Medha Patkar’s Condition Stabilizes

India's most famous environmentalist was in stable condition on Thursday after police forcibly took her to hospital eight days into a hunger strike to demand rehabilitation of thousands of villagers will be displaced by a dam. Medha Patkar, 52, who has drawn national concern by keeping up her protest despite failing health, was taken away around midnight on Wednesday near parliament to a hospital amid scuffles between police and anti-dam protesters.

In a late night swoop, the Delhi police forcibly removed the Narmada Bachao Andolan leader from the spot of her indefinite hunger strike. She is currently under observation at the capital's All India Institute of Medical Sciences. Doctors at AIIMS said the activist was in the Intensive Care Unit, she was conscious and her condition was stable.

Authorities started work last month to raise the height of the Sardar Sarovar, the biggest dam in the multi-billion dollar Narmada Valley development project in western India. But this sparked a hunger strike by Patkar, who has led a two-decades-old campaign to protect tens of thousands of villagers whose homes and fields have been submerged or will be threatened by rising waters.

The Narmada project involves 3,200 dams along the 1,300 km (800 mile) Narmada river and its tributaries in three Indian states: Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra. The activists say nearly 35,000 families will be rendered homeless by the resultant rising waters if the height of the dam is increased. Besides Patkar, Jamsinh Nargave and Bhagwatibai Patidar from the affected villages began an indefinite fast on March 29. Patidar is continuing her hunger strike. The police tried to shift her to the hospital too, but NBA activists thwarted the attempt.

Activists said a weak Patkar had refused water mixed with salt and glucose to boost her energy but had drunk plain water in hospital. A spokesman at the state hospital where she is under heavy police guard said she had been given a saline drip. "Her vital signs like her pulse and BP (blood pressure) are fine and she is conscious. Her condition is stable," said the spokesman for the All India Institute of Medical Sciences.

The police have arrested 27 of her supporters on charges of rioting and preventing government servants from performing their duty. The police maintain that Patkar, who has been leading the agitation for the resettlement rights of people displaced by the Sardar Sarovar Project, has not been arrested as yet although an FIR report has now been lodged against Patkar on charges of attempt to suicide. She is likely to be arrested after her health improves.