The Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) is a mass movement of the people affected by the massive Sardar Sarovar dam and irrigation project coming up on the Narmada river in western India. Over the last almost four decades, NBA has challenged the project and the model of destructive development represented by it. In the process, it has emerged as one of India’s most well-known social and environmental mass movements. Being a mass movement, the participation and leadership of the tribal, women and village level activists has been its backbone. Yet, most of the documentation of the movement has been about the key issues, events and a few well-known faces. The role played by key leaders and local people remained largely unrecorded.

Nandini Oza, who was a full-time activist of the movement for close to 12 years, decided to address this by recording the oral histories of key leaders and activists of the struggle. Over the years, she has recorded the narrations of eighty people in seven different languages and dialects.

At this event hosted by the Centre for World Environmental History, Nandini will be speaking about her experience of recording these oral histories and their dissemination. She will be sharing some of the key insights of senior members of the movement in their own voices. These include members of the movement from tribal, farming and other natural resource-dependent communities, as well as activists from outside the valley who made it their home. These voices from the Narmada valley bring out many facets of the lives and struggle of the people, including their economic, social and cultural situations, their world views, why they are challenging the Sardar Sarovar Project and the developmental paradigm it represents, and what are their own views about development.

She will also be discussing why oral history is an important method to understand the people’s movement in the Narmada valley, along with its strengths and limitations.

About Nandini Oza
Social worker by training, Nandini Oza was a full-time activist of the Narmada Bachao Andolan for close to 12 years. She is currently the President of Oral History Association of India (2020-21). She is a researcher, writer, chronicler and an archivist and has been recording and documenting the oral histories of the Narmada struggle for over a decade. She is also a keen observer, student and commentator on contemporary social and political issues. Her books have been published in Marathi and English. In December 2017, she was selected for the prestigious writers’ residency at Sangam House, Nrityagram, Bangalore. Since 2005 she has been associated with the Zindabad Trust which supports individuals and groups that work for social, cultural and political change.

Her work on oral histories of the Narmada struggle can be viewed at Oral History Narmada – Oral Histories of the Narmada Struggle

To receive the Zoom link, please email: Alice.vistuer@hotmail.co.uk 

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By: Sophie Heath
Last updated: Tuesday, 5 January 2021