THE poetry was charming; the facts wrong; more rhyme than reason. Arundhati Roy, the poet laureate of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), allowed poetic licence to run away with her in writing about the ssp or the Sardar Sarovar Project (The Greater Common Good in Outlook, May 24). Having denuclearised herself in an earlier article, she is here at the barricades as 'Big Dams are to a Nation's Development' what nuclear arms are to its Military Arsenal...both weapons of mass destruction ' . The Indian state/democracy is a pestilential 'poverty-producing machine ' made to order by rich urban elites to grind down the rural poor.
This 'state secret ' unearthed, Arundhati sounds a clarion call to the wretched to 'break faith ' with the system that has operated Big Dams to 'devour ' , displace and devastate 50 million of them. She would 'unscramble ' the 'malignant ' conspiracy, 'Bomb by bomb; Dam by dam... begin(ning) with the Narmada valley ' . Strong stuff, this.
With Mollah's Help, The Winged Prisoners Fly To Their Freedom 
