You ask me why I cried on the day the judgement on the Sardar Sarovar Dam was declared. I don’t know. I think I should not have done that. All those journalists were there; so many of them have been covering the movement since 1985. I know all of them so
well, and they were asking me questions and I just could not control myself.
No, we are not defeated. Certainly not. It’s a long road, there are deadends, but then we have to find a new path. The main thing is that the people are determined. The verdict has made them more determined. This time the non-violent struggle will acquire
a more difficult dimension, perhaps face more brutality, but the people are determined. For them it is a question of life and death.
The judgement reflects how the establishment reacts in the face of such struggles. We went to the decision makers with some presumptions and aspirations. We gave them our inputs. Our going to them meant that we are not negating the decision making process.
We know they have their own value frameworks, games, political games; but there are rules of the game also. Between the State and us there is bound to be a relationship, which is based on conflict and dialogue.
But now we are realising that our premises are proving to be wrong. The State has become valueless, unrelated to people’s concerns and suffering; it has become ad hoc and anarchist. One cannot really call it a State of one’s dream or imagination.
Indeed, the impression which Harsh Sethi gave recently, that that everything is finished, that the NBA is a dead body waiting for burial, is baseless. If you come to the valley you can see it for yourself.
What is the alternative politics we are trying to build? I would give you a clear visualisation. This will not be visible in individual movements; there are several threads which you have to pick up. Now people can gradually see that who is behind the
different kind of attacks they have been facing; things are not blurred anymore. The monster of money and market is acquiring a clear shape. That the State as an anti-people force is becoming strikingly clear. Only with lobbying or NGO work, things might
not change. The Indian State needs a solid jolt. And the civil society should be sensitised about its character.
Why are we not participating in electoral politics? Electoral politics has become entrenched in the prevailing system. The theory that you can enter the system and bring changes from within has failed. Electoral politics is bound by its own framework. To
survive and sustain, one has to do compromises. Obviously, your radicalism and basic transformative principles become redundant.
We should create a strong alternative politics which is a parallel force to electoral politics, which cannot be wished away, which runs parallel and yet is capable of confronting it face to face. On specific issues there can be clashes also. This should be
a relationship of conflict, confrontation and dialogue. We have to keep a strict watch on this political system; its every decision, action and their impact should be brought under meticulous scrutiny.
We have to discover innovative strategies of struggle. This is of utmost importance. I am not saying that don’t do rallies or dharnas. What I am saying is that we should be clear as to where to attack, where to appeal, where to confront.
We must reach out to the lower castes and adivasis who should not only be sensitive towards their rights, but should assert them. That is how the idea of reconstruction is born.
I have been arguing for long that people have their territorial rights: their land, food, water, earth, natural resources, cultures and traditions belong to them. How can the State suddenly decide to throw them out of their own territories? This is like a
robbery in day-time. We cannot even say that give us something in return, because this system does not have anything for the poor. And it will not give anything. That is why, the right to information should only follow the right to resources and the right
to developmental planning.
Why should there be displacement of resources? Instead, with people’s participation in their own resources, there should be investment of resources. I use the word investment because it is the in-thing these days.
They say we are against technology and development. No, we have different technological choices and developmental models. We have to give maximum priority to the relationship between nature and humans, and by nature I don’t mean ‘wildlife’, I mean a
reaffirmation of life-support systems. Equity and justice means that natural resources are not looked as only monetary resources, but as integral to human resources; that people are inheritors of these resources, and not just ‘affected’ — as the official
terminology calls them.
They say that we are funded by foreign agencies. Why don’t they take legal action? Even LK Advani said that he has “doubts”. He cannot come out openly because he is choked up to his throat by his Government’s total sell out to foreign forces. Advani has no
moral right to call himself swadeshi, the way they have latched on to the foreign bandwagon. Instead, now they should be proud of being called videshis.
You ask me, as to what will happen now, how do we locate ourselves in history. The valley seems a micro reality, but it is not. There are lakhs of people and so many cultures. I have never believed in showing off our strength by collecting thousands of
people. My relationship is from door to door, house to house. In this lie our roots, our feelings. It is like if your mother has cancer you will take care of her, though there are so many mothers who are also suffering.
About jal samarpan (self immersion) they say that I am becoming individualistic, I should not do it. But I am convinced about it. More than that, I am convinced that the future of the people in the valley should be secure, while the movement should never
succumb. The gains of the movement should not be lost; there should be a positive move forward. This is my responsibility, to the struggle, and to history.
(As told to Amit Sengupta)
