Ramaswamy R. Iyer
The governments concerned must clear the
mess before proceeding with further construction. They should not add
to submergence and displacement before clearing the backlog fully.
The ringing words, “let right be done,” famous in English legal
history, reverberated in the rich and powerful voice of the actor
Robert Donat through the 1950 film Winslow Boy, and they have remained
ever since in memory. Sitting in the Supreme Court on March 10 during
the latest in a long series of hearings on the Narmada (failure of
rehabilitation) case, I strained my ears to detect those resounding
words in the air. But I could hear them only faintly and with some
difficulty. The court was of course very impressive and awe-inspiring,
and one was proud to be in India’s highest court. However, there was a
nagging disappointment, a vague sense that something was amiss. I shall
not try to put that inchoate sense into words.
Continuing story of failure
What was before the court was the continuing story of failure on the
rehabilitation front in the Narmada Valley. The petitioners were
drawing attention to the lag in rehabilitation even with reference to
an earlier height of the dam; the indefensibility of adding to the
displacement numbers without clearing the backlog; the illegality (in
their view) of the so-called Special Rehabilitation Package or SRP
(that is, cash instead of land); the duress under which the
Project-Affected Families (PAFs) were asked to choose between
uncultivable, unirrigable land from the government’s land bank and cash
under the SRP; the perversion of even that scheme by corruption and
fake registries; the duping of the tribal people, and so on. The plea
was for justice and for fundamental rights under Article 21.
On an earlier occasion, on July 8, 2006, the Prime Minister had in all
good faith proceeded on the basis that the Shunglu Committee’s Report
on the status of rehabilitation was factually correct, and that
whatever lag that remained could be cleared during the three months
when project work would remain suspended because of the monsoon. He
must have been so briefed, but unfortunately that briefing turned out
to have been erroneous. It soon became clear that the Shunglu
Committee’s Report was badly flawed and contained a few truths but also
many errors. As for the lag in rehabilitation, far from being cleared
in three months it still remains (and has perhaps increased) two years
later. No one can now state with a straight face that the
rehabilitation has been completed.
It might be argued that there are two views here — the petitioners’
view that rehabilitation is poor and incomplete, and the Madhya Pradesh
government’s view that it has been completed — and that it is not easy
for the court to decide which is correct. However, there are
independent reports: in 2006 a study group with academics from the
Jawaharlal Nehru University, the Council for Social Studies and some
other institutions came out with a report which was substantially at
variance with the Shunglu Report. More recently, a team consisting of
Anna Hazare, Arvind Kejriwal, Swami Agnivesh and others have issued a
report which is very disturbing, to say the least. If indeed there is
now any difference on the status of rehabilitation, it is only about
the extent of failure, that is, about the numbers. This can and must be
resolved by a reference to the gram sabhas concerned. May one add that
the gram sabhas are constitutional bodies.
Rehabilitation lagging
Be that as it may, two things are abundantly clear: that rehabilitation
is badly lagging, and that the device of the SRP is both a confession
of failure and a deviation from the Tribunal’s Award and the Supreme
Court’s own earlier judgments. It is an illegality that ought never to
have been attempted or countenanced. (I am leaving aside complaints of
corruption or fake registries; they are before the Madhya Pradesh High
Court.)
What, then, must be done? First, the governments concerned must
acknowledge that things are not all right; that rights have been
violated; that there has been a failure of compliance with the
Tribunal’s Award and with judicial orders. Secondly, the governments
must correct these lapses. In short, they must clear the mess before
proceeding further with construction. They should not add to
submergence and displacement before clearing the backlog fully.
However, that was not the spirit of what one heard in the court. There
was weariness, impatience and irritation in the air. There was a
feeling that the same things were being said over and over again; but
the repetition of points in the court merely reflected the repetition
of wrongs on the ground. One might say: go to the grievance redress
authorities. They have been there; it was only because they have failed
to find satisfactory answers to their problems that they have come to
the Supreme Court seeking justice. The impatience on the part of the
governments with the inconvenient petitioners who keep harping on the
same points and stand in the way of ‘development,’ reflected in the
remarks of counsel, seemed unwittingly to affect the learned judges
themselves. Their Lordships are understandably anxious to bring the
case to a close. They are impatient with abstract pleas for justice and
rights and tend to ask: what practical solutions can you put forward to
break the logjam? That sounds very reasonable, but is that in fact the
right response to the PAFs, mostly tribal people, who have come to the
highest court in the land seeking justice and rights? Are justice and
rights abstract concepts of no consequence? Is ‘practical’
problem-solving rather than justice the prime concern of the Supreme
Court?
No final orders were passed on this occasion. A report was called for
from the Madhya Pradesh government and the matter was put off for a
further and final hearing. The petitioners’ hope for justice continues
to burn bright. However, that hope is contingent on justice and not
pragmatism being the prime concern of the process.
May I respectfully offer two slogans for the consideration of all
concerned: Let right be done. If you cannot rehabilitate, do not
displace.
http://www.thehindu.com/2008/03/14/stories/2008031455681100.htm
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© 2008, The Hindu.
