The Pol-Khol Yatra (Lay bare the truth) that I attended between the 25th and 27th of April along the banks of the Narmada, has made me think very deeply on the meaning of truth. While I saw village after village which were fully inhabited - official statements and affidavits filed in the supreme court showed these villages as fully rehabilitated.
In one village an elderly woman said, "this is our truth - rehabilitation has occurred only on
paper".
In a letter to Baba Amte the Prime minister wrote on April 7th 2006, "You will kindly appreciate that at the Government of India level, it has to go by the information provided to it by institutions authorized under law for providing it like GRA (grievance redressal authority) and the state governments. Neverthless in view of the human dimension involved, the team of ministers have been sent for a field visit and we are awaiting their report".
We have seen the report and history has recorded the duplitous response of the Government of India to its ministers reports.
In light of all this:
1) What is truth?
2) What is truer - what the eyes see and the heart feels and the nose smells or what is recorded by authorized institutions?
3) Can there be anything called "truth" (that can be contested) for people with pre-concieved
notions (and paradigms of reality and development)?
4) How does an epidemiologist respond - with papers or by going to the street?
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