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Framing the ‘Collective Memory’: The Politics of Mobilisations Against Hydropower Projects in Maharashtra, India (1980–2004)

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Memory and Social Movements in Modern and Contemporary History

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements ((PSHSM))

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Abstract

Since the late 1960s, the Indian government has been trying to alleviate drought for rural agriculturalists, especially in drought-afflicted states like Maharashtra. To do this, they have set up several large multipurpose hydropower projects to provide water for agricultural irrigation. However, much of this water does not end up with smallholders and most of the dam water is in fact appropriated by urban and rural elites, as well as industrialists.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    A. Roy Chowdhury, ‘Repertoires of Contention in Movements Against Hydropower Projects in India’, in: Social Movement Studies, 13:3 (2014), pp. 399–405.

  2. 2.

    A. Roy Chowdhury, ‘Decommissioning Large Dams in India: A Comparative Assessment of Mullaperiyar and Other Cases’, in: Development in Practice, 23:2 (2013), pp. 292–298; A. Roy Chowdhury and N. Kipgen, ‘Deluge Amidst Conflict: Hydropower, Development and Displacement in the North-east Region of India’, in: Progress in Development Studies, 13:8 (2013), pp. 195–208.

  3. 3.

    B. Patanker and A. Phadke, ‘Asserting the Rights of the Toiling Peasantry for Water Use: The Movement of the Dam Oustees and the Drought Affected Toilers in South Maharashtra’, in: P.P. Mollinga, A. Dixit and K. Athukorala (eds.), Integrated Water Management in South Asia (Delhi, 2006), pp. 352–388.

  4. 4.

    A. Roy Chowdhury, Subalternity, State-Formation and Movements Against Hydropower Projects in India, 1920–2004 (PhD Thesis, Department of Sociology, National University of Singapore, 2015).

  5. 5.

    L. Rodrigues, Rural Political Protest in Western India (Delhi and New York, 2015); R. Vora, The World’s First Anti-dam Movement: The Mulshi Satyagraha, 1920–1924 (New Delhi, 2009).

  6. 6.

    I base this paper on my doctoral dissertation, for which I conducted a 10-month-long fieldwork in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh in 2011–2012. The approach in my dissertation was qualitative and historical; in this paper I discuss the movements in Maharashtra.

  7. 7.

    M. Halbwachs, Ees cadres sociaux de la memoire (Paris, 1994 [1925]).

  8. 8.

    C.L. Kølvraa, ‘Past and Future in the Construction of Communal Identity: Collective Memory, Mythical Narratives’, in: Scandinavian Studies in Language, 6:3 (2015), pp. 1–19.

  9. 9.

    R. Koselleck, ‘Gedächtisstätten im Wandel’, in: Der Blaue Reiter – Journal für Philosophie, 18:2 (2004), pp. 58–62.

  10. 10.

    S. Kierkegaard, Stages on Life’s Way (Princeton, 1988 [1845]).

  11. 11.

    C. L. Kølvraa, ‘Past and Future in the Construction of Communal Identity: Collective Memory, Mythical Narratives’, in: Scandinavian Studies in Language, 6:3 (2015), pp. 1–19.

  12. 12.

    D. Chakrabarty, Habitations of Modernity (Chicago, 2002).

  13. 13.

    D. Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference. Imprint Princeton (New Jersey, 2002).

  14. 14.

    R. Guha, Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India (Delhi, 1983).

  15. 15.

    B. Wallach, ‘British Irrigation Works in India’s Krishna Basin’, in: Journal of Historical Geography, 11:2 (1985), pp. 155–173.

  16. 16.

    A. Roy Chowdhury, ‘State-formation from Below: Social Movement of the Dam-evictees and Legal Transformation of the Local State in India, 1960–1976’, in: South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 41:1 (2018), pp. 194–211.

  17. 17.

    V. M. Dandekar (ed.), Economy of Maharashtra (C.V. Joag Felicitation Volume, Pune 1980); R.S. Deshpande, Land Reforms and Agrarian Structure in Maharashtra (Pune, 2000).

  18. 18.

    M. Lalvani, ‘Sugar Co-operatives in Maharashtra: A Political Economy Perspective’, in: Journal of Development Studies, 44:10 (2008), pp. 1474–1505.

  19. 19.

    A. Roy Chowdhury, ‘State-formation from Below: Social Movement of the Dam-evictees and Legal Transformation of the Local State in India, 1960–1976’, in: South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 41:1 (2018), pp. 194–211.

  20. 20.

    R. D’Souza, Interstate Dispute Over Krishna River: Law, Science and Imperialism (New Delhi, 2006).

  21. 21.

    A. Roy Chowdhury, ‘Claiming ‘Ecological Property Rights’: Movements Against Hydropower Projects in Maharashtra, 1960–2004’, in: Understanding Southern Social Movements (London, 2016), pp. 27–41.

  22. 22.

    A. Roy Chowdhury, ‘State-formation from Below: Social Movement of the Dam-evictees and Legal Transformation of the Local State in India, 1960–1976’, in: South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 41:1 (2018), pp. 194–211.

  23. 23.

    A. Phadke, ‘Obituary: Ashok Manohar’, in: Economic and Political Weekly, 38:34 (2003), pp. 3542–3543.

  24. 24.

    A. Roy Chowdhury, ‘State-formation from Below: Social Movement of the Dam-evictees and Legal Transformation of the Local State in India, 1960–1976’, in: South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 41:1 (2018), pp. 194–211.

  25. 25.

    B. Patankar, ‘The Bombay Textile Workers’ Strike 1982: The Lessons of History’, in: Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, 20:2 (1988), pp. 54–56.

  26. 26.

    A. Roy Chowdhury, Subalternity, State-Formation and Movements Against Hydropower Projects in India, 1920–2004 (PhD Thesis, Department of Sociology, National University of Singapore, 2014).

  27. 27.

    B. Patankar and A. Phadke, ‘Asserting the Rights of the Toiling Peasantry for Water Use: The Movement of the Dam Oustees and the Drought Affected Toilers in South Maharashtra’, in: P.P. Mollinga, A. Dixit and K. Athukorala (eds.), Integrated Water Management in South Asia (Delhi, 2006), pp. 352–388.

  28. 28.

    Phad refers to a block of land where a single crop, usually irrigated, is grown. The command area of a bandhara or earthen dams was usually divided into three or four such blocks called Phad. Each Phad grew only one crop. A rotation system ensured that a particular crop is grown on after 3–4 years. The whole irrigation system was entirely managed by farmers and there was no interference from the government until 1964 when many of the bandharas was taken over by the state irrigation department.

  29. 29.

    G. Omvedt, ‘Of Sand and King Bali’, in: Economic and Political Weekly, 22:9 (1987), pp. 365–366.

  30. 30.

    A. Roy Chowdhury, Subalternity, State-Formation and Movements Against Hydropower Projects in India, 1920–2004 (PhD Thesis, Department of Sociology, National University of Singapore, 2014).

  31. 31.

    The traditional Indian (Hindu) caste/varna system is a social hierarchy in which the Brahmins (priests) are at the top and are knowledge producers; the Ksatriya, the warrior caste, follows; the Vaishya, the businessman, follows; and the Shudra, the manual labourers, are at the bottom. There is a category of outcastes and ‘untouchables’ who are called the Dalits, the so-called lowest of the low, and there are numerous Jatis, or actually existing and emergent caste categories with specific names that are placed somewhere in these five larger categories. The caste system is maintained by prescriptions, proscriptions, and violence.

  32. 32.

    A. Roy Chowdhury, Subalternity, State-Formation and Movements Against Hydropower Projects in India, 1920–2004 (PhD Thesis, Department of Sociology, National University of Singapore, 2014).

  33. 33.

    G. Omvedt, Cultural Revolt in a Colonial Society: The Non-Brahman Movement in Maharashtra (Bombay, 1966).

  34. 34.

    R. O’Hanlon, Caste, Conflict, and Ideology: Mahatma Jotirao Phule and Low Caste Protest in Nineteenth Century Western India (Cambridge, MA, 1985).

  35. 35.

    G. Omvedt, Cultural Revolt in a Colonial Society: The Non-Brahman Movement in Maharashtra (Bombay, 1966).

  36. 36.

    A fictional or artificial mythology may be created in a narrative genre in modern literature and film termed ‘mythopoeia’ or ‘mythopoesis’ by Tolkien in the 1930s (1931 [2014]). In this genre, traditional mythological themes are integrated into fiction to write a fantasy, which is an act of ‘mythopoeia’. In 1931, Tolkien wrote a poem titled ‘Mythopoeia’ in which he intended to explain and defend creative mythmaking, which he said has the status of a ‘sub-creation’, which is a creation by man that is God’s ‘primary creation’.

  37. 37.

    M.B. Bhagavan, E. Zelliot and A. Feldhaus,‘Speaking Truth to Power’: Religion, Caste, and the Subaltern Question in India (Delhi, 2008).

  38. 38.

    The Marathas are the dominant caste of rural agriculturalists. Chhatrapati Shivaji (1630–1680) was a progressive king and leader of Maratha origin, as was his descendent.

  39. 39.

    A. Roy Chowdhury, ‘Claiming ‘Ecological Property Rights’: Movements Against Hydropower Projects in Maharashtra, 1960–2004’, in: S. Fadaee (ed.), Understanding Southern Social Movements (London, 2016), pp. 27–41.

  40. 40.

    L. Rodrigues, Rural Political Protest in Western India (Delhi and New York, 1998); R. Vora, The World’s First anti-Dam Movement: The Mulshi Satyagraha, 1920–1924 (New Delhi, 2009).

  41. 41.

    Ibid.

  42. 42.

    S. Borja, J. Cabalion, V. Chahande, J. Jugand, P. Pereira and D. Ramgorakh, ‘Where Has My Water Gone?’ A Song from Mafua Struggles and the Dalit Cultural Movement in Maharashtra, Social Water—Voices from Around the World (Cologne, 2017), https://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/8141/1/1703-Voices-Social-Water-final.pdf.

  43. 43.

    G. Omvedt, Cultural Revolt in a Colonial Society: The Non-Brahman Movement in Maharashtra (Bombay, 1966).

I am grateful to Stefan Berger, Christian Koller, Sophie van den Elzen, Sebastian Braun, and Mark P. Crowley for carefully reading this paper and enriching it with thoughtful comments, ideas, and references.

Funding

The article was prepared within the framework of the Basic Research Program at HSE University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Sociology, HSE University, Moscow, Russia

    Arnab Roy Chowdhury

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Correspondence to Arnab Roy Chowdhury .

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  1. Institute for Social Movements, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Bochum, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany

    Stefan Berger

  2. Swiss Social Archives, Zürich, Switzerland

    Christian Koller

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Roy Chowdhury, A. (2024). Framing the ‘Collective Memory’: The Politics of Mobilisations Against Hydropower Projects in Maharashtra, India (1980–2004). In: Berger, S., Koller, C. (eds) Memory and Social Movements in Modern and Contemporary History. Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-52819-4_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-52819-4_2

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