Language is thought

Lest I be accused, as some in my fraternity, of plagiarism, let me hasten to clarify that the person who has to be credited for this head...

Lest I be accused, as some in my fraternity, of plagiarism, let me hasten to clarify that the person who has to be credited for this headline is Booker-prize winner Arundhati Roy. On September 6, The Indian Express carried two articles on a special page called BusinessInc: the main piece was by Surjit Bhalla and a smaller one was mine, poking holes in the arguments made by various anti-Narmada-Dam activists including those made by Arundhati in her book The Greater Common Good. Last Monday, Arundhati responded. Language is thought, Mr Jain, she said, chastising me for the facetious beginning of the article: 8220;Since it is next to impossible for a mere mortal to match Arundhati Roy8217;s facility with the language 8230;8221;.

Well, I still don8217;t agree with much of what she has to say. Parts of her book seem downright absurd. 8220;How will the command area8221;, says she of the land to be irrigated by the series of dams, 8220;accustomed only to seasonal irrigation, its entire ecology designed for that single pulseof monsoon rain, react to being irrigated the whole year around?8221; Soil which produced only a single crop will now produce several crops a year, farmers will start growing cash crops for selling instead of subsistence maize and barley for eating and, 8220;by linking themselves to the market8217; they lose control over their lives8221;! exclamation mark mine

Other parts of her thesis appear equally incredulous. The Sardar Sarovar Projects, she says, will not produce 1,450 megawatts of power, but only 3 percent of that, or 50 megawatts you don8217;t produce power in megawatts, but that8217;s another matter. Why? Because the project has mutually conflicting aims 8212; 8220;irrigation uses up the water you need to produce power.8221; Actually, the way most hydro projects are designed, the power is produced by water falling on turbines, and it is after the power is produced that it is sent on along the canals to be used for irrigation 8212; Devi Lal once said the water Haryana got for irrigation was useless as the electricity wastaken out at Bhakra! In some projects, it is true, irrigation is done directly from the reservoir, and to that extent water available for generating power is reduced. It is, however, after taking this into account that planners said the Sardar Sarovar projects would have power generating capacity of 1,450 megawatts. If the water was to be used only for power generation and not for irrigation, the power capacity would be many times more.

What8217;s more disturbing, however, is the lack of government response to certain facts8217; that Arundhati talks of in her book. If they8217;re true, it8217;s frightening and a very sad commentary on the way planning is done. A list of a few points Arundhati makes that need to be specifically addressed:

In 1979, the Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal, using extrapolations from rainfall data instead of recording the actual flow of water, said the water available from the river was 27.22 million acre feet maf. In 1992, actual observed flow data for the Narmada showed the wateravailability was 18 percent less, or 22.69 maf 8212; this figure actually changes the cost-benefit analyses of the project quite dramatically. The government, Arundhati quotes, however said that 8220;it may be noted that 8230; of the Decision of the Tribunal relating to the 8230; flow as 28 maf is non-reviewable.8221; Whew!

David Hopper, the World Bank8217;s South Asia vice-president says the Bank does not usually include the cost of drainage in its irrigation projects in South Asia because irrigation projects with adequate drainage are just too expensive. It takes five times as much to provide adequate drainage, Arundhati asserts, as it does to irrigate the same amount of land.

According to secret8217; government studies, more than 52 percent of the Sardar Sarovar Command area is prone to water-logging and salinisation.

Much of the benefits of the Narmada projects depend on the irrigation efficiency assumed. This has been fixed at 60 percent, while the highest irrigation efficiency in India is 35 percent.In other words, half the command area will never get irrigated.

When the Morse Committee asked the Gujarat government for their detailed drinking water plans 8212; the project is supposed to provide water to drought-prone Saurashtra 8212; there weren8217;t any. Arundhati8217;s research says it8217;ll cost an additional billion dollars and she asserts that it8217;s not been factored into the overall project cost though the benefits clearly have.

Arundhati8217;s clearly set herself as an adversary of large dams, but the government owes it to the country to reply to the specifics of her charges, and not just give general replies on how big dams are good because they submerge less land per MW of power capacity or irrigation potential created as compared to smaller ones. The general replies are very important, they underscore the need for large dams, and are almost always overlooked by anti-dam activists, but there8217;s no reason why the government should do the same with the points raised by people like Arundhati 8212; for, if true,they alter the very viability of the Narmada project in a very big way. It8217;s possible, indeed likely, that the government has a reply to each point raised 8212; it8217;s also possible that all these replies have already been given at different forums. But since the questions/allegations have been made in such a concise fashion the basic paperback8217;s 62 pages long, and most of us are quite confused, it would be nice if we could have a White Paper language is thought! replying to these specific charges. It8217;s for The Greater Common Good.