The Damned Saga of Dam

In most of the Debates, arguments or healthy discussions as I would prefer to say it so; I could notice one inviolable lineament we Arunachalis have developed of age. Yes, we prefer to sound or make ourselves heard that the developments has to efface at any cost. A rational thought process at work and quite obvious with the proportional frustrations we have amassed over all these years, due to the sheer apathy of the Politicians and the corrupted bureaucrats, who by no choice also have to satisfy their rational needs, no matter how corrupted we might quote it as.

Now, being rational has a subjective relation with the laws of any governing economics. The orthodox conception defines economic rationality by maximization of exclusively materialist objectives, namely profit by producers and utility by consumers. An analogy with respect to Dams makes the big players, namely NHPC, Reliance etc as the producers and at the lower end – we the consumers.

But, how rational is our choice which we (consumers) with no proper reasons try vaguely to equate and balance the misbalanced economic hierarchy much prevalent in any Capitalist society and India being no exception?

A medium, to get over the impoverishment and utter underdevelopment (due to subsequent governance by corrupted governments all these years) and capable of making us rich overnight – is a proposition hard to resist. And Dams construction all over the places in Arunachal Pradesh which hasn't witnessed any significant developments till date is one such proposition. Well, that's what we are at least made to believe.

A question which I keep asking myself most of the times is – Should the developments be at any cost? One shouldn't forget that " AT ANY COST" itself is a bigger cost which we ultimately might have to pay at the end. What sort of development are we talking about? Is development only about being have lots of Cash? If "Yes" then Dams could be the only choice. But, if you think we should assess properly the kind of developments we need, then a " No " for the Dams at this moment is must. We need to understand that Dam isn't the only damn thing that can develop us. Developed societies around the world didn't need Dam to make them what they are today.

A quote that very well goes with this:-

" What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know. It's what we know for sure that just ain't so". ( Mark Twain )

I would like to keep this post this short only...