Two Protests that Bookend the DamJourney in Sikkim

Pema Wangchuk

Just about every hydroelectric project in Sikkim has met with some protest or the

other during its construction. Most of these protests have, however, been incidental,

complaining about “collateral” damage caused by the monumental civil engineering

undertaking that even small hydel projects are, or to negotiate and re-negotiate

compensation. Most of these protests have been “resolved” at the district

administration level itself, but there have been two protests that qualify to be

recognized as movements because of their consistent nature, the fact that they

attracted the passions and energies of those who were not materially affected by the

projects, because they were not hankering for sops and because they succeeded in

getting heard and were respected for the positions they took.

The two hydel protests also bookend Sikkim’s hydel journey; with one coming right at

the beginning when Sikkim had only begun flirting with the idea of hydroelectric

generation on-scale and the second arriving in the wake of a deluge of such projects

being sanctioned. Interestingly, although the two movements were twelve years

apart, years in which much had changed in Sikkim and the world around it, they

followed similar trajectories in how they played out. This will be an attempt to look at

the two protests with the benefit of hindsight and see if any new perspective shakes

out.

The Concerned Citizens of Sikkim and Affected Citizens of Teesta might be

separated by a decade, but share more than just their credentials as “citizens” or the

fact that both were special purpose vehicles on which powerful anti-dam movements

were mounted. Both were born from informal coming together of individuals who

shared a deep concern for the land and were willing to invest much more than

passing comments on the potential dangers posed by one-sided pursuits of

“development”. Both were initially dismissed as transitory irritants, and they could

very well have fizzled out had the main actors not found the resolve to put everything

on the line to challenge the establishment even though there was no precedence for

such resistance in Sikkim.

In a way, CCS, formed in 1995, also laid the foundation for the massif of non-violent

but steadfastly confrontational opposition to dams that ACT, formed in 2004, has

taken to a whole new level since the year 2007. Where the former challenged a 30

MW hydel project on the Rathong Chu, a minor stream in West Sikkim, ACT

eventually positioned itself in protest against a string of hydel projects proposed in

Dzongu, the Lepcha reserve in the North district of Sikkim. Both invoked unique

attributes of Sikkim to not only catch attention and build support, but also convince

the uninvolved to sit on the fence instead of jumping to the other side.

THE ORIGIN STORY

Speaking to SummitTimes, Sonam Paljor Denjonga, who along with Pema Namgyal

and Chukie Tobden formed the CCS in May 1995, shared the story of how they were

left holding the “ball” on the Rathong Chu protest.

Sometime in the year 1994, Mr Denjongpa found himself at Sikkim’s premiere

monastery, Pemayangtse, in West Sikkim. The monastery was hosting a senior

Rinpoche who was to give teachings and offer blessings. At the time, Mr Denjongpa,

was based in USA and would return frequently to his home in Sikkim to continue his

religious training since he had also taken the robes as a lay monk. Coming from an

old Sikkimese family, as were his fellow founder-members of CCS, and because of

his religious leaning, he was also close to the Sangha here.

He must have felt lucky to be at Pemayangtse for the special event. Little must he

have realized that the visit would go on to affect him and Sikkim in a major way,

setting them off on a course that none of the three could have anticipated at the time.

The evening after the wang (blessing) ceremony, the Dorje Lopen (Head Monk) of

Pemayangtse Monastery sat him down and told him about a hydel project being

proposed on the Rathong Chu river in West Sikkim.

Rathong Chu is born in the higher reaches of the Khangchendzonga National Park

near Dzongri, the trekking destination which is also at the heart of sacred spaces in

Sikkim, and emerging into settled habitations at Yuksam, a village as steeped in

Sikkim’s history as it is popular among trekkers, after which it courses a short

distance before joining the Rangeet below Tashiding.

The dam for this 30 MW hydel project was to come up close to the spot from where

water for Sikkim’s most important religious ritual – the Bhum Chu ceremony at

Tashiding Monastery – is drawn. The Dorje Lopen voiced fears that construction so

close to the holy site and the army of men and machine that such an exercise

requires would defile the sacred space.

Speaking to the trio, he shared that they (the monk body of Sikkim) had tried to

dissuade the authorities from continuing with the project and had failed. He admitted

that he did not know what to do next, just that the project was not good for Sikkim,

and said that perhaps it was time for the younger generation to get involved and

devise a new approach.

With that the discussion ended.

And, the Dorje Lopen passed away the next morning.

He had passed the baton to them, and for those who believe in such things,

entrusted his faith in them with what was akin to a dying wish. There was no way that

the responsibility could be shirked now.

But there was also a lot else happening in Sikkim that year, developments in the

political space which shortly after the Pemayangtse episode saw political

confrontations of a kind Sikkim was new to, a government in office got toppled, a lot

of ugly communal posturing played out and an election at the end of the year elected

a new dispensation into office. Bigger games were afoot than the worries and

concerns of a handful who did not still know where to go with the responsibility now

shouldered on them or how to approach the task bequeathed to them by a master

they all respected and loved. It would still be nearly a year before Concerned

Citizens of Sikkim was formalized as a group and its position against the Rathong

Chu HEP publicly announced.

ACT (Affected Citizens of Teesta), in comparison, had a slightly longer gestation

period and also benefitted from the CCS experience and modeled many of its

strategies from what the CCS had already tried and tested. Although an ad hoc

committee under the banner of Affected Citizens of Teesta was formalized only in

July 2004, its core team had cut its teeth with anti-hydel protests as the Joint Action

Committee formed in the year 2002 to protest the Teesta Stage V hydel project at

Dikchu in East district of Sikkim. (more about this in a later section)

When ACT was formed in 2004, it was essentially about hydel projects already

announced for the Teesta - the Stage III [at Chungthang in North Sikkim] and Stage

IV [further downstream at Singhik, near the North district headquarters of Mangan]

Teesta Hydro-Electric Projects (HEP). It would be a couple of years more before it

found its real strength and coherence around making it about protesting hydel

projects in the Lepcha reserve along the Teesta and its tributaries.

Like CCS, in the initial days, ACT was also seen as a club of elitist “do-gooders” who

did not have the stomach for a protracted confrontation or a connection with the

masses which would be required to sustain a movement. Their romanticised ideas of

development and culture were projected as being out of sync with the more

immediate aspirations of the people for “development”.

But like CCS, ACT proved otherwise. This, perhaps because while most of the core

team in both groups had received education which took them away from their roots,

they returned better equipped and with a deeper appreciation for what was at stake.

CCS found its mooring in religion and its sacred spaces while ACT anchored itself to

protecting the last bastion of the Lepchas – Dzongu which was already a Lepcha

reserve and which ACT would go on to very effectively portray as a holy land as well.

ACT must have realised that it enjoyed the strongest support from inside Dzongu

when it recorded its first major success as a pressure group while standing up

against the 300 MW Panan HEP proposed for construction on the confluence of the

Tholung Chu and Rongyong Chu inside Dzongu. A joint-inspection team of district

A spur at the end of a village in Dzongu

officials proceeding to the Lepcha reserve on 04 Sept 2006 to survey lands marked

for acquisition for the Panan HEP learned of the sentiments which had found voice

through ACT the hard way. ACT had managed to mobilize a 100-strong group of

dissenters to lay siege to the Sankalang Bridge over Teesta, the only access to

Dzongu from North Sikkim, to block the inspection team. The district officials made it

through only after 10 preventive detentions were made and police escort provided.

THE BACK STORIES OF RELATED PROTESTS

CCS was not the first to register opposition to the Rathong Chu HEP. In fact, several

organizations had tried it before them.

As the Late Dorje Lopen of Pemayangtse Monastery had told the CCS founders,

they had tried and failed.

Monks, assembled under an organization by the name of Association of Buddhist

Monks of Sikkim, had approached the then Congress Government of Sanchaman

Limboo in Sikkim with a memorandum petitioning that the project be stopped since it

posed a threat to their sacred landscape.

They must have hoped for a positive response since the project had actually been

initiated and awarded by the Sikkim Sangram Parishad Government which the now

Congress legislators had dethroned after much attrition, and ill-will still hung heavy in

the air.

But that was not to be. They received no commitments and soon work began on the

project site. Clearly, the real agents pushing the project through were still in office

and calling the shots, in all probability not from political positions.

The Association of Buddhist Monks of Sikkim tried again a month later, this time

along with the Bhutia Lepcha Association and the Tribal Women’s Association, when

it moved a writ petition in the High Court of Sikkim against the project. Even this

approach did not deliver the desired results because work on site continued without

a hitch.

The monks were worried. They had seen religious structure swamped out by a hydel

project right at the base of Tashiding Monastery, the same monastery which hosts

the Bhum Chu ceremony, the very continuance of which was now being imperiled by

the Rathong Chu HEP.

At the base of the Tashiding hill sits the Legship hydel project under which now lie

the ruins of eight stupas which had been erected for world peace and for Sikkim’s

prosperity. Story goes that the monks and Rinpoches of Sikkim had registered a

formal protest against this loss when it was still a fear and not a reality in 1988. Their

reservations were ignored. There was also talk of shifting the stupas and/ or

cordoning them off to avoid submergence. But that is what it remained – talk

although a solitary stupa does stand above the reservoir, perhaps a replacement or

may even be unrelated.

A solitary Chorten on the banks of the Legship HEP reservoir. [photo: Diki Palmu Bhutia]

The monks did not want the Rathong Chu HEP to also get bulldozed through, but

they had emptied their arsenal and made no headway. That is, until that

conversation the Dorje Lopen had with the group that would go on to become the

Concerned Citizens of Sikkim.

ACT, as mentioned earlier, grew out of the Joint Action Committee formed in the

year 2002 to protest Teesta Stage-V hydel project at Dikchu on the border of East

and North districts shouldering Dzongu. Most in the core team were not directly

affected by this project in that they did not have lands in project area which would be

acquired for the project. But they had seen and read enough about big dams and

their impact to not get involved. Also, most of them were from the vicinity, knew the

project-affected people and carried some weight among them.

Since this was the first “big” hydel project in Sikkim at 510 MW when the record till

then was held by the Legship project at 60MW, the scale was big as well as was the

footprint. JAC managed to build an imposing alliance with the project-affected and

put up a strong protest.

However, it quickly became apparent that the priorities of the project-affected and

the JAC team did not match.

Although the founders might not admit it, but it must have worried them that the

JAC’s protest against Teesta Stage-V did not go as planned, their wider concerns of

environmental, socio-cultural and demographic impact getting sidelined by the more

material negotiations of compensation, contracts and employment.

And that is how the protest against Stage-V unraveled, the larger concerns getting

pre-programmed assurances and the compensation amounts getting negotiated

afresh and no objection certificates secured with further assurances leavened with

commitments to award small contracts and employment and resettlement for the

people and the at-risk infrastructure.

Stage-V was eventually commissioned in 2008, but nearly a decade since its

turbines started generating, many of the concerns flagged by JAC at the time get

reinforced every time damages are reported from the still projected affected areas

and the book is still not closed on the cost of this “development.”

Although JAC lost the Stage-V battle, it managed to secure many firsts. Stage-V, at

least on paper, is the first hydel project in the country where the National

Hydroelectric Power Corporation, a public sector undertaking of the Govt of India,

signed a fresh Memorandum of Understanding with the affected people and the

State Government making several commitments to assuage their fears and

concerns. Provisions were made for an oversight committee with some real powers

and commitment to involve the people in major project-related decisions.

Unfortunately, because no follow-up was initiated either by the people or the

administration, the MoU was never put into any real effect. But a small victory had

been notched and JAC would have gained some confidence from having taken on

the establishment and secured such a commitment.

The core team must have also returned to a huddle to go over the lessons learned

from their first brush with anti-dam protests and it is obvious that one of their

resolves was to take a position as an organization and not a constituent of loose

collaborations in which arguments can get diffused and positions and priorities

changed. This they had learned from how the Stage-V protest had played out. So,

when ACT was eventually launched in 2004 and its protests put into play a few years

later, it would remain at the centre of the movement; taking allies along the way, but

never again too dependent on outside support and always retaining the decision-

making powers with itself.

THE POSITIONS TAKEN

Shortly after its formation in July 2004, ACT started collecting documents and

researching hydel prospects and threats. Its members remained active behind the

scenes and made their presence felt publicly for the first time during the Public

Hearing for Teesta Stage III held at Chungthang in North Sikkim on 08 June, 2006.

ACT office bearers spoke at the public hearing, but their protest was a minority voice

with 80% of those present speaking in favour of the project. ACT’s questioning of the

findings and recommendations of the Environment Impact Assessment report and

the Environment Management Plan received no traction in a public hearing

dominated by the affected people’s demand, which was backed by the Panchayats,

that the project be started only after a proper cadastral survey had established land

ownership so that compensation could be handed out accordingly.

The project got cleared and later, the National Environmental Appellate Authority

also dismissed ACT’s appeal against the public hearing. The ghosts of the Stage-V

experience had still not been exorcised.

The Teesta Stage V HEP dam at Dikchu where the ACT founders, as part of JAC, attempted their first anti-dam protest.

And then, ACT received the morale boosting show of strength and support for its

position against a hydel project proposed inside Dzongu. The reference here is the

incident on Sankalang Bridge mentioned in an earlier section. Then played out a

round of shadow-boxing, with ACT going public with its reservations about the

project, and while it kept busy with getting the word out, the district administration

completed its survey and collected No Objection Certificates from 74 of the 99

families whose lands would be acquired for the project. The “quorum” had been

achieved in favour of the project.

The public hearing for this project held in September 2006 too arrived at the

expected conclusion – a go ahead for the project from the majority provided their

demand for adequate compensation was addressed. The hearing was heated

though, and what ACT lacked in numbers, it made for with passion, so much so that

some of its younger members had to be taken away from the venue and kept under

police watch on the sidelines for the duration of the hearing.

Although the Panan hydel project managed to pass the public hearing muster, ACT

had made its strongest presence yet. Although its involvement in protesting other

hydel projects along the Teesta continued for some more time, the group, now made

up almost entirely of Lepchas with most of them from Dzongu itself, started focussing

more on challenging the hydel projects proposed in the Lepcha reserve and on its

borders.

The hydel protest was now coalescing into a Dzongu-specific, Lepcha-driven stand

and that is when it started gaining momentum and appeal. It also helped that Dzongu

had a ringside view of how ugly and devastating a hydel construction site can get

thanks to the Stage-V construction on its southeast border at Dikchu. Further, a

temperamental Teesta and engineering oversights had seen some villages on the

Dzongu bank of the Teesta suffer because of the work on Stage V.

Dawa Lepcha of ACT also admits that it was proving very difficult to convince people

of the environmental and socio-cultural impact of big projects since they could only

speculate on what could happen if the five hydel projects proposed for inside Dzongu

and two more on its borders were allowed to proceed. An appeal to their exclusive

identity and the purity of the land somehow became more accessible arguments for

the people. Eventually, that was the line that ACT would take.

The decision to focus on religion, meanwhile, was much quicker for CCS to arrive at.

Apart from the fact that it was faith and monks who had initiated the protest against

Rathong Chu HEP, it was also at the root of the reasons why the CCS founders had

taken up the issue in the first place. All other arguments like the shoddiness of the

environment impact assessment or doubts about the efficacy of the Power

Department and the rush with which the project was being pushed along were in fact

incidental to building the arguments against the project, more like supporting

evidence especially when they moved the Courts. In the public domain, the focus

was primarily on faith, and like ACT ended up with Lepchas on the fore, CCS would

become a movement powered almost exclusively by monks and monasteries of

Sikkim.

The CCS was formed in May 1995, nearly a year after previous attempts by other

organizations had tried and failed to convince the government to even hit the pause

button on the project. Between the two years that passed since the project was

initiated to when CCS was formed, Sikkim was now in its third government. A new

dispensation was in office in the State, at the helm of affairs for the first time.

CCS started off with re-establishing connections with the monks and monasteries of

Sikkim. It must not have been difficult to convince the Sangha to oppose the project

given the providence of how CCS had come about and given the fact that senior

monks and Rinpoches had already registered their opposition to the project.

So, within a month of having been formed, CCS members were calling on the

Governor and the Chief Minister with a memorandum petitioning that the 30MW

Rathong Chu HEP be stopped immediately. The letter also served an ultimatum,

conveying that if the authorities failed to act within three days, CCS would shift gears

to a different course of action.

At least in the public domain, the CCS protest had still not presented itself

completely as one of religion or the monk body of the State. The petition was signed

by the three founding-members of CCS and Bollywood star Danny Denzongpa, who

incidentally hails from Yuksam where the project was to come up. The involvement

of ordained monks and monasteries was not yet explicit.

The barely six-month old government, perhaps sensing an Opposition hand (it was

still a government with a very slim majority in pre-Anti Defection law times) and

clearly on the advice of still-powerful bureaucrats, responded with surprising

aggression, rejecting the protest group as agent provocateurs misguiding the people

in pursuit of their anti-development agenda.

Sonam P Denjongpa recalls that when they started the protest, all they knew was

that the project had to be stopped. They had no idea of how they would do it or what

would be required of them. For inspiration they had no examples around them and

drew strength instead from the anti-dam protest launched by Kayapo natives in

distant Brazil, a documentary film on which they watched and later also screened for

the monks.

Within days of the State Government’s rejection of their demand, Mr Denjongpa of

CCS arrived at a tent put up outside what was then known as Sukhani House above

Gangtok’s heart, MG Marg, and where a private car park now stands. He began a

hunger strike to protest the Rathong Chu hydel project and demanding that the

project be stopped.

Remember, there were no local dailies in Sikkim at the time and national

newspapers, which anyways arrived at least a day late here, did not usually make

space for news from Sikkim. Further, CCS did not build up to the hunger strike, it just

began it, kind of like how ACT would begin its own hunger strike in Gangtok twelve

years later – suddenly.

The venue of the hunger strike was difficult to ignore and people – from politicians to

lay citizens to government officers and a lot of monks – started calling on Mr

Denjongpa and learning about the reasons for the protest. Few would have

disagreed with their arguments but it must have quickly become apparent that in a

small place like Sikkim, the only section for CCS to easily tap into and bring to the

streets would be monks because not only would they be easier to reach out to

through the monasteries, they were also free from the fear of victimization which

could deter the lay folk.

Mr Denjongpa is frank about his reliance on monks and faith.

“Instead of focusing on other arguments and approaching other agencies, my

personal faith rested in the spirits and deities of Sikkim. As for the monks, they were

the most forthcoming. Just one letter and they all showed up for a rally in Gangtok,”

he shares.

And CCS would flaunt this strength in impressive numbers a month later when it

rallied through Gangtok in a procession joined by around 500 monks, followed by an

army of elderly women chanting prayers and led by senior lamas representing the

monasteries of the State demanding that the project be stopped. They ended the

rally by calling on the Chief Minister and reiterating their demand.

The equation with the State Government had improved slightly by then and now the

movement was presented publicly as one powered by monks and their fears for their

faith. It would however be around two more years before the project would eventually

get scrapped and in the interim was also a case moved by CCS against the project

in the High Court which ended in the State Government’s favour.

THE HUNGER STRIKES AND THE SNIDE REMARKS

Sonam Paljor Denjongpa and Dawa Lepcha are a generation apart, the former

probably in his sixties and the latter having only just entered his forties, but they are

very similar in their self-effacing nature and polite demeanour, qualities which can

distract from the stubborn commitment with which they campaigned against different

hydel projects at different times to only slightly different outcomes.

Looking at Dawa today, he almost appears healthy, showing no signs of the

battering his body must have taken during the two staggering hunger strikes he

undertook as part of ACT along with Tenzing Lepcha – the first for 63 days and the

second for 83 days – to protest hydel projects in Dzongu.

It is possible that Mr Denjongpa’s training as a monk helped him in his 28-day

hunger strike against the Rathong Chu hydel project, but then again, no amount of

training can prepare one for the resolve required to stay the course for that long

especially when marching on uncharted territory and often in the face of uncharitable

remarks.

Dawa can laugh about some of these instances now and Mr Denjongpa makes light

of the comments that made their way back to him, but at that time these must have

been difficult to hear and it is to their credit that they hold no grudges and can brush

them off as part of the challenge they had taken on.

Mr Denjongpa shares that he frequently heard “crazy” in reference to himself, as

much to describe the indefinite hunger strike he had undertaken in a Sikkim where

challenging the establishment for anything beyond party politics was unheard of, as

to explain his rejection of the many “offers” that had reached him to “compromise”

and call of the hunger strike and the CCS protest.

“And that description followed me for a long time even after the hunger strike was

over,” he winks. That would be until they won and convinced the State Government

to scrap the project eventually despite the many crores that had already been

invested into it.

Dawa too has many stories to share of his time through the two extended hunger

strikes he undertook. The most frequent “irritant” at the time was when groups would

walk past the BL House at Tibet Road where the hunger strike was underway and

intentionally wonder aloud, loud enough for them to hear, what the fuss was all

about. “Tamasha,” is what these passers-by would call their Satyagraha.

With the protest heading nowhere and their bodies feeding on the internal organs

(something that would have kicked in by the second week for Dawa and Tenzing),

they would settle for even a “poor guys” comment that they would overhear some lay

passers-by make and draw solace from that.

But what would have definitely hurt most was what Dawa overheard a youth ask

someone near the venue: “What is happening here?” And this is was close to 300

days since the ACT relay hunger strike and the two extended fasts by Dawa and

Tenzing had been underway there!

THE AGGRESSIVE POSTURING

While they might have been able to ignore the snide remarks by passers-by as being

inconsequential to their protests, it must have nerve-wracking when their positions

met with aggressive push-back from the government, that one agency they would

have to negotiate with to get their demands met. At the end of the day, both CCS

and ACT must have known that a hunger strike would not pressurize the authorities

into scrapping projects but would open the doors for serious negotiations. These

negotiations would not be possible if the two sides only traded allegations from

entrenched positions. And both protests had their share of bluster and posturing.

The CCS petition to the State Government before the hunger strike was launched

was met with summary rejection. In fact, their petition was rejected rather strongly

with an official press communiqué conveying that the government would not allow a

“handful” of people to “misguide” the rest in the name of environment, culture and

religion, a position which emboldened a senior officer at the time to tell a press

conference that there was “no room for emotions”.

In the end though, sentiments and emotions won the day.

The ACT protest, because it played out for much longer had its bouts of lull and

storm, offers for talks and blanket rejections. Both sides were deeply entrenched for

most times, traded many allegations and insults and in such an environment,

conspiracies abounded making for tense times not just for those on either side but

also those watching the events from the sidelines. Much was said over the years that

would have made a resolution seem impossible and the issue kept digressing into

issues which bruised egos and encumbered talks, sucking away of the trust which

was already in short supply.

It needs to be said here that the distractions and indecisiveness hurt the protest

movement more than it harmed the authorities, but they were never a pretty sight. It

also took away from the substantial achievements of the ACT movement, not only in

the projects it managed to get scrapped, but also in the many intangibles they

secured not only for the Lepcha community but for Sikkim at large.

THE SUCCESSES

After its petitions, hunger strike, rallies and court case, and even on-record support

from the central agencies affiliated to the Ministry of Environment & Forests, came to

a naught in stopping the project, morale must have been running low in the CCS

camp by mid-2007, a little over two years since they had begun their movement.

There were occasional reasons for them to be upbeat, like when the respected

Supreme Court lawyer, Rajeev Dhawan, agreed to argue their case in the High Court

of Sikkim. Several hearings went very well for CCS with the judge asking some

tough questions of the State Government and even ordering a stay on the project

early during the hearings. The organization also benefitted from tacit support of

government officials who provided them official documents to support their case.

This was still before the Right to Information Act had come around.

There was also the report of the One-Man Commission set up by the State

Government to review the project which had also recommended, in 1995 itself, that

the project be scrapped.

The commission, however, had powers only to recommend, not enforce, and

eventually the case in the High Court also went against CCS. Letters from Central

ministries could be ignored or danced around since all the required formalities for the

project had been met.

And then, success.

On 20 August, 1997, Chief Minister Pawan Chamling, called a public meeting with

the monks of Sikkim and the CCS at the indoor gymnasium of Paljor Stadium. It was

obvious that a major announcement was to be made, but the movement had seen

too many false starts to even hope for what was now really the unlikely.

Although everyone in the audience must have had an inkling of the historic moment

they might be part of, it would not have been until the Chief Minister said this that

they allowed themselves to hope.

“We respect the sentiments of the Sikkimese people. We will not let them down.

From today, the Rathong Chu project will be closed… it will cease to be,” a report in

the Sikkim Observer quoted Chief Minister Pawan Chamling as announcing.

The hall erupted into shouts of “Ki-Ki Solo, Lha Gyalo!” (Victory to the Gods).

The CCS movement had succeeded. There is no Rathong Chu HEP in Sikkim.

ACT has also won, several times in fact, but unfortunately, because it allowed too

many of those moments to pass uncelebrated and without coming on record about

the successes along the way, it does not have that euphoric moment like 20 August

1995.

While talks and negotiations were always on the table, the first round of hunger strike

by Dawa and Tenzing extracted a major offer from the State Government when it

offered to constitute a Review Committee to go over the demands and issues raised

by ACT and other project affected people of Dzongu. The ACT president, a resident

of Dzongu, an environmentalist and three Secretary-level officers of the State

Government were to be part of this 6-member committee. The committee was to

complete its review in 100 days, for the duration of which all project-related activities

in Dzongu would be suspended.

It was admittedly a major breakthrough even if way short of what ACT wanted –

scrapping, and ACT rejected the review committee as an “eye-wash”. The review

committee would however go about its task and eventually endorsed the Panan HEP

as ‘feasible,’ but recommended that no more hydel projects be taken up in Dzongu

for the time being. It also recommended the setting up of a Monitoring Committee

(for Panan HEP) with ‘adequate enforcing power’ to ‘monitor the compliance

effectiveness and initiate corrective action as may be needed’. What is even more

significant is that it recommended that the powers of this Monitoring Committee be

kept dynamic in the sense that it be allowed to review the Environment Management

Plan and its implementation, and suggest additional safeguards ‘as may be required

from time to time.’

Meanwhile, in April 2008, came the first inkling that at least some hydel projects in

Dzongu might actually get scrapped. Meeting with some project-affected people not

affiliated with ACT, the Chief Minister stated that only hydel projects for which MoUs

had been signed and for which the required processes had been completed would

be taken up and the rest, including those for which letters of intent (LoI) had already

been issued, would be scrapped. As far as Dzongu was concerned, an MoU had

been signed only for Panan HEP and of the remaining five, the LoI for Lingzya had

already been withdrawn. With the announcement, only Panan HEP remained inside

Dzongu.

This was officially recorded in June 2008 when the Power & Energy Department

wrote to the ACT president informing him that the State Government had decided to

scrap four hydel projects proposed for Dzongu, leaving only Panan HEP inside

Dzongu and Teesta Stage IV on its border.

ACT reciprocated by withdrawing Dawa and Tenzing Lepcha from the second round

of their hunger strike on the 93rd day. They had lost more than 10 kilos each, but still

put up a brave, optimistic front, stating that they welcomed the latest development

and looked forward to the re-initiation of talks.

And that is where matters stand. All hydel projects inside Dzongu, save Panan HEP,

have been officially scrapped and with these, Sikkim has arguably become the one

State to scrap so many hydel projects (five in all) in response to people’s demands.

This is a major win not only for the anti-dam activists but also for the State

Government and needs to be more universally recognized as such.

Ironically though, Panan HEP has its dam near Passingdang and the power house at

Lingzya. Tenzing hails from Passingdang and Dawa calls Lingzya home. The two

youth who put so much on the line and provided ACT with its most respected and

recognisable faces managed to evict hydel projects from all over Dzongu except

their own villages.

THE LEGACY

CCS being the first to protest dams with any consistency in Sikkim and having

scored a victory on its first outing is expectedly turned to for inspiration here. Its

founders, even though the Rathong Chu protest was their only official engagement,

have supported and counselled other groups, including ACT over the years. Since

none of them got involved in party politics later, they have also inspired hope in the

altruistic nature of civil society engagements and power of faith and conviction.

This sentiment was carried forward by ACT which has convinced Sikkim and its

people that movements here, despite the limitations of numbers and access or even

publicity, can succeed, and let there be no doubts that ACT has succeeded, when

driven by the selfless commitment of even a handful.

Between them, CCS and ACT have also inspired more people in Sikkim to take a

stand when they feel they have been wronged and it is not rare anymore for even lay

villagers to undertake protests and challenge the authorities when something as

localized as incomplete roads frustrate them. Sure, several other factors must be

contributing to these developments, but a major inspiration must be the path shown

by ACT and CCS.

To its credit, the State Government has also emerged praiseworthy from these

episodes, acquiescing to the demands when there were no legal, administrative or

even immediately political requirements for it to do so. It had checked all the required

boxes to force through the projects and still decided to listen to what were clearly

genuine concerns even if a minority voice. That should count for something.

At the end of it all, despite the abrasive attrition through which these protests and

negotiations were hauled, they ended with an uplifting message of hope and

positivity for everyone involved… to serve as an inspiration for the rest.