A childfrom Choti Kasarawa, a relaxed village ofHindus and Muslims along the banks ofthe Narmada which the government intends to submerge. Families have near total control over their living areas. Kitchen gardens and fruit trees surround their modest homes. The old and infirm live in housing clusters next door to families who can address their needs individually. School children and young adults live in dormitory-style buildings. A caf6 is run cooperatively by the residents, generally catering to the many guests, visitors and office workers, offering snacks and chai (tea with milk, sugar and spices). A family can choose to eat alone or with a group of their friends in a common dining hall. Vegetarian meals are made in the community kitchens, and residents can individually choose to cook fish or meat to add to these. Because dozens of kitchens and dining halls decentralize the community, one does not feel crowded. During the week of my visit, it was my privilege to join the Amte family and some of the other directors for many a meal. The food was typical Maharashtrian style - something that I had grown up with in my first 20 years of life in Madhya Pradesh, where we spoke Marathi, ate Maharashtrian meals. Dal (lentil soup), rice, curried vegetables, chapati, rayta salad (raw cucumber, onions and tomatoes in yogurt), chutneys... I felt completely at home at Anandwan. But this community does not only look after its own needs. It actively supports social and ecological awareness projects around the country. Among the most visible in recent years were the Knit India bicycle rallies and the fight against the Narmada valley dams, both led by founder Baba Amte. In 1985, while working for the Center for Science and the Environment in New Delhi, I saw the Knit India bike group on a national tour, and heard Baba Amte speak at one rally. He was prominent, even as others spoke, since he cannot sit. With his bad back he can only walk, stand and lie down. No wonder he can’t sit still, and is always burning to try out new ideas. The Knit India rallies attempt to pull together the national social fabric that has worn thin in the last decade. The Provinces of Punjab, Assam and Gujarat have especially been tom with ethnic and religious strife, endemic in a country whose government does not care adequately for impoverished citizens who are regularly ripped off In the more explosive communities Amte facilitated a dialogue between factions, and tried to get them to cooperate in battling the organized power of corporations and the state. Narmada: Amte^s Last Project Anandwan recently took a leading role in fighting the Indian government’s gigantic and destructive plans for development. The dams of the Narmada valley will spur an ecological catastrophe, drown a rich agricultural region, force hundreds of thousands of subsistence farmers off their land, and submerge dense forests in which 75,000 tribal people live. Narmada, the 13(X) km long pristine, wild river that mns from east to west in central India, was until just this summer completely free running. As a child I remember going to its Hindu Shiva temples at Omkareshwar and Maheshwar. Millions of Hindus worship each year at these and other Shiva temples on Narmada Mataji [mother narmada], whose waters provide life to the peasants on her shores. The irrigation and power project scheme, planned with the help of the World Bank and other large financial institutions, envisions several superdams and some thirty medium-sized dams. The Sardar Sarovar dam alone will make over 100.000 refugees. The Narmada Sagar dam will submerge 40.000 hectares of pristine forest, and the Sardar Sarovar project 13,000 hectares. Anandwan sponsored and organized a national conference attended by some 80 well-known and respected public environmental activists and scientists; they drafted and adopted the Anandwan Declaration, to voice their opposition to the construction of big dams in the countryside as a means of development. They organized an internationally televised protest of 30,000 people at the village of Harshud, one of a hundred that will be submerged if the Sardar Sarovar is completed. The dams were initiated undemocratically, and have no relation to the needs of most people. The government has Page 26 Rain Winter/Spring 1992 Volume XIV, Number 2
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