Medha Patkar, whose struggle against a dam turned her into an icon for thousands of  people across the country, is all set to lead the people’s resistance against the 168 dams conceived to turn the northeastern region into the ‘powerhouse of the nation’.
Medha Patkar on Sunday called upon people of the North-East to join hands and rise in protest to save the region from being “damned” with huge dams.
“It is the high time that the struggling people merged with the nationwide movement against not only the big dams, but also all such development projects that cause displacement and destroy our natural resources,” said Ms Patkar. She noted that the struggle against dams will continue.
The leader of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) was addressing a national convention on dams and displacement at the Guwahati University.
Nearly 1000 activists from the eight northeastern states had assembled for the two-day convention, which is aimed at providing a common platform to all the individuals and organizations struggling either against the big dams and development-induced displacement or for the people’s right on land, livelihood and natural resources.
“There are many people across the region struggling for the very substantive right to life and livelihood. We want to bring together all those localized movements, to make common cause with the nationwide struggle,” said Akhil Gogoi, the general secretary of the Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS) — a peasants’ organization of Assam.
The environmentalists and social activists of the northeastern states have been expressing concerns ever since the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) considered 168 mega dams to tap the region’s enormous hydro-electric potential.
The projects studied by the CEA have a cumulative installed capacity of generating 63328 MW of hydroelectric power. In its ‘ Preliminary Ranking Study’ in October 2001, the CEA identified 149 hydroelectric projects – mostly on Brahmaputra and its tributaries in Arunachal Pradesh and Assam — as the ones having high-viability.
This was followed by a series of MoUs that the Government of Arunachal Pradesh signed with the central Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) and private companies to build projects to generate altogether 23390 MW of power.
“While planning to convert the North-East into the nation’s powerhouse, what have been completely ignored or inadequately studied are the cumulative long-term impacts on the region’s fragile ecology and biodiversity as well as on the indigenous people, who have been traditionally dependent on livelihoods that are based on natural resources,” said anti-dam activist Ravindranath.
Ms Patkar, who is also the convenor of the National Alliance for People’s Movement (NAPM), would hold discussions with the activists of the region’s social organizations during her stay in Guwahati. “We all are here to assert our rights on land, livelihood and resources and to pledge to foil any attempt to deprive us off our rights,” she said.