were the formative years of Relief and Rehabilitation (R&R) work. There were no established guidelines or benchmarks. The State was floundering for inputs for policy making in this area, so as it could soften the impact of those displaced in their new social milieu and facilitate quickest integration.

Today, R&R work has got institutionalized. Standards have been set, and this has generally passed muster at various levels of scrutiny.

As one reflects on the impending deluge and submergence, and the judgment which paved the way for fully completing the Narmada Dam, as a former Collector, one can not but feel sad at the passage of events. Sad at the timing. The end of Harsud. But, there is also a sliver of relief. Relief for those guileless villagers, who have, for the last half-century, been awaiting almost, on a daily basis, their transfer orders; only to be counseled by some outsiders that they will not have to shift. Had the NGOs agitating this issue, relented in 1989, and trained their energies on R & R instead, they could have saved the villagers of Narmada area, at least fifteen agonizing years of uncertainty and agony.