LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Nandhini Oza's Concern for the Tribal Welfare in
"The Dam Shall Not Be Built"

T. Jayasudha, M.A., Ph. D.
L. Divya, M.A. (Candidate)

Modernist Projects

Nandhini Oza is a social worker and an NBA (Narmada Bachao Andolan) activist. In "The Dam Shall Not Be Built" from Wither Justice: Stories of Women in Prison, she deals with the displacement of tribal societies by the intervention of modernist projects like the Sardar Sarovar Project. As Mahasweta Devi remarks:

After independence there was steady 'disintegration of tribal agrarian order in India under a steady influx of non-tribal people - land hungry peasants and unscrupulous traders - accelerated by the local administration acting in collusion with the British administration.

The tribals reacted to these developments in the form of a series of uprisings in an attempt to throw out the intruders from their homeland. The process of aimed resistance and revitalization movements aimed at reconstructing tribal society continued sporadically. (Spivak xxiii)

The Sardar Sarovar

The Sardar Sarovar Project aimed at constructing a dam across the river Narmada. Nearly 245 villages in three states - Madhya Pradesh, Maharastra and Gujarat were to drown in the waters in the proposed dam area and were forced to move from their villages. As only 19 villages were to be affected by the proposed dam, the government of Gujarat did not expect any serious outcry or opposition. The government of Gujarat considered it a prestigious project. But the oustees of the other two states formed a mass movement to oppose the project with the slogan:

No one shall move, the dam shall not be built. (Oza 165)

About 4500 families were forced to move out of their homeland as the State pressurized them to do so. Nandhini surveyed the villages with her fellow NBA colleagues and was able to see only broken earthen pots, mud hearths, wrecked roof tiles, … scattered pieces of damaged household goods. … Their semi-broken homes accentuated the feeling of being in ghost villages. (Oza 149)

Government Apathy

The indifference of the government about the displacement of the tribals is brought out by Roy in her The Greater Common good: It thinks nothing of destroying the sacred hills, and groves, the places of worship, the ancient homes of the gods and demons of the Adivasi. (Roy 114)

The Story

The protagonist, Revabai, is an Adivasi woman who lived in the village called Jamli in Gujarat. Revabai and her husband, Dedliya refused to move out like the other tribal families. The government did not succeed in evacuating the Dedliya's from Jamli.

The firm resolve of the Dedliyas inspired thirty families which were cheated at the relocation site returned to Jamli. In Jamli people lived "in harmony with the nature around" them "even intruders" (Spivak xxii) "unmindful of the rampage in the region" (Oza 152). Nandhini visited the Dedliya's and did not find them aggressive. Dedliya narrated the consequences that lead to the imprisonment of Revabai. Nandhini had met Revabai in the jail when she was imprisoned for her participation in the NBA agitation against the Sardar Sarovar Project.

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