Time Travel - (Blog – a – ton 8)

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 8; the eighth edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.

About a year or so back, a friend of mine had approached me to help him raise funds for an NGO for which he was working. They wanted to start a healthcare facility in a small village in Purulia – Bhalopahar. The place, according to him, was in dire need of such an institution as the state machinery that was supposed to provide the same was on the verge of collapse. A few months later, when the small clinic was finally up and running, my friend invited me to the place. I accepted it readily, hoping that a trip to a quaint little hamlet would do my spirits a world of good.

Once I reached the place, however, I was in for a rude shock. The place seemed like it had come straight out of the pages of some history book…..and I felt like a journeyman who had travelled back in time; back into the dark ages! There was no electricity, drinking water, food…..no roads, no means of connecting these places with the outer world. For the people of the village (and the entire block, and most of the district) telephones and internet were stuff that dreams were made of…..it was not their reality. Reality for them meant poverty, and a daily struggle for existence. This report has described the state of affairs in the region succinctly.

This situation got me thinking…..and I realized that there’s more to the tribal uprisings taking place than meets the eye. The Maoists are only a part of the problem – they are not THE problem. The real issues at hand are state apathy and greed. (I must make this point here: I am not a Maoist sympathizer, nor am I someone who supports violence in any form whatsoever. One has to realize that all the parties involved in the conflict(s) are, at the end of the day, Indians, and for that reason alone, violence must be avoided at all costs. But Mr. P.Chidambaram wants a disclaimer from every person who is critical of the stated position of the Government of India, so here goes. But more on P.C. later.) As Mr. S.S. Ray summed it up recently, “Tribal people in this country have been historically exploited. Despite living in an area that has a large concentration of natural resources, they have never received the fruits of such resources. I have to accept that this was the case even when I was the chief minister, and it has continued through the Left Front’s rule.” (Mr. Siddhartha Shankar Ray was the Chief Minister of West Bengal from 1972 to 1977 and the Governor of Punjab from 1986 to 1989. He is widely credited with ending the Naxalite violence in Bengal in the seventies and the Khalistani movement in Punjab in the eighties. For his views on solving the present crisis, and how he tackled the previous one, read this report.)

A case in point would be the exploitation of the Dongria Kondh at the hands of the Government and the mining giant, Vedanta. The low, flat-topped hills of south Orissa have been home to the Dongria Kondh long before there was a country called India or a state called Orissa. The Kondh watched over the hills and worshipped them as living deities. Now these hills have been sold for the bauxite they contain. For the Kondh it’s as though god has been sold. (For details, see this article by Arundhati Roy.) If the flat-topped hills are destroyed, the forests that clothe them will be destroyed too. So will the rivers and streams that flow out of them and irrigate the plains below. So will the Dongria Kondh. So will the hundreds of thousands of tribal people who live in the forested heart of India, and whose homeland is similarly under attack.

And the effects of such wanton destruction (or development, as Mr. P.Chidambaram prefers to call it) are already being felt by many tribal populations across India. Tribals living in the forests/villages in and around Phuldomer, near the mining sites of Vedanta Aluminium, are already feeling the heat. An Amnesty International Report has found that an alumina refinery in eastern India operated by a subsidiary of mining company Vedanta is causing air and water pollution that threatens the health of local people and their access to water. In this context, Amnesty International UK director Kate Allen had this to say: "People have a right to water and to a healthy environment but Vedanta has failed to respect these rights in Orissa. Villagers were given scant and misleading information about the potential impact of the alumina refinery and mining project…..They are living in the shadow of a massive refinery, breathing polluted air and afraid to drink from and bathe in a river that is one of the main sources of water in the region." The report also quotes a local tribal woman as saying that now the rivers are so polluted that the water cannot be used for bathing and drinking. "Both my sons have had rashes and blisters," she said. Similar stories could be heard from everyone in the region. (For more on the report, see this and this.)

A tribal woman with her children in Dantewada, photo taken from this article.

And its not like we do not have laws to make sure that a project is environmentally benign before it is given the go ahead. An Environment Impact Assessment is supposed to be done before a project is given an environmental clearance, and a public hearing is also supposed to take place – ostensibly to take into account the views of the local people who might be affected adversely by the project. Sounds good on paper, no? A democratic country providing for peoples’ participation by conducting public hearings? This is what actually happens! A mockery of a hearing, followed by a finding, almost always, in favour of the corporation.

And its not like such atrocities go unnoticed – in fact, the Church of England recently sold its £3.8m stake in Vedanta Resources, over concerns about its human rights record. "We are not satisfied that Vedanta has shown, or is likely in future to show, the level of respect for human rights and local communities that we expect," said the church in a statement, adding that maintaining investments in Vedanta "would be inconsistent with the church investing bodies' joint ethical investment policy". The church is not the first organisation to disinvest from Vedanta on ethical grounds. In 2007, the Norwegian government sold its $13m stake in Vedanta, saying: "There is little reason to believe that the company's unacceptable practice will change in the future." In addition, Martin Currie Investment Management sold its £2.3m stake last year, and BP's pension fund reduced its holdings in Vedanta because of "concerns about the way the company operates." (See this and this for details.)

An Amnesty International protest outside Vedanta HQ in London. Photograph: Lewis Whyld/PA, available here.

And if Vedanta has created such a stir across the globe, why are the Indian authorities silent? Especially when the affected population is Indian? Is it because Mr. Chidambaram, the man in charge of the anti-maoist operations (which, critics allege, is just a ploy to force the tribals into submission, so that Vedanta and other corporations can mine peacefully – see this) was once a director on the Board of a Vedanta company, a post from which he resigned in 2004 before assuming charge of the Ministry of Finance? “What are we to make of the fact that, when he became finance minister, one of the first clearances he gave for FDI was to Twinstar Holdings, a Mauritius-based company, to buy shares in Sterlite, a part of the Vedanta group?”

The tragedy of India today is that such linkages are not limited to only one company or one instance – they are the rule rather than the exception. What we really need is a government that cares….for its people. What we have instead is a corrupt government intent on serving only the powerful, and a militia that would only want more government atrocities, because that in turn would lead to a swelling of its ranks. The poorest of the poor….the adivasis and the tribals, are caught in a no man’s land – between the devil and the deep blue sea. I’m of the view that Mr. S.S. Ray’s model is the only one that might work in this scenario – instead of sending in corporate giants like Vedanta, we would do well to send in NGOs and missionaries like the Ramakrishna Mission instead; if anything, they definitely have a better human rights record!! And they don’t make tall claims about working with local communities and the like, (see this, for example) they actually do the work – silently, without much of a fuss.

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