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UNRAVELLING THE “UNRAVELLING OF BHAKRA”
A CRITIQUE BY R.RANGACHARI
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‘UNRAVELLING BHAKRA’ BY SHRIPAD DHARMADHIKARI |
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INDIAN WATER RESOURCES SOCIETY
NEW DELHI - November 2005 |
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UNRAVELLING THE UNRAVELLING OF BHAKRA
A CRITIQUE OF SHRIPAD DHARMADHIKARY’S “UNRAVELLING BHAKRA”
BY R.RANGACHARI1 |
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1. Bhakra-Nangal Project
The Bhakra-Nangal multipurpose project is among the earliest river valley development schemes undertaken by Independent India. The project was conceived long before India became a free nation and preliminary works had commenced in 1946. The project was reoriented and phased soon after Independence. The work resumed in 1948 and the scheme was completed in successive stages by the early 1970s.
In October, 1963 at the ceremony to mark the dedication of the Bhakra –Nangal Project to the Nation, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru said- “This dam has been built with the unrelenting toil of man for the benefit of mankind and therefore is worthy of worship. May you call it a Temple or a Gurdwara or a Mosque, it inspires our admiration and reverence”.
Various issues relating to dams, their benefits and impacts, positive and negative, have become the battlegrounds in the sustainable development arena in recent years. Unfortunately, there have been very few, if any, comprehensive analyses of how multi- purpose dam projects performed over time. Currently proponents of dams point to the many benefits while the opponents argue about the losses to society and environmental costs, alleging that these outweigh the benefits. The debates in recent years have become polarizedand polemical, obfuscating the real issues. The setting up of the World Commission on Dams and its Report -that came out in 2000- did not result in a balanced review but only accentuated the controversies.2 The WCD report, in fact, questioned the very utility of dams and generated acrimonious debates regarding their impacts.
In this context, the Centerfor Policy Research, NGO think tank based in Delhi, undertook in 2003 a performance analysis of the Bhakra-Nangal Project. The findings were put into a report titled “Bhakra-Nangal Project: Socio-economic and environmental impacts.3 Briefly stated, the assessment of its performance over the last five decades revealed that the project has fulfilled, in a sustained manner, all the objectives envisaged in the Project Report. In addition, it rendered many incidental and indirect benefits, far beyond what were anticipated in the project report. Moreover, the CPR study found that there was more than justified basis for the claimed beneficial impacts due to the project outweighing whatever social and environmental costs had to be paid.
- Formerly, Member (CWC) and Additional Secretary to the Government of India, Ministry of Water Resources and presently Honorary Research Professor, Centerfor Policy Research, New Delhi
- WCD, November 2000, Dams and Development, The Report of the World Commission on Dams, Earthscan Publications, London, 2000
- R.Rangachari , Bhakra-Nangal Project: Socio-economic and environmental impacts, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2005 (under publication)
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2. Manthan Adhyayan Kendra Report
Manthan Adhyayan Kendra (MAK), based in Badwani, Madhya Pradesh, brought out in April, 2005 a publication highly critical of Bhakra4. This book, entitled -‘UnravelingBhakra : Assessing the Temple of Resurgent India' was written by the coordinator of MAK, the anti-dam activist, Shripad Dharmadhikary. Most patrons and well wishers thanked by him in the acknowledgement are also well known opponents of technological interventions in water resource development, including dams.
The study started with misgivings about Bhakra Project. The author says in his Preface, -“ Against this background of India's long experience with large dams, the findings of the WCD, and the mounting national and international evidence, it was intriguing to hear the unqualified, absolute and lavish praise of the Bhakra Project” (p.xi). Hence, the study team set out to find –“was there something different, something unique in the Bhakra project as compared to other projects?”
The MAK report finds everything wrong with Bhakra-Nangal project. It makes a list of all possible adverse impacts of large dams and irrigation projects and then seeks to show Bhakra as an example that allegedly confirms all the pre-decided conclusions of the anti-dam lobbyists. It finally concludes that whatever prosperity is now found in Punjab and Haryana is unsustainable and that these two states are on the brink of disaster.
Dharmadhikary found “the Bhakra dam and project to be a most ordinary project, an ordinary dam much like any other large dam with all its flaws and blemishes” (p. 229). He considered that “Bhakra happened to be in the right place, at the right time, and has been given the credit for things it never did”(p. xxii). Dharmadhikary found that the old saying that ‘ appearances can be deceptive' was true in this case, too, and that the long-held popular beliefs and perceptions are mostly just that---beliefs. ( p. xvii)
The Report is not an objective research study of the Bhakra-Nangal Project (BNP) and its performance over the last five decades. It is rather an attempt at propaganda against all large dams in general and Bhakra in particular, based on the prejudices of the author against large dams. In order to project an adverse picture of dams and their impacts it draws selectively from the statements and views of some individuals and twists statistical data. It was, therefore, not surprising that it was immediately hailed by his supporters in India and abroad as one which “explodes the ‘myth' of Bhakra”5 or as “debunking a dam legend”6.
The author often goes back and forth in the narration, moving from the specific study on Bhakra Project to all the general issues against large dams or mega-projects. The specifics about Bhakra and the general debate on dams could have been separated.
- MAK has clarified that throughout its report, unless the context so indicates, or is specified otherwise, the term Bhakra or Bhakra project refers to the entire Bhakra-Nangal project
- For instance see news item “New study explodes ‘myth' of Bhakra” by Gargi Parsai in ‘The Hindu' dated April, 19, 2005 and ‘River Sutras', an article by Kuldip Nayar in the Indian Express dated April,26,2005
- “Debunking a Dam Legend: New Book on India's Bhakra dam”, International Rivers Network,www.irn.org
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