Beginning early in June, a group of five people comprising of affected persons of the Indira Sagar and Omkareshwar dams on the Narmada River and activists of the Narmada Bachao Andolan went on an indefinite hunger-strike at Khandwa, even as 89 people from 30 affected villages in the valley joined them in solidarity for a three-day hunger strike. Thousands of families from the Omkareshwar and Indira Sagar affected sites and a large number of people from the Maheshwar dam affected regions have been visiting the dharna site to express support. The hunger strikes and dharnas are still continuing at the end of June.

The dharnas began with an impressive rally of over 12,000 oustees of the dams in the town of Khandwa, followed by a gherao of the Narmada Hydro-Development Corporation (NHDC) which is building the dam, with the demand for implementation of the rehabilitation due to them. Even as the action began, the Supreme Court issued a stay order on an earlier High Court Order, posing an immediate risk to some of the affected villages.

The High Court of MP (Jabalpur Bench) had ordered on May 18 2007 that the reservoirs of Indira Sagar and Omkareshwar dams should not be allowed to fill up because the rehabilitation of the displaced persons has not been done according to the rehabilitation policies and plans. However the State of Madhya Pradesh and NHDC filed Special Leave Petitions and on June 11, the decision of the High Court was stayed by the Supreme Court based on false figures of potential submergence presented by the state government, and the plea that the state is facing an acute power shortage which could be tided over by the Omkareshwar hydel project.

The struggle of the people of the Narmada Valley has shown, as in other such cases too, that the concerned state government and the various governments at the centre have been guilty of very serious crimes against the people’s right to their homes and livelihood. Each one of the Narmada Valley projects has further victimized the already poor; then, blatant lies have been told about the number of people affected, and their subsequent rehabilitation. The rehabilitation plans have remained policy objectives, with no implementation on the ground. And the Courts have been used, time and again, to crush the people’s struggle through various orders and stay orders, while they mouth platitudes on justice and compassion!

As in the past, not only has the state government, aided by the Supreme Court, attacked people’s right to livelihood, but the authorities have also done everything in their power to bring the dharna to a halt. Water supply was stopped for 17 hours to those areas where the protests were begun; likewise, there was an attempt to cut off electricity to those villages. But the people of the affected villages have fought back tooth and nail, gheraoing the collector’s office in one district, while women blockaded the streets in another, forcing the authorities in both cases to restore services.

The people of the Valley are committed to the struggle for their rights to land and livelihood, and for just rehabilitation. It has been a long and continuous struggle, undaunted in the face of state repression.