Edward Guthmann - 26 April 2003 - United States - Drowned Out -
Heartbreaking
Publication: San Francisco Chronicle
In India, where progress is slow and painful, a huge dam project is worshiped as the promise of tomorrow.
The grim facts: 250,000 farmers will be displaced and 245 villages destroyed when the Narmada River dam project is completed.
Franny Armstrong's heartbreaking documentary focuses on Luharia, a young healer who struggles to save his family, ancestral land and indigenous way of life from destruction.
Thanks to Arundhati Roy, a best- selling novelist ("The God of Small Things") and activist, the foolhardy dam project -- and the lack of resettlement plans for farmers and fishermen -- has drawn worldwide attention.
Amazingly, Luharia's fellow villagers refuse to be uprooted, saying they'd rather drown with the land they cherish.
