 | | | Environmental Photography · Narmada River, Valley of the Dammed | 21 / 25 |  | | Bullocks swim alongside the ferry crossing the Narmada at Baladi, Harsud District. | | | | Environmental Photography · Narmada River, Valley of the Dammed | 22 / 42 |  | | Tribal women harvesting in the fertile valley near Barwani. In this broad plain of the Narmada basin a geological fault ensures soil retains productivity whether the rains are heavy or light. But rising waters from the dams threaten to submerge large tracts of this fertile agricultural land. | | | | Environmental Photography · Narmada River, Valley of the Dammed | 23 / 42 |  | | Barren slopes of the Satpura Hills near Barwani, where decades of deforestation have led to severe erosion. | | | | Environmental Photography · Narmada River, Valley of the Dammed | 24 / 42 |  | | Tadvi tribal women bringing water up from the Narmada River to Chimal Khadi village, Satpura Hills, Maharashtra. | | | | Environmental Photography · Narmada River, Valley of the Dammed | 25 / 42 |  | | A mother holds her one hour old baby while her sister-in-law helps in this Rathwa Bhil tribal household in Hapeshwar, a submergence zone bordering the Satpura Hills. | | | | Environmental Photography · Narmada River, Valley of the Dammed | 26 / 42 |  | | Bhil tribal girls of the Rathwa clan at the Spring Festival in Kawant, Gujarat. | | | | Environmental Photography · Narmada River, Valley of the Dammed | 27 / 42 |  | | Bhil tribals dance through the streets of Kawant, Gujarat. | | | | Environmental Photography · Narmada River, Valley of the Dammed | 28 / 42 |  | | Bhil tribal flute players at the Spring Festival, Kawant, Gujarat. | | | | Environmental Photography · Narmada River, Valley of the Dammed | 29 / 42 |  | | Tribal war dance in submergence zone to declare militant opposition to the dams. | | | | Environmental Photography · Narmada River, Valley of the Dammed | 30 / 42 | | |  | | Bhil Rathwa tribal boy smeared with ash to enact the dance of an evil spirit that is banished during the Spring Festival in Kawant. | | | | | | | | | | | 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. | | | | | | |
