In Bhopal, four Narmada Bachao Andolan (Save the Narmada Movement) activists
enter the 23rd day of their indefinite fast. They are protesting the Madhya
Pradesh Government's unethical and illegal treatment of adivasi (tribal)
families in central India.

About a thousand families were displaced by the construction of the Maan Dam,
one of the 30 big dams planned in the Narmada River Valley in western and
central India. The Maan families, within the 17 affected villages, have not
been compensated according to the terms and conditions of the rehabilitation
policy defined by the government. The policy states that the displaced must
be compensated with irrigated and adequate land in lieu of lands that will be
submerged by the project. However, the dam has been built but those displaced
have not received such compensation.

The Narmada Bachao Andolan asks that those evicted by the Maan project be comp
ensated with land for land. They ask that the approximately 5000-6000 people
being displaced be resettled before the reservoir, enraged by the approaching
monsoon rains, submerges their villages, livelihoods, lands, and futures. Ram
Kunwar, Chittaroopa Palit, Vinod Patwa and Mangat Verma, the four activists
who embarked on an indefinite hunger strike, were forced to take such
measures because thus far the government has been indifferent to the demands
of the Andolan and acted to suppress their dissent.

The Narmada Bachao Andolan has mounted a persistent and profound human rights
struggle in the Narmada Valley since the mid 1980s. In a democracy the will
and voice of the people must define the ethical fabric of the polity. In this
instance, it appears that the stronger the voice of the people, the more
callous and brutal the government's response. Whose life matters? Who has the
right to life? Is national interest beyond human rights? If so, what
legitimates the nation?

Ram Kunwar, Chittaroopa Palit, Vinod Patwa and Mangat Verma are held hostage
by their government's refusal to take seriously the people of the Narmada
Valley. As the fast weakens their bodies, perhaps irreparably, their just
demands are dismissed by a morally bankrupt government that finds it
acceptable to deny people their most basic rights to shelter and livelihood.
Yet resistance continues steadfastly among the people of the Narmada Valley.
The dalits ('lower' caste communities), adivasis and villagers that reside in
the Narmada Valley are the primary stakeholders of development. Yet, their
livelihood, their cultural heritage, their histories, their hopes and their
capacities are condemned to a savagely uncaring, unconfined progress. Is it
unreasonable to expect that on the road to progress and prosperity, those
most disenfranchised must be heard and accounted for in development planning?
Is it unreasonable to expect that when the government displaces people,
apparently in their own best interest, it should be required to negotiate the
terms of displacement? Is it unreasonable that the Maan people want to
exchange land for land rather than to live as squatters in places where they
do not belong or matter?

The lives of the most disenfranchised have become an afterthought in
development processes. Their actions for survival and agency for
self-determination are policed to benefit the advantaged. Human rights have
failed the marginalized, and such failure bears testimony to a deep unconcern
for social and ecological justice. Democracy requires a conscience. In this
instance the Government of India and the Government of Madhya Pradesh have
not given us any evidence of one.

India's record of irresponsible development has placed its marginalized most
at risk, socially and politically. It has brutalized women, children, adivasi
communities, dalits and religious minorities. It has displaced countless
peoples, prompted cultural annihilation, generated appalling working
conditions, unequal distribution of livelihood assets, struggles over
resources, and prompted the progressive and irrevocable depletion of the
country's natural resource base, and the degradation of forests, agricultural
lands, ecosystems, rivers and seas, animal life and mountains. In 2002,
almost fifty-six years after independence, the ideals of democracy --
freedom, security, self determination, access to political processes --
remain most elusive for 300+ million of India's poorest citizens. In the
unacceptable contradictions of postcolonial India, it has become incumbent on
those most bereft to confront the injustices that produce hunger,
dispossession and disempowerment.

The real war, the subordination of people to the state, continues. In the
name of the people, governments, corporations and legal systems endorse forms
of social and political violence. Where is public conscience? All around us
lives burn with futility and despair, as we the privileged accumulate greater
wealth, greater apathy, greater irresponsibility. It is as if we are
condemned to live in spite of ourselves.

The present balks at its own reflection. As Ram Kunwar, Chittaroopa Palit,
Vinod Patwa and Mangat Verma fast with incomprehensible commitment, their
actions charge all of us to reflect on the present. If they fail, the state
will have been murderously deaf to their cries of ethical protest. Political
and religious extremism cannot govern a democracy, and India is increasingly
defined by both. One must believe that oppression only strengthens
resistance, and that such dissent prevails. But when? And at what cost?


Angana Chatterji
Professor, Department of Social and
Cultural Anthropology
California Institute of Integral Studies
San Francisco