The Narmada Andolan in the Words of Adivasi Leaders | The India Forum https://www.theindiaforum.in/article/narmada-andolan-words-adivasi-leaders Kalpana Sharma Main points... The Narmada Bachao Andolan is important not just because it mobilised people, including Adivasis, across the three states affected by the dam, but also because it successfully articulated the link between development projects and their social and environmental costs. This was at a time when gigantism was virtually unquestioned. Big was beautiful, not just in India but around the world.
It was in the 1980s that the movement against the dam began to build up. Before the Narmada Bachao Andolan came into existence, several resistance groups had emerged. For instance, in Maharashtra, the Narmada Dharangrast Samiti (NDS) represented 33 villages facing submergence, while in Madhya Pradesh, the Narmada Ghati Navnirman Samiti (NGNS) stood with the victims. It was only in September 1989, at a massive rally held in Harsud, Madhya Pradesh that all these groups came together with a call to halt “destructive development” and named themselves the Narmada Bachao Andolan.
Another dramatic and significant landmark of the movement was the Sangharsh Yatra of December 1990–January 1991, where more than 5,000 people walked for 22 days to reach the Gujarat border at Ferkuva.
The project was eventually completed even though adequate rehabilitation of the displaced has still not been done to this day. In the case of the Narmada Bachao Andolan, although there are “activists” today who continue to work amongst the displaced, much has changed. Perhaps some of this is inevitable as movements turn into non-governmental organisations.
As Kevalsingh reflects with some sadness, “A mobile is never going to build a movement. If we have to build the Andolan once again, we have to go amongst the people. We have to understand their issues; we have to find tasks at the local level that people can take up.”