ABSTRACT
It is now over a decade since I first visited the Narmada Valley in western India in 1988. I was a journalist then and the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) was a fledgling movement poised to take on the might of the Indian state and the World Bank against the inhumane destructiveness of a largescale development project, the Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP). The SSP, partly funded by the World Bank, is one of the largest water projects of its kind ever undertaken, comprising a dam, a riverbed powerhouse and transmission lines, a main canal, a canal powerhouse, and an irrigation network. It promises to bring irrigation to 1.8 million hectares and drinking water to 40 million people, while displacing an estimated 200,000 people from their homes and lands. In this last decade, the NBA (Save the Narmada Movement) has been accorded a near legendary status, representing the multi-faceted struggles for social justice, environmental sustainability, and cultural sanctity that characterize so many grassroots movements worldwide. The struggle of the NBA continues today evoking both admiration and condemnation from sections of the Indian and international public.
