This text is Arundhati Roy's tale of governmental (and international-agency) arrogance, high-handedness, corruption and idiocy. The Narmada Valley in north-western India is home to 25 million people (i.e. half the population of Britain), and since the 1970s successive federal and state governments have been intent on forcibly evicting these peoplea series of giant dams that will, notionally, allow irrigation to bri ng water to those who need it in the region's cities, allow the land to bear different crops and improve the region's economy.