 | | | Environmental Photography · Narmada River, Valley of the Dammed | 31 / 42 |  | | Women at the “dharna” in New Delhi protesting against the dams, depicted as satanic by the poster. | | | | Environmental Photography · Narmada River, Valley of the Dammed | 32 / 42 |  | | A boy of the Gond tribe on a pilgrimage to Armakantak, source of the Narmada River, for the Shiva Ratri Festival before the rains. | | | | Environmental Photography · Narmada River, Valley of the Dammed | 33 / 42 | | |  | | Bhil tribal girls at Hapeshwar village, threatened with submergence. Satpura Hills, Gujarat. | | | | Environmental Photography · Narmada River, Valley of the Dammed | 34 / 42 |  | | Bhil tribal girls of the Rathwa clan at the Spring Festival in Kawant, Gujarat. | | | | Environmental Photography · Narmada River, Valley of the Dammed | 35 / 42 |  | | Girl fetches the only water from a stream at an oustees settlement camp at Chindiapura. | | | | Environmental Photography · Narmada River, Valley of the Dammed | 36 / 42 |  | | Villagers fetching water in a condemned village, Kasrawad, Barwani District. | | | | Environmental Photography · Narmada River, Valley of the Dammed | 37 / 42 |  | | Oustees from a submergence zone building a frame for a house on an allocated plot, Sukha rehabilitation village. The oustees complained that the soil was substandard with poor yields. | | | | Environmental Photography · Narmada River, Valley of the Dammed | 38 / 42 |  | | Child of tribal oustees from Tawa Dam zone, resettled in poorly constructed government housing at Morbani, Hoshangabad. | | | | Environmental Photography · Narmada River, Valley of the Dammed | 39 / 42 | | |  | | Young mother and child in Sukha resettlement village, Gujarat. | | | | Environmental Photography · Narmada River, Valley of the Dammed | 40 / 42 |  | | Sambu Singh, an oustee from the Tawa Dam submergence zone, resettled in huts at Morbani, Hoshangabad. | | | | Environmental Photography · Narmada River, Valley of the Dammed | 41 / 42 |  | | Sunsets on Malwada village near Barwani which rising waters will soon submerge beneath a huge reservoir. | | | | Environmental Photography · Narmada River, Valley of the Dammed | 42 / 42 | | |  | | Bhil tribal woman at a meeting to protest against inadequate resettlement plans. What future for marginalized groups like hers with tribal lands threatened with submergence? | | | | | | | | | | | 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. | | | | | | |
