Nadi Vahate (River Flows) 2017
During my visit to Bengaluru earlier this year, I was able to catch Marathi director Sandeep Sawant’s latest film Nadi Vahate (River Flows) at the Bangalore International Centre. The film explores themes of speculation, encroachment and urban development; rural livelihoods; commons and private property rights; and the relationship between communities and the natural resources upon which their lives depend. Set in a small village bordering the River Mandovi, which flows 48 miles through Karnataka and Goa, the film charts “a journey of people's constructive resistance to save their river and to become self sufficient”. When residents hear of plots of land being sold (which they later confirm via records obtained from the Land Office), they quickly become suspicious.
The specter of developers haunt the film and characters throughout. Well into the 115 minutes running time, the audience has still only been given a glimpse of their presence: speeding, white SUVs tear through the village, prophesy of the disruption their investments will bring. Other characters include the town mayor - a man who preaches good intentions and good will, while at the same time acting as an informal land broker, coordinating with the property developer with high plans for the area. In one scene, an argument erupts over the question of land sales, the details of which are deliberately kept from other residents. When one resident in opposition to the developer’s plans asks what the sold land will be used for, another resident is outraged.
While a fictitious story, the film resonates with inter-state water politics in contemporary South India. Karnataka (where Bengaluru is situated) and Goa (for whom the River Mandovi is said to be a ‘lifeline’) came to head over Karnataka’s proposal to divert water from the river to the Malaprabha River Basin in Karnataka and increase water supply. The proposed plan was shot down by the Supreme Court.
The film is driven in part by Sawant’s own imagination of, and ethico-political commitment to sustainable development, which he envisions as possible only through small and Indigenous businesses, self-determination, self sufficiency, and the defense of small villages and their water resources.
The film is an apt illustration of the relations of power and inequality that often coalescence around water and other resources, as well as the tensions between urban money and rural life. Notably, the film brings together current concerns over the impacts of land acquisition on local communities, and the cultural and ecological impacts wrought by land use change.
The film highlights the dissonance between individual private property rights and water, a resource which traverses such boundaries and serves multiple communities.
