The man who so tragically died to “brutal abuse” by the prison authorities is Patnaik Harijan – a 45-year-old undertrial in Kalahandi district of Odisha on August 23, 2019, a daily wage labourer from Rengapalli village of Lanjigarh block. There has been widespread protests and condemnation of the death and demands for a judicial probe into the custodial death of the under trial prisoner caused by sheer medical negligence. While in prison, his family or friends were not informed of his illness or his being taken to the hospital. This makes the circumstances of his illness and subsequent death even more suspicious.
 
Background
 
A network of Coordination of Democratic Organisations (CDRO) had recently probed into the random arrests and repression of people in villages around the Vedanta Aluminium Ltd refinery plant in Lanjigarh ever since the death of a contract worker named Dani Batra who succumbed to injuries inflicted by a vicious lathicharge by the Odisha Industrial Security Force on March 18, 2019 at the gates of the refinery plant. In the same set of incidents, a constable of OISF, Sujit Minz, also lost his life. Instead of conducting a thorough probe into the entire set of events, the police and administration unleashed terror in arresting people allegedly involved in the death of the constable only.
 
The FIR that named 22 persons and 300 others led to people fleeing into the mountain for weeks and months under apprehension of being arrested. Patnaik Harijan, who died in jail custody on August 23, was one of the twenty nine people arrested. They had been charged under grievous offences: IPC sections 147, 148, 149, 323, 325, 436, 302 and 506 and under the Arms Act.
 
The joint report by CDRO and GASS (Odisha) released on August 18, 2019 has urged the Odisha government to put an end to the increasing intimidation, random arrests and continuous surveillance by CRPF forces. On July 24, five Dongria Kondh members of Niyamgiri Suraksha Samiti (NSS) were arrested: Jilu Majhi, Tunguru Majhi, Range Majhi, Salpu Majhi and Patra Majhi. They were implicated in an earlier case in the year 2008-2009. On 15 May, Dodi Kadraka – a youth leader of the NSS – was arrested followed by the arrest of Sikunu Sikaka.
The latter was referred to as a hard core Maoist by the police. In the name of hunting down Maoists, the Odisha government dithers from entering into any dialogue with the local people and their just and democratic demands as assured by the Constitution and the Gram Sabha verdict of 2013.
Indeed, it is the biggest shame that those who seek to protect the grand Niyamgiri mountain and the entire eco-system which is tied to their lives, livelihood, faith and culture are being penalized through state terror and suffer imprisonment. On the other hand, the ecological damage done by Vedanta is being overlooked and local villagers suffering the pollution caused by the plant are hounded by the administration under false cases and they languish in jail.
 
The demands being made by the protesting human rights and civil liberties organizations, of the Odisha government, include:
 

• A judicial enquiry into the death of Patnaik Harijan and take action against the jail authorities.
• Cash compensation of Rs 50 lakhs to the family of Patnaik Harijan.
• Withdrawal of all cases against those who are still in jail.
• Withdrawal all CRPF forces from the entire Niyamgiri region.
• Implementation of the 2013 Gram Sabha resolution to protect the Niyamgiri mountain.

 
Related Articles:
 
1.      https://sabrangindia.in/article/coporate-loot-and-peoples-resistance-niyamgiri
2.      https://sabrangindia.in/article/mountain-will-not-bow-down-corporate-loot
3.      https://sabrangindia.in/article/agar-wo-desh-banati-where-growth-one-equals-growth-all
4.      https://sabrangindia.in/article/fact-finding-visit-niyamgiri-lanjigada-area-cdro-and-gass
5.      https://sabrangindia.in/article/one-person-reportedly-killed-several-wounded-anti-vedanta-protests-niyamgiri-odisha
6.      https://sabrangindia.in/article/niyamgiri-activist-lingraj-azad-arrested-odisha

The post One more death of a Dalit-Adivasi in the Niyamgiri Region: Odisha appeared first on SabrangIndia.

By CDRO AND GASS

On August 18, a report titled “Corporate Loot and People’s Resistance in Niyamgiri” was released at the CDRO Convention on UAPA and other Draconian Law held in Jalandhar, Punjab. The report is an outcome of a joint fact-finding visit by a 16-member team from April 26-28, 2019 from All India Coordination of Democratic Rights Organization (CDRO) and Ganatantrik Adhikar Suraksha Sangathan, Odisha (GASS) to villages of the Niyamgiri area in both Raygada and Kalahandi districts of Odisha. The team investigated into the death of the contract employee Dani Batra by the OISF on March 18 at the gate of Vedanta Aluminum Limited and also visited villages of the Dongria Kondhs to understand the major concerns of the people opposing mining of bauxite in their area and violation of their rights.

The major highlights of the report are as follows:
 

1. Chapter One covers the death of contract worker Dani Batra who was killed during a lathi charge at the gate of the refinery plant of Vedanta in Lanjigarh. Witness accounts state that on the morning of 18 March around 40 to 70 people largely from villages of Rangapalli, Bandhaguda and Basantpur, had gathered at the gate of the plant with their long pending demands regarding fee-remission of their wards in the school run by Vedanta. A tiff between security guards of Odisha Industrial Security Force (OISF) and workers led to the brutal lathi charge resulting in the death of Dani Batra, who was chased into a pond and left to drown. This chapter also questions the circumstances into the death of security personnel Sujit Minz inside the gate of the plant leading to the arrests of workers and villagers. The roles of the police and the administration have also been highlighted. This chapters ends with a brief overview of Vedanta’s operations in India and abroad
2. Chapter Two covers Vedanta’s Lanjigarh project and its long list of illegalities in the process of land acquisition and also documents procedural lapses in getting environmental clearance, violation of forest rights and how in spite of the Gram Sabha verdict, the Odisha Government persists in helping Vedanta.
3. Chapter Three gives a vivid description of the Niyamgiri mountain, its forest and flora and fauna, the people living here and their life and living style and conditions, their agriculture produce and their strong resolve to protect the hills which they worship as their God, Niyam Raja, from corporate mining. The chapter raises serious question on the threats to Dongria Kondhs and the entire eco system of the area with the mining plans pursued by the Odisha Government. The chapter also gives a brief on the resistance of people under the banner of Niyamgiri Suraksha Samiti.
4. Chapter Four covers the incidences of state repression and violation of human rights of the local people. The chapter documents various incidences where the adivasis right to dissent has been met with police harassment, arbitrary arrests and even death in false encounter and branding them as Maoists. Constant surveillance by the setting up CRPF camps has made life hell affecting both social and economic activities of the people.
5. The report concludes with reflections of the team members such as the demands of the people from villages near the Lanjigarh refinery, their concerns regarding pollution due to red mud pond, the damage caused by refinery plant to surrounding villages and forests, rivers and trees. It also sums up the main concerns of the anti-mining movement of the Dongria Kondhs to protect the mountain, livelihood, and the entire ecosystem of the area and how they face the constant violation of democratic rights enshrined in the Constitution. The report questions how the state itself becomes enemy of its own people just for the financial and monetary benefit of corporations.

To down the full report click the link given below:

Corporate Loot And People’s Resistance In Niyamgri
 
Signed by:
GASS , (DEBARANJAN)
CDRO (ASISH GUPTA)

Courtesy: Counter Current

The post Coporate Loot And People’s Resistance In Niyamgiri appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Kadraka is a resident of Dhamanpanga village in Munikhal Gram panchayat. A memorandum protesting this arrest has been submitted to the SP Rayagada by local activists on  May 27, 2018.Kadraka’s friends and family are worried for his life and safety, given the torture Kadraka had to face when he was arrested in October last year.  Kadraka was then subjected to brute torture for four days affecting his mobility. He was unable to walk for days later and was left lying near a police station.

It is such random arrests that the villagers, affected by the corporate giant Vedanta, fear most as the state police succumbs to the pressures of corporate interest. The arrest of Kadraka precedes the  unexpected and brutal death of Dani Batra, a forty year old dalit rights activist and contract worker of Vedanta refinery, the arrest of Niyamgiri Surakhya Samiti leader Lingaraj Azad on  March 18, 2019.

“We had gathered to demand the promised education and jobs by the company.  We gathered around 6.30 in the morning at the gates of the refinery and concluded our peaceful strike by 9.30 after assurances by a company official”, said the villagers of Rengopalli and Chhatrapur villages to members of a fact finding team from WSS (Women against Sexual Violence and State Repression)[i] to the area. 

This writer had accompanied the team.  Dani Batra, who received severe beatings in the lathi charge, ran into a pond nearby to escape further beatings, however, the OISF personnel allegedly dragged him out of the pond, and broke his hand and legs and crushed his private parts and threw him back into the pond leading to his death, according to villagers in Chhatrapur.  
“I am yet to receive the declared compensation of Rupees 25 lakhs, education expenses for my sons and a permanent job for me, which was promised to me in a written assurance on behalf of Mr. H K Bhatia, HR Manager of Vedanta who met me on March 18, 2019 after Dani’s death”, says Dani’s wife Sayindri Batra. The death of an OISF personnel, Sujit Minj has further complicated the matter, with fingers being pointed at the workers for getting violent. The Lanjigarh police have reportedly arrested six people and named the villagers of Chhatrapur and ‘others’ as suspects according to human rights fact finding teams who visited the area.

A history of struggle in protecting their revered hills
The particularly vulnerable tribal group (PTG) Dongria Kondh has tried all forms and ways of safeguarding their most revered mountain god, Niyamraja. Trouble started brewing for the Dongria Kondh and other forest dependent communities of the hills of Niyamgiri in 1997, when the Odisha Government signed a MoU with Sterlite Industries India Ltd. and Vedanta Aluminium, subsidiaries of Vedanta Resources, headquartered in London. In 2006, the aluminium refinery at Lanjigarh was set up and started functioning despite non- consent of villagers in and around the area and flouting environmental laws. Not only did the companies reportedly ‘ignore community concerns’ but in connivance with state and union government blatantly ‘breached’ state and national regulatory frameworks and overlooked adherence to international human rights standards. Rights groups reported violations of the rights to water, food, health, work, adequate standard of living. ”

After a prolonged agitation, the Dongria Kondh got respite from the historic judgement of the Supreme Court in 2013 when it upheld the rights of the forest dwelling adivasi and other forest dwelling communities over their deity Niyamraja.

Moreover this verdict, most significantly upheld the power of the local gramsabhas as supreme, to decide how their forests and natural resources could be used. Gramsabhas held in July and August 2013, unanimously rejected the mining proposals.

However, in Lanjigarh, the fear of the refinery being expanded further and attempts to mine the Niyamgiri range and adjacent hills, looms large as companies have stealthily encroached their land. “118 families were fully displaced and a further 1,220 families sold their farmlands to the refinery, however in November 2004, the government of Odisha found that the company had encroached on 4.162 hectares (10.41 acres) of village common land for operations without the required regulatory clearances. In February 2005, the MoEF had issued a notice to Vedanta Aluminium in relation to the clearing of forest land without regulatory permission. Subsequently, on 23 May 2005, it ordered construction work at the refinery to stop.

Nevertheless , in 2005-2006, the company commenced some aspects of the mining project construction including clearing of ground and erecting of pillars for the conveyor belt that would link the mine and refinery, but had to suspend the work following complaints of forest law violations” quotes the report by Amnesty International.

Continued violation of Land and Forest Rights- 

CRPF Camp at Trilochanpur
Currently, the villagers of Trilochanpur are resisting the new CRPF camp in their area that is being set up against the resolution of their local gramsabhas by forcefully evicting four adivasi families who were cultivating on that land for generations. Vedanta Alumina Company had apparently acquired around 3,000 acres of land in 2004, in Rangopali, Potagada, Bundel, Bandhuguda and other villages, with promises of giving jobs and education to their children but has not yet done so. Villagers say, “The elected representatives and activists of Niyamgiri Surakhya Samiti (NSS) were summoned to the Superintendent of Police’s office and told in no uncertain terms that their ‘opposition’ to setting up the CRPF camp would not be taken well by the administration.”

“The series of gram sabhas held in Trilochanpur Gram Panchayat was concluded in October 2018, and the records substantiate the resolutions passed by the people rejecting the setting up of the CRPF camps”, says Prafulla Samantara, noted human rights activist and environmentalist based in Odisha.
 
 Land acquisition in Kenduburudi and Jagannathpur
Villagers of Kenduburudi and Jagannathpur are opposing acquisition of 50 acres of their village land for setting up a rehabilitation colony for the displaced families of Rengopalli, Kotduar and Bandhaguda villages and a permanent CRPF camp. This is in addition to the forcefully   acquired 1000 acres from this village in 2005-2006. . The villagers say they are opposing as they have not still been adequately rehabilitated and compensated for the earlier forced land acquisition.
 
Construction of red mud pond at Rengopalli
Between 2006 and 2009, the Odisha State Pollution Control Board (OSPB), in its inspection reports, highlighted the multiple instances where the company failed to set in place, pollution control measures and meet the conditions stipulated by the Ministry of Environment and Forests and OSPCB, as pre requisites for the environmental clearance granted to the refinery project.
Several women at Rengopalli talked about the impending forced evictions and health hazards faced due to construction of a red mud pond. “We face regular health issues like burning eyes and nose, skin infections, contamination of food and water, etc. due to the dust that flies into our village from the red mud pond that has been built by Vedanta very close to our village. We have not got any health facilities from Vedanta for the health problems we are facing”, said women from Rengopalli. In 2009, the state government’s Lanjigarh Area Hospital, was reportedly ‘contracted out’ to Vedanta Alumina Ltd (VAL). Women in Rengopalli village say that they have not got any health facilities from Vedanta for their health problems and that the company’s hospital does not have good doctors or medicines whenever they manage to go there.
 
Intimidation, arrests and encounters
The violations around the refinery area in Lanjigarh is only the tip of the iceberg. The violations around the Niyamgiri range of hills, are increasing rapidly. There have been cases of Intimidation, alleged false arrests and alleged false encounters that the villagers in Tadijola, Gorata, Dongamati, Kandel, Lakhpadar, Nisanguda, Ambadhuni, Nachinguda, Ningundi and Patanpadhar have testified against. There are allegations of kidnapping, illegal detention in forests, being beaten up and interrogated and accused of being Maoist supporters by the police and CRPF. Villagers in Dongamati, allege that a young man, Manda Kadraka from their village, was killed in a false encounter.

“It was the time of the Niyamgiri festival. On February 27, 2016, Manda had gone to collect some Sulfi (a local drink which is an extract from the palm tree) early in the morning. When he didn’t return, we went to the place where he had gone to collect the Salaf. Manda was not found there but there were CRPF personnel who told us, that they had not done anything and Manda had gone to the festival. In the meanwhile, it came out in the newspaper that the CRPF people had taken Manda’s dead body to Rayagada and declared that they had killed a Maoist. My brother was not a Maoist. He was a student of 10^th standard”, recounted a shattered Drika Kadraka, Mando’s brother to the writer. The women who had gathered to once again listen to Drika, broke into a song to share his grief.  The song  describes Manda Kadraka and other leaders of the Niyamgiri movement.

There have been cases where villagers have allegedly been accused of being Maoist supporters and arrested. Dasru Kadraka of Gorata village is one such case. “It was on April 7, 2016 that I was arrested from the Muniguda market. The police were in civil dress and had guns. They blindfolded me and kept me there for 2 days and beat me up badly. It was around 11’o clock in the night on the third day, when they took me to the forest in Bijepur area. They fired three shots in the air and said they would kill me in an encounter if I didn’t surrender. They then filed cases saying I have deserted my wife, a case related to creating disturbance in the Panchayat and a case for obstructing the road in Lanjigarh area, cases related to putting up posters of Maoists, rally in Singapur road village, a bomb blast in Muniguda, a murder case in Jagdalpur, Bissamkatak house blast case in Durgi road, etc. Four months after I was arrested, my lawyer got the chargesheet and informed me about the cases. Till then I didn’t know about it. I was tortured a lot by the police. They had kept me isolated in a separate cell continuously for seven days. I am out on bail but I do not go to Muniguda market anymore.” A complaint made about this to NHRC was reportedly closed solely on the basis of information provided by the police.

 
State Repression
Almost all the villagers who have faced intimidation, arrests, detention, kidnapping or murder have been active members of the Niyamgiri movement. “The police are going from village to village and scaring people. They are framing false cases on all those people who are fighting against the Company (Vedanta) for the sake of their people and country. They had picked me up and broken one of my fingers. The first time that they had picked me up, they took me to Rayagada and kept me there for four days and beat me up a lot. This time, they picked me up around Bhador month (September/October) 2018, when I had gone to Lanjigarh for selling oranges. They took me to Muniguda police station at 12 noon and kept me till 5 in the evening. They never told me why I was detained”, says Lado Sikaka, leader of Niyamgiri Surakhya Samiti from Lakhpadar village.
 
A young woman Kuni Sikaka who was forced by the police to surrender as a Maoist after kidnapping her from her home one midnight in 2017 says she didn’t want to sign on any papers and is angry with the entire intimidation that she and her family had to face. “I don’t know what was written in the papers that they wanted me to sign”, she says. Dodhi Pusaka, my father in law and leader of Niyamgiri Surakhya Samiti was made to sign some blank papers. The police knew that I was NSS leaders Lado Sikaka’s niece. They said they thought Lado and Dodhi would surrender if they took me and that is why they have caught me. Why was I picked up at 12 o clock in the midnight?” asks Kuni.
 
Rising insecurities in women
Women particularly feel unsafe by the presence of the CRPF in the forests. Kumodini Vadaka, a woman leader from Patanpadhar village says, “We are scared to go to the market or to our forests alone now. The CRPF people constantly comes and asks us if we have seen Maoists and whether we are protecting them. They even poked my elderly parents on their stomachs with their rifle butts”. Women in Lakhpadar, Patanpadhar, Ambadoni, Dongamati and Gorata, shared similar experiences. An elderly woman from Dongamati village says, “It was very nice, earlier. We were free. We could go to the forests and collect whatever we wanted. We were leading a very happy life. Now, when we go, there are a lot of police forces inside the forest. They question us as to whether we have seen Maoists.” Another woman in Dongamati, slowly speaks up, “The women used to go to take a bath alone, earlier. Now we are able to only go in groups. We are scared. We also feel scared to visit our people in other nearby villages when there’s a celebration, because the CRPF come and intimidate us.”

Not a single villager this writer spoke to, had seen a copy of their FIR, charge sheet or any other case documents pertaining to them even after spending years in prison. Siram Naik, a villager from Dongamati says, “In December 2018, when I had gone to welcome the Samvidhan Samman Yatra (Save the Constitution march).that NAPM had organized, I was called to the police station and told by the Sub Divisional Police Officer (SDPO) that there is a warrant against me. We don’t know why they want to arrest us. We think it is because we are fighting for our land and forest rights and justice”.
 
Lawyers in Bhawanipatna town, on conditions of anonymity, who are familiar with the cases say that most of the people aren’t aware of the cases filed against them. Lawyers are paid by the Vedanta Company, to take on such clients and ensure that they aren’t acquitted, they say. Lingaraj Azad, one of the leaders of the people’s forest rights movement Niyamgiri Surakhya Samiti while talking about the recent cases filed against him for protesting against the atrocities of Vedanta Company, says that the movement has no resources for employing lawyers who can keep track of the cases filed against their people. “I didn’t know the status of the cases filed against me, till I was recently arrested again in March 2019, pertaining to a case filed in 2017. I am being pressurised to stop protesting for our rights”, says Lingaraj Azad.

Diminishing media support to highlight the struggle of the people
The Niyamgiri struggle has been one of the most powerful and inspiring ones in the country, with the Supreme Court upholding their demands. Despite this, the intimidation of the state and agents of Vedanta Company continue. “There are people who have been bought over by the company, to stop asking for their rights. We have lost lives like Drika Kadraka from Ambadhuni village who was detained and later committed suicide because of the police torture. However, we all will never stop fighting for our Niyamgiri. We will die if we don’t fight”, says Lado Sikaka. The mainstream media hardly reports any of these testimonies of gross violations. Select media persons who want to maintain their freedom but face immense pressure, on conditions of anonymity, share their grievances and say that even the police give them strict orders not to report violations from Niyamgiri. Hope seems to be eternally alive in young leaders like Siram Naik who signs off by saying, “We are fighting against the Vedanta Company who wants to sell our mountains and forests. We will not leave our God, our, villages, forests and mountains”. The Vedanta Company wants these rocks and what lies underneath to make profit. However they don’t realize that life giving nature is more important.” quips Kadraka.

How far is justice for the people of Niyamgiri and neighbouring hill ranges rich in bauxite which is being hounded by profit making corporates? “We had demanded Rs 50 lakhs as compensation and justice. We demand to know why they killed my school going brother Manda Kadraka and on what basis they identified him as a Maoist? We did not get any justice from anyone till now”, says Drika Kadraka.

(A version of this article originally appeared in thecitizen.in and is being reproduced here on the express request of the author)

The post A Mountain That Will Not Bow Down To Corporate Loot appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Image Courtesy: adivasiresurgence
The villagers in the area were protesting outside Vedanta’s Lanjigarh refinery demanding jobs as they alleged they had lost livelihoods after losing their lands due to Vedanta’s interventions in the area.

As per activists on the ground, “there is a massive crackdown going on at Lanjigarh with the police violently assaulting everyone and anyone on the streets.” Villagers of Basantpada village have faced severe assaults during the lathi charge. Two people have been reportedly critically injured and “are fighting for life while more than 30 people have suffered grave injuries.”

The mining giant Vedanta has, for several years, eyed the mineral rich region of the Niyamgiri mountains in Odisha’s Kalahandi-Raigarh district. As protests against the mining project that Vedanta wanted to implement, mounted, the Supreme Court of India passed an order to conduct gram sabha hearings in 12 affected villagers. All the gram sabhas unanimously voted against the company. However, Vedanta has continued in its onslaught and exploitation of the natural resources in collusion with the state machinery.

Just days ago Lingaraj Azad, convener of the Niyamgiri Suraksha Samiti (NSS) of the Niyamgiri movement was arrested on charges of being a Maoist just because he joined the protest on March 5 by several Adivasi-Dalit-Bahujan groups and forest dwelling communities. The people were protesting against the Supreme Court order that threatened their existence. Lingaraj Azad had joined the protests with bows and arrows.
After protests against his arbitrary arrest he was released on bail on March 12.

Villagers are waiting outside the gate with the dead body. Section 144 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) has been imposed in the area. There are likely to be more casualties. 
 

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Bhubaneswar: Several democratic rights groups have condemned the illegal detention and custodial torture of Dadhi Kadraka, an activist of Niyamgiri Surakshya Samiti (NSS) by Rayagada Police. They also protested against the threats to NSS advisor Lingaraj Azad by Superintendent of Police of Kalahandi District. He was reportedly being harassed to not organize any meeting or protest in the locality and was being forced to postpone the proposed rally against police brutality on October 23 at the district headquarter.

The rights group jointly described this as an attack on democratic rights of people and called it a state-sponsored attack on dissenting voices in the interest of corporates like Vedanta.

“It may be noted that on October 6, the police picked up Dadhi Kadraka, an activist of Niyamgiri Surakshya Samiti from his village without any warrant and tortured him for four days and left him in a nearby police station on October 10. He is now unable to walk. On the other hand, the Superintendent of Police, Kalahandi District has been threatening to Lingaraj Azad, the advisor of Niyamgiri Surakshya Samiti, not to organize any meeting, protest and rally against the administration. He even forced him to postpone the proposed rally on October 23 at Rayagada by NSS against the police brutality and unwarranted arrests of local tribes,” Narendra Mohanty, representative of the joint rights group said.

Various persons from different organisations like Prafulla Samantara from NAPM, Advocate Biswapriya Kanungo and Narendra Mohanty from Campaign Against Fabricated Cases(CAFC),Odisha, Radhakanta Sethi from All India People’s Forum(AIPF), Bhalachandra Sarangi from AIKKMS, Debaranjan from GASS, Srikant Mohanty from Chasi Mulia Sangh, Odisha, Pramodini Pradhan from PUCL, Satya Mahar from Sachetan Nagarik Manch, Kalahandi, Prashant Paikray from PPSS, Sini Sae from Bisthapan Birodhi Janamanch, Sukinda, Advocate Bansidhar Das from Committee for Release of Political Prisoners, Gopinath Majhi from CSD, Odisha, Balabhadra Mallick from Banabasi Surakshya Parisada, Kandhamal, Satish Mishra from INSAF have come together to represent the activist and condemn this state-sponsored attack on dissenting voices.

Dongria Kondhs are a vulnerable tribe that resides in Niyamgiri hills of Rayagada and Kalahandi districts in Odisha and had received fame for fighting against bauxite mining in the area. The tribals have consistently been caught between the crossfire among Maoists in the area and the state police.
 

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The SC turned down this attempt. In a setback for Odisha government that virtually sought reconsideration of the Supreme Court ruling three years ago against mining in the state’s tribal-inhabited Niyamgiri hills, the apex court said on Friday that local gram sabhas can’t be reconvened to take a re-look at whether mining in the locality “would tantamount to infringement of the religious, community and individual rights of local forest-dwellers.”

Yesterday, on May 7, a SC bench headed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi said that it is not inclined to entertain the application. All aggrieved parties shall challenge the decision of gram sabhas and the subsequent refusal of environmental clearance by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) before an appropriate forum, it said. Senior counsel CA Sundaram, appearing for the state government, argued that the gram sabhas had failed to take into account the court’s directive to consider the cultural and religious rights of the tribals and forest dwellers living in Rayagada and Kalahandi districts, but have gone beyond their mandate by deciding against mining in the hills. However, the court said that “that is in your perception. The conclusion is that people don’t want mining and then the II stage (environmental) clearance can’t be given.”

On April 11 this year, Sabrangindia had reported how human rights defender, Prafulla Samantara, President, of the  Lok Shakti Abhiyan and Convenor of NAPM was allegedly set upon by goons hired by the Vedanta company on April 6, 2016 and was rescued by the timely intervention of the villagers. The struggle of the Adivasis in the Koraput district of Odisha where Gram Sabhas of five villages have rejected the proposal of mining of the Niyamgiri hills by Vedanta and where allegations of police-govrnment-criminal nexus is threatening the fundamental rights of Adivasis. This attack on Prafulla Samantara is being seen by human rights activists as a bid to break the back of tribal unity that has stood firm against efforts by the corporate giant to get Gram Sabhas to change their stand on bauxite mining in the region

April 2016
The Supreme Court directed the Odisha government to file a fresh petition on Niyamgiri miningafter it had tried the irregular route of filing an interlocutory application to re-open the Supreme Court’s decision on this case without making Gram Sabhas a party. The Odisha government’s move for mining in the Niyamgiri hills received a jolt today with the Supreme Court of India directing it to file a fresh petition making all the affected and interested sides as parties in the application.

February 2016
In February 2016, in a questionable move, Vedanta moved the Supreme Court to, essentially, re-visit the judgement of April 2013. This application had not even made the Gram Sabhas parties to the application. This move was made through an interlocutory application in the Supreme Court. The historic judgement of the Supreme Court of India, giving primacy to the rights of tribals, the indigenous peoples, can be read here. 

The Adivasi people of Niyamgiri observe an unique protest-prayer-celebration atop the sacred hill to oppose the mining and refinery project.

These Videos Tell the Unique Story of the Adivasi Struggle to Preserve the Natural Environment

Victory March of Adivasi Dalit Bahujan of Niyamgiri after the Supreme Court accepted the Gram Sabha’s unanimous decision to cancel mining lease to Orissa Mining Corporation & Vedanta.

the Dongria Kondh movement to Save Niyamgiri, Music: Mili Bhagat

An animation depicting the Adivasi (Original inhabitants of the land) life in Orissa and their anti-mining struggles. The artist pays tribute to the men, women and children who have been shot dead by the police since 2001 for resisting mining and industrial activities on their land in Kalinga Nagar and Kashipur. The illustrations are in Idital (Saora Adivasi art) and music is from the Koya and Bonda Adivasi.

Against Police Atrocities in Niyamgiri, Year 2013

Video Source: Video Republic / Surya Shankar
 

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 “Present-day discourses such as those on the ‘environmentally degrading prawn seed collectors’ or the ‘thieving locals’ are in line with a history of discrimination against the poorest and most marginalised.” Annu Jalais in her path breaking study of the Sunderban[i]  echoes our core understanding about the essential relation between forest-dependent people and the forest, or more specifically, with the “political forest” – forest as a political entity with its own governing institution – the Forest Department.

This Forest Department engineered by colonising powers represents a story of forcible ouster, regulation, control and thus discrimination, resulting in “historical injustice” on the forest- dependent Dalit, Adivasi and other minority sections.

The history of the people of Sunderban is no different. And it is this history of continued injustice on the forest-dependent populace of Sunderban which is what we wanted to bring out  through the very voices of the people of this pristine mangrove forest – people who bear the brunt of the vagaries of weather such as the devastating cyclones; people who are constantly forced to arrange their living as per the daily ebb and high tide water level fluctuations of the labyrinthine channels of rivers running into the sea at the  mouth of the largest delta in the world – the Ganga Bramhaputra delta as it flows into the Bay of Bengal whose salty waters, in turn, run backwards to envelop large parts of the mangroves during high tides; people who have to deal with crocodiles and sharks which abound in these salty sweet confluence spots of the sea and the river, and the royal Bengal tigers. And also the most dreaded entity which oppresses and terrorises and demeans them the most – the Forest Department.

The deep discrimination manifested through sheer arbitrariness and verbal and physical abuse perpetrated, day in and day out on the forest dependent people of Sunderban by the overlord of the forest – the Forest Department – burst forth in the depositions of the people who could manage to voice their horror stories in front of a distinguished panel along with hundreds of local people from different islands of Sunderban and close to a hundred forest dependent Adivasis and Dalits from different corners of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, at  a public hearing in Gosaba, South 24 Parganas on January 31, 2016.
 
On being prodded by the panellists, Sufia Bibi from Shamsernagar island admitted that though she was not personally a victim of sexual harassment she was well aware of such pains inflicted on other forest going women. The minister in charge of Sunderban from the West Bengal government, vows to bring justice if such cases of sexual harassment are proven. But the same minister looks at the persistent tales of physical and verbal abuse by the forest department quite differently, in his suggestion that people are over reacting in order to voice their latent anger at being denied fishing access in the Core Zone of the Sunderban Tiger Reserve.

This Forest Department engineered by colonising powers represents a story of forcible ouster, regulation, control and thus discrimination, resulting in “historical injustice” on the forest- dependent Dalit, Adivasi and other minority sections.
 
We do not know what his reaction would be to peoples’ claims that they do not understand the very need, the absolute arbitrariness, in the declaring of the Core and Buffer zones.  
 
The bizarre demarcation patterns of the ‘Core’ and ‘Buffer’ are designed to necessitate people’s entry into the Buffer only through the Core. Thus they are almost always being caught while crossing the Core to go the Buffer and being heckled and fined for this idiosyncrasy of the Forest Department. We know what the Tiger lobby and the Conservation lobby think of the peoples’ claims to their inalienable rights to the forests of Sunderban now enshrined as a Special Act of Parliament – the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006, popularly called the FRA – the Forest Rights Act.
 
Sunderban Tiger Reserve field director Nilanjan Mullick has a different take. Speaking to the media after the public hearing, he said, “Fishing is allowed in the areas under South 24-Parganas forest division spread over 1500 sq km. Fishing trips are also allowed in the 500 sq km buffer area of the tiger reserve. So, of the entire 4500 sq km forest, fishing activities are being carried out in 2000 sq km area. What else do they want? Should we scrap the wildlife protection act and all other measures to protect wildlife?”  he wondered. [1]
 
The field director should have known that his utterances are a violation of the FRA for which he can be legally challenged because the FRA clearly says: “notwithstanding anything contained in any other law for the time being in force". The clause is "non-obstante", that is, it constitutes "a very important and categorical message from the Indian Parliament that the rights vested and recognised by the Forest Rights Act shall over-ride any legal regime or executive arrangement which is contrary to such right."
 
 Also, he is challenging the very claims of the forest dependent people of Sunderban and thus refuting the very essence of the definition of a forest dweller as defined in the FRA which says,
(c) “forest dwelling Scheduled Tribes” means the members of the community of the Scheduled Tribes who primarily reside in and who depend on the  forests or forest lands for bona fide livelihood needs and includes the Scheduled Tribe pastoralist communities:

Kolkata's honorary wildlife warden Suchandra Kundu, also quoted by the media after the public hearing, said: "There are no forest-dwelling communities in the Sunderbans. People live on the fringe areas of the forest and not inside the mangroves. They are known as fringe population. So, why the forest rights act here?”[2] And while people who deposed felt that the catch of fish has dwindled due to too many motorized tourist boats and cargo trawlers spilling fuel, and also because of  Kolkata city underground drainage flowing into the estuaries of Sunderban, State wildlife advisory board member Biswajit Roy Chowdhury claimed over-fishing was already a cause of concern in the Sunderban. “There's over-fishing in the buffer areas. The catch has dwindled. An increase in the fishing activities will only spell doom for the landscape” he added.
 
There is concern only for the environment and the tiger. People seem to be treated merely as an accidental presence and also as a hindrance to the very survival of the forest and of the tigers. The powers that be want the people to leave. Note this utterance :“At a time when we are fearing large-scale exodus from the Sunderbans due to climate change, such a move (to give rights to people over the Sunderban forests- our explanation) will make the situation even worse.“
 
The Boat Licence Certificate (BLC) and forcible collection of honey from deep inside forests – physically a highly challenging work with highest possibility of tiger attacks- are two livelihood issues which constantly came up during the peoples’ deposition before the panel at the Public Hearing. BLC issued by the Forest Department (FD) just after the Sunderban was declared a Tiger Reserve in 1972, (923 in all) are peoples’ license to enter the forested islands and channels of waterways to catch fish.
 
Without it, whether you are hungry or not , you are not allowed to enter the forested islands for fishing. The situation is such that original genuine fishing people hardly have these licenses in their name. Licenses now are mostly in the name of what has become a rentier class, who are not even living anywhere near Sunderban.
 
The BLCs are rented out on a yearly lease at rates between 30-50 thousand rupees, which, after adjusting the advances (and the interest thereon) fishermen have to take from araathdars  (big stockist/traders) for each seven-ten day foray into the forest for fishing. This leaves them with barely below poverty level subsistence incomes. Honey collection and sale in the open market could get people a decent earning. Each person has to compulsorily collect 120 kilograms and compulsorily deposit the entire collection to the Forest Department (FD).
 
The open market rate at which they can sell is at least Rs. 200 per kilogram. Thus an earning of 120 x Rs 200 = Rs.24,000 is possible. But the FD forcibly buys it at Rs 110 per kg as per the rate last year, thus giving them only 120 x Rs110 = Rs13,200 making them losers by at least Rs 10,000. And who is making this profit – the FD; which profits more than this.
 
This is a gross violation of all laws, and thus gross discrimination. Thus the people unanimously reverberated with the feeling – “Sunderban is ours; not the fiefdom of the FD”. Demands have come from people that the State government should announce a minimum support price and instruct the West Bengal SC/ ST Development and Finance Corporations under its Backward Classes Ministry to purchase the honey directly from honey collectors. Suggestions were strongly put forward by members of the panel asking the state government to help form co- operatives of honey collectors to help the forest dependent people of Sunderban to earn a better living – a right very much theirs as per the amendments to the FRA in July 2012.
 
Tiger attacks and tiger victims are omnipresent in these mangroves. Culturally the people of the Sunderban have negotiated this relationship between man and tiger through the conceptualisation of the myth of Bonbibi which is thought to have been created by Sufi practitioners around the 12^th century AD – surely a strong cultural locator of almost a thousand year old human habitation.
 
While the Forest Department always finds an excuse not to pay any compensation to families of tiger victims, they also terrorise the people so much that many cases of tiger attack / killings are not even reported.
 
This long time conflict between tiger and people has been played up by the Forest department in collusion with the tiger lobby. “…… how tigers have been appropriated into urban literature as one of the most prominent trademarks of global conservation, as well as the absence of humans in the literature on the Sundarban ” is something noteworthy. “Today, the tiger’s image is used to frame moral and ethical debates around wildlife by various transnational animal-centric charities and development agencies like the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) or the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in bids to fund projects. This…. Tiger …………has become the rallying point for urbanites’ concerns for wildlife protection.”(Annu Jalais, 2010)
 
A myraid issues surround the Sunderban, and each is important. The only problem is that the forest dependent people of Sunderban are not the subjects or objects of these multiple concerns. The All India Union of Forest Working people (AIUFWP), after a twenty year wait to realise the dream first envisioned by Comrade Bharati Roy Chowdhury when she visited the Sunderban in 1996 with the organisation which preceded the AIUFWP, wants to initiate a process whereby this concern is prioritised.

The bizarre demarcation patterns of the ‘Core’ and ‘Buffer’ are designed to necessitate people’s entry into the Buffer only through the Core. Thus they are almost always being caught while crossing the Core to go the Buffer and being heckled and fined for this idiosyncrasy of the Forest Department.

The legal framework is in the hands of the people – FRA. Advocate Sanjay Parikh who helped keep the Niyamgiri as a cultural heritage of the Dongria Kondh  Adivasis by winning a landmark legal battle in the Supreme Court of India,  against the clutches of a mining and metal manufacturing tycoon, exhorted the people to feel brave and claim their rights, failing which avenues of legal challenges should be sought to challenge this denial of the rights recognized after admission of “historical injustice” to the forest dependent Adivasi and Dalits.

The veil of fear has been lifted. The people of Sunderban will rise up, rekindling the legacy of the brave Tebhaga movement (which is unknown to many) and claim their community rights over the Sunderban. They know how to take care of the forest – their livelihood source. They challenge this sweeping accusation made without understanding the nuances, that “cutting trees is harmful for the environment, for the forest”.

Chanat Gazi from the island of Shamsernagar, now a voluntarily retired fisherman says that “the Forest Department does not understand that if trees are not cut in the forests these forests will never grow. Some trees need to be trimmed, if necessary cut. Our forefathers did it. We never cleared the forests to build colonies, it is because of our forefathers that the forests grew, they took care of the forest, then why will we destroy the forests? We hear all the time the advice that we must save trees to get oxygen but one must also know how to grow trees in the forest. The real truth is that the dust which collects on leaves need to be removed to look beautiful, for forests to grow properly. If the forests are properly pruned, some painful areas have to be removed and this is true for us humans and for trees as well".

The officers are being trained with the erroneous notion that cutting trees per se is bad for Sundarban. That’s wrong, Sundarban will not reduce in size if trees are pruned and parts which require to be cut off are cut off. Timber merchants have cut hectares (without re-planting) for ages. What people do not know is how trees grow in forests. They initially are in a close cluster of 15-20 trees. After growing to a certain size, if some number of trees are not cut off, pruned, none of the trees will have a healthy growth. So the notion that is spread by everybody including the forest department is wrong. This ban on even cutting the big round leaves of the trees in the forest is so harmful; they are neither saving the trees nor the jungle. Firewood (that is taken by us) is from the trees which have died on their own, we take away only the dead parts as the live parts will grow better if the dead portions are cut off.

For new trees to grow it is important that old / dead trees are removed but who other than local people will do it? Will the foresters do it? Their only work is to 'manufacture' news".

Chanat stresses that he understands the importance of overseeing the health of the Sunderban and says, “The current system of BLC is bad which needs to be changed but there should be some monitoring system to regularly go to the forest and ensure that the forest is not destroyed….”

People have enough of a knowledge pool, good enough to sustain the environment, natural resources – which is in fact their locales of sustenance and very existence. The issue is acknowledging this. We need to re-orient our focus, trust and include the indigenous peoples in this quest and endeavour.

The struggle is however intensifying. The foci of capitalist drive to derive surplus is now centred in locales of the natural resources of the global south. And thus this will become the new locales of opposition to the logic of capital.

The failure of the BJP government at the Centre to push through corporate favourable Land Acquisition law was anticipated to lead to attempts to dilute/bypass acts like FRA so as to make acquisition of mineral resources and natural resources easier.

And a first such attempt – through the attempted change in forest laws by the Maharashtra government – has just come to light. The situation is now germane with the possibility of building stronger resistances at the grassroots: the core of locales which have natural resources in abundance.

Such ground level struggles need to be backed by a thorough re-orientation and re-thinking, re-enforced by a colonial hangover, towards institutions or departments like the Forest Department. This Department has functioned unchecked, in utter disregard of the laws of the land, even the Indian Constitution.

There can be no time like the present, when the RSS-backed BJP government at the Centre is trying to lay claims on what is patriotic and national. For us all, battling for the preservation of the rights of indigenous peoples and natural resources, we need to say that it is this battle that will save us from a re-colonisation, all over again. It is a battle for the collective ownership and protection of land, water and what is below the land and water, from a dangerous destruction.

The Public Hearing at the Sunderban left us with hope. It makes us feel there is an impending possibility of a wider, deeper political coming togetherness of the pro-people progressive strands of the Indian political firmament, enabling the ouster of the RSS brand of  political narrative that is being thrust upon us.

(Ashok Chowdhury is currently the general secretary of the All India Union of Forest Working People (AIUFWP), vice-president of the independent national trade union federation – New Trade Union Initiative (NTUI) and a prime mover of the Land Rights Movement platform – Bhumi Adhikar Andolan; Avijit is an activist with the AIUFWP 

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