"It's not up to me, you, or the World Bank, is it? Shouldn't the people themselves be consulted?"
Well, yes. In the case of the Narmada Dam protests, the point was that the campaign up to 1988 had been for favourable resettlement and rehabilitation packages, on the assumption that the dam was going ahead.
That was the demand that reconciled the interests of the so-called 'tribals' of the Narmada Valley and the broader population that wanted the development.
But when that was agreed, Buddy Rich's Washington-based Environmental Defense Fund counselled a change of tactics to the local group the Narmada Bachao Andolan. The new tactic was outright opposition to the dam.
As I see it, the problem with that demand was that it put the tribals in outright opposition to the wider community, which supported the dam. Maybe if they had tried to win broader support you could understand the tactic, though it would have asking people to act against their own interests.
In the event, that problem was never encountered because Narmada Bachao Andolan never tried to win its case before the Indian people, but instead dedicated its efforts to lobbying the US congress and the World Bank, in which activity it was ably assisted by the EDF.
Indeed, Anil Patel of ARCH-Vahini, part of the original coalition that campaigned for the enhanced R&R package in 1984 says that in many instances the NBA did not even tell the tribals they purported to represent that they had changed the strategy.
This was a clear cut case of 'NGO imperialism' - where a western NGO substituted its own goals for those of the indigenous people it purported to represent. Its goals while initially coinciding began to diverge from the tribals. The position of total opposition was unworkable, and put the campaign on a collision course with the rest of the country - as is demonstrated by the fact that they have now abandoned it.