Dear Digvijay Singhji,

We, the people of Jalsindhi village... district Jhabua, are writing this letter to you, the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh.

We are people of the river bank; we live on the banks of the great Narmada. This year (1994), our village Jalsindhi will be the first village in Madhya Pradesh to be sub- merged by the Sardar Sarovar dam. Along with us, four or five other villages - Sakarja, Kakarsila, Akadia and others - will also be drowned.... When the water comes into our village, when our homes and fields are flooded, we will also drown - this is our firm resolve.

We are writing this letter to let you know why the adivasi (tribal) peasants of Jalsindhi who are coming under submergence, are preparing to drown themselves.

You, and all those who live in cities, think that we who live in the hills are poor and backward, like apes. “Go to the plains of Gujarat. Your condition will improve. You will develop” - this is what you advise us. But we have been fighting for eight years - we have borne lathi blows, been to jail several times, in Anjanvara village the police even came and fired on us and destroyed our homes.... If it is true that our situation will improve in Gujarat, then why aren't all of us even now ready to go there?

To you officials and people of the town, our land looks hilly and inhospitable, but we are very satisfied with living in this area on the bank of the Narmada with our lands and forests. We have lived here for generations. On this land our ancestors cleared the forest, worshipped gods, improved the soil, domesticated animals and settled villages. It is that very land that we till. You think we are poor. We are not poor. We have con- structed our own houses where we live. We are farmers. Our agriculture prospers here. We earn by tilling the earth. Even with only the rains, we live by what we grow. Mother corn feeds us. We have some tilled land in the village and some in the forest area. On that we grow bajra, jowar, maize, boadi, bate, saunvi, kadri, chana, moth, urdi, sesame and groundnut. We have many different kinds of crops. We keep varying them and eating.

What grows in Gujarat? Wheat, jowar, tuvar, red gram and some cotton. Less to eat, more to sell. We cultivate in order to eat; we sell only the excess for buying clothes etc. Whether the price in the mar- ket be high or low, we get food to eat. We grow so many different kinds of food, but all from our own effort. We have SCERT no use for money. We use our own seeds,