Imphal, Manipur's capital, came to a grinding halt on August 28, with a strike being called. Imphal's people are habituated to bandhs, and most of them are successful. But this was a bandh with a difference -- more than 20 social and political organisations, representing the largest communities, ethnic groups and political interests. Almost unheard of, in a badly divided society.
Academics, politicians, students and civil society organisations united that day for one reason to demand that work on the proposed Tipaimukh Multipurpose Hydel Project be stopped, convinced the project would deepen the cracks in Manipur's already fissured society because it would benefit some groups at the cost of others. They formed a joint front called the Action Committee against Tipaimukh Project (actip) to oppose the project.
It's not that Manipuris are not aware of the commitment the centre has to the project -- after all it has been in the pipeline for the best part of half a century. Despite that the widespread opposition to the dam shows no sign of abating, as the unprecedented unity of August 28 abundantly demonstrated.
nitin sethi explores the complex social and political matrix that comprises Manipur and examines the impact the proposed dam in Tipaimukh will have on the ethnic mosaic of the state.
Tipaimukh Dam in Manipur driving a wedge?
The proposed 164-m-high dam will come up 500 m downstream of the confluence of the Barak and Tuivai rivers. Its reservoir will have a storage capacity of 15,900 million cubic m with a maximum depth of 1,725.5 m.
Long gestation
The project has a long history. According to the reworked detailed project report, a project on Barak was first thought of in 1954 when the government of Assam requested the Central Water and Power Commission for ways to manage floods in the river basin. The commission surveyed and rejected three sites by 1965 on two grounds. The sites were geologically unsafe and large-scale submergence of cultivable land made it economically unviable.
Then the North-Eastern Council intervened and discussed the project with the three states through which Barak flows -- Assam, Manipur and Mizoram. On its request, the Central Water Commission began investigations in 1977. In 1984, it identified a new site, where the river takes a 220 degree bend from southwest to a northerly direction flowing through a gorge. The stretch was 24 km downstream of Tipaimukh. The dam, it was then estimated, would cost Rs 1,078 crore. But the project was put in the cold storage because it did not have the requisite environmental and management plans, say observers.
Then the Brahmaputra Board jumped into the fray. It is a government body that was at that time meant to manage the Brahmaputra and Barak river basins. The board also carried out studies, revising the plan until the estimated cost went up to Rs 2,899 crore in 1995.
Yet, the project was nowhere near taking off. The Naga Women's Union says "People of Manipur began to take notice. In July 1995 environment minister Kamal Nath ensured resettlement issues would be taken care of and nothing would be done in haste. In 1999, Pranab Mukherjee, deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, gave similar assurances."
In 1995, chief minister Rishang Keishing made a statement declaring that the state cabinet did not approve of the dam. In 1998, the Manipur assembly passed a resolution not to implement the project.
In 1999, the central government handed over the project to neepco, under circumstances which many social organisations allege are questionable. They claim that during a spell of president's rule, imposed in 2001, the governor approved the project.
Then in 2003, the Public Investments Board and the Central Electricity Authority cleared the project by which time its cost had been revised by neepco to Rs 5,163.86 crore.
The rationale
The project is to be built primarily for flood control and power generation. Irrigation and other benefits will be spin-offs. Flood control will benefit some plain areas in Assam. Manipur and Mizoram, on the other hand, will bear the brunt of submergence. But they are to equally share, as the central government stipulates, 12 per cent of the power from the project, free of charge, while the rest will be taken by neepco and the centre.
The problem is that of the installed capacity of 1,500 mw, at any given time only 412 mw will be generated, usually in the monsoons when the river is in spate.
The plant load factor -- calculated at 28 per cent -- is also a worry, because it implies heavy losses due to inadequate utilisation. neepco believes the centre should help make the dam economically viable.
The leaders of the groups comprising actip and academics in Manipur believe that the unviable project design will also drive a wedge between communities that live in a state of unremitting conflict between themselves and with the state.
Under siege
To understand what the Tipaimukh project could bring to the state, one must put it in context. Imphal is in a valley surrounded by hills on four sides. In the valley the Meitei people are predominant. Legally, they do not have the right to purchase land in the hills.
The hills are inhabited by 29 major tribes. These tribes fall largely into two groups the Nagas and the Kuki-Zomi-Chins. Besides these, there are some smaller communities. Though the Nagas share a sense of common history and kinship, as do the Kuki-Zomi-Chins, both the communities are internally differentiated.
Some districts like Ukhrul and Tamenglong are dominated by the Nagas, others, like Churachandpur, are predominantly Kuki-Zomi-Chins.
For more than five decades, the communities have experienced armed conflicts. The armed groups from both communities fight the state, some fight among themselves. Some groups engage non-violently with the state.
The insurgents have various demands -- independence, new states within India, greater autonomy, greater rights, territorial integrity or simply development on their own terms. Some groups are powerful enough to run parallel governments -- imposing taxes and running administrative and judicial systems. Experts have counted up to 35 insurgent groups.
Sharp divides
There are sharp economic divides that feed the friction. In the valley, access to the rest of the world is relatively easy. Income levels are far higher. Markets for every primary commodity that the hills can sell, from rice to wood to bamboo, exist in the valley. In the hills, the only form of livelihood is agriculture -- a mix of swidden (jhum) and settled. Forest and riverine products supplement agriculture. The economic disparity between the valley and the hills fuels the divide between the communities.
There are sharp political divides too. The Naga underground has been asking for an integrated Naga homeland by merging districts of Manipur that are Naga-dominated with neighbouring Nagaland.
Mainstream Meitei society, largely based in Imphal, as well as valley-based underground organisations, is against this demand. They ask for the territorial integrity of the state to be maintained.
The underground groups of the Hmars, a dominant tribe of the Kuki-Chin-Zomi group, have been at war with the Nagas over territorial claims too. The battles between Kukis (including the Hmars) and Naga underground groups, going back to the 1980s and 1990s, have led to massacres that still scar people's psyches.
Middle path
Social organisations, student unions and women's groups often play the role of intermediaries. Even though they too are often divided along ethnic lines, they are the only forces in the state that try to encourage a climate for dialogue and negotiation, cajoling underground groups to come to the negotiating table.
These, for instance, are the groups that have come together to protest against the Tipaimukh project. Usually, the state government accuses these groups of supporting the underground and covertly fomenting its agendas. But indisputably they provide the only modicum of democratic politics in the state.
Against this setting of immense distrust the government wants to build the Tipaimukh Multipurpose Hydropower Project.
Likely gainers
The project is to come up in Churachandpur, a Hmar-dominated area. Some Hmar leaders are not completely unhappy with the idea, because they believe their community stands to gain.
John Pulamte, Hmar Students' Association's president, says "The Hmar community does not object completely as the people firmly believe that the dams will bring the much-needed development to these interior areas." Pulamte makes a cogent case for his people "Firstly, if the areas to be submerged are wasteland, I think we have nothing to lose. Secondly, there are no good schools, hospitals, electricity or even proper roads. So people feel that with the coming of the dam, these facilities will follow."
But there is an obvious caveat. Pulamte makes it clear that his people realise that neepco is not responsible for providing these amenities, the government is. State failure is a big issue in Manipur."Every night our people see the electric light on the other side of the border in Mizoram. So they wait for a night when they can have lights in their villages too," he says.
But it's not a one-way street, even for the gainers. Pulamte, for instance, has his doubts. He claims though the community is open to the proposed project, there are apprehensions. "Who will guarantee security of livelihood; even if we get houses and electricity if we don't have rice to eat, the benefits are meaningless to us." He observes that since the people are mostly illiterate, transparency becomes a casualty. Pulamte's is one of the organisations that have formed actip to protest against the project.
However, neepco defends Tipaimukh. Ibomcha Singh, deputy general manager, neepco, Manipur, says "The area to be affected is practically a no man's land. With the coming of the project, roads and communication will improve significantly. Apart from free power, there will be tremendous scope for small-scale industries. In a place like Manipur with acute unemployment problem, the availability of free power will be a boon. There is scope for developing pisciculture, water sports, tourism, and development of small townships, commercial centres and facilities for marketing agricultural products. Since the forest area will become restricted after the project, wood cutting will be banned and the forest can be saved."
When asked how many jobs the project will bring, he says, "There will be 400 jobs, both skilled and unskilled, and many indirect employment opportunities." He forgets to mention that most of these jobs shall last only till the dam is up. The jobs will disappear as the dam becomes functional -- if it goes by plan, by 2012.
"For the politicians and the well connected in the region it's a bonanza in a sense. They all see contracts and money. As is typical in the region, if a large company wants to get a work done in a particular area, tahe only way is to contract it out to leaders and well-connected business people from the area belonging to the dominant ethnic group. They can negotiate with the underground, the community leaders and understand ethnic nuances," explains a senior journalist.
For the lesser mortals small contracts, say to lift gravel from the river behind their village to the project site or start a teashop for the migrant labour, can mean a bonanza.
Counterpoint
The Naga leaders in Tamenglong don't see it that way. "It is not right to bring advantage to one group at the cost of another," says D Dikambui, the president of the Zeliangrong Union, the apex social body of the people of Tamenglong. It is immensely influential. The Zeliangrong tribe is part of the Naga groups that predominate in Tamenglong. "If some people shall get a little benefit at the cost of our people how can the government trade off one community's future against the others?" This tirade is repeated by every Zeliangrong elder or leader that one meets. Very often it boils into anger. "If this is what the government wants to do then we shall have no option but to pick up arms. We shall defend our way of life and our lands," says Guiliang Panmei, adviser Zeliangrong Women's Union. This is not an empty threat in a district where Naga groups are immensely powerful. They are concerned with what the Zeliangrong Naga in Tamenglong will lose, if the Tipaimukh dam comes up.
Losing out
What the Hmars gain on the swings, in Tamenglong district, the Zeilangrong Nagas lose on the roundabouts. The area stands to be submerged by the dam, besides being affected culturally. Manipur will lose 293.56 sq km to the reservoir. Much of the support for the dam comes from some leaders in Churachandpur as well as the state government. In Tamenglong, one can count the number of people in favour of the dam, without breaking into a sweat.
The Zeliangrong Nagas are in for substantial damages. With the environmental impact assessment report still not available, the public has to depend on neepco's claims. The report says eight villages will be submerged, even though it says casualties will be minimal. Ninety villages will be affected to some extent but it does not explain how losses can occur if not by submergence. The numbers game is insidious.
neepco says only four Naga villages in Tamenglong will be submerged. It claims that out of the 13 that would have been submerged five are already abandoned. But, for Tamenglong, these are nothing but numbers. The total population of the Zeliangrong people in the district, according to the 2001 census, was 120,000. The Zeliangrong Union has estimated that about 40,000 people will be affected in some way or the other with several villages being inundated and some even losing everything.
The Zeliangrongs, typical of most Nagas in the hills, live primarily by jhum and a bit of settled wet rice cultivation if they manage to find some flat piece of land in the first place. Zeliangrong has a unique system of managing land. They have the equivalent of a chief who owns land and gives people the right to cultivate. But the right to give is often notional because people are able to choose what land they want to cultivate. The villages surveyed showed high degrees of autonomy.
There are three focal points around which the economy of Zeliangrong villages revolve the jhum crop, settled agriculture and the produce from the lush forests. Kitchen gardens provide food throughout the year. The jhum crop is their tin of rice. Patches of graded land are remembered for their productivity. The terrace fields are more productive. Chemicals are not used in any of these regions, which makes input costs minimal. Villagers, on an average, take out 400 to 500 tins of rice through jhum. Another 150 tins comes from wetland rice. Neilolung Goimei of Tajijang village explains, "We can get vegetables to last us the year around, at times almost 20 different things, at least five or six vegetables," he says. "The rice we eat here is of the best quality and the most expensive in Manipur. In the district headquarters it's sold at Rs 16-30 per kg. And the price rises considerably in Imphal valley." The chillies they produce too can be sold at premium rates Rs 150-500 per kg in Imphal.
Fishing is also lucrative. Some families make as much as Rs 40,000-50,000 annually from selling fish . But most villages are not connected by road. Therefore, they fish mostly for personal consumption. "If I could sell in the district headquarters I could make Rs 150 for a small basket of dried fish and much more for fresh fish," says a village elder. Even a pack of small snails from a rivulet can be sold for Rs 10 to get supplementary income.
Forests are the other steady provider of cash and food. Along with meat, villagers collect herbs, fruits, tubers, wood, bamboo and timber. "My brother sells cane in Imphal. He buys it from the village and takes it there. A charcoal producing factory buys it in Tamenglong. Each cane sells for Rs 30. Our forests are stocked with cane and bamboo," says Ramkung Pamei, editor of Dih Cham, a local daily in Tamenglong.
Villagers obviously get little out of the deal as most of the money is made by brokers in the valley. Most villagers are unable to sell because there are no roads to transport the forest produce. Besides, the Supreme Court's restriction on sale of timber has affected their livelihood.
The villagers end up spending almost 70-75 per cent of their money in sending children to the city to study, which is why the poorest district in one of the poorest states of the country has a literacy rate of over 65 per cent. But
neepco doesn't recognise this achievement and chooses to refer to the villagers as 'primitive'.
Beyond economics
For many in the Tamenglong district, the dam comes as a threat not only to their economy but also to the Zeliangrong Naga community. Their most sacred sites, they believe, are threatened by submergence in the reservoir. The Zeliangrong people, believe the Zeihlat lake and the Barak waterfalls close to the lake are central to their origin as a community.
"The idea of Zeliangrong Naga as separate from others is based on the belief centered around Zeihlat and six other lakes. If the lakes go or the falls disappear, it is like the people in the Gangetic valley losing Varanasi, Allahabad and Haridwar. For us tribes, our existence is simply our lands and our beliefs, the dam threatens both," explains Namdithiu Pamei, a student from Tamenglong.
neepco claims that the Zailat lake and the Barak waterfalls will at worst get submerged during the peak monsoon. Zeliangrong leaders are not impressed with the argument. "I don't care about how much land I shall lose. I do not care about where I shall be thrown to eke a living. I am a Zeliangrong Naga because there is the Zeihlat lake. Nothing can ever damage the lake," says an agitated Bilai, a legendary Naga elder in Zailatjan village close to the lake.
neepco, regardless, has its own solution, promising to turn the lake and waterfall into a tourist spot.
Lost people
People in Imphal talk of the micro-climatic changes that the dam will bring and its impact on their famous orange groves; they talk of negotiating and fighting. The Naga people have held their own public hearings in several sub-divisions of Tamenglong condemning the project. The official public hearing under the Environment Protection Act, 1986, is yet to be held even after three years of getting clearance. Yet, neepco has floated a global tender.
"The global tenders were floated in anticipation of getting the environmental and forest clearance from the Union ministry of environment and forests," says Ibomcha. It has refused to share the environment impact assessment (eia) with the public."We do not officially have either the project report or the eia or any other information. Forty years and every iota of information we have got has been by stealth," says an angry Aram Pamei, ex-head of the Naga Women's Union.
The final paperwork is being completed. Recently, the prime minister reportedly released Rs 400 crore for the security of the dam besides the Rs 60 crore, which is already allegedly sanctioned, asking that the work begin quickly. This is unprecedented in the controversial history of big dams in India. Again, he has done so despite the legal requirements of clearances remaining unfulfilled. There are apprehensions that the money shall be used to quell anti-dam protests. "Manipur has the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958. It can be used to quash almost any protest or dissent, labelling them as anti-state," explains Jitn Yumnam of Centre for Organisation, Research and Education, an Imphal-based ngo. "This is not a normal state of affairs where one can protest or file a right to information petition."
The state government has fallen in line. It has come down on intellectuals raising issues against the dam. The registrar of Manipur University and another faculty member were recently pulled up by the vice-chancellor for participating in a seminar on Tipaimukh.
A public hearing held in Mizoram earlier had reportedly gone against neepco, which has been trying to hold another to get a favourable verdict. But a neepco official defends his corporation "There is no question of lack of transparency. A memorandum of understanding was signed between neepco and the Manipur government on January 23, 2003, authorising neepco to complete the formalities. Thereafter it was published in the Manipur gazette inviting objections within a month. Objections were forwarded by the state to neepco, which gave comprehensive replies in the form of a booklet which should be available with the government. The pollution control board (pcb) is responsible for translating it into Manipuri, Hmar and Zeliangrong. Likewise, the eia was given to pcb to do the needful. After these formalities are done, the public hearing can be held," says Ibomcha. But it's still not possible to get a date out of him.
Larger questions
There are issues beyond legality. "First, the government does not build any infrastructure in our areas. In the monsoons we remain cut off. We are unable to sell anything. Then the government comes in and says because you only are at subsistence levels, you are dispensable. Imagine if the state had provided what it should -- roads, water, other amenities. We would have been the richest people in the region.They wouldn't have dared to touch us because we too would be influential. But now they promise us these utilities in the name of the dam and say you shall get them when we remove you from your lands. What will we do with the hospital and roads then?" asks the secretary of the Zeliangrong Union in Tamenglong. "In the rest of India you hear about the Narmada and Tehri conflicts because so many people are displaced. It is easy to do away with us because our numbers look so small. For the other communities in mainland India 40,000 people maybe a convenient number to dispense with, for us that is one-third of our population," he adds.
Tipaimukh is a challenge for the Indian state. It can use the opportunity to reassure Manipur through a transparent approach. The current policy of opacity can only strain ties further.
With inputs from Sunita Akoijam, Imphal
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