This is how Chittaroopa Palit of the Narmada Bachao Andolan described the protest:
“On 11th May 2011, the Supreme Court directed allotment of a minimum of 2 ha. of alternative land to each cultivator family affected by the Omkareshwar dam. The Apex Court has repeatedly held that this should be done before submergence. After the judgment, 2500 cultivator families affected by the Omkareshwar dam filed land applications. However the project authorities decided to submerge the area and flood out the people without allotting them land, so that there would be no one left to rehabilitate.
Thus, on 23rd and 24th of August the authorities raised the Omkareshwar reservoir beyond 189 meters, submerging around 1000 acres of crop lands and standing crops of mirchi, soyabean, cotton, painstakingly planted by the farmers, in many cases after incurring considerable debt. For two days the villagers agonized on how to respond to the illegal submergence being wreaked by the State. They understood that it was a life and death battle.
Finally on the 25th of August evening, the villagers, on their own, took a decision to undertake Jal Satyagraha, and informed the NBA activists.
For the next 17 days, 51 people consistently sat on Jal Satyagraha, getting up only to bathe, go to the toilet, eat the food served to them at the river bank, and to sleep for three hours every night on the river bank. We sat shivering in the freezing water in the middle of the thunderstorms and down-pours of late August and early September. Our hands and feet developed wounds and bled, attracting droves of fish that attacked our limbs. Cobras fleeing from the rising waters ran into us. Three times, the waters reached nose level and we nearly drowned, the last time on 9th September at 5.30 p.m. on the eve of our victory. However not a single protestor, aware that perhaps this was the last moment of their lives rose to escape the waters.”
The victory is heartening news. But the Khandwa villagers are not the only ones facing unlawful eviction due to big dams. Villagers of Harda district, protesting submersion by the Indira Sagar dam, got nothing but repression in return for their struggle.