







































Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal 5 (2): 125-128, July 2022 

BOOK REVIEW  

Large Dams, Adivasi Struggles, and Their Untold 
Stories   

Thounaojam Somokanta 

Oza, Nandini. 2022. The Struggle for Narmada: An Oral History of the Narmada 
Bachao Andolan, by Adivasi Leaders Keshavbhau and Kevalsingh Vasave. 
Hyderabad: Orient BlackSwan, 273 pages, ISBN 978-93-5442-292-3. 

Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) 
is among the most prominent anti-
dam coalitions in India. The NBA 
spearheaded one of the most 
sustained and prolonged grassroots 
movements against dam 
construction on the Narmada river 
and significantly informed and 
inspired a substantial intellectual 
critique of the global large dam 
industry. At the heart of the NBA 
agitation, however, was the fate of 
the Adivasi people—forest-based 
subsistence communities, often 
referred to as tribals. Given that 
many of the large dam projects in 
India have been located in places 
where tribal and other marginal 
communities are predominantly 
settled, ethnic-based and 
indigenous peoples have 

 
 Assistant Professor of Sociology, Department of Humanities & Social Sciences, Indian 
Institute of Technology Kanpur, 208016, India; email: somo@iitk.ac.in 

Copyright © Somokanta 2022. Released under Creative Commons Attribution © 
NonCommercial 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC 4.0) by the author.  

Published by Indian Society for Ecological Economics (INSEE), c/o Institute of  Economic 
Growth, University Enclave, North Campus, Delhi 110007.  

ISSN: 2581–6152 (print); 2581–6101 (web).  

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37773/ees.v5i2.719 

mailto:somo@iitk.ac.in
https://doi.org/10.37773/ees.v5i2.719


 Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [126] 

 

unsurprisingly become central to the anti-dam resistance movement 
(Somokanta et al. 2021).  

Despite the existence of substantial literature and a widening body of work 
that critiques large dams in India (Nusser 2013; Klingensmith 2007; 
Khagram 2004), there remains little effort to explore and explain the 
Adivasi perspective on the debate surrounding large dams in India. In other 
words, the emphasis by the scientific and activist communities has been to 
speak in their support through research, documentation, and leadership, 
mostly carried out by India’s middle-class and upper-caste activists. The 
Adivasi voice, hence, has been sorely lacking in the narration of their own 
stories, anxieties, and travails, even as they have been central to evolving the 
challenge against large dams in India. 

Nandini Oza’s The Struggle for Narmada, however, attempts to admirably 
close this gap through a careful and systematic effort to record, document, 
and understand the hitherto unheard voices of the Adivasis, particularly 
regarding how they perceived their own role during the NBA campaign. 
Oza is a writer and has been a full-time activist in the NBA for over 12 
years. The Struggle for Narmada is an effort in oral history that aims to capture 
the multifaceted complexities involved in the struggles of the Adivasi 
people. She emphasises the courage and fortitude with which they sought to 
prevent their displacement by the Narmada dams. The book was originally 
written in Marathi but translated into English by Suhas Paranjape and 
Swatija Manorama. Much of the book is based on Oza’s interviews and 
interactions with two principal Adivasi leaders: Keshavbhau and Kevalsingh 
Vasave. 

In the foreword of the book, Indira Chowdhury offers a helpful outline of 
the various resistance efforts of the Adivasis against large dams and their 
many efforts, despite the odds, to retain their culture, livelihoods, and 
ecology. Following the context laid out by Chowdhury, Oza explains her 
own troubled and difficult journey from being an activist to attempting an 
oral history of the anti-dam Narmada campaign. 

Oza divides the book into two core chapters that focus on the untold story 
of Keshavbhau Vasave and Kevalsingh Vasave. The oral accounts of these 
leaders reflect the troubled and trying efforts of Adivasis to prevent their 
displacement by the Sardar Sarovar Dam, which was touted as having been 
carried out in the interests of the nation and development. Oza interviewed 
them twice, first after their displacement from their villages in Maharashtra 
and again after their resettlement. This allowed Oza to focus on the various 
layers of emotion and traumatic experiences that the Adivasis experienced 
due to their forced marginalisation and the overall impoverishment of their 



[127] Thounaojam Somakanta 

community. Both leaders provide riveting accounts of their role in the 
resistance movement and how they conceived their challenges against the 
powerful dam builders. They also share with a sense of triumph the relative 
successes during the course of their struggles, such as when the NBA-led 
campaign managed to compel the World Bank to suspend its funding of the 
Narmada project. Moreover, these oral accounts help highlight how the 
Adivasi sense of the Narmada River was uniquely cultural in that the river 
came to represent more than a resource or their livelihoods. Oza does well 
to extrapolate from her interviews how the flow of the waters was deeply 
woven into Adivasi traditions and identity-making, suggesting that dam-
induced displacement is never simply a matter of compensation or justice as 
it involved the profound ending of a unique cultural imagination and 
indigenous worldview.  

In sum, Oza’s innovative effort to capture the hitherto unheard voices of 
the Adivasi people provides us with much insight into how the anti-dam 
protests were perceived and comprehended by the affected communities 
themselves. Unhindered thus by middle-class-dominated activist narratives 
and their ideological filters, these oral accounts suggest that the Adivasis 
possessed considerable agency in shaping various mobilisation strategies 
against the Narmada dams. The book will be a useful tool for academics, 
activists, and journalists who want to learn about oral history as a method 
of understanding victims’ perspectives. One minor comment on the book is 
that only photographs of the two Adivasi leaders were used in the book 
despite the availability of rich photographs of the Narmada Valley 
(Frontline 2022). Inserting more photographs may help give a clear visual 
representation of the site of the movement. Additionally, adding a brief 
conclusion discussing the wider implications of the book in the context of 
the national development discourse might have given more heft to the 
argument for oral history research. The Struggle for Narmada is certainly an 
important and welcome addition to the growing literature, both academic 
and popular, against the global large dam industry. 

 

REFERENCES  

Frontline. 2022. “Review of The Struggle for Narmada, by Nandini Oza.” Frontline, 
June 12, 2022. https://frontline-thehindu-
com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/frontline.thehindu.com/books/book-review-adivasi-
perspective/article65490740.ece/amp/.  

Khagram, S. 2004. Dams and Development: Transnational Struggles for Water and Power. 
Ithaca: Cornell University Press. https://doi.org/10.7591/9781501727399  

Klingensmith, D. 2007. One Valley and a Thousand: Dams, Nationalism, and 

https://frontline-thehindu-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/frontline.thehindu.com/books/book-review-adivasi-perspective/article65490740.ece/amp/
https://frontline-thehindu-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/frontline.thehindu.com/books/book-review-adivasi-perspective/article65490740.ece/amp/
https://frontline-thehindu-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/frontline.thehindu.com/books/book-review-adivasi-perspective/article65490740.ece/amp/
https://doi.org/10.7591/9781501727399


 Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [128] 

 

Development. New York: Oxford University Press.  

Nüsser, M (ed). 2013. Large Dams in Asia: Contested Environments between Technological 
Hydroscapes and Social Resistance. Berlin: Springer.  

Somokanta, T, E Feitelson, and A Tubi. 2021. “South Asian Dams at a Tipping 
Point? The Case of Tipaimukh Dam in Manipur, India.” Water Alternatives 14(2): 
491–519. 

 


