During the last two decades or so, the proposed Tipaimukh High Dam has focused attention on the costs and consequences of constructing it; it has by now become a fundamental question known as the big dam argument.

While scientists and technologists, planners and social scientists, people and activists the world over seem to have near consensually rejected large dams on various scientific, economic, political, social and cultural grounds, the ruling elite in India and Manipur have remained dogmatic and nonchalant. A patent issue in the big dam argument has been rural water supply and electrification, which the dam authorities claimed as big pay-offs of large dam.

A counter argument insists that there exist small and local solution to the problems, which do not disturb and displace the local populace. Before going into the issue and the nitty-gritty of the argument, it is enlightening to look at the alternative that the local people have actually worked out. Rather than learning from these solutions and alternatives, which have resulted from the joints efforts of departments one and two has, infact, tried to put obstacles, though in vain.

In the last three decades, the tiny border State of Manipur in North East India has been haunted by the cache of development packages thrust upon it by the order in Delhi. Under the Central Water Commission, New Delhi, the Brahmaputra Board stationed at Guwahati, has embarked upon the construction of a modern dam called the Tipaimukh High Dam. It must be confessed here that the reasons we shall discuss below is very brief, no informed debate on the Tipaimukh High Dam is possible. Yet, in the last many years it has been the focus of a great deal of heated and confessed debate, particularly among the Zeliangrong and Hmar tribal communities.

In 1994-95, the Zeliangrong Students' Union, Manipur and the Hmar Students' Association, on behalf of their respective communities, have presented memoranda to the Prime Minister of India. The Prime Minister's Office has not bothered to come out with any response. Like the PMO, the Central Water Commission and the Brahmaputra Board, the State Government too has maintained a dubious silence, adding further to the confusion.

It was in August 1995, that the State Government came out with a statement that it was opposed to the construction of the dam and that it had communicated its opposition to the Central Government. However, neither has the State Government specified the ground on which it opposes the dam, nor has it made any white paper available to the people or even to the media. People seem to doubt the true claims of the State Government and finally, now how come the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the NEEPCO quite recently.

A great deal of literature is available about the nature, character and organization of tribal communities in India as much as in the North East. We would however, like to highlight some points at the cost of repetition. Nearly all the tribal communities in Manipur have been self-sufficient, with minimum links to the market and the State. We have a symbiotic relationship with the surrounding land and forest, which apart from precious to us for our daily living constitute a divine peace.

There is no doubt about the fact that the hill tribes do suffer from underdevelopment, stagnation, poverty and inaccessibility as compared with the rest of the world. Hence the Constitution binds the Government with the responsibility of giving special attention and treatment to the people.

But, most of the developmental projects introduced by the authorities' order have proved to be not only ineffective and irrelevant, they have been wasteful, counter productive. This is primarily because these plans and programmes have been planned and implemented from above by the authority, without the participation of the tribal people. No genuine development can be realized for and on behalf of the people; it can be done only through, by and with us. For a real solution to any problem to emerge, the people must take control of their own situation, and seek their own unique path of development on the basis of their own understanding of their problems, potential and limitations, constraints and resources.

Willy-nilly, the development planners do not understand any of these critical features of tribal communities. They fail to understand that the 'compensation' and 'rehabilitation' offered by them to people whom they displace and uproot do not and cannot address the predicament of the tribal. Leave alone the moral and spiritual dimension, the innumerable items of use and consumption that our people habitually obtain from our immediate surrounding since times immemorial suddenly become either inaccessible or exorbitantly expensive. Additionally, our naturally supportive community living is destroyed once, we are shifted from our traditional habitat. This project hurts us not only economically, it disrupts us culturally and snaps the ties and bonds that are central features of our very existence as peoples and societies.

Let us take stock of the information that could be gathered only in bits and pieces. This information has come to us because of our struggle and perseverance, and in spite of the stone-walling of the project authorities. The proposal for the Tipaimukh High Dam was first mooted in 1955. It was to be constructed with Japanese-aid at a cost of Rs 1,097 crores (now with NEEPCO at a cost of Rs 5528 crores). The dam site is located on the confluence of Tuivai and Barak rivers on the borders of Assam, Manipur and Mizoram States. Though a great deal of controversy surrounds this information, according to one version of official figures the total submergible areas of about 311 sq km covers 90 villages with 1,310 families. It includes 27,242 hectors of forest and cultivable land.

The Zeliangrong and Hmar tribes inhabit the submergible region. Quite opposite to the claims of the project authorities, our people practice settled, terrace and shifting cultivation, citrus farming and fishing. Again, the project authorities have recorded blatant lies about the flora and fauna of the area. The forested hills are the habitat of rare and endangered (as per WWF organization) species of reptiles and mammals, including pythons, gibbons, leopards and deer. The region is rich in orchids, medicinal and herbal plants. All along the river banks, there are a large number of orange orchards.

In the midst of confusion and controversies and reports of tribal unrest, a group of social and environment activists formed themselves into the Action Committee for Tipaimukh (ACT) in November 1991. In the same year, a team of ACT, went on a fact finding mission to Tipaimukh village and the dam site. They met large number of people in the remote villages of Churachandpur district with a view to learn about the people's condition of living and also to know of their reaction vis-à-vis the Tipaimukh High Dam. The finding of the ACT which were startling may be summed up as follows:
- the site selected for the dam is located in a region which is among the most seismically active in the two major earthquakes of 8+ in the Richer Scale during the past 50 years.

- the Barak river is flowing on a major fault zone and the dam site is only 500 meters away from this zone. Hence, the very basic feasibility of the dam is questionable.

- no investigation on the aspects like seismicity of the area, flora and fauna of the region, environmental appraisal etc seems to have been done; and

- the selection of the dam site is motivated by political considerations.

On these and other ground, the ACT, under the leadership of MK Priyobrata Singh, demanded a review of the project. It must be remembered that such a callous attitude to the scientific, ecological, cultural and human aspects while big dams are undertaken is not unique in the case of Tipaimukh High Dam. In fact, when the planning for the Tehri dam started in the early 70s, the authorities' order displayed a similar callous attitude. However, the construction work on the dam could not be taken up because of the strong opposition from the local people. The agitationists against the Tehri dam submitted a long memoranda with all facts and figures to the Petitions Committee of Parliament in 1977. In response, Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister of India, directed the department of Science and Technology on March 18, 1980 to review the Tehri project.

We have recounted part of the story of Tehri dam because the story of Tipaimukh High Dam is not very different from the former in essence. However, the complaints, memoranda, and protests are at best a nuisance, mischiefs, born out of ignorance and they have to be ignored or muted. This is the attitude and the contempt with which the State seems to have treated the people's complaints. It is as if only when the protests become louder enough to pierce the hard-ears of the authorities that they would (no, not listen) respond and the response is invariably located within the military option and that would mark the beginning of the politics of violence. We have talked enough about that.

On April 13, 1995 another well argued memorandum was submitted to the Prime Minister by the Zeliangrong Naga Union (ZNU), Assam, Manipur and Nagaland. It demanded the Prime Minister's meaningful intervention for the immediate stoppage of construction work at Tipaimukh dam site and for a fresh, responsible and participatory open review of the feasibility of the project. It further demanded the review of the dam observing that the dam is a blue print for the people tragic extinction.

The High dam will have far reaching socio-psychological and cultural repercussions on the groups and communities. It is feared that the disruption caused by the dam would throw us out onto a moral and spiritual vacuum and thereby subject us to the corrupting vices of the modern societies, viz; individualism, consumerism and opportunism. A great deal of damage would be caused to the cultural heritage of the Zeliangrong people. For example, the Ahu (Barak) waterfall, and the number of myths and legends around it would go into the Tipaimukh High Dam reservoir.

Quoting Abraham Lincoln, who had said that, 'A farce or a comedy is best played, a tragedy is best read at home'. We will not allow them to play their tragedy on our land and forest. Our land and life can never be bargained for the play of certain misguided, greedy and corrupt project officials, engineers and bureaucrats as well as politicians and contractors. We will stand for our natural heritage, our God-given right to live as human beings with dignity, self-respect, and right to pilot our destiny with our own genius.

The ideal of preserving the sanctity of the surrounding nature, particularly in term of trees, lakes and rivers have been the defining features of certain societies and cultures since the beginning of human kind. We cannot be dismissed lightly. This is more so in the case of tribal and indigenous societies who have an organic and symbiotic relationship with nature - our religion, morality etc. being defined by our relationship with nature. The authorities' path of development and its rational calculation determined by market forces fails to capture the ethical mores of these societies and our environments. In fact, attempts to dam the Rhine in Germany had bothered its philosophers so much that one of them, Heidegger, felt constrained to fundamentally rethink the whole question of technology, and with it that of rationality and its limitations.

Finally, I would like to point out two things, which is a must to be remembered. The so-called support of local people, (if there be any), is not from the common populace but rather from a small section - the opportunistic politicians, greedy contractors and technocrats. Secondly, the support of some local people is not for what is proposed to be gained from the completed project - the electricity and irrigation generated from Tipaimukh High Dam is not for the local people. Some support might come from the attraction of some financial activity in an otherwise forgotten area, during the process of construction - this includes some injections of money and jobs for a select few. It is immoral to present this desperate response of the people as a token of their support.

The only way to redeem the situation is to bring back the dynamism of tribal societies and the vast spaces people inhabit. This can be done with our participation and our own traditional genius. Any policy and activism therefore must go hand in hand with an attempts to understand us and to bring us back into our own. Honest scientist, ecologists and world over, concerned activists and countless ordinary threatened people will have to struggle against the future consequences of a bad decision. Else, posterity will not forgive us. We must bring first and the second department into order and order the authorities's path to quit.