ABSTRACT
In this chapter I map and analyze the trajectory of the Narmada Bachao Andolan’s campaign against the Sardar Sarovar Project from 1990 to 2000. The dates that demarcate the scope of the analysis are chosen with good reason. In 1990, the NBA launched its central method for stopping the construction of the SSP in the following decade: in terms of strategy, the demand for a state-led review of the project and its social and environmental impacts became the chief means through which the NBA sought to achieve the ends of stopping the dam, and various forms of non-violent direct action and symbolic protest methods became the major vehicle for bringing this demand to bear on state and central authorities. In 2000, the Indian Supreme Court effectively put a stop to the anti-dam campaign, when its ruling on the public interest litigation submitted by the NBA six years earlier ordered the completion of the SSP according to project designs.
