State Versus Indigenous

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Journal of World History, Vol. 7, No. 1©1996 by University of Hawai‘i Press

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

Indigenous Peoples of Asia

nguyen thi dieuTemple University

olities 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 variousethnic groups that form their societies. Entering the modern age, moststates had evolved national identities determined and defined by thedominant ethnic group(s). This process usually excluded certain eth-nic 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 ofAsia, Africa, and Latin America.1 International interest and concernin the present day do not signify that the interaction between indige-

1 The term indigenous populations or indigenous peoples, as defined in the latest reviseddraft (1990) of the Indigenous and Tribal Populations Convention, applies to the followingcategories: “a) 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 onaccount of their descent from the populations which inhabited the country, or a geographi-cal region to which the country belongs, at the time of conquest or colonization . . . andwho . . . 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 fordetermining the groups to which the provisions of this Convention apply” (Van de Fliert1994, 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 overthe other raises the prospect of self-determination. See Johnston, Knight, and Kofman, eds.(1988).

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102 journal of world history, spring 1996

nous peoples and the dominant mainstream society is recent and hascome to light only in the twentieth century. On the contrary, in Asia(as in other parts of the world), the indigenous peoples’ relations withand treatment by exogenous forces spanned centuries of the history ofthe kingdoms and then nation-states in which they lived. In India an-cient Sanskrit literature made frequent mention of the adivasi (aborigi-nal people) or vanyajati (forest-dwellers) (Hasnain 1983, pp. 9–10).Archaeological evidence has shown the existence of such interactionsbetween forest peoples of the hills and mountains and the lowland,valley inhabitants. In China, while expanding from the Yellow Riverbasin, Han rulers dealt with non-Han peoples for thousands of years.This more than millennial relationship, at once adversarial and mutu-ally dependent, is reflected in China’s rich cultural heritage of mythsand folktales that have traveled in both directions, from the non-Hanto the Han culture and vice-versa. In southeast Asia the kingdoms ofPagan, Siam, Vietnam, or Angkor in their hegemonic rise displacedindigenous peoples, forcing them away from the fertile lowlands toseek refuge in the mountainous regions. The relationship between thedominant group(s) and the minority or tribal peoples has thus been along, enduring one, often fraught with misunderstandings, land spolia-tion, bloodshed, and in most cases, extinction or assimilation of theminority or tribal peoples.

In the twentieth century, with the help of activist groups andinternational organizations, indigenous peoples have fought and lostmany struggles as they defended their rights—in particular, that oftribal ownership of land and resources (Wilmer 1993). At present,this situation has become urgent under the combined pressure ofdevelopmental dictates and demographics. In the ethnic mosaic ofAsia, particularly in China and India where there are more than 150million indigenous people, minority and tribal peoples have the mis-fortune of existing in nation-states that have embarked on a long-term effort to transform themselves into modern industrial econo-mies. Among the many projects and measures that have been adoptedby the Asian governments, the construction of gigantic, multipurposedams has been conceived as the ultimate cure to the woes of under-development.

With Egypt’s Aswan High Dam as the leading example of what aThird World country could accomplish in terms of engineering feats,the construction of dams over the last three decades has greatly in-creased—from 5,000 dams in 1950 to 36,200 three decades later—mostly in developing countries, above all in China, which accounts forhalf the dams built in the world during this period. Single- or multi-

Nguyen: Hydraulic Projects and Indigenous Peoples in Asia 103

purpose dams have been hailed for bringing cheap, clean, and abun-dant electricity; for controlling devastating floods; and for making pos-sible 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 mostof the world’s hydraulic projects, and its counterpart in Asia, the AsianDevelopment Bank, dams represent concrete, quantifiable symbols ofprogress that yield almost immediate returns. Abundant hydroelectricpower, which is less expensive to produce than electric power gener-ated 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 andecological costs of such projects.

This paper explores the impact of hydraulic projects such as damson 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 peoples have had only sporadic relationswith the mainstream society; some have existed side by side—distinctand yet interrelated—with the dominant society for thousands ofyears. This paper will examine the success or failure of nation-states, asthey 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 economicdevelopment that would encompass the larger society and, on theother hand, the extinction of an apparently negligible segment, theremaining indigenous peoples. It will conclude by looking into thefuture—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 nationaldevelopment, unity, and security versus the reclaiming trend ofregional history, identity, and economy—for the Yangzi as opposed tothe Yellow River basin.

2 The case of the Aswan High Dam has shown that such a colossal project can haveprofoundly 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 popula-tions. See, for example, Goldsmith and Hildyard (1984); Hirsch (1982); and Thukral, ed.(1992).


The Past

With few exceptions, the world of the indigenous peoples of Asia isthat of rainforests, remote riverine valleys, and steep hills. The indige-nous peoples’ relationship with the environment is a symbiotic onethat 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 faunaprovide 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 iswhere they may hope to rest one day. It belongs to all and to none inparticular, 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 anotherenjoyed 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 theMalay world. Adat may be defined as “all of the various customarynorms, jural rules, ritual interdictions and injunctions that guide anindividual’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 regi-mented by customary laws, every member of the community has theright to cultivate and to live from the land. Hence, the family’s needsand those of the community or tribe are equally tended to, leading tothe self-sufficiency of all.

This was the situation that existed before colonial rule, whichintroduced 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 thepractice 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 tothe intrusion by one on the other. Among many measures taken by the


central power during colonial times, the passing of multiple land actsallowed the government to take over land that it considered territoriumnullius, virgin territory, unexploited by the dominant ethnic groups.For example, in Malaysia, the successive land acts—the Malay StateForest 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 landlong recognized by the customs of native peoples. Forests that hadbeen tribal property became mostly state-owned, public land. Swiddencultivators were discouraged and often forbidden from practicing theirtraditional slash-and-burn techniques, which were considered “damag-ing to the environment” (Hurst 1987, p. 171). Thus, encroachment onland and the official theft of land by declaring it public—a commonenough practice by colonial authorities—was continued in the postin-dependence period.

With independence the dominant society, increasing in populationand spearheaded by its political expression, the nation-state, expandedfurther into the tribal world of forests and rivers, claiming as nationalspace and wealth natural resources heretofore seemingly untapped,grabbing land that was the communal property of tribal peoples.3 Thenational government, now dominated by landed elites and financialinterests, was faced with multiple developmental problems and deter-mined 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 (1841–1941) and then under the British crown (1946–63), joined the Federa-tion of Malaysia in 1963. About 70% of the population of Sarawak isrural. 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 forpower 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 wasselected 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-

3 The 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).


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 of3,000 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 cul-tivation 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 theBatang Ai hydraulic project were the traditional habitat of the Iban.4According to anthropologist Evelyn Hong, the Batang Ai valley wasthe “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, thegovernment—the Sarawak Land Consolidation and RehabilitationAuthority (SALCRA)—had made promises to them, including that ofcash compensation for lost land, fruit trees, and farms, in addition tothe 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: apromise 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 freehousing in exchange for their lost long houses, free water and electric-ity—after all, the dam was being built to produce electricity—andemployment at the dam site. None of it materialized. The cash com-pensation, 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 ascars, televisions, and electric gadgets. But, worst of all, the Iban ofBatang Ai had lost their ancestral burial grounds, forests, fields, andhence, their souls. The formerly free-roaming, self-subsistent peopleare now trapped in the world of the dominant peoples with their con-

4 The Iban are a riverine people who practice shifting cultivation in the interior hills ofSarawak. 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 agricul-tural, 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).


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 permanentsettlers, 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 harshreality of life on a permanent settlement led the Iban to conclude thatthey had once again been duped by the government.

The Batang Ai dam was not the sole hydroelectric project thatthreatened 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 andBalui Rivers, Seventh Division, whose estimated cost was to rangefrom US$1 billion to $2 billion. It will be the largest dam in southeastAsia, with an electricity-generating capacity of 2,400 megawatts, someof which will be transferred to peninsular Malaysia (Colchester 1989,p. 58). Five thousand Kenyah, Kayan, and Kajang natives, along withpossibly ten thousand Penan aborigines, will be displaced. A Kenyah,reflecting on the joys that his traditional way of life has given him andhis people, said:

We Kenyah are living our own way of life. We are not controlled bywhoever except our own tuai kampong [village elders]. . . . We searchfor wild boar freely in the jungle—nobody can stop us and we have avery beautiful river, beautiful mountain, beautiful scenery and beauti-ful 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 vowedto fight on. Fortunately, the natives of Sarawak are not without politi-cal experience, thanks to their tradition of community leadership andaction 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) thatsuccessfully ran for Sarawak state elections, winning fifteen of theforty-eight state seats in 1987 (Aznam 1991, p. 22). Having learned avaluable lesson from the tragic experience of the Iban of Batang Ai,the natives of the river valleys selected for dam construction have


organized themselves to voice their concerns and opposition in meet-ings, petitions, and demonstrations. The struggle against the dam andagainst 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 in1987. However, despite all the political opposition, the Malaysian gov-ernment 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 unequal and exploitative they were (Anderson and Huber1988). 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 for-est 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 newscrutiny 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 thatopened up tribal territories, the colonizers imposed the same systems ofland tenure and taxation on tribals as they did on nontribals in prince-ly states and Mughal provinces. In 1894 the British Raj enforced sweep-ing forest legislation that despoiled tribals of natural resources havinghigh commercial value. For instance, the “Rules for the Treatment andManagement 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 stateproperty (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


Pradesh, for instance), in place of forests rose coffee and tea planta-tions that totally changed the ecological system as well as the equilib-rium that had existed between adivasi and forests (Sinha, Basu, andBasu 1989, p. 234). In the words of a British governor of Madras, “theBritish forest policy was not of conservation but confiscation” (Sinha,Basu, and Basu 1989, p. 257). Agencies such as the Forestry Depart-ment were established with full executive powers to enforce a policythat directly regulated tribal lives. As a result, many tribals rapidly be-came migrant workers on these same plantations for miserable wages,if they were not reduced to servitude. With the same hand that tookaway tribal lands, the British Raj—in the long colonial tradition ofplacing 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 territoriesthat had been theirs since their forefathers’ time were declared “Sched-uled Districts” or “Backward Tracts” and governed by special legisla-tion (Furer-Haimendorf 1982, p. 39).

In the postindependence period, this policy of “tribal disenfran-chisement” was continued, notably in the Constitution of 1950, whichestablished “Scheduled Tribes” and “Scheduled Areas” in every statethat had tribal populations and, in theory, provided for their protec-tion with special rights and statuses (Anderson and Huber 1988, p.39). At present the tribal population constitutes 7% of the overallIndian 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 livelihoodwhich 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 thosetribals who have taken to settled cultivation are also increasing innumbers” (Hasnain 1983).

Adding to this demographic pressure on land and its resulting scar-city in recent decades, the postcolonial government has passed legis-lative acts that further constrain and restrict tribal rights. The mostdamaging of these concern forest legislation. The Forest Act of 1952,for example, gave the tribals “rights and concessions” that did not pre-vent 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


could arbitrarily impose and collect heavy fines from tribals caught inthe act of collecting forest produce or cutting firewood. It even allowedthese officials to jail any “perpetrator” (tribal, that is) without due pro-cess 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, “inless than twenty years, given the current rate of deforestation, therewill be no natural forests left in South Asia” (Morris 1986, p. 256). It isuseful to point out that this rapid deforestation is caused to a largeextent by the governmental policy of leasing vast forest acreage to pri-vate 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 subconti-nent’s rivers.

Since independence, India has prided itself on being one of thefirst Third World countries capable of building giant dams such as theDamodar and the Hirakud (Seshadri 1991, p. 76). However, no accountwas taken of the impact of such projects on the displaced people andtheir environment. As these hydraulic projects multiplied—in particu-lar in the region of Kerala, in the Western Ghat—voices of dissentbecame louder, and the suffering endured by the people who wereousted came to public notice. It appeared that a disproportionatelylarge majority of them belonged to the poorest and most excluded seg-ments 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 ofKerala, such tribal peoples as the Cholanaicker, the Kurumbas, andthose 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 ambitiousprojects that the Indian government has launched to prove to theworld that it is capable of technical feats on the scale of the TennesseeValley Authority. The Narmada River originates in the plateau ofAmarkantak in the state of Madhya Pradesh and flows westwardthrough 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 Billorey1987, pp. 62–63). Its river basin sustains more than 20 million people,tribals and nontribals alike. Several years ago the basin and, in particu-lar, the Vindhyas and the Satpura Mountains, were famous for therichness of their flora and fauna (Alvares and Billorey 1987, p. 75).


Along the banks of the river, up in the hills, and in the forests ofMadhya Pradesh, Gujarat, and Rajasthan live the adivasi or vanyajati,tribal peoples of India who have derived sustenance from the land, theforests, and the waters of these regions since time immemorial (Helm1968, 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 materialdevelopment 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 nowbeen reduced to the status of landless wage laborers. The Baigas ofMadhya Pradesh practice shifting cultivation, which they believe wasdictated to them by their bhagwan (god). In their mythology the plow-ing of Mother Earth is akin to torture, and the adoption of such prac-tice could bring disaster (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, butpresently about “one-fifth of the total tribal population in India isengaged in agriculture as wage earners” (Hasnain 1983, p. 26). Sometribes still practice swidden cultivation on the hills in the few stateswhere 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 theirhabitat, 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 themuch criticized Narmada Project is taking place. The Narmada ValleyProject was conceived in 1946 and approved by the Rajiv Gandhi gov-ernment in 1987. It would involve the construction along the Nar-mada River and its tributaries of 30 giant dams, 135 medium-sizeddams, 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 inMadhya Pradesh and the Sardar Sarovar dam in Gujarat. The Nar-mada Sagar, in the state of Madhya Pradesh, is an upstream projectdesigned 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-


bined with the projected production of 223 megawatts of electricity.The Sardar Sarovar dam, downstream in the state of Gujarat, BharuchDistrict, 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 additionaladvantages to the surrounding states characteristic of such multipur-pose 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 andmore 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. Allmajor 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 dis-eases such as schistosomiasis, malaria, and cholera. But in this case 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 inwhich 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 acresof 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? Andwhat 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, acknowledgedthat 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


rehabilitation of the ousted villagers, conditions that are also underthe responsibility of the Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal (Rich 1989,p. 48). Yet the signatories of the loan agreement, the World Bank andthe government of India, have broken most of the rules that governquestions of resettlement and rehabilitation, in particular, those pro-tecting the tribal peoples as stipulated by the International LaborOrganization (ILO) Convention 107 of 1957 and signed by India(Alvares and Billorey 1987, p. 64).5

The World Bank approved the loan to the government of Indiawithout 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 internationalorganizations, it finally decided to send its own team to conduct astudy of the project’s social and environmental impacts. Led by Brad-ford Morse, former head of the UNDP (United Nations DevelopmentProgramme), and Thomas Berger, a Canadian Supreme Court justice,the team surveyed the project in 1991–92 (Holmes 1993, p. A5). Itsreport concluded that the Sardar Sarovar project was rife with seriousenvironmental and resettlement problems, and advised the WorldBank to reconsider it.

One problem that has attracted much criticism from all quarters isthe question of resettlement and rehabilitation. Despite a certain expe-rience 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 forestproduce, and whose very cultural identity was defined by the existenceof the forests, the destruction of their habitat, their displacement andscattering in different, forest-poor, and overcrowded land, or theirforced 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-

5 The International Labor Organization (ILO) was the first international body to focuson the question of indigenous peoples, attempting to promote their rights through differentconventions 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 ownsocial, 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 inindigenous peoples’ traditional habitats” (Van de Fliert 1994, pp. 56–74).


tlement of these tribals without adequate measures taken to alleviatetheir suffering may equate to genocide.

Even the nontribal, smallholding farmers who had been promisedfive acres of land have not seen this promise made good by the states ofGujarat and Madhya Pradesh. The reason is simply that there is noland available in either state. The inhabitants of the first villages to besubmerged found themselves resettled by the state on land that wasalready 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 a World Bank consultant, “cash compensa-tion usually results in lower living standards and reduced quality of lifeamong the large majority of relocatees” (Alvares and Billorey 1987,p. 64). The landless families suffer a worse fate. About 30% of the pop-ulation of twenty-three villages to be submerged were landless. Forthese, 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 theselandless will have to be absorbed in activities unrelated to agriculture”(Alvares and Billorey 1987, p. 65). Not only did the governments ofboth states fail to fulfill their promises, but they also have repeatedlyignored and refused to inform the very people who will be displaced.6This denial of information shows contempt for the suffering of tribalpeoples. Whatever information was available to the villagers was con-fusing, misleading, and uneven. Most of the villagers had little or noknowledge about their rights or the state’s plans for them, and hencethey were easily taken advantage of.

Preliminary work on the Sardar Sarovar dam started several decadesago, 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 tountold 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 asacrifice for the sake of the community. It undergoes hardship and dis-tress and faces an uncertain future so that others may live in happinessand be economically better off” (Alvares and Billorey 1987, p. 64).

6 The 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 ofany surveying (Rich 1989, p. 49).


Faced with all the impossible odds of displacement and a lack ofgovernmental help, the displaced, tribals and nontribals alike, havebanded together to defend themselves against the authorities. In Janu-ary 1988, when faced with the submergence, 3,000–4,000 people fromall three states gathered at the site of the Sardar Sarovar dam to pro-test the project (Sarangi and Billorey 1988, p. 829). The number ofnonviolent demonstrations increased as the first villages began to beflooded. Hundreds of people put their lives at risk by lying down onthe road to block the path of vehicles going to the site. The dissentreached 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 ofpowerful landed families and industrial interests of Gujarat, MadhyaPradesh, and Maharashtra, which will benefit the most from theproject(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 surveys carried out in the wake of all the protests ledmajor aid donors, such as Japan and the World Bank, to reconsidertheir loans. In 1985 the Japanese Overseas Economic CooperationFund had extended US$18 million to the Indian government, specifi-cally 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 pref-erence for foregoing foreign aid rather than meeting ecological andhuman rights standards that these Third World countries feel areunfairly imposed on them by international organizations, Westernnations, and nongovernmental organizations. In March 1993 theIndian government announced its decision to cancel a large part of theWorld Bank’s US$450 million loan rather than meet its environmen-tal and resettlement standards concerning the project. New Delhi also

7 For example, the work of such organizations as the New Delhi–based Multiple ActionResearch Group (MARG), the grassroots Chipco movement, the London-based organiza-tion Survival International, and the Berkeley-based International Rivers Network.

8 As is often the case with bilateral aid of this nature, three Japanese companies—Sum-itomo Corporation, Hitachi, and Toshiba—have been given a US$183 million contract tosupply equipment for the project (Schoenberger 1990).


declared its intention to continue the US$3 billion Narmada Projecton its own without any assistance from international lending institu-tions. It does not bode well for the future of the riparian inhabitants,and particularly for the tribals, when the union government prefers toforsake much needed financial and technical aid rather than to com-ply with the “benchmarks” imposed by the World Bank. The SardarSarovar Project is not the only project that is being built on the Nar-mada; the Narmada (Indira) Sagar on the Narmada and others on itstributaries 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 adevelopment project such as the Narmada to powerful interests, whilethe people who are most directly affected by the project, such as theBhils 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 anurban environment, in the slums of Bombay or Calcutta, 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 tobe 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 ofpeople affected, and ultimate goals. Long before construction began in1994, the TGP had been a subject of controversy for several decadesand had even led to the creation of China’s first but short-lived Greenmovement, headed by Dai Qing, a journalist and critic of the project.But unlike the Narmada Valley Project in India or the Batang Ai andBakun dams in Malaysia, which directly affect minority and tribalpeoples, China’s project will indirectly exacerbate the relations be-tween Beijing and its national minorities that live in the highlands ofcentral China and farther inland west of the Yangzi basin.

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


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 ofsuch monuments as the Great Wall (third century B.C.E.) and theGrand Canal (seventh century C.E.), when the ruler could musterthe country’s human and material resources to build great works inhomage to himself, as symbols of his protection and also of his power.China’s folklore and history mention legends such as that of the GreatYu, the mythical ancestor of hydraulic engineering, the founder of theXia dynasty in the twenty-first century B.C.E. Large-scale constructionof 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 partof Chinese civilization (Hsu 1965, p. 131). These hydraulic worksallowed China to increase its agricultural wealth and expand its fluvialnetwork, contributing to the unification of the empire. At presentwater conservation projects take up more than 4% of all governmentspending; 20% of all generated electricity in China is produced byhydroelectric 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 Hanof 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 asthe time of the Three Kingdoms, when General Guan Yu of the Shustate defeated his enemies of the north, and as recent as the civil warbetween 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-Hanpeoples such as the Yi, Qiang, Miao-Yao, and Tujia. Classified by thecentral government as part of China’s fifty-five national minorities,some of the non-Han peoples that used to live in the fertile rivervalleys moved higher up into the mountains and highlands.

9 For a debate on the question of China’s Han versus non-Han national identity, seeFriedman (1994).


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 millionpeople, producing about 40% of China’s agricultural output (Boxer1988, p. 95). For millennia, the river has shaped the landscape with itsdevastating floods and also with its silt deposits, bringing both destruc-tion 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). TheYangzi’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 1 million people homeless. To contain its flooding, anancient network of dikes, canals, and reservoirs had been built andmaintained 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 theYangzi has always been foremost in the mind of every ruler, fromemperors to 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 beenfor more than sixty years at the center of many Chinese leaders’ pro-grams and debates: the Three Gorges Project on the Yangzi, located atSandouping 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 itsrealization (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 govern-ment formulate the first design for the Three Gorges Project (Luk andWhitney 1993, p. 44). The turmoil that engulfed China in the follow-ing decades halted its progress. In 1953 Mao Zedong revived it andcalled 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 PremierZhou Enlai himself with the planning efforts. Henceforth, the pace ofpreparation began accelerating (Luk and Whitney 1993, pp. 49–50).

The eighteen-year project, which would cost from US$11 billionto $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


feet deep, situated in Sichuan with a capacity of producing 17,680megawatts of electricity. The project would have a direct impact onthe three riparian provinces of central China: Sichuan upstream,Hubei and Hunan downstream. The region affected by the ThreeGorges 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 naviga-tion 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 it would bring have caused concern over its ecological and humanrepercussions. One of the most serious problems is the resettlementquestion. The Chinese government has not come up with any clearand feasible plan to deal with the 1 million 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) plans to put half of the 330,000 (the most conser-vative figure) to-be-displaced farmers to work on agricultural projects;the other half will have to convert to nonagricultural activities. Therewas 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 in-crease in human settlements.

Apart from the innumerable problems of overpopulation and theensuing land degradation and pollution, there is that of the non-Hanminorities who live in the highlands of central China and who will bedirectly 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 forti-fied villages were a common feature of the highlands. The populationis a mixture of Han migrants from the north and of non-Han minori-

10 The 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.


ties, such as the Qiang, Naxi, and Miao-Yao, who have lived side byside, tentatively, within a framework of economic and socioculturalexchanges mutually beneficial to neighboring parties, but not withoutethnic tensions and animosities. According to Jerome Ch’en, a histo-rian 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 relo-cated them in pioneer settlement areas high up on the mountainousslopes (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 inany government documents, although the dam will cause their ruin aswell (Tyson 1992, p. 20). More than 10 cities dating back to before theTang 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 arenot able to improve their way of life or increase their income. Thegovernment 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 therightful 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, if what their neigh-bors downstream went through is any indication, the villagers aroundthe Three Gorges site should be wary. Several years ago, when theGezhouba dam was constructed, the government made the same prom-ises to the people, but the harsh reality of successive relocations, par-tial payment, and the absence of housing, schooling, and job oppor-tunities 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


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 1 million 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 thewest. For decades the Chinese government has attempted to remedythis imbalance either through the encouragement of voluntary migra-tion or through forced relocation from the crowded cities of the east tothe 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 weresystematically resettled from the densely populated regions of easternChina . . . to the northwest (Ningxia, Xinjiang) to cultivate new land”(Heberer 1989, p. 93). During the Cultural Revolution, 12 millionyouths were sent to northern China to work and also to “teach” the“backward” minorities. This Han migration into non-Han regionswould serve several purposes. First, from the military standpoint theHan presence would reinforce China’s borders, as the central govern-ment 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 fosterindustry. Finally, the migration would relieve the cities of the north-east of the present demographic pressure.

However, concerning the Three Gorges Project, the authoritieshave been careful not to mention this strong possibility publicly, sinceit would conflict with the World Bank’s policy on tribal peoples, andBeijing has counted on World Bank financing. Further, any officialallusion to such a project would likely cause unrest in the autonomousregions. According to Philip M. Fearnside, of the 1 million–1.4 mil-lion people to be displaced, “approximately 330,000 . . . are farmersand the rest urban dwellers. Urban populations are much more easilymoved 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, Fearnsidementioned the possibility that “the farmers, who share the Han raceand culture with the majority of China’s population, might be de-


ported to distant settlement areas where minority groups now domi-nate, 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 withHans” (Fearnside 1988, p. 619).

China’s relationship with its national minorities has been anextremely 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 definedpolicies with regard to its ethnic minorities (Wirsing 1981, pp. 145–69). Nevertheless, tensions between the dominant ethnic group andthe minorities are ever present. Speaking to the National Conferenceon Nationality Affairs, Jiang Zemin, general secretary of the ChineseCommunist Party, emphasized the following points: “First, economicdevelopment in ethnic minority areas should be speeded up so as tokeep pace with the rest of the country. . . . [T]he policy of 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 movementsfrom the minorities, omnipresent in China’s minorities policy, has inrecent years become more palpable, given the wave of ethnic separat-ism 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 fromMongolia should spread to Inner Mongolia, China would be facedwith an “arc of crisis,” stretching from the north to northwestern

11 Xinjiang has a long history of opposition to the central government. There was astrong migration of Han Chinese into the region controlled by Chinese communist cadressent 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, therewere numerous anti-Chinese incidents leading to a heavy military presence in Xinjiangnowadays (“Ethnic Minorities Threaten” 1990).


regions (“Arc of Crisis” 1990, p. 39). Concurrently, for more than adecade, a movement in search of what Edward Friedman called “aSouthern-oriented national identity” has arisen that questions thecentrality and dominance of the northern Han culture, economy, andhistory over that of the south (Friedman 1994, p. 78). In conjunctionwith the deep current of ethnic unrest, such a movement carrieswithin it the seeds of secession and possible fragmentation of the Hanstate. Hence, it cannot be tolerated.

In the past, Beijing has encouraged assimilation—which someminorities claim the government has actually been carrying out—through cultural (imposition of the Han language), political (domina-tion of top and middle positions by Han cadres sent from Beijing), andeconomic measures (resettlement of Han population in the minorityregions) (Tyson 1991c, p. 12). This strategy of assimilation belongs tothe long and chauvinistic tradition of Han versus non-Han or “barba-rian” people that has been present in Chinese history since the begin-ning of the first unified Qin empire. The government has recentlyadopted a more ambivalent policy. On the one hand, it has grantedethnic minorities special privileges, such as the possibility of havingmore than one child or admission to universities with lower examina-tion scores. On the other hand, it has increased the resettlement ofHan people from eastern China in non-Han regions. Consequently,Han people currently form the majority in the non-Han provinces andthe 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 planta-tions employing Han Chinese. The presence of these plantations andof 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 andforests, and the contemptuous Han attitude toward the cultures andreligions of non-Han (Tyson 1991c, p. 12). Obviously, attempts atminority integration have not had positive results at all times. Atpresent the north and northwestern regions constitute a geopoliticalcauldron of Uygur and Tibetan unrest that Beijing does not wish tostir. However, in spite of rumbles of protest, the minorities’ fear ofacculturation, and other manifestations of discontent, the central gov-


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

To return to the matter of the Three Gorges Project, the govern-ment could resettle the 1 million displaced people in the autonomousregions, where there are ample natural resources, but then it wouldhave to face possible rebellions from the minorities. In the words ofCh’en, “probably after a period of calm, the mountains would rearagain, not so much against landowners as against the state of the Hanpeople” (Ch’en 1992, p. 34). Another alternative is for the govern-ment to continue to exhaust the last natural resources by resettling thepeople higher and higher up the valley of the Yangzi through pioneersettlement farms. A large number of the displaced people would prob-ably 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 the1980s, 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 peti-tions against the dam in 1989 were the first public manifestations ofdisagreement with a project that had obviously already been approvedby the Chinese Communist Party. The government initially yielded tothe 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 gov-ernment, even from the two ministries that should have been support-ing it, the ministries of communications and of electric power.12

Officials 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 Environ-ment Protection Bureau, question the dam’s capacity to stem theYangzi’s destructive floods and warn that calamities will ensue if thegovernment proceeds. Even the National People’s Congress, China’susually docile legislative body, manifested its opposition in April 1989when more than 200 deputies suggested the postponement of theproject 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-

12 When 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 agen-cies and ministries involved in hydraulic projects, see Levey, ed. (1988).


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 thegovernment 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 thatwould allow the construction of the project with minimal imports offoreign equipment (McGregor 1993, p. A10). 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 Project is part of a vast hydraulic program thatChina has launched over the years for the transfer or diversion of watersurplus 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 1 million people, the loss of ancient cultural and historical sites, andthe destruction of the environment. Significantly, it will also meanthat the energy, the wealth, and the resources of the south will go toconsolidate the north. The central government will be faced with thequestion of the social pressure and demands of resettlers and their in-evitable clash with the minorities living in the remote regions of reset-tlement. 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 asthe Batang Ai dam in Sarawak, Malaysia—are situated in remote re-


gions, high in the mountains and deep in the jungles, regions wheregovernmental control has been weak and ineffective and where theinhabitants have been able to preserve a certain autonomy and theirtraditional ways of life. However, once built, these dams will removethe 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 nation-state. As a result, more often than not, the indigenous peoples, be-cause of their numerical weakness, their material poverty, and in somecases, their lack of political experience, cannot hope to preserve theiridentity, culture, and mode of subsistence.13

Other projects—such as the Narmada in central India and theThree Gorges in China—are being built in river valleys that have ahigh population density and a long settlement history, and withinwhich tribal and minority peoples have coexisted closely with thedominant ethnic groups for centuries in a fragile equilibrium. Thislong coexistence has led in some cases to the progressive acculturationof the tribal peoples. For those who have resisted attempts at coopta-tion, these projects could lead to a final clash with the nation-stateand in the process force them to divest themselves of their tribalethnicity 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 contextof 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 itsagents exploit all available natural resources capable of fostering thisdevelopment. Unfortunately, these natural resources often lie in theindigenous 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.

13 Anthropologist James Eder terms this phenomenon “detribalization.” This includes“economic impoverishment, loss of political autonomy, social disorganization, and decul-turation,” a phenomenon that is prevalent among contemporary indigenous peoples andsocieties (Eder 1987, p. 106).


Theoretically, dam construction brings multiple benefits to the nationand its people, which should more than compensate for the floodingand losses of a few trees, the deaths of some wild animals, the destruc-tion of an unimportant “primitive” culture, and the extinction of minorgroups of “savages.”

In the past the indigenous peoples’ disappearance went mostly un-noticed and unrecorded. Fortunately, new factors have come to thefore. Thanks to the development of a worldwide movement that aimsat the protection of these last witnesses of a remote time, their fatehas been increasingly taken into consideration by international orga-nizations. They themselves have become more politically aware oftheir ethnic identity and have been able, to a certain extent, todefend themselves and their world against the nation-state. In theprocess of doing so, the indigenous peoples, whether referred to as“tribals” or as “national minorities,” have developed a discourse thatborrows heavily from the exogenous world—in terms of mediat-ization, symbolism, pressure groups, and political values—and onethat is increasingly similar to that of the different mainstream inter-est groups. Does it signify that such discourse would eventuallyevolve into a form of ethnic nationalism that would clash with that ofthe state? In the end, would the clash between the nation-stateand its indigenous peoples be akin to the battle of the elephant andthe ant?

In the background, there lurks a powerful actor, the World Bank.Because of its role as the primary lending institution for most hydrau-lic projects, the World Bank could act as a possible safeguard—as ithas done in the past under pressure from environmentalists—for theindigenous peoples by demanding that the national government takeinto consideration the protests of the indigenous peoples. Neverthe-less, authoritarian governments of nations such as India or Chinacould choose to forge ahead regardless by relying on their own re-sources and by crushing all opposition in their path. For both NewDelhi and Beijing, holding together vast territories and immense, ex-ploding populations has been a challenge that threatens to becomemore difficult with the rising opposition of these little ants, the indig-enous, minority peoples. Perhaps in the end the ants might disturbthe elephant enough for them to be left alone. The dream of plurality,of “unity in diversity,” that many nations of Asia have adopted astheir motto is a difficult if not impossible goal to accomplish, more soin nations that are governed by authoritarian regimes dominated by asingle ethnic group.


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Documents

State Versus Indigenous