Medha Patkar

Medha Patkar
Medha Patkar in 2002
Born	(1954-12-01) 1 December 1954 (age 62) Mumbai
Other names	Medha tai
Education	MA in Social Work
Alma mater	Tata Institute of Social Sciences
Organization	National Alliance of People's Movements (NAPM)
Movement	Narmada Bachao Andolan
Awards	Right Livelihood Award

Medha Patkar was born on 1 December 1954. she is an Indian social activist working on various crucial political and economical issues raised by Adivasis, Dalits,Farmers, labourers and Women facing injustice. She is the founder member of 31 years old people's movement in the three states: Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat. Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) engaged in struggle for justice to the dam projects affected people, challenging development paradigm and in reconstruction including educational work. She is one of the founders of National Alliance of People's Movements (NAPM), an alliance of hundreds of progressive people's organisations. She was a commissioner on the World Commission on Dams, which did a thorough research on the environmental, social, political and economic aspects and impacts of the development of large dams globally, as also the alternatives. She was the national co-ordinator and then convenor of National Alliance of People's Movements for many years and now continues to be an advisor to NAPM. Under the banner of NAPM she has participated in and supported various mass struggles across the country against inequity, non-sustainability, displacement and injustice in the name of development. It challenges Casteism, Communalism and all kinds of discrimination. She has been a part of teams that work on initiating and formulating various national policies and enactments including those related to land acquisition, unorganized sector workers, hawkers, slum-dwellers and forest-dweller Adivasis. NAPM filed a number of public interest litigations including those against Adarsh society, Lavasa Megacity, Hiranandani and as well as other builders. Narmada Bachao Andolan and Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan, founded by Medha Patkar with others are allies of NAPM.

Medha Patkar was born in Mumbai, Maharashtra, to Indumati and Vasant Khanolkar, a freedom fighter and labour union leader, on 1 December 1954. Patkar earned an MA in Social Work from Tata Institute of Social Sciences. she worked with voluntary organisations in Mumbai's slums for 5 years and tribal districts of North-East districts of Gujarat for 3 years. She worked as a member of faculty at Tata Institute of Social Sciences but left her position to take up the field work. She was a PhD scholar at TISS, studying Economics development and its impact on traditional societies.After working up to M.Phil level she left her unfinished PhD when she became immersed in her work with the tribal and Peasant communities in the Narmada valley spread over three states.

Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) is a social movement which began in 1985 consisting of adivasis, farmers, fish workers, labourers and others in the Narmada valley along with the intellectuals including environmentalists, human rights activists, Scientists, academicians, artists who stand for just and sustainable development. Sardar Sarovar Dam in Gujarat is one of the biggest dams on Narmada where the non-violent people's struggle has questioned social and environmental costs, undemocratic planning and unjust distribution of benefits. The struggle is still on in the Sardar Sarovar affeced areas and also other large and medium dams on Narmada and its tributaries. It has led to thousands of project affected families receiving land based rehabilitation and continues to fight against submergence and displacement without rehabilitation of more than 40,000 families residing in these submergence area of Sardar Sarovar till date. Many of its claims and critique on economic, social and environmental aspects of Sardar Sarovar and Narmada valley development project stand vindicated today.