 | | | Environmental Photography · Narmada River, Valley of the Dammed | 1 / 42 |  | | Sunrise over Narmada River, Temple of Aheliya Bhai Holkar, Maheshwar. | | | | Environmental Photography · Narmada River, Valley of the Dammed | 2 / 42 |  | | Water is life. Early in the morning a woman fetches water from the Narmada near Mandla, Madhya Pradesh. The river provides for millions of families like hers who live along its banks, many of whom are tribals living in the valleys and forests of Central India. | | | | Environmental Photography · Narmada River, Valley of the Dammed | 3 / 42 |  | | Camel and rider crossing the salt plain in the Rann of Kutch, a dry desert zone which is supposed to benefit from water channeled hundreds of kilometers by canals. | | | | Environmental Photography · Narmada River, Valley of the Dammed | 4 / 42 |  | | Gond tribal girls bathing under Kapildhara Falls at the source, Shiva Ratri Festival, Madhya Pradesh. | | | | Environmental Photography · Narmada River, Valley of the Dammed | 5 / 42 |  | | Pilgrims at Kapildhara Falls during Shiva Ratri Festival. | | | | Environmental Photography · Narmada River, Valley of the Dammed | 6 / 42 |  | | A sandbank on the Narmada at Kalghat shapedby the waters into an almost perfect ‘map of India with Sri Lanka at its southern tip. | | | | Environmental Photography · Narmada River, Valley of the Dammed | 7 / 42 |  | | A sadhu (holy man) on a pilgrimage along the length of the river to the source, a journey of several weeks. In India rivers are held to be sacred and in addition to providing water and irrigation are of immense cultural significance | | | | Environmental Photography · Narmada River, Valley of the Dammed | 8 / 42 |  | | Swimmer dives into waterfalls at Marble Rocks, a beauty spot threatened by submergence, Jabalpur. | | | | Environmental Photography · Narmada River, Valley of the Dammed | 9 / 42 |  | | The bathing ghats of the temple at Mandla. Rising waters created by the dams threaten many cultural sites. | | | | Environmental Photography · Narmada River, Valley of the Dammed | 10 / 42 |  | | Tadvi tribal girl from the Satpura hills in the Sardar Sarowar submergence zone. | | | | | | | | | | | Environment - Narmada River, Valley of the Dammed | The Narmada River runs through central India from a spring at Armakantak in Madhya Pradesh and travels west 800 miles to emerge into the Indian Ocean at Bharuch. | The Indian Government project begun in the 1980s to construct large numbers of dams along the course of the river sparked a contentious and ongoing debate about models of development. | In spite of two and a half decades of protest from those who defend the rights of the indigenous people who live along its banks and in adjacent forests and valleys of the submergence zones, most of whom are tribal people (Bhils, Gonds, Tadvis) the original inhabitants of India known as adivasis, the government remains committed to the 50 year project and its plan to build more superdams, 30 large dams, 135 medium dams, and around 3,000 smaller ones, with canals and dikes along the entire course of the river. | | | | The resulting power and irrigation is supposed to fuel India’s industrial growth and bring water to India’s dry zones, such as Kutch in the far west. Critics say the displacement of millions of already marginalized people from their ancestral lands, and the costs to the environment outweigh the exaggerated benefits of a highly centralized scheme. | | Big Dams world-wide have their critics, who see them as power symbols, prestigious temples to economic progress, in lieu of more democratic decentralized water resource management that would benefit local communities and cause less damage to the environment. Meanwhile the struggle in the valleys and hills of the Narmada River continues. | | | | | | |
