Neo-Gandhian Maoists vs. Nehruvian Stalinists
When everyone thought that the day of the large dam was over, the tables turned with a sudden agreement on a massive project on the Indo-Nepal border. Will all of South Asia follow suit, blundering into fiscal haemorrhage and social strife?
Much as environmentalists and social activists all over the world may want, it is too early to write an obituary for large dams. Though there are signs of new and alternative thinking, with opposition seen in Narmada, Tehri, Nepal´s Arun-3, the Bangladesh Flood Action Plan, and even the immense Three Gorges in China, the undercurrent of old thinking and entrenched interests is still the rule, and is strong enough to force decisions in favour of large dams.
Narmada and Tehri in India, and Three Gorges are relentlessly moving ahead, despite protests nationally and internationally. Now Nepal, too, joins its two giant neighbours in pushing forward a high dam project in the Himalaya that is about 25 times larger than the country´s entire installed hydroelectric capacity.