`The end of dissent' laments that India is an unhappy land without any heros. The professional dissidents (who are no heros) found in seminar rooms and dam sites are waving any flag except the national flag of salvation.Leave the dissidents aside for a while. What did the state do for national salvation in the last fifty years?

Of course the state had many five-year plans for national salvation. Big plans, big dams, big industries -- yes everything had to be big on the public sector. This was in a country that was deeply rooted in localised micro-economic endeavours in the past. India was (and is) a biomass-based civilisation. More than half of its people depend on the natural resources for their survival. In such a socio-economic scenario,Gandhiji thought, small was beautiful. But the rulers believed in big. Big plans, big industries, big dams and big bribes. The focus here is on big dams.

People displaced by the developmental process and projects is just one component of social costs, the other component being loss of their traditional habitats -- their homes, land, rivers and forests. According to N.C. Saxena, Secretary to the Planning Commission, 50 million people were displaced in the developmental process of which 40 million were displaced by dams. On an average one million people had been displaced every year. We have sacrificed 50 million - mostly tribals and dalits - at the alter of development.

The perceived wisdom of the state tell us that this is part of the process of national salvation. Obviously there is a hole in the flag of national salvation that the state is waving. Concerned citizens -- Bahuguna, Bhatt and Baba Amte -- tell the state that there is a hole in the flag. They are not professional cause junkies. Anynation can be proud of such men. For them, at issue is the very nation, not just the Narmada Valley. The Narmada issue is only a hole in their flag of salvation. After all, Arundhati Roy is in a noble company.

Are human rights and environmentalism social-continuum of the Marxian Utopia, after the collapse of Communism? No. They are neither substitutes nor apologies for the fallen red flag. Human rights as a social cause is as old as the human race. Human rights are about human dignity. And environment is the entity on which the human race has to survive.

When a columnist argues with a dissenter-activist-writer, when a conformist challenges activism, he too is taking a moral position, a rejoinder that defies easy answers. The power of dissent may be the power of living within the truth'. But what is truth? Truth is to ``see things as they are'', says the Buddha -- something that cannot be comprehended through the received wisdom of the state.

Does the Narmada cause match her passion? No, says theargument. What is the cause any way? And what is Arundhati Roy's immediate concern? When the reservoir of the Sardar Sarovar Dam fills during this monsoon, the homes and land of over 12,000 tribals from 60 villages will be submerged. These people have no-where to go. Hence the urgency.

Does the cause match the crusader's passion? Arundhati Roy had arrived on the scene with her `The Greater Common Cause', the article of the decade. After all, Arundhati Roy is a bright star in the dark night. To contend that the night is not dark enough to hold the light is no argument.

Arundhati Roy's prose of protest is passionate, powerful and persuasive. Mistaking the bold and beautiful for `banal' betrays lack of balanced approach to a complex issue. And as for the prose of protest, there were giants, in this very context -- environment. Shivaram Karanth strode the scene like a colossus till the other day. Mookajis Dreams were, in a way, his own. Arundhati Roy has taken her first step in that glorious tradition.If itis Narmada's dharma to keep flowing, it is Arundhati Roy's to continue her prose of protest. Her protest is not just a dissent, but a dream, a dream of a better tomorrow for the unborn.

The writer is an environmentalist based in Chennai