hydro asia viet

8/10/2019 Hydro Asia Viet

1/31

The State versus Indigenous Peoples: The Impact of Hydraulic Projects on Indigenous Peoplesof AsiaAuthor(s): Nguyen Thi DieuSource: Journal of World History, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Spring, 1996), pp. 101-130Published by: University of Hawai'i PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20078660Accessed: 23/11/2009 08:18

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available athttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unlessyou have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and youmay use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained athttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=uhp .

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printedpage of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

University of Hawai'i Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of World History.

http://www.jstor.org
http://www.jstor.org/stable/20078660?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=uhphttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=uhphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/20078660?origin=JSTOR-pdf


2/31

The State versus Indigenous Peoples:The Impact of Hydraulic Projects on

Indigenous Peoples of Asia

NGUYEN THI DIEU

Temple University

Polities

throughout ages and continents, from kingdoms to nation

states, in their territorial expansion have always attempted to im

pose certain sociocultural values and economic patterns on the various

ethnic groups that form their societies. Entering the modern age, moststates had evolved national identities determined and defined by the

dominant ethnic group(s). This process usually excluded certain ethnic minorities, in particular the peoples that were variously named

tribal peoples, savages, barbarians, slaves, original people, or

indigenous people. After centuries of neglect and spoliation, theUnited Nations declared 1993 the Year of the Indigenous Peoples of

Asia, Africa, and Latin America.1 International interest and concernin the present day do not signify that the interaction between indige

1The term indigenous populations or indigenous peoples, as defined in the latest reviseddraft

(1990)of the

Indigenousand Tribal

Populations Convention, appliesto the

followingcategories: ua) tribal (peoples/populations) in independent countries whose social, culturaland economic conditions distinguish them from other sections of the national community. . .b) (peoples/populations) in independent countries who are regarded as indigenous on

account of their descent from the populations which inhabited the country, or a geographical region to which the country belongs, at the time of conquest or colonization . . . and

who . . . retain some or all of their own social, economic, cultural and political institutions.

Self-identification as indigenous or tribal shall be regarded as a fundamental criterion for

determining the groups to which the provisions of this Convention apply (Van de Fliert

1994, p. 64). The choice of the terms that have been used to refer to them?people as op

posed to population?is fraught with political connotations, as the preference of one over

the other raises the prospect of self-determination. See Johnston, Knight, and Kofman, eds.

(1988).

Journal ofWorld History, Vol. 7, No. 1

?1996 by University of Hawai'i Press

101


3/31


4/31

Nguyen: Hydraulic Projects and Indigenous Peoples in Asia 103

purpose dams have been hailed for bringing cheap, clean, and abundant electricity; for controlling devastating floods; and for making possible large-scale irrigation, water storage, and navigation.2 Dam con

struction represents a major, visible, and costly effort in these nations'

long-term developmental planning. For international organizations,such as the World Bank, the prime lender and financial backer of most

of the world's hydraulic projects, and its counterpart inAsia, the Asian

Development Bank, dams represent concrete, quantifiable symbols of

progress that yield almost immediate returns. Abundant hydroelectricpower, which is less expensive to produce than electric power generated by thermal or nuclear energy, has fueled the dreams of all devel

oping nations seeking to industrialize their economies. But little noticein governmental planning has been given to the enormous human and

ecological costs of such projects.This paper explores the impact of hydraulic projects such as dams

on the peoples who used to make the forests and the hills of Asia theirhomes and the burial grounds of their ancestors: the forest-dwellersand the riverine and mountain peoples of Malaysia, India, and China.Some of these

indigenous peopleshave had

only sporadicrelations

with the mainstream society; some have existed side by side?distinctand yet interrelated?with the dominant society for thousands of

years. This paper will examine the success or failure of nation-states, as

they hasten to industrialize, in integrating territories and peoples, andit will consider the choices these nation-states have to make between,

on the one hand, national identity, national interests, and economic

development that would encompass the larger society and, on theother hand, the extinction of an apparently negligible segment, the

remaining indigenous peoples. It will conclude by looking into the

future?one that is quickly becoming a present reality?with the caseof China's mammoth Three Gorges (Sanxia) Project on the Yangzi. Itwill examine the possible repercussions of the project on China'snational minorities and what it entails for the relationship betweenHan and non-Han peoples, for the conflicting imperatives of national

development, unity, and security versus the reclaiming trend of

regional history, identity, and economy?for the Yangzi as opposed to

the Yellow River basin.

2The case of the Aswan High Dam has shown that such a colossal project can have

profoundly negative impacts on the ecology, economy, and people of the Nile basin. Thereis a rich literature on the impacts of dams on the environment and on human populations. See, for example, Goldsmith and Hildyard (1984); Hirsch (1982); and Thukral, ed.

(1992).


5/31

I04 JOURNAL OF WORLD HISTORY, SPRING I996

The Past

With few exceptions, the world of the indigenous peoples of Asia is

that of rainforests, remote riverine valleys, and steep hills. The indigenous peoples' relationship with the environment is a symbiotic one

that has determined and defined their ethnic identity as orang ulu

(people of the interior) or vanyajati (forest-dwellers). They practiceswidden cultivation (slash-and-burn agriculture), the economic systemof land use in which a patch of primary or secondary forest is cut down,burned, and planted with rice or other subsistence crops, such as corn,

peanuts, bananas, and manioc. The swidden crop is complementedwith fruits, edible roots, and spices from the forest. The flora and fauna

provide the indigenous peoples not only with nourishment, but alsowith cultural, social, and religious significance. The land that sustainsthem is also the burial ground for the family and the community. It is

where they may hope to rest one day. It belongs to all and to none in

particular, since it is ultimately the property of the gods. The conceptand practices of private ownership of land (with registered title) didnot exist in most swidden societies. Land and forests alike were sacredbecause they were believed to be gifts from the creator to all. Whoevercleared the land and cultivated it from one generation to another

enjoyed the usufructuary rights to it as long as he and his kin respectedthe customary law, a complex web of customs referred to as adat in the

Malay world. Adat may be defined as all of the various customarynorms, jurai rules, ritual interdictions and injunctions that guide an

individual's conduct, and the sanctions and forms of redress by whichthese norms and rules are upheld (Sandin 1980, p. xi). As such, adat

?or its equivalent?and swidden cultivation are closely intertwined.

To indigenous peoples, thanks to the complex system of land use regimented by customary laws, every member of the community has the

right to cultivate and to live from the land. Hence, the family's needsand those of the community or tribe are equally tended to, leading to

the self-sufficiency of all.This was the situation that existed before colonial rule, which

introduced the political notion of territory and in certain cases thenotion of land as a source of wealth that can be parceled out and pri

vately owned, sold, or bought by individuals. It also brought with it the

practice of large-scale commercial and intensive exploitation of natu

ral resources. It was thus during the colonial period that the twoworlds that had coexisted and interacted on each other's margins

(through the exchange of tributes, for instance) collided, leading to

the intrusion by one on the other. Among many measures taken by the


6/31


central power during colonial times, the passing of multiple land acts

allowed the government to take over land that it considered territorium

nullius, virgin territory, unexploited by the dominant ethnic groups.For example, in Malaysia, the successive land acts?the Malay State

Forest Enactment of 1934 and the Land Code of 1957?recognizedprivate land ownership only through registration of land titles, reject

ing the notion of unregistered, communally owned and cultivated land

long recognized by the customs of native peoples. Forests that had

been tribal property became mostly state-owned, public land. Swidden

cultivators were discouraged and often forbidden from practicing theirtraditional slash-and-burn techniques, which were considered damaging to the environment (Hurst 1987, p. 171). Thus, encroachment on

land and the official theft of land by declaring it public?a common

enough practice by colonial authorities?was continued in the postin

dependence period.With independence the dominant society, increasing in population

and spearheaded by its political expression, the nation-state, expandedfurther into the tribal world of forests and rivers, claiming as national

spaceand wealth natural resources heretofore

seemingly untapped,grabbing land that was the communal property of tribal peoples.3 The

national government, now dominated by landed elites and financial

interests, was faced with multiple developmental problems and determined to embark on the long and arduous road to industrialization bymeans of exploitation of all available natural wealth. In its path stoodone of the last vestiges of the past, the tribal peoples.

Sarawak, formerly in the possession of the Brooke family (18411941 ) and then under the British crown ( 1946-63), joined the Federation of Malaysia in 1963. About 70% of the population of Sarawak is

rural. Some 76% of Sarawak's land area comprises forests, more thanone-third of which is primary forest (Ngau, Apoi, and Ling 1987,p. 175). In the 1970s, in an effort to diversify its oil dependency for

power production, the federal government identified Sarawak and itsnumerous rivers as a region with rich hydroelectric potential (Hong1987, p. 169). Of the six possible locations that could be developed,the Batang Ai River (Batang Lupar) in the Second Division was

selected for construction; work began in 1977 (Hong 1987, p. 170).

Compared to projects in India or China, the Batang Ai dam is a rela

tively modest venture conceived with the sole goal of electricity pro

3The seizure of tribal land was not a purely colonial phenomenon. In the centuries pre

ceding colonial conquest, kingdoms and empires had appropriated tribal lands by sendingout pioneer settlers (de Koninck and McTaggart 1987, pp. 342-56).


7/31

io6 JOURNAL OF WORLD HISTORY, SPRING 1996

duction (92 megawatts per year) for consumption by Kuching andSibu. Its M$525 million cost was paid for by local and foreign loans,

mainly Japanese. It flooded 42,000 acres of land, an important part ofwhich was tropical primary forest. It also led to the displacement of

3,000 Iban (500 families) (Ngau, Apoi, and Ling 1987, p. 176).Of Sarawak's multiethnic population 33% belongs to the Iban eth

nic group. The Iban are long-house dwellers who practice swidden cultivation of hill rice; the availability of forest is essential to the survivalof their socioeconomic and religious system (Lebar 1972, 1:181; Free

man 1970; Sutlive, Jr., 1978). The forests that were flooded by the

Batang Ai hydraulic project were the traditional habitat of the Iban.4

According to anthropologist Evelyn Hong, the Batang Ai valley was

the repository of the oldest and best of Iban oral tradition (Hong1987, p. 171). The Iban were moved out of their ancestral lands to beresettled downstream, on land belonging to other Iban who, in turn,

had to be transplanted elsewhere. At the beginning of the project, the

government?the Sarawak Land Consolidation and Rehabilitation

Authority (SALCRA)?had made promises to them, including that ofcash

compensationfor lost

land,fruit trees, and

farms,in addition to

the grant of permanent plots of eleven acres for each displaced family(Hong 1987).

The eleven acres of cleared land, planted with cocoa, rubber,

paddy, and fruit trees promised by the government were only that: a

promise that was never fulfilled. Each family actually received onlyone acre. The cocoa, rubber, and fruit trees had to be planted (and theseeds purchased) by the Iban themselves. They had been promised free

housing in exchange for their lost long houses, free water and electric

ity?after all, the dam was being built to produce electricity?and

employment at the dam site. None of it materialized. The cash compensation, which was supposed to amount to millions of dollars, wasnever paid in full. Those Iban who did receive some compensationquickly lost it in gambling and on futile consumer purchases such as

cars, televisions, and electric gadgets. But, worst of all, the Iban of

Batang Ai had lost their ancestral burial grounds, forests, fields, and

hence, their souls. The formerly free-roaming, self-subsistent peopleare now trapped in the world of the dominant peoples with their con

4The Iban are a riverine people who practice shifting cultivation in the interior hills of

Sarawak. The name Iban refers to several tribes, which are further differentiated by theirriverine location. Because of their endless search for virgin rainforest, the Iban, an agricultural, warrior people, had been on a constant migration throughout the jungles of Sarawak,

waging war and practicing enslavement and headhunting. Rice hill cultivation is essentialto the Iban in terms of both economy and religion (Lebar 1972, 1:180-81).


8/31


cerns for jobs, electricity, and water bills, but without the necessaryskills to survive in the urban jungle (Colchester 1989, pp. 60-61).

The Iban of Batang Ai were forced into becoming permanent

settlers, no longer allowed to practice their shifting cultivation. Al

though they attempted to resist the construction of the dam, their ob

struction could not prevent the project's completion in 1985. The harsh

reality of life on a permanent settlement led the Iban to conclude that

they had once again been duped by the government.The Batang Ai dam was not the sole hydroelectric project that

threatened to put an end to the traditional forest world of the nativesof Sarawak. The Malaysian government also planned to build another,

much larger dam in Bakun, at the confluence of the upper Rajang and

Balui Rivers, Seventh Division, whose estimated cost was to rangefrom US$i billion to $2 billion. It will be the largest dam in southeast

Asia, with an electricity-generating capacity of 2,400 megawatts, some

of which will be transferred to peninsular Malaysia (Colchester 1989,

p. 58). Five thousand Kenyah, Kayan, and Kajang natives, along with

possibly ten thousand Penan aborigines, will be displaced. A Kenyah,

reflectingon the

joysthat his traditional way of life has

givenhim and

his people, said:

We Kenyah are living our own way of life.We are not controlled bywhoever except our own tuai kampong [village elders].

. . .We search

for wild boar freely in the jungle?nobody can stop us and we have a

very beautiful river, beautiful mountain, beautiful scenery and beautiful trees. We enjoy them all from the very old to the young. And withall these, we have our culture that make us Kenyah.

. . .And now an

other Rajah is coming. ... It is coming to kill us, flood us and to floodour ancestors, flood the

fish,flood the trees, chase the birds away.

(Hong 1987, pp. 185-86)

In light of the fate of the resettled people of Batang Ai, the Kenyahand the other peoples who will be affected by the Bakun project vowed

to fight on. Fortunately, the natives of Sarawak are not without political experience, thanks to their tradition of community leadership and

action during the colonial and postcolonial period (Kunstadter 1967,

1:336). In 1983, to defend their interests, the Iban and the Bidayuhformed a political party, the Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak (PBDS) that

successfully ran for Sarawak state elections, winning fifteen of the

forty-eight state seats in 1987 (Aznam 1991, p. 22). Having learned a

valuable lesson from the tragic experience of the Iban of Batang Ai,the natives of the river valleys selected for dam construction have


9/31

io8 JOURNAL OF WORLD HISTORY, SPRING I996

organized themselves to voice their concerns and opposition in meet

ings, petitions, and demonstrations. The struggle against the dam and

against involuntary resettlement seems to have reaffirmed the identityof the threatened communities as indigenous peoples, proud of theirculture and of their adat (Oliver-Smith 1991, p. 149). In the face ofsuch opposition, the Bakun dam project was temporarily canceled in

1987. However, despite all the political opposition, the Malaysian government decided to revive the project, unable to resist the appeal ofSarawak becoming a major energy source in southeast Asia.

The Present

Since ancient times the vastness of the Indian subcontinent hadallowed kingdoms and tribes to exist in mutual ignorance, each occu

pying its own space without the need for either to transgress the other'sworld. Naturally, there were also instances of interactions betweenbrahmanical societies and the adivasi world based on mutual needs,however

unequaland

exploitative theywere

(Andersonand Huber

1988). Numerous studies have equally demonstrated that adivasi arenot only forest dwellers but also for centuries they have evolved a wayof life which, on the one hand, [is]woven round forest ecology and forest resources and, on the other, ensures that the forest is protectedagainst depredation by man and nature (Sinha, Basu, and Basu 1989,p. 198).

The advent of the British Raj shattered this situation. The new

scrutiny brought by the British in the management of their empirelifted the veils of mystery that had enveloped the forests. As they ex

panded throughout the subcontinent, subduing rajahs and sultans,building an extended network of roads, railroads, and canals that

opened up tribal territories, the colonizers imposed the same systems ofland tenure and taxation on tribals as they did on nontribals in princely states and Mughal provinces. In 1894 the British Raj enforced sweeping forest legislation that despoiled tribals of natural resources having

high commercial value. For instance, the Rules for the Treatment and

Management of Hillmen stipulated that the tribals were henceforthto be under the Forestry Department's authority and, denying thetribals any right to their ancestral forests, declared all forests to be state

property (Morris 1986, p. 255). Indigenous forests thus made publicwere leased out to private contractors for the exploitation of timber,santal oil, myrobolam (used for tanning leather), and other resources.

In states that belong to the tribal belt of India (Orissa and Madhya


10/31


Pradesh, for instance), in place of forests rose coffee and tea plantations that totally changed the ecological system as well as the equilibrium that had existed between adivasi and forests (Sinha, Basu, and

Basu 1989, p. 234). In the words of a British governor of Madras, the

British forest policy was not of conservation but confiscation'1 (Sinha,

Basu, and Basu 1989, p. 257). Agencies such as the Forestry Department were established with full executive powers to enforce a policythat directly regulated tribal lives. As a result, many tribals rapidly became migrant workers on these same plantations for miserable wages,if they were not reduced to servitude. With the same hand that took

away tribal lands, the British Raj?in the long colonial tradition of

placing colonized peoples under its guardianship?enacted legislationwhose official purpose was to protect the innocent savages by givingthem a special status and treating them as wards of the state (Govern

ment of India Act of 1919 and 1935). Along with this, the territories

that had been theirs since their forefathers' time were declared Sched

uled Districts or Backward Tracts and governed by special legislation (Furer-Haimendorf 1982, p. 39).

In the postindependence period, this policy of tribal disenfranchisement was continued, notably in the Constitution of 1950, which

established Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Areas in every state

that had tribal populations and, in theory, provided for their protection with special rights and statuses (Anderson and Huber 1988, p.

39). At present the tribal population constitutes 7% of the overall

Indian population, with more than 400 tribes officially recognized as

Scheduled Tribes. About 88% of all tribals are agriculturists. Accord

ing to Nadeem Hasnain, agriculture is the only source of livelihood

which most of them have known for centuries (Hasnain 1983, p. 82).

However, because of the rapid increase in both tribal and nontribalpopulation, pressure on land is rising, and those tribals who practiceshifting cultivation are growing in numbers and the jhum [swidden cul

tivation] cycle is shortening alarmingly in most places. Similarly those

tribals who have taken to settled cultivation are also increasing in

numbers (Hasnain 1983).Adding to this demographic pressure on land and its resulting scar

city in recent decades, the postcolonial government has passed legislative acts that further constrain and restrict tribal rights. The most

damaging of these concern forest legislation. The Forest Act of 1952,for example, gave the tribals rights and concessions that did not prevent their loss of forest ownership to timber contractors (Andersonand Huber 1988, p. 44). The Forest Conservation Act of 1980, super

seding the 1952 act, gave magistrate powers to forest officials, who


11/31

I IO JOURNAL OF WORLD HISTORY, SPRING 1996

could arbitrarily impose and collect heavy fines from tribals caught in

the act of collecting forest produce or cutting firewood. It even allowedthese officials to jail any perpetrator (tribal, that is) without due process of law. In sum, the forest policy became more repressive as it fur

ther limited and penalized tribals in their ancestral territory.This policy has actually led to an accelerated pace of deforestation.

The forests of India covered a third of the country's land surface untilabout half a century ago, but according to a United Nations study, in

less than twenty years, given the current rate of deforestation, there

will be no natural forests left in South Asia (Morris 1986, p. 256). It is

useful to point out that this rapid deforestation is caused to a largeextent by the governmental policy of leasing vast forest acreage to private timber companies for exploitation. To add to such deterioration,the government of India over several decades has launched vast pro

grams of construction of hydraulic projects on most of the subcontinent's rivers.

Since independence, India has prided itself on being one of the

first Third World countries capable of building giant dams such as the

Damodar and the Hirakud (Seshadri 1991, p. 76). However,no account

was taken of the impact of such projects on the displaced people and

their environment. As these hydraulic projects multiplied?in particular in the region of Kerala, in the Western Ghat?voices of dissent

became louder, and the suffering endured by the people who were

ousted came to public notice. It appeared that a disproportionately

large majority of them belonged to the poorest and most excluded segments of the society and in particular to the tribal people. In fact, 40%of the displaced people were tribals (Thukral 1992, p. 8). In the case of

Kerala, such tribal peoples as the Cholanaicker, the Kurumbas, and

those of Wynad and Malampuzha have suffered tremendous losses ofland and culture as the result of the construction of dams.

The Narmada River Valley Project is one among many ambitious

projects that the Indian government has launched to prove to the

world that it is capable of technical feats on the scale of the Tennessee

Valley Authority. The Narmada River originates in the plateau of

Amarkantak in the state of Madhya Pradesh and flows westward

through Maharashtra and Gujarat, through forested hills and culti

vated lands, and out to the Gulf of Cambay on an 808-mile course,

collecting en route more than forty tributaries (Alvares and Billorey

1987, pp. 62-63). Its river basin sustains more than 20 million people,tribals and nontribals alike. Several years ago the basin and, in particular, the Vindhyas and the Satpura Mountains, were famous for the

richness of their flora and fauna (Alvares and Billorey 1987, p. 75).


12/31

Nguyen: Hydraulic Projects and Indigenous Peoples in Asia in

Along the banks of the river, up in the hills, and in the forests of

Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, and Rajasthan live the adivasi or vanyajati,tribal peoples of India who have derived sustenance from the land, the

forests, and the waters of these regions since time immemorial (Helm

1968, p. 186). Some of the more notable tribal peoples who inhabitthe region of the Narmada basin are Gonds, Bhils, Korju, Pardhans,

Bharia-Bhumia, Kol, and Baigas. Their number and state of material

development vary. The Gonds and the Bhils are several million strongand concentrated in the states of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra

(Furer-Haimendorf 1982, p. 14). Others, like the Bharia-Bhumia andthe Kol, barely number several thousand. The Gonds had participatedin the history of the subcontinent and had formed small independentstates that lasted until the end of the nineteenth century. But as Furer

Haimendorf has demonstrated (1982), the proud Gonds have now

been reduced to the status of landless wage laborers. The Baigas of

Madhya Pradesh practice shifting cultivation, which they believe was

dictated to them by their bhagwan (god). In their mythology the plowing of Mother Earth is akin to torture, and the adoption of such practice could

bringdisaster

(Hasnain 1983, p. 87).Most tribals who have had prolonged exposure to the society of thelowlands are settled agriculturists; some own small plots of land, but

presently about one-fifth of the total tribal population in India is

engaged in agriculture as wage earners (Hasnain 1983, p. 26). Sometribes still practice swidden cultivation on the hills in the few states

where it is allowed, such as Madhya Pradesh and the Northeast region.Others are hunters and gatherers; still others combine both economicactivities. The Bhils, for instance, make the forests of Gujarat their

habitat, gathering fruits and vegetables and practicing tree worship

(mango and pipal trees) (Chattopadhyay 1978, pp. 63-64).Such was the situation of tribal peoples in the region where the

much criticized Narmada Project is taking place. The Narmada ValleyProject was conceived in 1946 and approved by the Rajiv Gandhi government in 1987. It would involve the construction along the Nar

mada River and its tributaries of 30 giant dams, 135 medium-sized

dams, and some 3,000 smaller dams and irrigation works. The projectin its entirety would take more than a century and lead to the displace

ment of 1 million people. The two major dams that have been ap

proved for construction are the Narmada (or Indira) Sagar dam in

Madhya Pradesh and the Sardar Sarovar dam in Gujarat. The Narmada Sagar, in the state of Madhya Pradesh, is an upstream project

designed to provide for the irrigation of 303,945 acres of land in thetwo districts of East and West Nimar. The irrigation goal is also com


13/31

112 JOURNAL OF WORLD HISTORY, SPRING I996

bined with the projected production of 223 megawatts of electricity.The Sardar Sarovar dam, downstream in the state of Gujarat, Bharuch

District, is being built first and will combine the benefits of irrigatingmore than 3 million acres and producing 300 megawatts of electricity.

It will flood a total of 289 villages, most of them in Madhya Pradesh

(Rich 1989, p. 48). The two projects are expected to bring additional

advantages to the surrounding states characteristic of such multipurpose projects (flood control, irrigation, pisciculture, and tourism)

(Alvares and Billorey 1987, p. 63). They will create a series of pools,lakes, and reservoirs that will submerge 865,000 acres of forest and

more than 400,000 acres of cultivated land (Seshadri 1991, p. 77).The two projects will displace approximately 200,000 people.

The Narmada Sagar and the Sardar Sarovar have attracted strongand long-standing opposition, both from Indian nontribal and tribalactivists and from international environmental organizations. All

major dams?the larger they are, the higher the risk?present thesame weaknesses: in terms of the dam itself, the dangers of siltation,

waterlogging, salinity, earthquake, and the spread of water-borne diseases

suchas

schistosomiasis, malaria, and cholera.But in

thiscase

themost serious threat is to the peoples who live along the river in theNarmada watershed, in particular, the tribal cultivators and forest

dwellers.In Gujarat where the Sardar Sarovar dam is located, about a hun

dred thousand families depend on the collection of produce from theforests. The tribals have no titled rights to the land and forests in

which they have been living (Rich 1989, p. 50). Legally the land andforest of the Narmada River valley belong to the Forestry Department,that is, to the state. Before their submersion, the forests will be clear

felled, and the Bhils, Pawara, Baigas, and other tribal peoples will beousted without any compensation. The union and the state govern

ments, the different departments responsible for the Narmada ValleyProject, mention monetary and land compensation, such as five acres

of land for each displaced family that can show titled rights to theland. But the questions that have been repeatedly raised and to whichthe government refuses to give clear answers are these: Where will theland come from? What will be the amount of the compensation? And

what of those peoples who do not have titled rights to their lands? TheWorld Bank, which in 1985 approved the loan to India of US$450million for the construction of the Sardar Sarovar dam, acknowledged

that the population displacement would be the largest ever (Jackman1989, p. 11). The loan agreement between the World Bank and theIndian government dictates the conditions of the resettlement and


14/31


rehabilitation of the ousted villagers, conditions that are also under

the responsibility of the Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal (Rich 1989,p. 48). Yet the signatories of the loan agreement, the World Bank and

the government of India, have broken most of the rules that govern

questions of resettlement and rehabilitation, in particular, those pro

tecting the tribal peoples as stipulated by the International Labor

Organization (ILO) Convention 107 of 1957 and signed by India

(Alvares and Billorey 1987, p. 64).5The World Bank approved the loan to the government of India

without awaiting the conclusion of environmental, economic, andsocial studies (public health impacts, flora and fauna studies, treat

ment and development of concerned area, and the like). However,under the pressure of numerous human rights groups and international

organizations, it finally decided to send its own team to conduct a

study of the project's social and environmental impacts. Led by Brad

ford Morse, former head of the UNDP (United Nations Development

Programme), and Thomas Berger, a Canadian Supreme Court justice,the team surveyed the project in 1991-92 (Holmes 1993, p. A5). Its

reportconcluded that the Sardar Sarovar

projectwas rife with serious

environmental and resettlement problems, and advised the World

Bank to reconsider it.

One problem that has attracted much criticism from all quarters is

the question of resettlement and rehabilitation. Despite a certain experience in dam building, the Indian authorities in charge of the SardarSarovar dam seem not to have paid any attention to the fate of the dis

placed, especially the tribals. For peoples such as the Bhils and Gonds,who are hill agriculturists but also make a living by gathering forest

produce, and whose very cultural identity was defined by the existence

of the forests, the destruction of their habitat, their displacement andscattering in different, forest-poor, and overcrowded land, or their

forced conversion to urban work will inevitably lead either to theirextinction as a tribal group or to their forced integration into non

tribal society. Thus, the construction of the dam and the forced reset

5The International Labor Organization (ILO) was the first international body to focuson the question of indigenous peoples, attempting to promote their rights through different

conventions signed by several countries. In 1957 the ILO developed Convention 107,which defined indigenous peoples as the original inhabitants of lands subjugated by for

eign occupation. Convention 169, adopted in 1989, was more specific in its articulation:

irrespective of their legal status, indigenous people should retain some or all of their own

social, economic, cultural and political institutions, ways of life and economic developmentwithin the boundaries of States where they live. Convention 169 also deals with the diffi

cult issue of collective and individual land rights and ownership of natural resources in

indigenous peoples' traditional habitats (Van de Fliert 1994, pp. 56-74).


15/31

ii4 JOURNAL OF WORLD HISTORY, SPRING I996

tlement of these tribals without adequate measures taken to alleviate

their suffering may equate to genocide.Even the nontribal, smallholding farmers who had been promised

five acres of land have not seen this promise made good by the states of

Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh. The reason is simply that there is no

land available in either state. The inhabitants of the first villages to be

submerged found themselves resettled by the state on land that was

already owned and tilled by a village or by individual landowners. Thetwo states have also promised cash compensation in lieu of land com

pensation. According to aWorld Bank consultant, cash compensation usually results in lower living standards and reduced quality of life

among the large majority of relocatees (Alvares and Billorey 1987,p. 64). The landless families suffer a worse fate. About 30% of the population of twenty-three villages to be submerged were landless. For

these, no compensation measure was taken, and in the words of the

(former) chairman of the Narmada Valley Development Agency(NVDA), S. C. Varma, Under these circumstances most of these

landless will have to be absorbed in activities unrelated to agriculture

(Alvaresand

Billorey 1987, p. 65).Not

onlydid the

governmentsof

both states fail to fulfill their promises, but they also have repeatedlyignored and refused to inform the very people who will be displaced.6

This denial of information shows contempt for the suffering of tribal

peoples. Whatever information was available to the villagers was con

fusing, misleading, and uneven. Most of the villagers had little or no

knowledge about their rights or the state's plans for them, and hence

they were easily taken advantage of.

Preliminary work on the Sardar Sarovar dam started several decades

ago, and its actual construction and the submergence of the first vil

lages have begun. S. C. Varma acknowledged that the Sardar SarovarProject and, indeed, the whole Narmada Valley Project will lead to

untold suffering for hundreds of thousands of people and, in particular,for the tribals. But in his own words, the uprooting has to be done.

Because the land occupied by the family is required for a developmentproject which holds promise of progress and prosperity for the countryand the people in general. The family getting displaced thus makes a

sacrifice for the sake of the community. It undergoes hardship and distress and faces an uncertain future so that others may live in happinessand be economically better off (Alvares and Billorey 1987, p. 64).

6The Land Acquisition Act of 1894 (Section 4) and its 1984 adaptation stipulatedthat public notice be given to the occupier of land to be used by the state before the start of

any surveying (Rich 1989, p. 49).


16/31


Faced with all the impossible odds of displacement and a lack of

governmental help, the displaced, tribals and nontribals alike, havebanded together to defend themselves against the authorities. In January 1988, when faced with the submergence, 3,000-4,000 people fromall three states gathered at the site of the Sardar Sarovar dam to protest the project (Sarangi and Billorey 1988, p. 829). The number of

nonviolent demonstrations increased as the first villages began to beflooded. Hundreds of people put their lives at risk by lying down on

the road to block the path of vehicles going to the site. The dissent

reached a level that even the union government could not ignore,since the world's attention was attracted to the project, thanks toIndian and international activist groups.7 Given its tradition of au

thoritarianism, New Delhi chose?under the political pressure of

powerful landed families and industrial interests of Gujarat, MadhyaPradesh, and Maharashtra, which will benefit the most from the

project(s)?to use repressive methods to clamp down on the protest.The government enforced the Official Secrets Act to close the areasaffected by the two projects to nonlocal people. Mounting criticismand the

thorough surveyscarried out in the wake of all the

protestsled

major aid donors, such as Japan and the World Bank, to reconsidertheir loans. In 1985 the Japanese Overseas Economic Cooperation

Fund had extended US$18 million to the Indian government, specifically earmarked for power generation equipment at the Sardar Sarovardam.8 But the campaign organized by the Japanese environmentalistsforced the government to suspend action. Finally, in May 1990, asenvironmental groups' pressure increased, Japan decided to withdrawits Official Development Assistance funding from India, an unprece

dented action. New Delhi's reaction to international pressure, how

ever, points to a disturbing trend among Asian countries: the preference for foregoing foreign aid rather than meeting ecological andhuman rights standards that these Third World countries feel are

unfairly imposed on them by international organizations, Western

nations, and nongovernmental organizations. In March 1993 theIndian government announced its decision to cancel a large part of the

World Bank's US$450 million loan rather than meet its environmental and resettlement standards concerning the project. New Delhi also

7For example, the work of such organizations as the New Delhi-based Multiple Action

Research Group (MARG), the grassroots Chipco movement, the London-based organization Survival International, and the Berkeley-based International Rivers Network.

8As is often the case with bilateral aid of this nature, three Japanese companies?Sumitomo Corporation, Hitachi, and Toshiba?have been given a US$183 million contract to

supply equipment for the project (Schoenberger 1990).


17/31

ii6 JOURNAL OF WORLD HISTORY, SPRING I996

declared its intention to continue the US$3 billion Narmada Projecton its own without any assistance from international lending institutions. It does not bode well for the future of the riparian inhabitants,and particularly for the tribals, when the union government prefers to

forsake much needed financial and technical aid rather than to com

ply with the benchmarks imposed by the World Bank. The Sardar

Sarovar Project is not the only project that is being built on the Nar

mada; the Narmada (Indira) Sagar on the Narmada and others on its

tributaries will likely be approved and realized in the near future.

In India's authoritarian system, the relationship between the unionand state governments on the one hand and the tribals on the otherhas been fraught with arbitrary decisions that give the benefits of a

development project such as the Narmada to powerful interests, whilethe people who are most directly affected by the project, such as the

Bhils and the Gonds, are helpless, as their villages, land, and forestsare submerged. The flood will wash away their traditional mode of sub

sistence, their ethnic identity, and their forest gods of yore. Eventually,a large number of the tribals will be forced to find subsistence in an

urbanenvironment,

in the slums ofBombay

orCalcutta, sheddingtheir ethnic identity as adivasi but fulfilling the goal that all nation

states seek: the complete integration and assimilation of their ethnicminorities into one society. The cry of one of the tribal people about to

be displaced well summarizes their anguish concerning the future:Are we animals to be left to drown? (Rich 1989, p. 49).

The Future

India's Narmada Valley Project is believed to be one of the largest andmost extensive river basin developmental projects in world history.China's Three Gorges Project (TGP) is similar to the Narmada ValleyProject in terms of the mammoth scale of the project, number of

people affected, and ultimate goals. Long before construction began in

1994, the TGP had been a subject of controversy for several decades

and had even led to the creation of China's first but short-lived Green

movement, headed by Dai Qing, a journalist and critic of the project.But unlike the Narmada Valley Project in India or the Batang Ai and

Bakun dams in Malaysia, which directly affect minority and tribal

peoples, China's project will indirectly exacerbate the relations between Beijing and its national minorities that live in the highlands of

central China and farther inland west of the Yangzi basin.

For a country like China, which has thousands of years of experi


18/31


ence in the mastery of hydraulics and of shuili (water conservation),but which is ruled by a totalitarian, communist regime, the symbolicvalue of a dam extends far beyond the question of an engineering featand economic development. It harks to the time of construction of

such monuments as the Great Wall (third century B.C.E.) and the

Grand Canal (seventh century C.E.), when the ruler could muster

the country's human and material resources to build great works in

homage to himself, as symbols of his protection and also of his power.China's folklore and history mention legends such as that of the Great

Yu, the mythical ancestor of hydraulic engineering, the founder of theXia dynasty in the twenty-first century B.C.E. Large-scale construction

of canals, dikes, and dams (such as the Dujiang dam in Sichuan, builtin the third century B.C.E. and still in use) had been an intrinsic part

of Chinese civilization (Hsu 1965, p. 131). These hydraulic works

allowed China to increase its agricultural wealth and expand its fluvial

network, contributing to the unification of the empire. At presentwater conservation projects take up more than 4% of all government

spending; 20% of all generated electricity in China is produced by

hydroelectric plants.Historically, the Yangzi basin is a region that gave birth to a non

Han civilization?that of the state of Zhu?as old as that of the Han

of the Yellow River basin.9 With the rise of powerfully centralizingdynasties and culture of the north, the Yangzi basin came to be pro

gressively settled by Han peoples whose migration was facilitated bythe construction of imperial highways, fortresses, canals, and dikes likethe ones built by the great engineer, Li Bing, more than 2,000 yearsago. Cultural monuments abound, such as the Dual Temple in Jiefangand the Zhangfei Temple in Yanyang County. Cities such as Chengdu,

Chongqing, and Wuhan along the Yangzi River's banks are centuriesold. The Yangzi Gorges were the sites of historical battles as far back as

the time of the Three Kingdoms, when General Guan Yu of the Shustate defeated his enemies of the north, and as recent as the civil war

between the Nationalists and the Communists (de Crespigny 1971,

pp. 141-47). Thus, the process of hanhua (sinicization) apparently be

gan millennia ago in a region that used to be inhabited by non-Han

peoples such as the Yi, Qiang, Miao-Yao, and Tujia. Classified by the

central government as part of China's fifty-five national minorities,some of the non-Han peoples that used to live in the fertile river

valleys moved higher up into the mountains and highlands.

yFor a debate on the question of China's Han versus non-Han national identity, see

Friedman (1994).


19/31

ii8 JOURNAL OF WORLD HISTORY, SPRING 1996

Physically, the Yangzi River (Changjiang) drains 19% of China'stotal area, and its basin, the agricultural and industrial heart of China,includes eighteen provinces in which live more than 400 million

people, producing about 40% of China's agricultural output (Boxer

1988, p. 95). For millennia, the river has shaped the landscape with its

devastating floods and also with its silt deposits, bringing both destruction and fertility to the basin. From the time of the settlements underthe early Han to the end of the Qing dynasty (185 B.C.E.-1911 C.E.),there were more than 200 floods (Luk and Whitney 1993, p. 45). The

Yangzi's floods have killed hundreds of thousands in the recent past.The flood of 1870, the highest, caused extensive and terrible damages;that of 1954 affected the lives of 20 million people; and that of 1981left more than 1million people homeless. To contain its flooding, an

ancient network of dikes, canals, and reservoirs had been built and

maintained since antiquity by the imperial bureaucracy. In 1954 addi

tional dikes and reservoirs were set up, but to no avail, as proven bythe recent floods (Jhaveri 1988, p. 57). Thus, the desire to master the

Yangzi has always been foremost in the mind of every ruler, from

emperorsto

communist leaders?and,in

particular, the present-dayprime minister of China, Li Peng, a Soviet-trained hydraulic engineer.

Among the many projects that have been conceived, one has been

for more than sixty years at the center of many Chinese leaders' pro

grams and debates: the Three Gorges Project on the Yangzi, located at

Sandouping in Hubei Province in central China. (The project's namecomes from the three deep gorges that it would submerge?Qutangxia,

Wushanxia, and Xilingxia?and that have inspired painters and poetsalike for centuries.) Sun Yatsen envisioned the project in his 1919

Plan to Develop Industry and in successive speeches pushed for its

realization (Luk and Whitney 1993, pp. 42-43). In 1944 the U.S.Bureau of Reclamation lent its expertise, in the person of John L. Sav

age, its chief design engineer, to help the nationalist Chinese government formulate the first design for the Three Gorges Project (Luk and

Whitney 1993, p. 44). The turmoil that engulfed China in the follow

ing decades halted its progress. In 1953 Mao Zedong revived it and

called on the Soviet Union for technical assistance. In 1958, in themidst of the Great Leap Forward movement, and in line with his force

ful campaign objective to industrialize China, Mao entrusted Premier

Zhou Enlai himself with the planning efforts. Henceforth, the pace of

preparation began accelerating (Luk and Whitney 1993, pp. 49-50).The eighteen-year project, which would cost from US$11 billion

to $30 billion, would include a 607-foot-tall dam (the world's highest)located in western Hubei Province and a 367-mile-long reservoir, 525


20/31


feet deep, situated in Sichuan with a capacity of producing 17,680megawatts of electricity. The project would have a direct impact on

the three riparian provinces of central China: Sichuan upstream,Hubei and Hunan downstream. The region affected by the Three

Gorges Project is a mostly mountainous area with scarce agriculturaland industrial resources that has long been underdeveloped. The dam'sbasic goals are threefold: flood control, energy production, and navigation that will open the poor and densely populated hinterland to eco

nomic development (Sun 1992, p. 18).Ever since it was first conceived, the dam has generated contro

versy at all levels. Its colossal size and the profound, irreversible changesthat itwould bring have caused concern over its ecological and human

repercussions. One of the most serious problems is the resettlement

question. The Chinese government has not come up with any clearand feasible plan to deal with the 1million people ( 1.4 million accord

ing to the World Bank) affected by the project, a large number ofwhom are urban residents and about half of whom have been farmersor fishermen on the Yangzi for generations.10 The Yangzi Valley Plan

ning Office (YVPO) plansto

put halfof

the 330,000 (themost conser

vative figure) to-be-displaced farmers to work on agricultural projects;the other half will have to convert to nonagricultural activities. There

was no mention of any rehabilitation measures, such as training forurban or industrial jobs for the displaced inhabitants. Further, the landin the Yangzi basin, from the valleys to the highlands, has been defor

ested, cultivated, and populated to its maximum capacity for decades ifnot centuries now, and it cannot possibly accommodate a further increase in human settlements.

Apart from the innumerable problems of overpopulation and the

ensuing land degradation and pollution, there is that of the non-Hanminorities who live in the highlands of central China and who will be

directly affected by the TGP. The highlands that rise above the banksof the Yangzi have a long and turbulent history of uprisings by minori

ties such as the Miao and the Tujia and by religious sects such as theWhite Lotus in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In the twen

tieth century the highlands have seen civil wars waged by warlords,the National Army, and Red Army in their struggle for power and con

trol of China. As a result of the constant upheaval, fortresses and fortified villages were a common feature of the highlands. The populationis a mixture of Han migrants from the north and of non-Han minori

10The figures given for the numbers of displaced persons vary according to dam heights(from 539,000 to 1.2 million people) and also according to organization.


21/31

I20 JOURNAL OF WORLD HISTORY, SPRING I996

ties, such as the Qiang, Naxi, and Miao-Yao, who have lived side byside, tentatively, within a framework of economic and sociocultural

exchanges mutually beneficial to neighboring parties, but not withoutethnic tensions and animosities. According to Jerome Ch'en, a historian of the highlands of central China, it is obvious that the process of

Hanification has not worked very well (Ch'en 1992, pp. 31-32).Without prior consultations with or agreement of the local inhabit

ants, the authorities have already displaced 40,000 people and relocated them in pioneer settlement areas high up on the mountainous

slopes (Tyson 1991b, p. 6). The government fully intends to continuethe displacement in the coming years at the rate of 10,000 persons peryear. Those who resist will be forced to move. Apart from the farmerswho will lose their orchards, forests, and fields, the 137,000 fishermenwho have traditionally lived off the river are not even mentioned in

any government documents, although the dam will cause their ruin as

well (Tyson 1992, p. 20). More than 10 cities dating back to before the

Tang dynasty, more than 620 local industrial facilities (including tex

tile plants, chemical and mining companies, and food processing fac

tories), roads, railways, and electric power stations will also be flooded(Luk and Whitney 1993, p. 93).

The studies of existing hydraulic projects, not only in China butalso in India, Malaysia, and all the regions where there are majorhydraulic projects necessitating large displacements and resettlements,show that once in their new environment, the relocated people are

not able to improve their way of life or increase their income. The

government has announced to those who will be relocated by theThree Gorges Project that they will receive US$1,850 each in com

pensation. Naturally, this sum?if actually distributed in full to the

rightful recipients?compared to the low ($61) average per-capitayearly income in the region may appear like an incredible bounty.

Also, the promises of a better life, better housing, and better schoolinghave somewhat softened the pain of being uprooted and have blurredvisions of a future that may be miserable. However, ifwhat their neighbors downstream went through is any indication, the villagers aroundthe Three Gorges site should be wary. Several years ago, when the

Gezhouba dam was constructed, the government made the same promises to the people, but the harsh reality of successive relocations, partial payment, and the absence of housing, schooling, and job opportunities made the experience a disastrous one (Tyson 1991b, p. 6).

There are indications that the central government may be forcedto resettle the relocated people, mostly members of the dominant Hanethnic group, in non-Han autonomous regions, such as Xinjiang, and


22/31


in the southern province of Yunnan. The director of resettlement ofthe Yangzi Valley Planning Office (YVPO) has declined to rule outthe possibility of resettling people in remote, barren, and impoverishedregions, such as Inner Mongolia or Tibet (Tyson 1991b, p. 6). Thisrelocation of Han Chinese on non-Han land would simultaneouslysolve the problem of resettling more than 1million people and also,

incidentally, that of integrating China's territory by allowing the cen

tral government to hanhua these regions more thoroughly and bringthe national minorities into the Han mainstream.

The current population distribution in China is extremely uneven,since 96% live in eastern China, while only 4% are scattered in the

west. For decades the Chinese government has attempted to remedythis imbalance either through the encouragement of voluntary migration or through forced relocation from the crowded cities of the east to

the minority regions of the west. In China and Its National Minorities,Thomas Heberer mentioned that in the 1960s there were workers andtheir families who were sent into virgin regions, or peasants who were

systematically resettled from the densely populated regions of eastern

China... to

the northwest (Ningxia, Xinjiang)to

cultivatenew

land(Heberer 1989, p. 93). During the Cultural Revolution, 12 million

youths were sent to northern China to work and also to teach thebackward minorities. This Han migration into non-Han regions

would serve several purposes. First, from the military standpoint theHan presence would reinforce China's borders, as the central government does not trust its national minorities in this regard. Second, itwould allow a more thorough exploitation of the northwest's naturalresources (oil, coal, and minerals), open up tillable acreage, and foster

industry. Finally, the migration would relieve the cities of the north

east of the present demographic pressure.However, concerning the Three Gorges Project, the authorities

have been careful not to mention this strong possibility publicly, sinceit would conflict with the World Bank's policy on tribal peoples, and

Beijing has counted on World Bank financing. Further, any officialallusion to such a project would likely cause unrest in the autonomous

regions. According to Philip M. Fearnside, of the 1million-1.4 million people to be displaced, approximately 330,000 ... are farmersand the rest urban dwellers. Urban populations are much more easily

moved than are farmers since cities can be rebuilt on higher groundbut all comparable farmland is already occupied (Fearnside 1988, p.618). Since there is not much farmland available nearby, Fearnside

mentioned the possibility that the farmers, who share the Han race

and culture with the majority of China's population, might be de


23/31

122 JOURNAL OF WORLD HISTORY, SPRING I 996

ported to distant settlement areas where minority groups now dominate, either in the semi-arid western regions near China's border withthe Soviet Union or in the tropical areas near the Burmese and Thaiborder. Settlement projects have been underway in these border areas,in part in an effort of the central government to populate them with

Hans (Fearnside 1988, p. 619).China's relationship with its national minorities has been an

extremely sensitive issue. Its fifty-five ethnic minorities form 7-8% ofthe population?that is,more than 100 million people occupying 64%of China's territory ( Party Chief 1992, p. 9). After past excesses dur

ing the periods of the Great Leap Forward (1957-59) and the CulturalRevolution (1966-71), China has developed one of the best defined

policies with regard to its ethnic minorities (Wirsing 1981, pp. 14569). Nevertheless, tensions between the dominant ethnic group andthe minorities are ever present. Speaking to the National Conference

on Nationality Affairs, Jiang Zemin, general secretary of the ChineseCommunist Party, emphasized the following points: First, economic

development in ethnic minority areas should be speeded up so as to

keep pacewith the rest of the

country.. . .

[T]he policyof

reform andopening to the outside world should be continued in order to increasethe vitality of minority people in their self development. ... Fi

nally . . .China will further strengthen the grand unity between allChinese nationalities, and firmly safeguard the unity of the country

(Wirsing 1981, pp. 145-69).Jiang also emphasized that no separatist activities will be tolerated.

In a long speech made in February 1990, Premier Li Peng stronglywarned against any ethnic unrest, which he promised would be crushedwithout fail (Kristoff 1990, p. A5). This fear of separatist movements

from the minorities, omnipresent in China's minorities policy, has inrecent years become more palpable, given the wave of ethnic separatism in the former Soviet republics and in eastern Europe. It is furtherreinforced by the ethnic unrest on China's northern and northwesternborders in Xinjiang and Tibet.11 If the democracy movement from

Mongolia should spread to Inner Mongolia, China would be facedwith an arc of crisis, stretching from the north to northwestern

11Xinjiang has a long history of opposition to the central government. There was a

strong migration of Han Chinese into the region controlled by Chinese communist cadres

sent from Beijing. Several years ago, the central directives of forceful development werearbitrarily applied without taking into account religious and ethnic sensitivities; nucleartests were performed that caused the contamination of large areas. As a consequence, there

were numerous anti-Chinese incidents leading to a heavy military presence in Xinjiangnowadays ( Ethnic Minorities Threaten 1990).


24/31


regions ( Arc of Crisis 1990, p. 39). Concurrently, for more than a

decade, a movement in search of what Edward Friedman called a

Southern-oriented national identity has arisen that questions the

centrality and dominance of the northern Han culture, economy, and

history over that of the south (Friedman 1994, p. 78). In conjunctionwith the deep current of ethnic unrest, such a movement carries

within it the seeds of secession and possible fragmentation of the Hanstate. Hence, it cannot be tolerated.

In the past, Beijing has encouraged assimilation?which some

minorities claim the government has actually been carrying out?

through cultural (imposition of the Han language), political (domination of top and middle positions by Han cadres sent from Beijing), andeconomic measures (resettlement of Han population in the minority

regions) (Tyson 1991c, p. 12). This strategy of assimilation belongs to

the long and chauvinistic tradition of Han versus non-Han or barbarian people that has been present in Chinese history since the begin

ning of the first unified Qin empire. The government has recently

adopted a more ambivalent policy. On the one hand, it has grantedethnic minorities

special privileges,such as the

possibilityof

havingmore than one child or admission to universities with lower examination scores. On the other hand, it has increased the resettlement of

Han people from eastern China in non-Han regions. Consequently,Han people currently form the majority in the non-Han provinces and

the five autonomous regions (Yin 1985, p. 32). For instance, in theautonomous prefecture of Xishuangbanna, in the western tropicalprovince of Yunnan, which has more than twenty-four ethnic groups,the Chinese government has established state-owned rubber plantations employing Han Chinese. The presence of these plantations and

of Han Chinese amid swidden cultivators such as the Yu and Kawahas created friction between the Han and non-Han (Kristoff 1991,p. E2). In addition, other factors have contributed to heightenedperception of Han imperialism : the emphasis placed on the use

(and teaching) of Chinese instead of minority languages, despiteprotection against this practice promised in the Chinese Constitu

tion, the Han population's use and exhaustion of pasture land and

forests, and the contemptuous Han attitude toward the cultures and

religions of non-Han (Tyson 1991c, p. 12). Obviously, attempts at

minority integration have not had positive results at all times. At

present the north and northwestern regions constitute a geopoliticalcauldron of Uygur and Tibetan unrest that Beijing does not wish to

stir. However, in spite of rumbles of protest, the minorities' fear of

acculturation, and other manifestations of discontent, the central gov


25/31

124 JOURNAL OF WORLD HISTORY, SPRING 1996

ernment has not hesitated to suppress any ethnic uprising, by force if

necessary.

To return to the matter of the Three Gorges Project, the government could resettle the i million displaced people in the autonomous

regions, where there are ample natural resources, but then it would

have to face possible rebellions from the minorities. In the words of

Ch'en, probably after a period of calm, the mountains would rear

again, not so much against landowners as against the state of the Han

people (Ch'en 1992, p. 34). Another alternative is for the government to continue to exhaust the last natural resources by resettling the

people higher and higher up the valley of the Yangzi through pioneersettlement farms. A large number of the displaced people would probably migrate to already overcrowded cities in search for jobs, thus in

creasing the incidence of crime and social unrest in urban centers.

The project's construction has been postponed many times. In the

1980s, as information on the impact of hydraulic projects becamemore widely known, opposition to the Three Gorges Project intensi

fied, and a public debate emerged at all levels. The protests and petitions

againstthe dam in

1989were the first

publicmanifestations of

disagreement with a project that had obviously already been approvedby the Chinese Communist Party. The government initially yielded to

the pressure, announcing the postponement of any construction ap

proval for five years. Critics of the project did not come solely fromenvironmental groups and intellectuals, but also from within the government, even from the two ministries that should have been support

ing it, the ministries of communications and of electric power.12Officials as experienced as Li Rui, a former vice minister of water con

servation and member of the party's Central Advisory Commission,

and as knowledgeable as Qu Geping, the director of the State Environment Protection Bureau, question the dam's capacity to stem the

Yangzi's destructive floods and warn that calamities will ensue if the

government proceeds. Even the National People's Congress, China's

usually docile legislative body, manifested its opposition in April 1989when more than 200 deputies suggested the postponement of the

project until the next century (Delfs 1990b, pp. 26-28). However, theliberalization in the 1980s was ended in June 1989, when the govern

ment cracked down on the pro-democracy movement. In its wake, out

12When the Ministry of Water Resources (in favor of the project) and the Ministry ofElectric Power (opposed to the project) were merged into one, the Ministry of WaterResources and Electric Power (1982), those who were in favor were appointed to the lead

ing positions in the new ministry (Fearnside 1988, p. 618). Concerning the multiple agencies and ministries involved in hydraulic projects, see Levey, ed. (1988).


26/31


spoken critics of the dam, such as Dai Qing or Li Rui, were silenced,

put under house arrest, or jailed.The silencing of internal opposition to the project has allowed the

government to renew its effort concerning the Three Gorges Project.Yet, when international pressure escalated and the World Bank beganto demand that social and environmental studies be conducted priorto approval for loans, China?like India concerning the Narmada Val

ley Project?decided in January 1993 to carry out the project alonewithout the aid of any international financial institutions. Roads andconstruction headquarters were built in preparation. To show its deter

mination, Beijing has announced its willingness to use its foreign cur

rency reserves to finance the project should no foreign aid becomeavailable. The government has even prepared a financial strategy that

would allow the construction of the project with minimal imports of

foreign equipment (McGregor 1993, p. Aio). The Three GorgesProject has allowed Beijing and the hardliners within the ChineseCommunist Party to tighten their control over segments of societythat had dared to voice their criticisms and concerns.

The Three Gorges Projectis

part ofa vast

hydraulic program thatChina has launched over the years for the transfer or diversion of water

surplus from the Yangzi to the north China plain to remedy its acutewater shortage, to end destructive flooding, and to produce cheap andabundant energy. Its success is important to the present leadership,

which will be able to leave its imprint for posterity along with theGreat Wall and the Grand Canal, even if this means the displacementof 1million people, the loss of ancient cultural and historical sites, andthe destruction of the environment. Significantly, it will also mean

that the energy, the wealth, and the resources of the south will go to

consolidate the north. The central government will be faced with thequestion of the social pressure and demands of resettlers and their inevitable clash with the minorities living in the remote regions of resettlement. Beijing would have to allow the latter to remain autonomous,

while forcing them to accept its vision of China as an industrializedworld power that would require enormous amounts of cheap energy tofeed its voracious industry and vast quantities of water for its teeming,thirsty cities and for its fields to nourish the ever increasing population.

The Battle of the Ant and the Elephant

Some of the most important projects discussed in this paper?such as

the Batang Ai dam in Sarawak, Malaysia?are situated in remote re


27/31

I2? JOURNAL OF WORLD HISTORY, SPRING I 996

gions, high in the mountains and deep in the jungles, regions where

governmental control has been weak and ineffective and where the

inhabitants have been able to preserve a certain autonomy and their

traditional ways of life. However, once built, these dams will remove

the physical protective barriers that have insulated the tribal peoplesfrom the lowlanders, bringing central power and indigenous peoplesface to face. The dams test the government's determination to inte

grate its territory and its people into one uniform entity?the nationstate. As a result, more often than not, the indigenous peoples, because of their numerical weakness, their material poverty, and in some

cases, their lack of political experience, cannot hope to preserve their

identity, culture, and mode of subsistence.13Other projects?such as the Narmada in central India and the

Three Gorges in China?are being built in river valleys that have a

high population density and a long settlement history, and within

which tribal and minority peoples have coexisted closely with the

dominant ethnic groups for centuries in a fragile equilibrium. This

long coexistence has led in some cases to the progressive acculturation

of the tribal peoples. For those who have resisted attempts at cooptation, these projects could lead to a final clash with the nation-state

and in the process force them to divest themselves of their tribal

ethnicity to adopt a new mainstream identity.

Indigenous peoples throughout the world are increasingly demand

ing national and international recognition and respect of their rightsto their ancestral lands, forests, and water. They are, in fact, demand

ing the recognition of their right to self-rule and autonomy?a rightthat no nation-state can grant without facing the possibility of seces

sion. Furthermore, their present struggle takes place within a context

of nation-states attempting to fulfill economic developmental goalsmade increasingly urgent by the compounded pressure of demo

graphics and poverty. These goals demand that the government or its

agents exploit all available natural resources capable of fostering this

development. Unfortunately, these natural resources often lie in the

indigenous peoples' last refuge. From the state's point of view, theseareas are considered underdeveloped regions that need to be inte

grated into the overall territory by opening them to the outside world.

13Anthropologist James Eder terms this phenomenon detribalization. This includeseconomic impoverishment, loss of political autonomy, social disorganization, and decul

turation, a phenomenon that is prevalent among contemporary indigenous peoples and

societies (Eder 1987, p. 106).


28/31


29/31

128 JOURNAL OF WORLD HISTORY, SPRING I 996

References

Alvares, Claude, and Ramesh Billorey. 1987. Damning the Narmada: ThePolitics behind the Destruction. Ecologist 2:62-73.

Anderson, Robert S., and Walter Huber. 1988. The Hour of the Fox: TropicalForests, theWorld Bank, and Indigenous People inCentral India. Seattle:

University ofWashington Press.Arc of Crisis. 1990. Economist, 14 April, p. 39.

Aznam, Suhaini. 1991. Longhouse Votes. Far Eastern Economic Review, 19

September, p.22.

Boxer, Baruch. 1988. China's Three Gorges Dam: Questions and Prospects.China Quarterly 113:94-108.

Chaliand, G?rard, ed. 1989. Minority Peoples in theAge ofNation-States. Trans.

Tony Bernett. London: Pluto Press.

Chattopadhyay, Kamaladevi. 1978. Tribalism in India. New Delhi: Vikas Pub

lishing.Ch'en, Jerome. 1992. The Highlanders of Central China: A History, 1895

1937. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe.

Colchester, Marcus. 1989. Pirates, Squatters and Poachers: The Political EcologyofDispossession of theNative Peoples of Sarawak. London: Survival Inter

national for the Rights of Threatened Tribal Peoples.de Crespigny, R. R. C. 1971. China: The Land and Its People. Melbourne:

Nelson.

Delfs, Robert. 1990a. Wealth and Woe. Far Eastern Economic Review, 15March, pp. 22-23.

-.1990b. Troubled Waters. Far Eastern Economic Review, 15 March,

pp. 26-28.

Eder, James F. 1987. On the Road toTribal Extinction: Depopulation, Deculturation, and Adaptative Well-Being among the Batak of the Philippines. Berke

ley: University of California Press.The Ethnic Minorities Threaten. 1990. World Press Review,

May,p. 16.

Fearnside, Philip M. 1988. China's Three Gorges Dam: 'Fatal' Project or

Step toward Modernization? World Development 5:615-30.Freeman, J. D. 1970. Report on the Iban. London: Athlone Press.

Friedman, Edward. 1994. Reconstructing China's National Identity: ASouthern Alternative toMao-Era Anti-Imperialist Nationalism. Journal ofAsian Studies 33:67-91.

Fuchs, Stephen. 1977. The Aboriginal Tribes of India. New York: St. Martin'sPress.

Furer-Haimendorf, Christoph von. 1982. Tribes of India: The Struggle for Survival. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Goldsmith, E., and N. Hildyard. 1984. The Social and Environmental Effects ofLarge Dams. 3 vols. Wadebridge, Cornwall: Wadebridge EcologicalCenter.

Hasnain, Nadeem. 1983. Tribal India Today. New Delhi: Harnam Publications.


30/31


Heberer, Thomas. 1989. China and Its National Minorities. Armonk, N.Y.:M. E. Sharpe.

Helm, June, ed. 1968. Essays on the Problem of Tribe: Proceedings of the 1967Annual Spring Meeting of theAmerican Ethnological Society. Seattle: Uni

versity ofWashington Press.

Hirsch, Philip. 1982. Dammed or Damned? Hydropower versus People'sPower. Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars 1:2-10.

Holmes, Steven. 1993. India Cancels Dam Loan from World Bank. NewYork Times, 31 March, p. A5.

Hong, Evelyn. 1987.Natives

ofSarawak: Survival in Borneo's

VanishingForest.

Pulau Pinang, Malaysia: Institut Masyarakat.Hsu, Cho-yun. 1965. Ancient China inTransition. Stanford: Stanford Univer

sity Press.

Hurst, Philip. 1987. Forest Destruction in South East Asia. Ecologist 4/5:170-174.

Jackman, Brian. 1989. India Be Dammed. Geographical Magazine 61:10-14.Jhaveri, Nayna. 1988. The Three Gorges Debacle. Ecologist 2:56-63.Johnston, R. J., David B. Knight, and Eleonore Kofman, eds. 1988. National

ism, Self-Determination and Political Geography. London: Croom Helm.

Koninck, Rodolphe de, and W. Donald McTaggart. 1987. Land Settlement

Processes in Southeast Asia: Historical Foundations, Discontinuities,and Problems. Asian Profile 4:342-56.

Kristoff, Nicholas D. 1990. Chinese Premier Cautions Ethnic Minorities.New York Times, 20 February, p. A5.

-. 1991. Affirmative Action, Chinese Style, Makes Some Progress.New York Times, 31 March, p. E2.

Kunstadter, Peter. 1967. Southeast Asian Tribes, Minorities, and Nations. 2 vols.Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Lebar, Frank M., ed. 1972. Ethnic Groups of Insular Southeast Asia. 2 vols. NewHaven: Human Relations Area Files Press.

Levey,Lisbeth A., ed.

1988.Water

ManagementinChina.

Washington,DC:

American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Luk, Shiu-Hung, and Joseph Whitney, eds. 1993. Megaproject: A Case Study ofChina's Three Gorges Project. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe.

Mangla, Bhupesh. 1991. Narmada Protesters Defiant as Waters Rise. New

Scientist, 14 September, p. 16.

McGregor, James. 1993. China Bulldozing Ahead on Dam despite Opposition. Wall Street Journal, 19 January, p. A10.

Morris, Brian. 1986. Deforestation in India and the Fate of Forest Tribes.

Ecologist 6:253-57.Ngau, Harrison, Thomas Jalong Apoi, and Chee Yoke Ling. 1987. Malaysian

Timber: Exploitation forWhom? Ecologist 4/5:175-79.Oliver-Smith, Anthony. 1991. Involuntary Resettlement, Resistance and

Political Empowerment. Journal of Refugee Studies 2:133-49.Party Chief Stresses National Unity. 1992. Beijing Review 35:9.


31/31

I30 JOURNAL OF WORLD HISTORY, SPRING 1996

Prakashi, Gyan. 1992. The World of the Rural Labourer inColonial India. Delhi:Oxford University Press.

Rich, Bruce M. 1989. The 'Greening' of the Development Banks: Rhetoricand Reality. Ecologist 2:44-52.

Sandin, Benedict. 1980. Iban Adat and Augury. Penang, Malaysia: PenerbitUniversiti Sains Malaysia for School of Comparative Social Sciences.

Sarangi, Satinath, and Ramesh Billorey. 1988. The Nightmare Begins: Ousteesof Indira Sagar Project. Economic and Political Weekly, 23 April, pp.829-30.

Schoenberger,Karl. 1990.

Japan'sAid for India Dam

ProjectAttacked

byEnvironmentalists. Los Angeles Times, 20 April, p. A24.Seshadri, B. 1991. The Narmada Valley Project: Economic Miracle or Envi

ronmental Disaster? Contemporary Review 259:75-79.

Sinha, Surajit, Arabinda Basu, and Amitabha Basu, eds. 1989. Man and Environment: Biological and Cultural Perspectives with Special Reference toIndia. Calcutta: Indian Anthropological Society.

Sun, Lena H. 1992. In China, the Biggest Thing since the Great Wall.

Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 13-19 January, p. 18.

Sutlive, Vinson M., Jr. 1978. The Iban of Sarawak. Arlington Heights, 111.:AHM Publishing.

Thukral, Enakshi Ganguly, ed. 1992. Big Dams, Displaced People. New Delhi:Sage Publications.

Treaties, Agreements and Constructive Arcangements: Indigenous Peoplesand the Legal Landscape. 1992. New York: United Nations Depart

ment of Public Information.

Tyson, James L. 1991a. Chinese Dam Threatens Massive Disruption. Chris

tian Science Monitor, 18 July, p. 5.-. 1991b. Critics Urge China to Consult on Dam Plan. Christian Sci

ence Monitor, 22 July, p. 6.

-. 1991C. Han Writing Seen on Ethnic Wall. Christian Science Monitor,7 January, p. 12.

-. 199id. River Ecology to Be Altered by Dam. Christian ScienceMonitor, 23 July, p. 4.

-. 1992. Three Gorges Dam in China Threatens Fish and Fishermen.Christian Science Monitor, 27 May, p. 20.

Van de Fliert, Lydia. 1994. Indigenous Peoples and International Organizations.Nottingham: Spokesman.

Wilmer, Franke. 1993. The Indigenous Voice inWorld Politics, since Time Immemorial. Newbury Park: Sage Publications.

Wirsing, Robert G. 1981. Protection of Ethnic Minorities: Comparative Perspectives. New York: Pergamon Press.

Yin,Ma.

1985. China's Minority Nationalities. Beijing:New World

Press.

hydro asia viet

Documents