Neither an approaching monsoon nor a band of armed policemen could stop 70 tribal families determined to reclaim Gadher, their rain-soaked village on the Narmada River, last July. They had moved from the area to make way for the reservoir of a hydroelectric power project, then discovered the land they received in compensation could not be cultivated. Encouraged by the activist Save the Narmada Movement (NBA is its Hindi acronym), they returned to live as squatters in Gadher. As the reservoir fills, Gadher will soon be flooded. "We will live here till the water comes," says Dalsukbhai Sonji Tadvi, 50, a village elder. "And if the government does not change our land, we will drown here."

Along the banks of the reservoir, people have refused to move out, insisting like Dalsukbhai that they will die for their homeland. Their dogged resistance has stalled completion of one phase of the largest public-works project in Indian history--an ambitious venture to tame the Narmada River and claim its energy and water. Under way for 16 years and mired in controversy much of that time, the project has stirred alarm in the Narmada Valley, sparked protests from environmentalists and lost funding from the World Bank.

For centuries, the tribal people of western India have worshipped the Narmada as a force of nature that can never be harnessed-a belief that so far has proved true. After a plan was conceived in 1946, the governments of the neighboring Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh states began wrangling over how to turn the river wild into a lifeline for the water-starved region. Not until 1979 did the states finally approve the gargantuan Narmada Valley Development Project. The first phase, launched in 1987, is the $7 billion Sardar Sarovar project, which includes a dam, reservoir and canal network that would have an installed capacity to generate 1,450 megwatts of power, irrigate 1.8 million hectares of land and provide drinking water for 40 million people. But the construction would destroy thousands of hectares of forest and displace 250,000 people, mostly poor tribal villagers.

Still, the issue did not attract national attention until the NBA began organizing marches and hunger strikes to protest the Sardar Sarovar project. In 1988 NBA leader Medha Patkar won the support of most tribal groups when she visited nearly every village in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra that was scheduled to be submerged. As opposition mounted, government authorities seemed even more determined to see the project through. In response to concern over human displacement, the Gujarat state government announced the most generous compensation and resettlement package in India's history: at least 2 hectares of cultivable land, a 500-sq-m residential plot and $150 in cash for every adult male. Many of the 23,000 who were relocated, however, soon found their new life difficult. Accustomed to growing subsistence crops in the hills, the tribal people were unprepared for the plains, where the land supports mostly cash crops such as cotton. Rehabilitation officials insist the relocated people will benefit from better access to roads, schools and electricity. "First these people are plucked from a 100% self-sufficient society," scoffs NBA activist Arundhati Dhuru, "and then they are asked to celebrate electricity."

The project had already run into trouble in 1991 when Japan, dissatisfied with the resettlement plan, canceled a $250,000 loan agreement. In 1992 a World Bank review also raised objections; unable to take the required corrective measures, the Indian government had to turn down the remaining third of a $450 million loan. Pressured by the NBA's lobbying, the Indian government appointed a committee to review the project earlier this year. Its report--which said the rehabilitation policy did not fully appreciate "the intensity and diversity of its adverse impacts"--will be used by the Supreme Court when it begins the final hearing of a public-interest petition against the dam next month.

The panel also had to consider troubling new hydrology reports that say the amount of water available in the river has been overestimated by as much as 17%. If true, the irrigation flow may never reach some target areas. A separate reservoir project upstream that would control the water level at Sardar Sarovar is now in danger of never being completed because of lack of funds-thus decreasing the power-generation capacity by half. "It is clear that the benefits were highly overrated," says NBA leader Patkar. "The dam must be stopped." Sardar Sarovar authorities insist that is impossible. Says chief engineer A.R. Baxi: "We have reached a point of no return."

Meanwhile, the squatters in Gadher are equally adamant about not giving up. "This dam has turned us into beggars," says Radi Behn Hira, huddled in a bamboo shack in the village, the destination for 27 more families since July. "Now it's up to the Narmada to protect us."

--Reported by Meenakshi Ganguly/Gadher