True patriots be damned: Medha Patkar’s conviction and more than 20 years of inconvenient questions

A court in New Delhi on Monday sentenced Medha Patkar to a five-month jail term. This is in a defamation case filed in 2000 by VK Saxena, who is now lieutenant governor of Delhi.

I read this news and my mind rolled all the way back to 10 November of 2000. That day, the Indian Express carried a large advertisement on page five, an ad that has an intimate connection to this defamation case.

I wrote about that ad in my book The Narmada Dammed (Penguin, 2002). What follows is the relevant excerpt from the book, lightly edited:

Someone I will call Mr X, President of the “National Council for Civil Liberties” of Ahmedabad, was responsible for the ad. “True face of Ms Medha Patkar and her NBA” or Narmada Bachao Andolan, it proclaimed. It presented to credulous readers two facets of this “true face”.

The first: “NBA is passing on confidential documents related to projects of national importance to the [sic] foreign people.” Reading those words, you were meant to bristle with righteous rage at the Narmada Bachao Andolan good-for-nothings who would pass national secrets to foreigners. The “proof”? An “e-mail message” from “Ms Chitra Rupa Palit of NBA”, to two Swiss gentlemen, reproduced immediately below.

The sender’s name, as written on that very “e-mail...

Read more