She is a post graduate in Social work from Tata Institute of Social Sciences. She could have lived like any other post graduate would live. She could have well lived a sanguine life doing some good work and coming back to a cozy home but that was not her system of working. She played a very different ball game. She was called a publicity seeker but she went on with her work just the way monsoons would arrive, where you like it or not. She became synonymous with a major fight for human rights that India saw in this decade. She cared less about her personal life, she married but later divorced amicably. She became synonymous with her NGO Narmada Bachao Andolan. She is Medha Patkar.


To tell you about Narmada Bachao Andolan I must start from the beginning, the Narmada Dam Project is one involving the construction of a series of large hydroelectric dams on the Narmada river which runs through central India, emptying into the Gulf of Khambat in Gujarat. For many years, engineers and the government have seen this gracious river as a bounty of liquid that can be brought to drought driven Kutch and Saurashtra districts. That, of course, meant a series of dams. There were 30 dams planned on Narmada and of these Sardar Sarovar is the largest. Initially its proposed height was 136.5 meters and would irrigate more than 18,000 sq. kms, most of the land, of course, in the drought prone areas of Kutch and Saurashtra.


But there was darkness behind that idyllic vision. The people displaced by all those dams had, without exception, been treated in a manner that brought shame to the dreams and ideals of independent India. They had been summarily shoved off land they had called their own for generations, left to fend for themselves as best they could. And to watch as that land disappeared under the long lakes that ballooned out behind the new dams.


That was when Medha started out onto the field and she did not really know what was coming when she did start out. She started out as a young doctoral student wanting to study the social inequalities. This was in the early 80’s, she decided to go out on the field and study the northeastern Gujarat tribals. Medha was keen to know what changes the proposed dams on the Narmada would bring to the lives of thousands of people it was uprooting. Soon she realized what would bring was of course, devastation. It was then that she formed her NGO Narmada Bachao Andolan which mobilized the tribals and the poor who were displaced due to the construction to get full rehabilitation facilities from the government. It also initially focused on the environmental issues related to trees that would be submerged under the dam water. The spokespeople for the NGO were, initially, Baba Amte and herself.


On March 28,2006 , she started a hunger-strike to protest against the decision of the authorities to raise the height of the Narmada Dam. She ended her 20 day fast on April 17, 2006 , after the Supreme Court of India refused the Narmada Bachao Andolan's appeal to stop the construction of the dam. Later, in December 2, 2006 , she was arrested by the police in Singur where she reached out to protest against the acquisition of farmland for industrial purposes. The police present there told her that her presence might incite people and create a law and order problem. But this lady of steel nerves cared a damn. Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya reacted saying that Naxalites were also involved in the incidents and the police were forced to retaliate after they were attacked with bombs and stones.


Medha Patkar is one of the recipients of Right Livelihood Award which was shared with Baba Amte for the year 1991. Later she received Deenanath Mangeshkar Award, Goldman Environment Prize and Human Rights Defender’s Award from Amnesty International. Amnesty International is a pressure group that promotes human rights. Founded in the UK in 1961, it draws attention to human rights abuses and campaigns for compliance with international standards. It works to mobilize public opinion in the belief that it is this which has the power to exert pressure on those who perpetrate abuses.When she was once asked if she thought the privileged middle classes were really aware of the conditions of people who are displaced, she said, “Well, urban society is so complex. There are categories and categories of people. That section of urban people which is intellectual, the intelligentsia, the literate population -- are aware of what is happening around to an extent, but not aware of how they themselves are party to the injustice, the cause of it. But that it should influence them, convince them to change their own lifestyles or attitudes to life -- that is not happening easily. That is because this is a section that looks to those very symbols of development which are rooted in their individual and neighbourhood life, and not beyond that. They don't face issues of survival, like the tribals and other natural-resource-based communities.” So, will the awareness ever influence them to change their lifestyle? Will social inequality ever be eradicated or is it merely utopian to think so? She quipped, “Well, without that hope, our fights will be meaningless! I think one does not see it happening at one go, overnight. You keep it as an ideal, a goal. And ideals are ideals, you know. One cannot say they will never be attained. They need not be utopian, but ideals will always differ from reality and still will guide reality and change it.” And her effort to bring equality continues…….