The mining ban has implications beyond just protecting the environment and tribal rights
B G Verghese / Sep 04, 2010, 00:53 IST
Minister of Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh’s order stopping Vedanta Aluminium and the Orissa Mining Corporation from mining bauxite in the Niyamgiri hills to feed the company’s Lanjigarh aluminum refinery plant located in one of the country’s poorest districts in the name of tribal interests tends to miss the wood for the trees. It is based on the report of a four-member expert group under N C Saxena that was set up after adverse Forest Advisory Committee findings.
Truth has many dimensions and sometimes the lesser truth may mask the greater. Balance and perspective are, therefore, important. The two reports that the minister relied on contain some sweeping generalisations based on exaggerated inferences.
The Niyamgiri hills extend over 250 square kilometres (sq km) of which only 7 sq km of one hilltop falls within the proposed mining lease area. Of this, only 3.5 sq km or 350 hectares will be mined and backfilled in phases, leaving no more than 20 hectares of exposed mine face at any one time. The Dongria Kondh and Kutia Kondh inhabiting the upper slopes and valleys of these hills, respectively, number less than 8,000 souls and are classified as primitive tribes. They are immiserised, practice jhum (or slash-and-burn agriculture, which means that these are not primeval forests), collect fruit and herbs and live on the margins of subsistence. None of them will be displaced by mining.
The laterite hill tops underlain by a hard bauxite pan do not hold the rain, sustain little forest and are totally uninhabited. Contrary to the assertions by the latest official committees, the removal of the bauxite layer and replacement of the laterite overburden with plantations will, according to the Central Mine Planning and Design Institute, encourage infiltration, recharge the aquifer and improve the water regime to everybody’s benefit. Nalco’s reclaimed Damanjodi mine in Koraput is a classic example of transformation.
The Saxena committee report, however, states that the entire Niyamgiri range may suffer a “major ecological and hydrological disaster”. The very survival of “20 per cent of the Dongria tribals” will be threatened as their habitat will be “severely disturbed” and road construction will bring wildlife and timber poachers. The charge that the mining area amounts to a cultural invasion of the sacred abode of the celestial Niyam Raja is contested. Earlier accounts would locate this site several kilometres away atop Hundijali hill.
The expert groups are sharply critical of violations of the Forest Rights Act, the alleged procurement of bauxite from 11 illegal Jharkhand mines and refinery expansion from one million to six million tonne before the settlement of individual and community tribal rights. The allegations misinterpret the law. The enclosure of 28 hectare adjacent to the refinery for an approved village plantation is also seen as an illegality. If this is the ultimate horror story, why were prior approvals and clearances repeatedly granted? And was the Supreme Court in error?
The Orissa government’s counter-argument is that the Forest Rights Act only came into force with the promulgation of its Rules in January 2008 and cannot be applied retrospectively. The Saxena committee retorts that the Forest Rights Act was enacted to set right the “historical injustices” suffered by the tribal people. This is valid. But when does history begin? Hirakud, Rourkela, the HAL MiG plant in Koraput and hundreds of other projects, completed and ongoing, are located on tribal lands. Are all these development omelettes to be unscrambled?
Historical injustices are often best made good by future action. Orissa, too, wants to industrialise, capitalising on rich mineral resources that, the Supreme Court has said, are national assets to which tribals have entitlements but not ownership. The Fifth Schedule, the Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas Act (PESA), now the Forest Rights Act and the Supreme Court’s seminal Samatha judgment of 1997 show how tribal justice can be harvested to national interest.
The Saxena committee’s conclusion follows that the deprivation of primitive tribal groups “to benefit a private company” could “shake the faith of tribal people in the laws of the land which may have serious consequences for the security and well being of the entire country”. Clearly, the reference is to provoking the growth of Naxalism. The commonly cited causative factors underlying left-wing extremism are oppression and neglect. Does the Vedanta project fit this diagnosis?
The Niyamgiri hills have been untouched for centuries. Yet the Dongria Kondhs remain primitive, not on account of development but for lack of it. Development often causes disturbance and even trauma. But this is soon offset by good R&R, appropriate compensation, new stakeholder partnership models, income and employment opportunities and a whole multiplier effect. Vedanta is already active in skill development, education, health, nutrition, provision of safe drinking water, solar lighting and formation of self-help groups, and it has spent over Rs 100 crore on these. The company is further committed by a Supreme Court order to earmarking 5 per cent of its annual net profit or Rs 10 crore, whichever is higher, for economic and social development of an area within a 50 km radius of the project site and to greening the area through a special purpose vehicle.
Poverty is the enemy of the environment with mounting population pressure. Tens of millions of distress migrants move across India every year for lack of development. The country needs to add 12 million jobs annually just to keep abreast of a burgeoning labour force. We need faster and more participative growth and infrastructure to sustain this. To this end, bauxite must be mined and aluminum produced. The combination of bauxite and coal in close proximity enables India to produce cheap aluminum and assume a commanding position in the global non-ferrous market.
Tribal India must be enabled to progress. The environment must be enhanced. The current impasse affects not just Vedanta or Orissa. Rahul Gandhi’s rhetoric was misplaced. Stop Vedanta in the wrong manner and for the wrong reasons and we may stop India.
Sadly, in our nation emotions rule more than thought. We are so used to melodramatic bollywood, that we hardly think. Terra-farming and artificial greening of barren landscape is a very well tested and workable solution. I salute Vedanta for engaging organisations such as CMPDI in designing the mine. Messrs Gandhi & Co badly wanted political mileage and found it opportunistic to take on the BJD Govt in Orissa and now the Mayawati Govt in Uttar Pradesh over the proposed Yamuna Expressway.
we cant comfortably sacrifice Adivasi interests for the uncertain promise of unregulated markets.
Proposed mining area may be 7 Sq.km but the practical usage(roads,temporary tents,security outposts,illegal entries etc) would be 3 or 4 times the proposed.Since this mining reduce the area available to tribes, they need to migrate to compensate this habitat loss. minning will be one of the undisputable factors of Migration pattern.Nalco's reclaimed Damanjodi is just one example, but in many cases lands are not reclaimed properly with care. There is no valid points(given by you also) in defending the poachers usage of roads laid for mining.
It is sad you advocate industrialisation at the cost of degradation of environment. Whatever is your argument, it looks supoerficaial and totally one sided. Let us not bring in politics etc, let us talk about genuine concern for tribal rights and environment. If the tribes want to remain primitive, so be it and give them a choice. Have a sustainable develpoment model and not thrust heavy industries through their throat.
Thank you very much, BG Verghese! It was a very pragmatic article!I remember your brave stance against the emergency regime of 1975! I am afraid we are going down the same path just to boost the sipahi's image. Also this is clearly an inter-corporate war being fought by the Birlas,Ambanis,Laksmi Mittals on the one side and against Vedanta (Aluminium),POSCO & TATAs(Steel) and Vedanta(Cairn India investment).This could very well be an attempt to put the screws on Vedanta,POSCO and Tatas to relent so that they "contribute" to the right "cause". Take it from me all this will be amicably settled with Jairam, Saxena and other sycophants like Mani Shanker iyer, Digvijay Singh joining the Vedanta Tribal foundation inaugrated by --who else--Arundhati Roy! Agarwals are no saints but let us look beyond the behaviour of the sycophants!
Posted by: janagi
September 07 , 2010, 20:02 IST
pragamatic for capitalist and tragic for swadesi....
An excellent essay. Just to push Rahul Gandhi up another step in Congress hierarchy,the Tamasha is going on. The protagonists of Ramesh Jairam's new found enthusiasm to scuttle development programs in non-Congress ruled states should know that it is not the tribal's choice to remain illiterate and ignorant for ever but it is the vote bank politics of Congress that is depriving the Tribals. What has happened to the Tata car project in Singur in B.Bengal is also a blatantly political vengeance of Trinamul Congress. The sycophants of Gandhi family want to show to the public that Rahul Gandhi is doing really something great and he is credited with extraordinary vision! He has also taken credit for the loan waiver for farmers!! The PM is helpless and can only nod his head in agreement!!
Well done Mr. Jairam Ramesh. Thank you
We don't want unethical company in India. Please audit all its operation in India specially in Goa.
Ek Do Ek Do......Vedanta ko Fek Do....!!!!!
How come you are writing for the Vedanta/ Posco and such companies in the news papers and you seem to be a gross failure of education and learning and a servant of the multinational capitalist companies' thrown away alms.
If you have any love for the motherland, u should stop supporting these companies who are sucking the blood of India.
your article on business standard "stop vedanta stop India" is totally a piece of absurd, baseless, superficial and has been written (copy/pasted) from the verdict, without a single point of thinking.
Such articles go against the very essence of preservation of culture. The first comments are from people who would like nothing better than maintaining status quo. The tribals should never be educated, fed or given any means of comfort or any proximity to technology! Let successive generations of tribals live in misery, procreate, vote the party which adopted them and die. That's what these jhola walas want!
This write up was not unexpected from a person who has Schooled at Doon School; read Economics at St Stephen's College, Delhi University and Trinity College, Cambridge. Historically, very few of such background wish to train their eyesight on the grassroots. Had he been to the bauxite mined Panchapatamali hills and interacted with the local people and wrote with a honest heart, he would not have cited that mine as a 'classic case of transformation' where infiltration and recharge of aquifers have improved. Besides, NALCO and Vedanta cannot be compared at a same scale. Both are miles apart in their approach towards people, environment and the laws of the land.
Posted by: Somrraj singh JHALA
September 04 , 2010, 18:22 IST
All set and done,Odhisa is backward and the majority of the population is more starved than the tribals,therefore industrialization is a necessary evil at best the Navin govt should manage a tight rape walk and safe guard all,resources,manpower and the tribals and go ahead with industrialization of the poor state.There is no choice !
How is it that a balant PR article find its way into a major buisness newspaper? Or is that a retorical question that i am asking? 'Cause PR and paid news are afterall two sides of the same coin.
Its funny that the article repeatedly puts Kondhs and primitives in the same sentence. Looks like Vedanta being headquatered in Europe has taken on the "whiteman's burden" to civilise the Kondhs. Ofcourse for the light to reach the kondhs the woods and mountains would have to give way!!
Excellent Socio-Economic & Futuristic as well as pragmatic analyses.As an Exploration Consultant in Petroleum & Mining in International Field I wish Politicians,Bureaucrats and Plicy- Planners understand intangible cost-benifit ratios before making a decision on Major Projects.
Posted by: Rajesh Jhankar
September 07 , 2010, 21:10 IST
I really enjoyed the write up to the last word. During the whole journey through it the only thought naturally overpowered is how far a person can go to advocate for somebody keeping his conscience at stake!! This is a true piece of "INTELLECTUAL PROSTITUTION". Be ready for more write up of this sort,such big (!!)heads might be preparing themselves to sharing bed with Vedanta for this is the best time to get the maximum price.
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