Indian eco-warrior's hunger strike ignites controversy over massive dam

INDIA: When Indian environmental activist Medha Patkar began a hunger strike on a dirty New Delhi sidewalk, demanding help for villagers displaced by a dam, nobody in India paid much attention.

Patkar, known as India's most dogged eco-warrior, had already lost one battle to block construction of the massive Narmada Valley dam project in western India and it was reckoned she was fighting a losing cause.

But Indians began to sit up and take notice when Patkar's health began to fail and the 51-year-old was forceably moved by the police from her downtown sidewalk to a hospital intensive care unit.

Patkar, who doctors say is in stable condition after beginning her "fast unto death" on March 31, has kept refusing food in hospital, only taking water.

The hunger strike by the grey-haired Patkar, dubbed by supporters as "the lady Mahatma Gandhi of our times" after India's pacifist independence leader, has become front-page news.

Her fast, has succeeded in focusing the spotlight on the dam and the fate of tens of thousands of villagers whose homes and land are being submerged.

It has also raised troubling questions about the cost of development for India as its economy booms, raising the living standards of many but leaving millions more by the wayside, commentators say.

Patkar has waged a two-decade fight against the project that advocates say will provide water and hydro-electricity to areas in desperate need.

"I will continue the fast until I have assurances they will not raise the dam's height," she said before being shifted to hospital. "You can't ignore the voice of the poor in a development process."

NEW DELHI, Sunday, AFP