Swami Sivananda

In the stuffy closeness of the elevator, we count off the floors one by one until the ping signals that we’re at the top. The doors slide open and I follow Tom Berger and Hugh Brody into the hushed busyness of the World Bank’s executive offices in Washington, DC. We are heading into a meeting to discuss the final draft of our investigation of their handling of the Sardar Sarovar Projects on India’s Narmada River. It’s 1992, an intense year since the Bank’s president asked for this independent review, the first of its kind for this powerful international financial organization.

Brad Morse, the fourth member and chair of our review team, has taken ill and is recuperating in New York. Tom, our deputy chair, is relaxed, obviously confident ...