• Bhupendra Gupta

Today, in the country, apart from creating new narratives about development, there is a trend of tarnishing the pages of history. Aggressive efforts are being made to belittle the work and contribution of the post-independence governments, in an organised manner. Seeing the lack of research in the new generation, efforts are being made to mislead them. Understanding of the country’s journey of development by recognizing the country in its true form, and the imagination of development are being hurt. So that people can be prevented from knowing the real history. The country’s leaders are being misquoted as per convenience.

During the Ken-Betwa River linking project in Madhya Pradesh, such things were said which made one feel that development plans were neglected since the time of Jawaharlal Nehru. It was even said that the work of building big dams and understanding water conservation in the country has been done by other people in the country. In the context of water resources, the Prime Minister also said in a coated and concealed way that the efforts of other leaders to strengthen ‘Jalshakti’ were attributed to Jawaharlal Nehru. Is it right to create such a narrative? Is this true or is it just a strategy of the BJP to come out of the crisis created by demeaning Nehru ji and ridiculing Babasaheb in the Parliament?

To understand this, it would be better if we know and understand the history of water structures in the country. Everyone knows that Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar died in 1956 and he was the Law Minister in Nehru’s cabinet. His entire power laid in drafting the Constitution, compiling the contributions of all the members of the Constituent Assembly and giving the Constitution its shape, not in building dams. Then why is the BJP starting a new task of making great men fight on the pretext of the Duhan Dam to be built in 2024.

The history of damming rivers in India is very old. The oldest dam in the country was built on the Kaveri River in Tamil Nadu. It is called Kallanai Dam. It was built by Chola King Karikala between 150 AD and 100 AD. This means that the technology and determination to build dams in India to dam rivers and save and preserve water structures had already arrived thousands of years ago.

Even before independence, King Krishna Wadiyar of Mysore started the construction of Krishna Raja Sagar Dam in 1911 which was dedicated to the people of Mysore in 1932. After this started the series of dams built after independence. In the first year of independence, the total budget of India was only Rs. 184 crores and there was a situation of starvation in the whole country. In 1943 itself, 30 lakh people had lost their lives due to hunger in the Bengal famine. The country got independence in these conditions of starvation.

It was clear that we could not feed our people without increasing the production of food grains. For that, irrigation was needed, dams were needed on rivers, but we did not have money. Even in such circumstances, in 1947 itself, Jawaharlal Nehru had started the Hirakund Dam on the Mahanadi in Orissa, which was dedicated to the country in 1957. This dam stored 47 lakh acre feet of water and produced 347 megawatts of electricity. Immediately after this, in 1948, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru laid the foundation stone of Bhavani Sagar Dam in Tamil Nadu, which was completed in 1955. It was an earthen Dam through which 16 megawatts of electricity was to be generated. Similarly, the foundation of Bhakra Nangal Dam was laid on the Sutlej River in Punjab in 1948 itself. This was the largest dam till that time, which was to store 75 lakh acre feet of water and produce 1325 megawatts of electricity. When this dam was dedicated to the nation in 1963, the Green Revolution began through it. The people of India, who were dependent on Mexican red wheat, moved towards self-sufficiency in indigenous food grains.

Jawaharlal Nehru laid the foundation stone of the composite spillway dam on the Tungabhadra River in Karnataka in 1949, which was completed in 1953. It produced 127 MW of electricity.

Rihand Dam was started in Uttar Pradesh in 1953, which was dedicated to the nation in 1962. It produced 300 MW of electricity. Nagarjuna Sagar Dam was started on the Krishna River in Telangana in 1955, which was dedicated to the nation in 1967. This dam not only provided 93.72 lakh acre feet of water for irrigation, but also produced 816 MW of electricity. Similarly, in 1956, Jawaharlal Nehru inaugurated the Koyna Dam on the Koyna River in Maharashtra, which was dedicated to the nation in 1964. This dam stored 24 lakh acre feet of water and produced 1960 megawatts of electricity. In 1957, Maithon Dam was inaugurated in present-day Jharkhand, which also produces 60 thousand kilowatts of electricity. The construction of Tawa Dam, a spillway dam, started in 1956 on the Narmada River in Madhya Pradesh, which was dedicated to the nation in 1974. Today, the Sardar Sarovar Dam is discussed repeatedly in the country. The foundation stone of that Sardar Sarovar Dam was also laid by Jawaharlal Nehru in 1961 in the name of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, through which Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra are getting electricity and Gujarat is getting water. All the three states are being illuminated by the electricity generated from it.

Despite facing two wars, the first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had dammed the Mahanadi of Orissa, Bhavani of Tamil Nadu, Tungabhadra of Karnataka, Rihand of Uttar Pradesh, Sutlej of Punjab, Narmada of Madhya Pradesh, Koyna of Maharashtra, Barakar of Jharkhand, Krishna of Telangana during his 17-year tenure. He was passionate about this work like a missionary. Was it an easy task? It was Bhagirathi Kalpa to dam the nine rivers of nine states and dedicate them to the country in 17 years. Nehru did this work when there was no Pokelin or JCB, nor was there such advanced technology. Any attempt to belittle the efforts of Nehru is an attempt to belittle the efforts of the country. Today, there is no need to belittle Nehru but to compete with his work.

The author is the President of Madhya Pradesh Vichar Vibhag