Yes it is right and I am agree with
article published in The Guardian. But Question is that whether we do
need "development" ornot? We the so-called educated person
using laptop-computer and livinga "modern" life style all
these things coming from mines. So thequestion should not ...beto not
displacement rather how to better displacement andre-habitation. This
is proved fact that migrant people are moredeveloped and well
maintain life style comparison to non migrant. Andanother fact is
that for me those who advocate to maintain and preserve the tribal
culture are in fact against the development of tribal community. It
not mean that I am against the way tribal people livingrather I am
saying we need development and we have to let them development. Before
doing this things at first we must take them in confidence. And make
them sure that they are also part of development and profit. Your
comments are always valuable for me so you are most welcome to debate
and discussion in this topic.
Above are link for original article.
Video is also available with this URL.
Now read here original article published as it is.
Now read here original article published as it is.
Vedanta versus the villagers: the fight for the sacred mountain
Tribes say plans by UK-listed mining
firm Vedanta to mine on holy land will destroy their way of life
Gethin Chamberlain in Niyamgiri, India
guardian.co.uk, Monday 12 October 2009
20.14 BST
Article history
The ash spills out across the plain
beneath the brooding bulk ofNiyamgiri mountain, swamping the trees
that once grew here, formingdirty grey-brown drifts around the stems
of the now-dead scrub.
Everyday there is more ash, pouring out
of the alumina refinery that squatsamong the steep-sided, jungle-clad
hills of western Orissa, India.The dust hangs in the air and clings
to the landscape, settling on thehuts of the aboriginal Kondh tribes
who call this place home, chokingthose who breathe it in.
Niyamgiri is as remote as any place
inthe country: 600km from the state capital Bhubaneswar, accessible
onlyby narrow, shattered roads pocked with deep holes, a world away
fromthe economic powerhouse that is 21st-century India.
It is a placeof quiet beauty, of lush
green paddy fields and huge mango trees, whereself-sufficient tribes
still share the jungle with elephant, tiger andleopard. Yet this most
unlikely place is now the frontline in a clashof civilisations that
has pitched the indigenous population up against the corporate might
of the British miningVedanta Resources, intent on dragging Niyamgiri
into the modern world.
company
company
Itis the mineral wealth lying beneath
the slopes of the mountain that hasdrawn Vedanta to Niyamgiri. It
wants to turn the hillside into a giantbauxite mine to feed its
refinery at the foot of the mountain.
The FTSE 100-listed company, which is
run by the abrasive billionaire Anil Agarwal,is pressing ahead
despite a desperate local rearguard action and aninternational
outcry. Yesterday the British government turned on thecompany,
issuing an unexpectedly damning assessment of its behaviour.
Vedantahopes the refinery will produce
at least one million tonnes of aluminaa year. But the Kondh people –
the Dongria, Kutia and Jharania – needthe bauxite too. It holds
water remarkably well and helps feed theperennial streams on which
they and the animals that live on themountain rely. Once the bauxite
is gone, they fear, the streams willrun dry. And that will be the end
of the Kondh.
Faced withferocious local opposition
and an international campaign to stop thedevelopment, the company has
returned time and again to the courts topush its plans through. In
July, after numerous setbacks and rulingsagainst it, it was finally
given permission by India's supreme court tostart mining.
It has wasted no time. Already, the
skeleton of anenormous conveyor belt snakes out of the refinery and
up to the foot ofthe mountain. Beyond it, an ugly scar of deep red
earth runs up thehillside where hundreds of trees have been felled.
Convoys of lorriestrundle along the narrow roads, churning them to
mud.
There arestill legal challenges that
the protesters can make and there is alsothe remote possibility that
Vedanta shareholders, which include the Church of England, could
bring pressure on the board to reverse its plans.
Althoughthe mining is yet to start in
earnest, those who live in the hundredsof small villages that dot the
slopes are in no doubt that the effectsof Vedanta's presence are
already being felt. People and animals aredying, they say: the number
of cases of tuberculosis have shot up.
BasantiMajhi sits with her hands folded
in her lap, in a hut in the centre ofthe Kutia Kondh village of
Rengopali, a couple of hundred metres fromwhere the company has sited
the red mud pond that holds the wasteslurry from the refining
process.
The 12-year-old startedcoughing hard
last year; her family took her to a doctor, who confirmedTB. She
complains of constant pains in her hips and joints and ofproblems
from the dust that settles on the village. "The dust gets inmy
eyes and it makes it hard to breathe," she says.
Salesmen
Heruncle, Lingaraj Majhi, says 12
people have died from TB in the villagein the last year, including a
nine-year-old girl and two middle-agedwomen. He blames dust and smoke
from the refinery and the presence ofthe red mud pond.
"We never used to have a problem
but the casesstarted to appear in the last two years," he said.
"During the summerthe dust comes in to our houses and gets
everywhere, even into ourfood."
Outside the hut where Basanti sits is a
plaque announcingthe inauguration of the electrification of the
village on 25 June 2008in a scheme sponsored by Vedanta. Similiar
signs adorn the walls ofbuildings all over the district, part of a
concerted campaign by thecompany to win over the local population. It
is hard to move withoutseeing the name Vedanta. But its critics are
unconvinced, suggestingthat in many instances the company is simply
piggy-backing on existingschemes.
No sooner had the electricity arrived
than salesmenturned up, hoping to take advantage of the small group
of people whohad received small packets of compensation for the loss
of their land(many did not) to the red mud pond. Some of the
villagers werepersuaded to blow their cash on television sets and
satellite dishes.Some also bought motorbikes. Only later did they
stop to consider howthey would pay for the electricity and the fuel
to keep them going.With their land gone, few can afford it, and the
dishes and bikes standidle.
"The company promised us a
developed way of life withelectricity and such things, but now we
have to pay for the electricityand we don't have any money,"
says Kuni Majhi, 40.
She used togrow crops on seven hectares
of common land; when the pond was built,she lost the land. There was
no compensation. Worse, many of the treesin the area were chopped
down, so now she has to trek further to reachthe jungle to find
firewood and to pick whatever produce she can find.
"Theway we were living, we were
self-sufficient, and we had lived like thatfor generations," she
says. "We could have lived like that for manymore generations
too. Because of these people, we cannot. But we willstill fight to
continue the old ways."
To the animist Kondhtribes, the
mountain is more than the place where they live: it istheir god. It
has sustained them for generations, providing everythingthey need to
survive. All over its slopes there are small shrines wherethey place
offerings to the mountain from whatever they have taken fromthe
jungle. When the mining starts, they fear that the mountain will
betaken away from them.
High up in the foothills, 13 families
livein two rows of huts in the Dongria Kondh village of Devapada. The
hutsline a central area in which an imposing wooden ceremonial arch
marksthe place where animal sacrifices are carried out.
The village isonly accessible on foot,
the path meandering through meadows in whichthe tribe is growing
paddy. Every now and then there is a woodenwatchtower, in which they
will sit at night to guard against the wildanimals which try to get
at the crop, beating drums or waving lightedtorches to scare them
off.
Now they also have to keep watch for
the contractors who are trying to build roads up the mountainsides.
"Wedon't want a road. The company
will come and kill us," says SitaramKulesika, 23. He is sitting
on a charpoy under the shade of a tree,toying with a new Nokia mobile
phone, a rare concession to the outsideworld. Kulesika is involved in
the campaign to stop the mining: thephone, he says, is a necessary
evil to keep in touch with his fellowactivists. "We stopped them
coming up here. We went to explain to themthat if they came we would
have to leave. We don't want to get intoclashes, so we are explaining
peacefully."
Lost crops
Othershave been less peaceful: the
Kondh men routinely carry axes which theyuse for hunting and to work
in the forest, and the contractors are waryof them. A number of the
company's vehicles have been attacked inrecent months.
Kulesika insists they just want to be
left to geton with their lives. "We get everything we need from
the mountainexcept salt and kerosene and we can barter for those,"
he says. Buteven now, that is becoming harder. "The smoke brings
ash here and it issettling in the village. We can see the impact on
the mango and thepineapple and the orange and banana. The flowers are
falling early andthe fruit is falling and we are losing our crops and
the quality of thefood is declining."
Down on the plain, the heavens have
opened,huge drops of rain hammering into the muddy ruts which mark
the roadaround the turn-off to the refinery. There are security
guardseverywhere, patrolling in vehicles and on motorbikes. A barbed
wirefence and a wide ditch protect the growing hill of ash: any
attempt toapproach brings the guards out in force.
The police watch warily from behind
abarricade, clutching bamboo shields and their long wooden lathis.
Theyfear trouble, though the rain has dampened the enthusiasm of the
crowd.The speakers finish and the crowd drifts away. An hour or so
later,back in his village of Kundobodi, close to the refinery, Kumati
Majhi,one of the protest leaders, is still railing against Vedanta.
Thecompany claims it is committed to sustainable development of the
area,he says, but their actions tell another story.
"Once they startmining the
mountain will be bulldozed and the rivers will dry up andour
livelihood will be lost," he says. "We will become fish out
ofwater. We don't know how to adapt and survive and our way of living
isnot available in the cities. We will be extinct."
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