Conspiracy of the State

A macabre drama is unfolding in the poverty-stricken Indian state of Orissa where a democratically-elected government has begun to crush over a dozen people’s peaceful resistance movements against their forceful eviction from their forest, farm, water bodies and source of livelihood to help giant multi-national corporations usurp mineral-rich forest and fertile agricultural land.

The recent police atrocities on the people of Kalinganagar and Jagatsinghpur may turn out to be a turning point in the state's people's non-violent agitations which have a long and distinguished history of successfully thwarting two nationally important mega projects - the national missile testing range of the defense ministry at Baliapal and the bauxite mining from the Gandhamardan hill by the public sector National Aluminum Corporation (NALCO).

People of Kalinganagar, touted as the steel hub of India, and Jagatsinghpur have been carrying out a non-violent agitation against their displacement to make way for Tata's six-million-ton integrated steel plant and Korean giant Posco's 12-million-ton steel plant respectively. In both the places, the Orissa government, with active collusion of armed goons hired by companies, has launched massive attacks indulging in firing, baton-charge and arson. The government had tried to forcibly evict the people from their villages in 2006 and 2007 too resulting in the death of 14 tribals in Kalinganagar and injuries to many in Jagatsinghpur.

In both Kalinganagar and Jagatsingpur, the government and the companies used agent provocateurs to give a violent-twist to the peaceful sit-in dharnas by the people so as to portray the police action as ‘legitimate’. Stories were planted by the government in a section of the media describing the police action as an inevitable measure to put down violence initiated by the non-violent satyagrahis.

In Kalinganagar, where the police and the hired goons of the company had opened fire injuring over 10 people, including women and, subsequently plundered the houses of non-violent resisters, the government put up a poster purportedly issued by Maoists in support of the people’s movement, a day before the police action on March 30.

The attempt to dub the non-violent resistance movement in Kalinganagar as ‘Maoist inspired’ is a sinister design of the government which follows the popular dictum – ‘To kill the dog, give it a bad name first.’

The government’s exasperation is understandable because the people of Orissa have so far succeeded in stalling not just Tata’s and Posco’s attempt to take possession of the allotted to them for setting up massive steel plants, but have also thwarted London-based Vedanta Resources Plc from carrying out mining from the Niyamgiri hills at Lanjigarh in Kalahandi district.

The 8,000-strong Dongaria tribe residing in the foothills of the Niyamgiri hill in Kalahandi district have been carrying out a resistance movement against the mining of bauxite from the hill top on the ground that their tribal diety Niyamraja resides there and any mining activities would destroy the ecology of the region and deprive them of the their main source of livelihood, which is the forest. The ministry of environment is yet to give its clearance to Orissa Mining Corporation for carrying out mining of bauxite from the hill top. This has adversely impacted the alumina refinery of Vedanta at Lanjigarh.

Vedanta is also facing stiff resistance from the villagers to their proposed ‘world-class’ university on the Konarka-Puri coast on a massive 6,000 acres of land allotted to the company by the state government. The protesting villagers have not allowed Vedanta to take possession of the land. Lok Pal has ordered an inquiry into the alleged corruption in allocation of land from out of the land owned by the Jagannath Temple trust.

Arcelor Mittal’s proposed steel plant in Keonjhar district too has not been able to take off due to stiff opposition from the people who are likely to be displaced by the project. Though the Orissa government had committed to 8,000 acres in Keonjhar district for the proposed Arcelor Mittal steel plant at the time of signing the MoU in 2006, it has not yet been able to provide any land. The process has been delayed due to agitation by displaced families under the banner of Mittal Pratirodh Manch as most of the land is fertile agricultural land.

Agitations have also stalled allotment of land for setting up of a couple of thermal power plants, not on the grounds of displacement, but because these power plants would consume great amount of water at the cost of irrigation to cultivable land.

Lessons from Chhattisgarh Peace March

A bunch of hooligans belonging to Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress representing the traders and contractors of Bastar succeeded in creating confusion among the newspaper reading, TV- watching urban middle class about a unique initiative of over 50 concerned citizens who took out a three-day peace march from Raipur to Dantewada in Chhattisgarh from May 6 to 8.

The peace march, whose participants included leading scientist Yash Pal, veteran Gandhian Narayan Desai, social activist Swami Agnivesh and academics Banwarilal Sharma and Ramji Singh, besides scores of social activists and independent journalists, was meant to convey the

message to the nation that 'dialogue and not gun' was needed to defuse the crisis caused by the civil war between the state and the Maoists in the mineral-rich forest areas of the tribal-dominated region of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra.

Despite elaborate explanation by Prof Yash Pal, Agnivesh and other eminent citizens about the purpose of their peace march, the Raman Singh government of Chhattisgarh and Union home minister P Chidambaram managed to propagate through the media that the peace march was meant to thwart the 'Green Hunt' and to buy time for the Maoists to regroup themselves.

The media, controlled by the corporate world and the government through their patronage and threat, did their bit by conveying an impression that the peace march met with stiff opposition from the people of chhattisgarh though the vulgar and orchestrated demonstration against the march was only by a handful of hooligans who were seen back-slapping the state police officials.

Unwittingly, the peace marchers too fell into the trap laid by the government and the protesters by confining themselves to addressing a series of press conferences instead of holding one-to-one talk with the people of the towns they passed through. There was also a lack of preparation for the march which should have got placards, banners and pamphlets printed to convey the message of the marchers.

"It was futile to take out the peace march through cities and towns which fall into the 'black-market corridor'. The marchers should have crossed over to the 'red corridor' to establish communication with the adivasis who are caught in the crossfire between the state forces and the Maoists," says Rabi Das, a founder member of the CPI-ML. "The marchers would not have faced any violence, not even a whimper of protest from the Maoists and the adivasis in the 'red corridor' on the other side of the Indravati river," he adds.

Incidentally, Rabi Das and his comrade Nagbhushan Patnaik had renounced violence in the late 1970s after they had come in contact with Gandhian social worker, Malatidevi Choudhury and her husband Nabakrushna Choudhury, the former chief minister of Orissa. Rabi Das has been working in the starvation-prone Kalahandi district of Orissa for over two decades now.

Having met with nasty protest from traders of Jagdalpur and Dantewada, the peace marchers held a review meeting in which several participants stressed the need for crossing the Indravati river into the 'Red Corridor' to express solidarity with the Maoists' cause of giving the ownership rights to the adivasis over land, forest and water bodies, with the rider that taking up guns was not the solution.

Prominent among the peace marchers such as Prof Yash Pal, Thomas Kochery, Dr. Banwarilal Sharma had made it amply clear during their interaction with the press that the faulty development paradigm of the country was responsible for the widening schism between the rich and the poor and that the government was hand-in-glove with the mega corporations and multinational corporations in the plunder of the country's natural resources to the peril of the poor adivasis and the environment.

Given such a stand, the peace marchers could have easily established rapport with the adivasis in the 'Red Corridor' as well as the Maoists fighting for their rights. They could have also tried to convince the Maoists of the efficacy of non-violent direct action by pointing out the success of the people's movements in Baliapal and Gadhamardan in Orissa which were able to stop the proposed national missile testing range and the bauxite mining respectively.

In fact, it is because the people's movement in Orissa has remained peaceful and non-violent that it has been difficult for the government and the mega corporation to push ahead several mega projects in the state. Local villagers in Orissa have been resisting setting up of mega steel plants by the Tatas and the Korean gian Posco for more than five years now as a result of which these companies have not been able to take possession of the land.

The government and the companies, on the other hand, have tried many times to provoke the people by resorting to violence as in Kalinganagar. There have also been attempts by the government to brand these peaceful movements as Naxalite movements so that the state repression can be justified.

Trouble Spots

Two major steel projects envisaging combined capacity of 18 million tons of steel production a year have not been able to make any progress for the last five years because of serious problems related to land acquisition from tribals and farmers. These are Korean steel major Posco’s 12 MTPA integrated steel plant and Tata Steel’s 6 MTPA plant.

Posco’s was the first major foreign direct investment proposal after the Orissa government invited big industrial groups to set up the state’s second steel plant after the public sector Rourkela steel plant. Though the state government earmarked 4004 acres of land, of which 2900 acres was forest land, Posco has not yet got the possession of the land. This, despite the fact that the Union ministry of environment and forest has given final clearance for acquiring forest land in Orissa for its steel plant project and the company has already deposited Rs 105 crore with the state government towards compensatory afforestation.

Posco has sought the state government’s help in acquiring land from the villagers after the people cultivating the land for betel leaf and prawns rejected a rehabilitation package announced by the company. The company has announced a compensation of Rs.75,000 per acre for the loss of land meant for betel vines, Rs.1 lakh per acre for prawn farms and Rs.75,000 per acre for cultivable land. But the package has failed to enthuse the locals.

“It is a dream compensation package. Yet, the villagers are adamant to vacate the land. This is nothing but bargaining for more compensation,” says Priyabrata Patnaik, the chairman and managing director of Industrial and Investment Development Corporation (IDCO), the nodal agency empowered to acquire land in the state.

A Posco spokesman, expressing concern at the delay in getting the possession of the land, said, “The company has already made substantial investment on the project in the last five years since the signing of the memorandum of understanding with the government; how long can we afford to wait for the land.”

The other project, which has still failed to take off is that of the Tata Steel which has proposed to set up a 6 MTPA integrated steel plant in Kalinganagar, an industrial estate being described by the state government as the ‘Steel Hub of India’, about 150 km from the state capital in Jajpur district.

The government has agreed to provide 3,471 acres of land, which it had acquired in 1992, to Tata Steel for setting up the plant. Of the allotted land, private ownership accounted for 2,755 acres impacting 562 core families which comprise of 1,195 nuclear families belonging to six revenue villages. While compensation under the land acquisition act was paid to them in 1992, the villagers were allowed to retain the possession and continue cultivation of land.

While as many as 791 families out of 1,195 families have relocated voluntarily, the remaining 404 families have refused to move out of the core area. It is these 404 families who have been opposing the project demanding land for land as part of the compensation, rather than the cash component. There have been violent clashes between anti and pro project as also between the protesting villagers and the police.

The proposed ‘world-class’ university of Vedanta on the Konarka-Puri coast is also facing protest from the villagers around the 6,000 acres of land allotted to Vedanta by the state government. The protesting villagers have not allowed Vedanta to take possession of the land. In the meantime, Lok Ayukta has ordered an inquiry into the alleged corruption in allocation of land from out of the land owned by the Jagannath Temple trust.

The 8,000-strong Dongaria tribe residing in the foothills of the Niyamgiri hill in Kalahandi district too have been carrying out a resistance movement against the mining of bauxite from the hill top on the ground that their tribal diety Niyamraja resides there and any mining activities would destroy the ecology of the region and deprive them of the their main source of livelihood, which is the forest. The ministry of environment is yet to give its clearance to Orissa Mining Corporation for carrying out mining of bauxite from the hill top. This has adversely impacted the alumina refinery of Vedanta at Lanjigarh.

Arcelor Mittal’s proposed steel plant in Keonjhar district too has not been able to take off due to stiff opposition from the people who are likely to displaced by the project. Though the Orissa government had committed to 8,000 acres in Keonjhar district for the proposed Arcelor Mittal steel plant at the time of signing the MoU in 2006, it has not yet been able to provide any land. The process has been delayed due to agitation by displaced families under the banner of Mittal Pratirodh Manch as most of the land is fertile agricultural land.

Agitations have also stalled allotment of land for setting up of a couple of thermal power plants, not on the grounds of displacement, but because these power plants would consume great amount of water at the cost of irrigation to cultivable land.