When poets & scientists fought the dam: How Silent Valley was saved

Kerala’s Silent Valley nearly vanished under a hydel dam project in the 1970s. Then an unusual alliance — poets, ecologists and scientists — launched one of India’s most powerful green movements

The Kunthi river, lifeline of Kerala’s Silent Valley National Park, is anything but quiet when it reaches Sairandhri. A striking rock, shaped like one of the valley’s elusive inhabitants — the black panther — splits the river as it roars past. Sometimes blue, often turquoise, and at times a deep emerald green, its waters remain pristine here, untouched by the most dangerous species on earth: humans.
This flow would have been stilled forever but for a rare act of human kindness half a century ago, when poets, writers and environmentalists came together to halt the Silent Valley hydel project. The plan would have felled thousands of trees and erased 850 hectares of evergreen forest. Because of the Silent Valley movement — the most successful green movement in India, next only to the Chipko movement — the forest lives on as a national park. Sept 7 marks the 40th anniversary of its inauguration.

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