| The tribal people of Niyamgiri hills in Orissa are determined to prevent Vedanta Aluminium Ltd from mining the area for bauxite. |
PRAFULLA DAS
in Bhubaneswar
| Protests against displacement by industries in Orissa show no sign of losing steam. |
In a State where more than two-thirds of rural families live below the poverty line and other social indicators are as dismal, the process of industrialisation that began at the turn of the century ought to have been a cause for optimism. But, of late, people have been fighting tooth and nail the many proposed industrial projects in Orissa because they threaten to take away their fertile lands and livelihood sources. The latest flashpoint was on May 15 at Balitutha, the main entry point to the project area of Posco-India Private Limited in Jagatsinghpur district, where the police fired rubber bullets and resorted to lathi-charge against hundreds of men and women who have been holding a dharna against the South Korean company's steel project since January 26 this year.
The protests against displacement in the State have shown little sign of losing steam despite publicity campaigns by private companies “to be partners in progress” or Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik's frequent statements on television about peaceful industrialisation. Highways of the State are replete with billboards of private companies announcing sponsorships, scholarships, health camps or skill development programmes.
The hard sell is no more evident than in capital Bhubaneswar where workshops and seminars on Orissa's ‘development' in various sectors have become a regular feature. Both the government and the private sector feed the media with information that suits them the most. Leading editors in the State are invited for exclusive briefings or meetings with corporate bigwigs.
In the far-flung districts where there is much opposition from people to industrial projects, company executives seem to have won over many local journalists; it is not surprising for a visiting journalist to find scribes canvassing for the projects. The Internet is a major tool used by corporate communications departments and public relations firms to issue press releases that squarely blame people's organisations for the delay in the implementation of industrial projects.
The major projects facing strong anti-displacement protests in the State are Posco, Tata Steel, and Vedanta Aluminium Limited. In Jagatsinghpur district, Posco faces opposition from the people of three gram panchayats for its proposed steel plant with a capacity of 12 million tonnes. In Kalinganagar, Tata Steel is trying to acquire 3,200 acres (one acre is 0.4 hectare) for a six-million tonne steel plant.
Vedanta has plans to extract bauxite from the Niyamgiri hills at Lanjigarh for its alumina refinery situated near by. Besides, a foundation run by Anil Agarwal, the founder-director of U.K.-based Vedanta, is making all-out efforts to establish ‘a world-class university' alongside the Puri-Konark marine drive. The State government, however, is nonchalant about the anti-displacement agitations. Indeed, the administration seems to have been left free to help the companies acquire land through various means. Using police force against the agitators has become the order of the day.
On January 2, 2006, 14 tribal men and women opposing ground-levelling work on the land allotted to Tata Steel in Kalinganagar were killed in police firing. Later, criminal cases were registered against those leading agitations against various companies in different regions, and many of them were arrested.
The next phase of action against those opposing industry-induced displacement started in Kalinganagar in March this year when the people of affected villages and activists of the Bisthapan Birodhi Janamanch were attacked indiscriminately. More than 700 armed policemen were deployed in the Kalinganagar area to facilitate the construction of a common corridor road. The local people say the road will primarily be of use to Tata Steel if the plant is established there. On March 30, hundreds of policemen entered Baligotha village in Kalinganagar and fired rubber bullets at the residents and beat them up for opposing the construction of the road. Apparently, many people who were injured did not go to hospital fearing arrest. A few days later, members of the pro-industry group attacked workers in the same area. A local journalist was hurt while covering the incident, and his camera was snatched away.
The police action then shifted to villages where people refused to vacate their land and homes for the Tata project. On May 12, the police opened fire in Chandia village and a tribal person was killed. The body of the victim, Laxman Jamuda, was cremated under mysterious circumstances, and the police refuted the villagers' claim that the death was caused by police firing.
Rabindra Jarika, secretary of the Bisthapan Birodhi Janamanch, is, however, firm about continuing the protest. “We will not allow destruction in the name of development at any cost. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik cannot carry out industrialisation at gunpoint,” he said.
Balitutha incident
As efforts were on in Kalinganagar to carry forward the displacement process, on May 15, hundreds of policemen went berserk at Balitutha when they tried to chase away people who were holding a dharna against the Posco steel project. Many people were injured in the incident, which occurred in the presence of senior administration officials. The police were acting under the instructions of the State government, which was making a desperate attempt to facilitate the implementation of the project, already delayed by five years.
Those sitting in dharna at Balitutha had created a ‘laxman rekha', resolving to prevent the entry of any official, the police or Posco employees to the gram panchayats of Dhinkia, Nuagaon and Gadakunjang. The proposed project is likely to affect 20,000 people in these villages.
The local residents who ran for their life on May 15, however, returned to Balitutha on May 19 with the same resolve to resist the project and attended a public meeting organised by the Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti. The Samiti has been opposing the steel project since the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the company and the State government in June 2005.
The leaders of six opposition parties – the Communist Party of India (CPI), which is backing the Sangram Samiti; the Communist Party of India (Marxist); the Samajwadi Party; the Rashtriya Janata Dal, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and the Forward Bloc – addressed the meeting. CPI general secretary A.B. Bardhan condemned the police repression and warned the State government against using police force to acquire land for the Posco project, which would affect thousands of families. “Use of force will only add strength to the agitation,” he said.
Sangram Samiti president Abhay Sahoo criticised the State government for not taking the village committees into confidence and for submitting wrong information to the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests with regard to the use of nearly 1,200 acres of forest land in order to help the company get the final forest clearance for the project. The government said no one lived on the forest land when there were tribal people living there and cultivating the forest land. Under the existing laws, villagers living on forest land have genuine rights over the land on which they have been living for generations together, he added.
A day after the meeting, the Chief Minister held a discussion with the Lok Sabha Member from Jagatsinghpur, Bibhu Prasad Tarai of the CPI, and four legislators of the ruling Biju Janata Dal from the area. He gave them a proposal that Posco would be asked to exclude 300 acres of private land under Dhinkia panchayat from the 4,004 acres of land earmarked for the steel plant. The CPI rejected it.
Bardhan, who was camping in Bhubaneswar, told the media the next day that the State government should shift the project to another place. Although he welcomed the government's willingness for talks between senior officials and those opposing the project, he said there would not be any deviation from the demand for the shifting of the site.
He also demanded that the State government issue a White Paper on the Rs.52,000-crore Posco project stating how much Orissa would lose in terms of land, captive iron ore and water from the Mahanadi river; the impact the project would have on the people and their livelihoods; and the impact of the proposed captive port of Posco on the existing major port at Paradip.
Vedanta's projects
As for the agitation against Vedanta Aluminium's proposed bauxite mining in the Niyamgiri hills, which is considered sacred by the Dongria Kondh tribal community, and the pollution the company's alumina refinery is allegedly causing, the Niyamgiri Suraksha Samiti is hopeful that the Centre will deny mining clearance to the company in view of the latest reports by three experts who were sent to the area by the Union Environment Ministry. The tribal people of Niyamgiri had failed to resist the construction of the company's refinery, but they are now united in their fight to save Niyamgiri from being mined (see “Battle for survival”, page 37).
Similarly, hundreds of families and many people's organisations in Puri are strongly against the acquisition of 6,000 acres of land for the Vedanta University project. While there are many cases pending in different courts against the project, those opposing the venture are sticking to their stand against handing over a vast expanse of land for the establishment of a university in alleged violation of coastal zone management rules. Acquisition of land for the proposed steel plant project of ArcelorMittal with a capacity of 12 million tonnes also faces opposition in mineral-rich Keonjhar district, which has been in the headlines for large-scale illegal mining.
But even as protest continues in different places against the handing over of thousands of acres of land, displacement, diversion of water meant for irrigation to industries, illegal mining and pollution of the environment, the companies, with the help of the local administration and political leaders, are trying hard to divide people in the name of development in order to achieve their goals. The main opposition parties in the State, the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party, which express their opposition to displacement now and then, have not been able to force the government to resolve the issues of land acquisition and displacement. Meanwhile, the district administrations concerned are making serious efforts to facilitate land acquisition for the industries.
The Chief Minister reiterates that his government favours peaceful industrialisation and warns that no one should take the law into their hands. He has also been saying that not a single drop of water meant for irrigation will be diverted to industries. He has been attending most of the ceremonies organised at the State secretariat for the signing of MoUs to set up new steel plants, alumina refineries, ports, thermal power plants and other such ventures.
He has also been assuring companies and promoters of all cooperation from the government. He also reviews regularly the progress on different industrial projects such as Posco.
But he has not visited any of the villages opposing the industrial projects – even the tribal hamlets of Kalinganagar since the 2006 police firing or Lanjigarh or the coastal villages in Jagatsinghpur where innocent people have been facing the wrath of the police and pro-industry groups.
Activist Arundhati Roy spoke on 'War of People' at the Mumbai Marathi Patrakar Sangh in Mumbai on Wednesday. Below is the transcript of the talk.
"I think we should reverse the way we see this issue (war against Naxalism) and the way it is being put to us. But the fact is nobody needs this war more than this government. The fact is it is manufacturing an enemy to justify its war. When the PM said Maoists are the greatest internal threat to the country for the first time in 2004, what was the situation?
Maoists were just wiped out in Andhra, but why did the share prices of the mining companies go up? Because it was a message to them saying their interests were taken care of. The government actually made the Maoists seem bigger than they were...
What is that makes it so urgent for the government to fight this war? In 2005, a huge number of MoUs were signed by the biggest corporations in the world, and they have been waiting. If you read the business papers you will understand clearly which MNC is waiting for which land.
Maoists are only the violent end of a spectrum of a dissent in this country that this massive sale of land is just not on. Whether it is Kalinganagar, or POSCO, or Singur, or the Maoist movement, at the heart is land
All these infrastructure projects, the first thing they do is relocate the poor people.
I am not here to defend the killing of innocent people by anybody, not by the Communist Party of India-Marxist, the Maoists or the government. That is not my brief. When the 76 CRPF personnel were killed, there was this tremendous pressure on me, saying you went inside, you romanticised violence, now come and condemn this violence. BUt I ask what were the CRPF people - she lists an array of heavy arms -- doing there?
It is not so simple, it is a very thorny, knotty issue. It is not possible for me to go there and see these people with their loin clothes, bows and arrows, and you want to snatch it from them, and you want me on your side, it cant be done, she says
This is the war between the poorest people of the world, against the biggest democracy in the world. And they are winning. They have stopped the corporates on their tracks.
They are asking a serious question. This is questioning the meaning of democracy, of civilisation itself.
These are not questions that are coming from art galleries -- they are coming from the millions of people who have put their lives on the line to ask this question. The answers are the key to what is going to become of this planet, this civilisation, the human race.
When Capitalism won against the Afghans in the 1980s, the whole world did a somersault, including India [ Images ]. We became natural allies of the US and Israel, and then digressed to condemn the attack on the flotilla.
When i wrote 'Walking with the Comrades', I was happy when I was criticised of romanticising because I believed in the romance of the forests, the romance of the people. We love romance... we like the romanticism of violence in our movies, as long an airhead with biceps and machine gun is doing it. But, when the violence of the poor people is romanticised, we don't like it.
In the Dandakaranya, where I walked with the comrades, 640 villages were emptied. Many of them live in Andhra, many live in the forests.
The same things -- same violence, same terror, same allignment of forces -- happened during the Telangana movement of the 50s and 60s.
Pakistan, which was never allowed to have a democracy thanks to the US, is craving for a democracy, while India, a democracy is fighting for a military state.
The media, the middle class is begging for a military state, she says.
When a journalist asked her if she supported violence, she said, "In human nature, there is always violence, and there is always love. When we decide to be violent and when we decide to love is up to the individual.
Today people like me are totally on the side of the resistance; because we think the question the tribals are asking -- whether the bauxite can be left in the mountains -- is correct.
The adivasis are not fighting for state capitalism, they are fighting for the bauxite to be left in the mountains. They are saying we don't want advanced weapons, aircraft, etc. Mining bauxite gives alumina, which consumes a lot of water. They have a revolutionary armed resistance but they do not have a revolutionary vision.
It has a totalitarian vision, it does not tolerate dissent. I cannot quarrel with that military strategy right now but then we have to think what is going to happen. So that is why a dialogue is needed…
A rock hard resistance, which is elastic and takes in dissent and argument, will make it stronger. But we need to understand we can't betray the causes we are fighting for.
All across South Asia, what are the areas under attack? All of them are under assault by a marauding capitalist system. In Afghanistan, the resistance is taking the form of radical Islam; in India, it is communist extremism -- but the assaulting force is capitalist everywhere."
You must talk about these issues because your life will be affected too at the end of it."
Roy then takes questions from the audience.
A questioner says he shared every emotion expressed today, but what can we do until human nature changes?
Roy: We shouldn't conclude that human nature is greedy. IT is also sensible. The most successful secessionist movement in this country is the secession of the middle and upper class in this country. They are sitting there and saying 'What is our bauxite doing in their mountains, what is our water doing in their rivers, they ask from up there'.
A questioner, who introduces himself as a student of Indian economics, says India is the most oppressive society and a revolution is required, but the Maoists are not the revolutionaries who are needed right now. He says it was wrong of Roy to support them.
Roy: What is going in the Congress is an old game, where Sonia and Rahul are playing the good guys, and Chidambaram and Manmohan are the bad guys. Rahul Gandhigoes to Dantewada, but doesn't say a word about Salwa Judum (an uprising of local indigenous people in Chhattisgarh to fight Naxalites which was run by a Congress leader and supported by the BJP government.
SHIMOGA: N. Nandakumar, alias Rangappa (38), suspected to have been involved in naxal activity in the border villages of Raichur taluk in the 1990s and who later was active in the Western Ghats region, has been arrested, the Shimoga Police announced on Tuesday.
He was nabbed by the Hyderabad Police when he was allegedly attempting to meet naxal leaders in the Andhra capital, and then handed over to the Shimoga Police. He was taken into custody by a team led by Shimoga Deputy Superintendent of Police Shekharappa which went to Hyderabad last week. He is likely to be produced before the court in a day or two. The police claim to have extracted crucial information from him in connection with naxal activities in the State.
Nandakumar is said to have married Asha, who was among the four persons arrested last year somewhere on the Andhra Pradesh border. He had taken an active role in the fighting eviction of forest dwellers in the Kudremukh National Park in Chikmagalur. He was wanted by the Sadar Bazar Police in Raichur in connection with the murder of Siddangouda in 1997 and a stone-throwing incident during the inauguration of a police station at Yapaldinni village of naxal-prone border areas of Raichur taluk.
After the death of Bhaskar, a naxal leader from Srikakulam in an encounter in 1987, Nandakumar is said to have shifted his activities to the Western Ghats.
His name figures in the list of the most wanted naxalites
