The fight against large dams and the reservoirs they impound is a phenomenon that sparks wherever and whenever the people of Southasia feel empowered enough to resist. And so, the "temples of modern India" of the 1950s and 1960s had by the 1980s turned into targets for attack by people's movements, environmentalists and cultural activists alike, but not enough by economists and political scientists. This is probably why, as the articles in this issue of Himal indicate, even as high dams make a comeback in India and are bound to make a return elsewhere in Southasia, the overt arguments remain essentially the same and predicated on culture and environment rather than on market value, equity and prior consent. As long as the paradigm of resistance does not base itself on the foundation of economic logic and political organisation, the national and sub-national establishments will continue to ignore, resist or evade the anti-dam activists, egged on by the sheer weight of the demand for flowing water – as the underground aquifers in the plains go dry, and as the demand for irrigation, drinking water and hydropower skyrocket.
Sunderlal Bahuguna, who made waves as leader of the Chipko Movement and as tireless crusader against the Tehri Dam in Uttaranchal, is still up and about. But today, he is treated more as an artefact than a messiah. The rising tide of the Indian middle class has a willing collaborator in the mainstream media, which deliberately drowns out voices that question the building of massive dams. Indeed, Bahuguna was already sidelined by the time the waters of the Bhagirathi rose to engulf Tehri town in 2001. For two months this summer, activists of Sikkim's upper Teesta were on a hunger strike to block interventions on their river; but their voices were ignored in Gangtok and New Delhi alike. The Narmada Bachao Andolan, representing the pain of hundreds of thousands seems to get grudging attention from mainstream media largely because of the Medha Patkar phenomenon.
It so happens that in order to either impound a reservoir or to have enough of a physical drop to create hydro power, you need hilly terrain. Southasia's hills, meanwhile, have traditionally been home to marginalised Adivasis and other groups who often do not have enough handle on the estates of state to put up a resistance, using the bureaucracy, courts, media or political institutions. When the politically powerful plains make demands for water and electricity, it is nigh impossible for anyone to resist.
Everything in the developing politico-economy points to enormous pressures on the river systems of the Subcontinent in the days ahead. The rapidly expanding economy of India in particular, and Southasia as a whole, heralds an unrelenting and exponentially expanding demand for water in the coming decades. The populist energising of society will make it impossible for political leaders, bureaucrats and diplomats alike to resist the call from within their own kind for high dams upstream, and the engineers and administrators will goad the process even if the social scientists think otherwise.