ABSTRACT
The Narmada River is the largest westward-flowing river of peninsular India. The Narmada Tribunal has ordered that the tribal oustees of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh will be resettled in the command area of Gujarat, but if the oustees choose to be resettled in their own states, they will have the right to do so. In Maharashtra, the tribals had always wanted to resettle on the denuded forest land in the same region. The Narmada Bachao Andolan, together with the Environment Defense Fund and other northern nongovernmental organizations, in this fateful act staked the most dramatic claim so far that the crucial demands of the tribals had changed radically since December 1987 and that their true aspirations and demands were represented by these organizations. The Narmada Bachao Andolan, with ample support of supposedly independent institutions like Tata Institution of Social Sciences–Bombay and even the Morse Commission, has continued to raise problems about the Taloda forest land.
