Police Atrocity Against Villagers In Orissa

Countercurrents.org

By Nachiketa Desai

In a massive armed assault using crude bombs, bullets and batons, the Orissa police cracked down on over 1,500 villagers staging a peaceful sit-in dharna since January last against their imminent displacement to make way for South Korean mega corp Posco’s 12 million ton Greenfield steel plant in the coastal district of Jagatsinghpur, Orissa state, India.

More than 100 people, five of them seriously, including women and children were injured in police action which began since the crack of the dawn on Saturday (May 15) with the arrest of CPI MP from Jagatsinghpur Bibhu Prasad Tarai while he was on his way to the core area of the proposed steel plant site to express solidarity with the agitating people of six villages whose 4004 acres of land has been acquired by the government for the Korean steel major.

Tension in the area has been mounting since yesterday with the arrival of 25 platoons of armed police to Balitutha, the entrance point to these villages where over 1500 villagers had set up a blockade and were on a sit-in dharna. That the police had arrived to launch an offensive was anticipated by all because only two days ago it had opened fire in Kalinganagar, killing one person and injuring many, to evacuate agitating villagers for Tata’s proposed steel plant there.

In both Kalinganagar and Jagatsinghpur, the villagers have been carrying out peaceful agitation against their displacement for the last five years. In order to create a division among the agitating people, the government and the companies had bought over a section of the local population to their side and shifted them to rehabilitation colonies.

It was with the help of these pro-project villagers that the police had carried out a raid in Kalinganagar on March 30 last, pillaging houses and burning stocks of foodgrain. Using a similar tactic, the police made the pro-Posco villagers to lob crude bombs made of kerosene and petrol to create panic and use it as a ruse to launch a massive offensive against the protesters sitting on dharna.

People of six villages, who have organized under the banner of Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti, had blocked the road at Balitutha, the key entrance point to these villages since January. On Saturday morning the district magistrate of Jagatsinghpur started issuing warning from a hand-held loudspeaker that the police would use force if the villagers did not lift the blockade and disperse.

According to the leaders of the Posco Pratiodh Sangram Samiti, police first fired teargas shells and set on fire the tent under which the protestors were sitting on dharna and then chased the people away from the dharna site at Balitutha. “More than 100 villagers were injured by the police who used batons fired rubber bullets. We shall continue our democratic mass resistance, come what may,” said Prasahant Paikray, spokesperson of PPSS.

The district administration has imposed prohibitory orders under Section 144 of CrPC to facilitate the government undertake survey of the land in these villages with a view to finally handing over these to the Posco. Police has also arrested Congress leaders Umesh Swain and Jayanta Biswal along with the CPI MP Bibhu Prasad Tarai. CPI has planned a protest rally to be addressed by senior party leader A B Bardhan on May 19.

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.