Story of Two Successful Struggles against Dam Projects in the Same Area
Long Live Peoples Movements.
Ullash Kumar R K
Silent Valley National Park is a pristine rainforest (evergreen forest) in the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve. It was declared a National Park in an attempt to protect it. The park is about 90 Sq Km in area. In the late 70s there was an attempt to build a dam across Kunti River by the Kerala Electricity Board. Kunti River drains the Silent Valley and runs through the heart of the valley. It is one of the important tributaries of Bharathapuzha River, which is the biggest river in Kerala in terms of River Basin. There are many conflicting explanations given for the name Silent Valley.
Silent Valley is also known as `Sairandhri. Sairandhri is another name for Draupadi(Wife of Pandavas). The local legend says deprived of their kingdom, the Pandavas set out on the 13-year exile. They wandered south, into what is now Kerala, deeper and deeper into its forests, until one day they came upon a magical valley where rolling grasslands dipped into wooded ravines, where a deep green river bubbled its course through impenetrable forest, where at dawn and twilight the tiger and elephant would drink together at the waters edge, where all was harmonious and man unknown. Besides that river, in a cave on a hill slope, the Pandavas halted. Every morning they would rise with the sun and bathe at the river. And to that river they gave their mothers
name- `Kunthipuzha(Puzha: is river in Malayalam).
Once in the not-so-distant past an Englishman ventured into the area. He discovered an uninhabited, barely penetrable forest, where after nightfall there was silence- unlike other forests, the Cicadas comforting call could not be heard here after dusk. Thus Sairandhri, the unpronounceable was rechristened Silent Valley.
Strangely enough, it was this remote little valley of which even people in Kerala were hardly aware which triggered off the fiercest environmental dispute that the country has ever known. It all began with the innocent enough proposal first mooted by the British to build a dam across the Kunthi River, create a reservoir behind it in Silent Valley and then use the trapped water to generate electricity. The dam which would be 130 Metres high would be built between two hillocks in a natural gorge through which the river runs. That however was dropped by the British.
In Independent
India the Kerala Electricity Board (KSEB) had started work on it in 1973, but shortage of funds delayed things till 1976. By then a large number of big trees had already been cut down. It was the practice of dam builders to remove the big trees in the area, which would be submerged once the natural flow of the river, was trapped. Seeing the loss of trees and loss of biodiversity, people of Kerala awoke and protested.
The attempt to build the dam was successfully stopped by the activists from the Kerala Sastra Sahitiya Parishad (A Science Movement), teachers, students and various movements in Kerala. The KSEB never thought that their project would
be stopped. This was one of the rare occasions when considerations other than money or material benefits were given priority in deciding whether to go ahead with a project or not. The committee argued that the 120 megawatt (MW) of power which the dam would help generate was not important for Kerala which had an even bigger hydroelectric project in Idukki, capable of producing more power than the state required.
25 Years Later:
Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) in an attempt to revive the Silent Valley Hydel Project had designed a new Hydro-electric project (HEP) in the year 2002 to replace the Silent Valley Project which was abandoned 25 years ago following world wide opposition culminating in declaring Silent Valley as a National Park.
This was now being revived in a move to construct a HEP on the boundary
and buffer zone of the Silent Valley National Park- a Rs. 462 crore hydel project across the Kunthi river named Pathrakkadavu HEP, just 500 meters downstream of the Silent Valley National Park which would destroy the park and completely stop any water flow in the Bharathapuzha, a dying river of great cultural, ritualistic and economic significance to the people of the State.
The Environmental Impact Assessment of the project carried out by a
private agency justifying the project was found to be unsatisfactory.
Kerala State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) held a public hearing of the project it witnessed unruly scenes of hooliganism by a
section of the supporters of the project.
What happened in Cheramkulam MNP School, in Palakkad, Kerala during the
public hearing of the Pathrakkadavu HEP is a disgrace to the state of
Kerala and points to the fragile nature of our minimalist democracy and
return of social fascism which thrives on the political arrangement based on this minimalist idea of democracy. Civil society in Kerala had been virtually hijacked by elite organizations and is being consistently manipulated for serving the purposes of those who make gains from formal democracy as organized forces. The more substantive ideas of democracy involving deliberative and egalitarian processes (Neera Chadda) has been dispensed with and dominant groups define democracy as participation when they get an upper hand in designing development strategies.
In the public hearing on the Pathrakkadavu Project, environmentalists and civil society representatives had been physically prevented from voicing their views and this political drama had been staged by organized groups in the name of people. The speakers were booed, heckled. Sugathakumari, famous Malayalam poetess and former
Chair Person of the Kerala State Womens Commission, was mobbed and abused.
Success of A Peoples Movement:
Success of A Peoples Movement:
Sugathakumari and other environmental activists did not be cowed down by this fascist show of strength in the name of local people. The very same tactics that such groups followed in the case of the Bakel Tourism Project was being reenacted here. If in Plachimada, where an agitation against the Coca-Cola plant has received international attention, the credit goes to the relentless, sustained efforts by the peoples movements there. If Coke is banned in American Universities the credit goes to the sustained struggle by the Plachimada Movement of Kerala.
But the three decade long history of New Social Movements in Kerala teaches us that despite the fascist and social fascist usurpation of the civil society domains including successful attempts to eventually capture some civil society based organizations with open formal membership and their fierce antipathy to a broader concept of democracy, the space for democratic engagement has not been completely closed. Such threats and machinations will not dishearten those who uphold the causes of democracy or reduce the vigour or momentum of the New Social Movements in the state.
And thus the Second project at Silent Valley The Pathrakadavu Project was also stopped. A second successful victory of the people by the people against unmindful development projects.
And thus the Second project at Silent Valley The Pathrakadavu Project was also stopped. A second successful victory of the people by the people against unmindful development projects.
To know more on the issue please attend :
The Film Screening : Only an Axe Away on Saturday 27th May 2006 at SCM
House
The screening will be followed by A Talk by C R Neelakantan, an activist and writer.
Only an Axe Away
India/2005/40 min/Dir: P Baburaj and C Saratchandran
The film, 'Only An Axe Away', narrates the history of the unique campaign to save the Silent Valley from destructive development. Silent Valley was declared a National Park 20 years ago in 1984. But the threat to Silent Valley does not cease to exist!
The Kerala State Electricity Board plans to build a dam on the fringes of the Silent Valley National Park at Pathrakadavu across river Kunthi. Nature lovers are concerned that the proposed dam will harm the pristine Ever Green Forests in the Valley.
Ullaash Kumar.R.K,
Freelance Journalist, Wildlifer
Freelance Journalist, Wildlifer
Mobile: 94493-50275
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