Sreenath Chidambaram talks about what Mahatma Gandhi would have done for the Narmada Valley issue had he been alive today, and also highlights the fact that successive governments have managed to completely ignore and forget his talisman of governance and his values. The full text of the article can also be found at India New England.

When I read the news item about Narendra Modi fasting for the construction of the Sardar Sarovar dam, I was reminded of another old man from Gujarat who had a habit of fasting whenever he sought truth and justice.

His fasts were never timed like Modi’s 51-hour venture nor were they state-sponsored and organized with fanfare. They were more like Medha Patkar’s trysts against power, often lasting several days until justice was done, usually bringing himself to the brink in the process. That Old Man, who is remembered as the Father of our Nation only on convenient and obligatory occasions by our current political leaders, also gave them the following Talisman for governance:

 “Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to swaraj for the hungry and spiritually starving millions? Then you will find your doubts melt away.”

And just days later he was killed by a religious fanatic for fasting to give our neighbors their fair share of the money from our Treasury.

If he were alive today there is no doubt which side the Old Man would be on and what he would be doing — he would be fasting for the courageous but oppressed citizens of our country from the Narmada valley. And he would probably be accused by our elite leadership of halting progress, of being an extremist, maybe even anti-national. His talisman would be (in fact, it has already been) discarded by our political leadership of the day since it is “anti-development.”

If he persisted with his Satyagraha, he would even be arrested by the Government of his beloved free nation for attempted suicide, just as Medha Patkar was a few days ago.

What else can one expect from a Government that ignores the refreshingly honest report of its own Ministerial team on the awful status of rehabilitation, and makes infeasible assurances in the Supreme Court about achieving full rehabilitation in less than three months?

What is the confidence that people can place in a Prime Minister who is still “studying the Group of Ministers report” yet has no problems making commitments to the Bharatiya Janata Party and Congress delegations that the dam construction will go on?

Nobody in the political or technological elite will openly deny that proper rehabilitation of the affected people has to be done, yet they will outdo one another in claiming that under no circumstance should the construction be stopped — What does that mean when it is clear that the resettlement has barely commenced, that proper rehabilitation is a non-starter given the lack of a functioning Grievance Redressal Authority, and that every step in raising the dam thus far has been in violation of the Supreme Court order of 2000?

As for me, I fasted last week in solidarity with the oustees’ demand for immediate and just rehabilitation as did more than 510 Indian professionals, scientists and students in the United States and in India. But today I fasted again, this time as a prayer that the Prime Minister and other people in power find compassion in their hearts, that they treat peoples’ lives and livelihoods as sacred and not just as a ‘problem to be dealt with.”

I fasted in prayer so that the spirit of that old man from Gujarat is kept alive, that his talisman for public morality is not forgotten.

Shrinaath Chidambaram is a member of the Board of Directors of Association for India’s Development. He lives in Sturbridge, Mass.