Waiting for Gandhi

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Domkhedi, India, June 2001 (I think)

As the song goes, what a long strange trip it’s been. I’m in Domkhedi, I’m groggy from another night sleeping (if you can call it that) on the rocky ground.

Domkhedi is a tiny little village a very remote area of Gujarat in the Narmada River Valley. This is one of more than 100 villages that will be destroyed if the government of India goes ahead with building a series of big dams along the Narmada River, and it has become the local headquarters of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (movement to save the Narmada). The NBA has been waging a 15 year struggle to stop the dams and to promote an alternative model of development that uses more appropriate technology and allows people of the valley to retain their homes and livelihoods, rather than displacing everyone in the name of “development” (sound familiar??)

The NBA’s effort at “struggle and reconstruction” was dealt a severe blow last fall when the Indian Supreme Court handed down an utterly absurd, politically-driven ruling that the Sardar Sarovar dam must continue, essentially at any cost. It was probably even more anti-logical, non-legal and politically hypocritical than the US Supreme Court ruling that handed George W the White House. (More on all this in another posting)

We’ve now spent about a week in the Narmada valley, tagging along with an organizing trip going from village to village to meet with leaders and discuss next steps of the struggle. The little boat we’re using is the only transport alternative to walking 2-5 hours between villages – something the villagers do routinely.

To get here from Bombay, we had to take an overnight train, stop by the Baroda NBA office for directions, then take a several hour, very bumpy bus ride, get dropped off, in the middle of nowhere, walk a half hour to another bus stop, try to figure out which next bus to take (a complex process that always seems to involve dozens of people), wait around amidst sellers, travelers and beggars, take the bus another few bumpy hours to Kawant, in which we were supposed to be met by an unknown person named “Bimah,” who was supposed to somehow find us in the vicinity of the bus stand and take us an unknown distance to Hapeshwar, where we were to meet “the Boat.” At points, I was on the verge of taking the Mahatma’s advice to the British: Quit India.

Upon arrival in Kawant, there was no Bimah, nobody that spoke English, no English lettering on the signs, and the now-familiar chaos of India. People, busses, markets, bullock carts, everywhere. All along the way, we were never sure where we were, where we were going, whether we would ever be able to meet up with the NBA people, etc.

After milling around in Kawant for a while, we settled on our usual approach of asking everyone we saw if they knew where we could find Bimah at a place called Ramubai. Much blank staring and laughter. Eventually, a policeman – we’d been warned the Gujarat police were hostile, have beaten NBA activists and arrested foreigners coming to support the NBA – suggested I get on the back of his motorcycle. I did, not knowing if I would end up with Bimah of ramubai or going to jail to be tortured. As I should have expected, it was neither. He brought me to the doctor’s office, apparently thinking the doctor could understand some English. He didn’t, but he DID have some bight idea of where ramubai might be, so I was loaded back up on the motorcycle and taken to a clock shop.

No Bimah. But the shop owner sent for someone that spoke some English Turned out to be the local BJP vice-president. BJP is the right-wing, Hindu-religious-fanatic party that happens to be in power in India at the moment, and considers finishing the dam as one of its top national priorities. Hmmm. Let’s see, we’re in Gujarat, the state that’s been beating and jailing NBA activists, meeting with Vipin Shah, the right-wing, pro-dam party’s leader. As we were being grilled on what we were doing there – and trying to pretend we knew nothing of the NBA – a crowd gathered. All around us. As in surrounded, wedged back in the corner of this little clock shop. I assumed they were the local BJP hooligans, the equivalent of the enforcers you can still find in many Chicago ward offices and certain Teamster halls. Not an auspicious set-up.

During all our dancing around one another, Vipin took a fancy to Nilofer. He called her “sister” and wanted us to come and stay at his home. All the while making a range of anti-NBA comments and trying to figure out what our story really was. Of course, I think they figured out pretty much right away that any foreigners coming to Kawant and trying to catch a ride to Hapeshwar, the only bus destination in the Narmada valley, were either NBA people or there to check out what was going on with the NBA and dam campaign. We were there for a couple hours, no working phones or electricity in the town, no idea whether our contact existed or even if we’d gotten the directions correct.

Suddenly, Bimah appeared. Though we were relieved, the language barrier and peculiarity of the situation meant I still wasn’t sure this was the real Bimah or what we were going to do from there. Vipin seemed to be wanting to win our hearts and minds. He insisted on being our host and wrote us a letter of introduction to a Hindu monk at the historically important temple in Hapeshwar (“He’s my man” Vipin insisted).

But we got on another creaky, rickety bus, with Bimah, that took us to Hafeshwar, on the banks of the Narmada river reservoir. Of course, “took us to Hafeshwar” like so much description in this country, does not come close to conveying the experience. The bus bounced around on the semi-road, much of which was just dried riverbed or on the very edge of eroding hillside, up and down, several times barely making it up the hills. We saw later, from first-hand experience, that it often doesn’t. On a later trip, a dozen people had to get off the bus, which then backed up to make another try at a hill. But the second, lighter attempt was successful, and everyone got back on and we went merrily on our way.

Then, arriving in the village of Hapeshwar – a temple and maybe a dozen huts scattered across several square miles – we found that we had gotten to exactly where we were supposed to be. Miraculous!! All it took was about 24 hours of traveling including a train, 3 bus rides, several walking stints, many episodes of trying to communicate, following people blindly, encounters with potentially hostile police and politicos, lots of searching for water, not much food and a lot of uncertainty. In Hapeshwar, we met the boat and NBA activists, delivered our note to the temple and were on our way.

June 16, 2001

Just a little to add for now on this travel and transit theme. We’ve spent the last week bouncing around a small section of India quite a bit.

All transit in India includes a peculiar element of waiting, lots of waiting. Or perhaps I should write: *W*A*I*T*I*N*G*. It’s more than just long waits. It’s random waiting, with or without a reason, often with no way to figure out how long a wait it will be, often without knowing what exactly you’re waiting for or why. And it’s not even confusion due to a language barrier, though, god knows, we’ve had plenty of that. Our Hindi-speaking Indian companion could never figure out what was going on, but then he couldn’t really understand our constantly wanting to figure these things out. We’d ask; he’d shrug and say “bus will come.”

Another peculiarity has been the planning process for our various travels. Each leg of each bus trip entailed a conference (to which we were often observers) among at least half a dozen people – including several total strangers – as to which bus to take, when or whether it would come, whether it would make it through the flood waters from the last rain, whether it would go to a particular city, etc. etc. Every leg, every time. And often our plans were changed without consulting or even telling us. There’d be a long, lively argument about transit options, then silence. We’d ask what was going on. The response was usually: “Bus will come.”

Unfortunately, it’s not always true that the “bus will come.” Or at least not within a meaningful timeframe. We had spent five days in these rural tribal villages along the Narmada, decided to spend a couple days in Chota Udepur and made arrangements to come back on a bus to the famous Hapeshwar, where the boat was to meet us and take us back to the villages. The boat, which had been taking us around with a team of organizers for village meetings, was to be there at 11am and, we were promised, would wait for us (since you never know whether the bus will get you there at a particular time). Well, we got the bus – at least the first bus that got us to Kawant – and then managed to glom onto a truck going to Hapeshwar. The truck was actually quite a trick, including a moment in which I was hanging out the door of the bus that was pulling out, looking for Nilofer, who was nowhere to be seen, with the bus conductor yelling at me to close the door and sit down. But I digress.

As I was saying, we got to Hapeshwar around 11am. There was no boat. We hung around the old temple, wandered around, finished reading everything we had with us. No boat. Then we waited some more, played cards and the no-name-dice-game (while a cow ate one of our books). No boat. Then, just as we were getting pretty irritable, the boat arrived. But didn’t take us anywhere or explain to us what they were doing. The boat drivers disappeared. For a long time. We got pretty hungry. We waited some more. And some more. Then it got dark. And we got hungrier. Now and then we’d track down the boat drivers, trying to say we were expecting to go to DomKhedi, on the boat, askingthem to take us; they just looked at us blankly. We got desperate and threw ourselves on the mercy of the Hindu temple. We begged for food and a place to sleep, which the monks graciously allowed. Even a chance to bathe. So we ate with 8 Hindu ascetic sadhus, bathed and laid out some blankets on the floor for what promised to be the softest bed we’d had for a week.

Then, just as we were about to go to sleep, the boat driver shows up saying he’s going to take us to Nimghavan. But, we’re supposed to go to Domkhedi for a meeting. No, Nimghavan. But we’re supposed to go to Domkhedi. Headshakes, “Nimghavan.” Impasse. At 11pm. Hmmmmm. I seriously considered telling him to go away and leaving the valley if and when another bus managed to show up. But reluctantly decided to follow them onto the boat, completely lacking communication or confidence that we knew where we were going. And just got dropped off in the pitch dark. They pointed up the steep hill and said, “Nimghavan. Go.” So we went.

We got to the village, alone, in the dark, with nobody awake or expecting us, no lights anywhere. And we still were in a different village from the one we were supposed to go to. But no matter; this is India, and the tribal Narmada valley to boot, so we found some huts, found a little bamboo platform and went to sleep. Still not knowing what was going on. Turned out that in the morning, waking up with a number of people we didn’t know on the little bamboo platform, one of the NBA activists was in that village and we could walk to Domkhedi. Well, that was a relief. So after some more waiting (no, I don’t know why), we set off. We got to a river that had to be crossed, waited a while, found some young people to whom our associate spoke, waited some more until someone showed up with some oars for a boat. Then we waited some more and rowed across the river to Domkhedi, where we met the activists we were looking for, including Gita, who spoke English. At least for a couple days, our waiting was over. And that’s how we got to Domkhedi.

Leaving there to reach Barwani, Maheshwar, Pathrad and other villages that will be submerged by the proposed dams was a whole ‘nother trip.

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