DSU Public Meeting: Damning the Dam: Peoples’ Resistance to Polavaram

15 November 2011

Polavaram Project is a plan of construction of a mega-dam on the river Godavari to irrigate Coastal Andhra and the dry Rayalseema region of Andhra Pradesh (AP). On paper it is a multipurpose project with promises of hydro-electricity production and navigation through two canals built on both sides of the Godavari connecting North Telangana with the coastal belt. Named after the town closest to the site of the construction, the height of the proposed Polavaram dam is 150 ft. The catchment area of the dam stretches along Sarbari river, a tributary of the Godavari, and covers a vast area extending to the borders of Jharkhand and Orissa. According to official reports, at least 276 villages lying along this vast mineral-rich tract that include irrigable and non-irrigable land will be submerged due to the construction. This ‘developmental’ project aimed at extracting the natural resources of the region is going to dispossess and displace at least 2.8 lakh people, overwhelmingly adivasis. This area is notified as a ‘Scheduled Area’ by the Indian government and is inhabited by tribal communities like Koyas and Konda Reddys. If this project comes up, their existence itself will get jeopardized. And that is why the adivasis of North Telangana are today at the forefront of the peoples’ movement opposing the Polavaram project. According to them, the government data on submergence affecting the lives and land of the adivasis is highly flawed. It does not correspond to the grim reality of the destruction to be caused by the project. On the Godavari valley, even at the time of normal floods most of these 276 villages get completely flooded. Now with the construction of the 150 ft dam, more than 300 villages will be completely destroyed and will displace close to3.5 lakh people.
 
The proposed Polavarm dam is not a new ‘development’ project. It was proposed way back in 1940s as a part of the plan to divert ‘surplus –water’ of the Godavari to Krishna river. However, with the budget soaring high, the project was dropped at that time only to be revived momentarily in 1985 by the AP government. However in 2004, Y S Rajsekhar Reddy’s government rediscovered the ‘benefits’ of the project and aggressively pressed for it. Since then the Polavarm project has been synonymous with the trampling of peoples’ rights. AP government has shown little interest in taking the opinion of the people who are going to get affected by this project. In most of the cases the opinion of the gram panchayats has been bypassed. Places where the state has reported to act with the consensus of the villagers, heavy presence of state machinery with high-ranked bureaucrats and heavy deployment of police have ensured that some of the villagers have been coerced into giving their ‘consensus’. Villages which passed resolutions opposing the project are being targeted by the state’s police force. It is anybody’s guess what kind of democratic decision-making rights the adivasi villagers enjoy in this so-called ‘biggest democracy of the world’. Ration cards and other entitlements are withheld when villagers objected to give up their land for the project. Threat & persecution coupled with promises of ‘fair compensation’ are strategies that are being used by the state to manufacture ‘consent’ and acquire land.

Big landlords have been awarded with large amounts of compensation for their land are more than willing to part with the land which they never work on themselves, because they always have other source of income to fall back upon. Absentee landlords owning lands of three hundred acres and more are not uncommon in this region. This brings into light the feudal-comprador nexus and its continuing grip over the impoverished population of the region, mostly consisting of adivasis bout also belonging to the oppressed castes. The project has been pursued so vigorously because it is going to be a big financial incentive for the feudal forces and the comprador capitalists of the region. They are the ones who rule from Hyderabad and Delhi, and make all decisions such as Polavaram ‘on behalf of’ the people, even though such decisions are totally opposed to the interests of the vast majority of the people. The haste and secrecy in which the regional ruling classes comprising of both coastal Andhra and Telangana have acted in the last four years to carry out the project clearly exposes the lies behind AP government’s promises. The two canals dug up on either side of the Godavari as a part of this project connects the mineral-rich areas of Bastar in Chhattisgarh, parts of south Odisha and North Telengana with the Coastal belt of AP. These canals are aimed at facilitating the looting and plunder of the mineral resources of this remote region by the Indian and multinational corporations which will then be cheaply shipped out of the country from the coast of AP.

Polavaram project is yet another example of the systemic exploitation of Telangana region by the coastal Andhra ruling classes. 80% of the river Godavari and its waters come under the Telengana region. With this project, AP government wishes to create irrigation and electricity for Coastal Andhra and Rayalseema region at the cost of the people of Telengana. The people of Telangana are totally opposed to this project. Yet, AP government revived the project precisely at a juncture when the fight for separate Telengana has got intensified, as if to declare that Telangana and the adivasi people have to pay the price for the ‘development’ of the coastal Andhra feudal-comprador forces.

As the peoples’ movement against Polavaram intensifies, the opportunist character of the parliamentary parties which shed crocodile’s tears for Telangana too stands exposed. People are aware that all parliamentary parties have a stake in the Polavaram project, connected as they are to corporate money and big contracts. Congress, BJP, TDP, CPI(M), and even Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) which claims to lead the Telangana statehood struggle are actively working in favour of the project eyeing for the huge money involved in it. Some of them have occasionally objected to the ‘corrupt’ manner in which tenders are being floated and accepted, demanding better compensation for the displaced, better assessment of the cost to be incurred for the project, and so on. However, none of them have forthrightly objected to the project and stood in solidarity with the people’s demand to scrap the proposed project. In 2006 the movement was sought to be dissipated by the leadership of the parliamentary parties and NGOs with false promises of fighting the case in the court. The futility of such a course of action has been proven by now in case Polavaram, as has been with the Narmada project and numerous others. The anti-people Polavaram project can be resisted only through a militant struggle, the path of which has been shown by Nandigram, Lalgarh, and by following the revolutionary legacy of adivasi leader Komaram Bheem fighting against the feudal oppression of the Nizam. Moreover, the people’s aspiration for a separate Telengana free of oppression and exploitation can only be realized by recognizing the marginalized people’s demand for justice. DSU calls upon student community to come and participate in tonight’s public meeting in large numbers and stand in solidarity with the people fighting destruction, displacement and looting and imperialist agenda crouched in the so called  ‘development’ package.