Known and loved by millions of villagers and city-folk of India and the world over, Medha Patkar, founder of the Narmada Bachao Andolan and the National Alliance of People’s Movements, was born on 1 December 1954 in Bombay. Her father fought in India’s independence movement and later was a trade unionist. Her mother works in a women’s organisation named Swadhar.
After earning an M.A. in Social Work from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, she worked with voluntary organizations in Bombay slums for 5 years as well as tribal districts of North-East Gujarat for 2 years. She left her position on the faculty of Tata Institute of Social Sciences as well as her unfinished Ph.D. when she became immersed in the tribal and peasant communities in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat eventually organized as the Narmada Bachao Andolan. The Narmada Bachao Andolan began as a fight for information about the Narmada Valley Development Projects and continued as a fight for just rehabilitation for the lakhs of people to be ousted by the Sardar Sarovar Dam and other large dams along the Narmada river.
Among India’s most dynamic activists, Medha tai or Medha didi, as she is called by schoolchildren and police alike, knows the Narmada Valley hamlet by hamlet. Equally fleetfooted on the narrow mountain paths with only a torch and the light of the moon and stars, or on the Indian Railways where all the Ticket Collectors (TCs) are familiar with her travelling karyalaya—documents, banners, pamphlets—Medha Patkar follows the truth to its lair. Veteran of several fasts, monsoon satyagrahas on the banks of the rising Narmada, her uncompromising insistence on the right to life and livelihood has compelled the post-Independence generation in India as well as around the world to revisit the basic questions of natural resources, human rights, environment, and development. Facing police beatings and many jail terms on the way, she continues to believe in the best of people and the democratic system. ”
Linking the Narmada Bachao Andolan with hundreds of peasant, tribal, dalit, women and labour movements throught India, Medha Patkar is a Convener of the National Alliance of People’s Movements—a non-electoral, secular political alliance opposed to globalisation-liberalisation based economic policy and for alternative development paradigm and plans. She has served as a Commissioner to the World Commission on Dams, the first independent global Commission constituted to enquire on the water, power and alternative issues, related to dams, across the world.
Taking up a two-pronged approach of sangharsh (struggle) and nirman (constructive work), Medha tai has worked with villagers and community groups to develop alternatives in energy, water harvesting, and education for tribal children. The Reva Jeevanshala, using both state and local syllabus taught by local teachers in the local language, is a system of 9 residential schools and 4 day-schools in the tribal villages of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, and Gujarat.
Medha Patkar has received numerous awards, including the Deena Nath Mangeshkar Award, Mahatma Phule Award, Right Livelihood Award, Goldman Environment Prize, Green Ribbon Award for Best International Political Campaigner by BBC, and the Human Rights Defender’s Award from Amnesty International.
