Extractivism amidst the covid pandemic

ASHOK SHRIMALI, RAVI REBBAPRAGADA, SREE HARICA

DESPITE the fact that the country is in the midst of a covid pandemic, the Indian government has approved amendments to the country’s mining legislation in order to encourage mineral extraction and production. These changes are to benefit the sector and economy, but experts working with mining-affected communities warn that they may have a cascading effect, negatively impacting the environment and communities in mining-affected areas. The government has adopted a mining reform package that includes changes to three existing laws concerning mineral pricing formulas, mine exploration, and mining taxes and charges. The government justifies these changes by expectation of boosting production and private investment in the mining sector. The government has removed the distinction between ‘captive’ and non-captive mines to further ease the process of mineral extraction.

These modifications occurred at a time when the communities were experiencing extreme hardships as a result of the pandemic. The government should have concentrated on the plight of migrant workers from cities to their homelands, job losses, and the lack of health services, but instead focused on increasing extraction, without taking into consideration the vast extent of dispossession. Modifications were solely communicated in English and over the Internet, keeping a large portion of the affected populations out of the conversation.

Dispossession and displacement are two of the most visible and disruptive social phenomena linked to extractive industries around the world. Scholars have long been concerned about various forms of land enclosure and the social and economic consequences that they cause for the people who originally lived off the land. Land commercialization and ‘grabbing’ have sparked renewed interest in recent years, with a focus on dispossession for capital accumulation under neoliberal regimes. Land acquisition for mining is increasingly being promoted in places inhabited by indigenous populations in India and elsewhere.

This increased drive towards resource extraction is undoubtedly a major socio-economic, ecological, and political challenge in India’s mineral belt, involving multiple stakeholders, including indigenous communities, the state and non-state actors such as companies and extremist armed groups.

Yet one fundamental question remains blurred and contested: who are the real stakeholders? Neither the state nor the armed groups typically allow indigenous communities a place in policy decisions, even though both posture as working in the interests of the people.

The following two case studies from northwest Odisha will illustrate the impacts of extractive regimes amid the pandemic on indigenous communities, and local struggles for self-determination. Odisha has rich mineral resources, including 28% of India’s total iron ore deposits, 24% of its coal, 59% of its bauxite, and 98% of its chromite. Large-scale mining in Sundargarh and Keonjhar districts has led to major social and environmental impacts. Indeed, in Keonjhar, the most-mined district in the state, 62% of the population lives below the poverty line. The Khandadhara hills (which span Sundargarh and Keonjhar) have witnessed often violently suppressed agitation by indigenous communities against iron ore mining for over ten years, including by the Odisha Mining Corporation Ltd (OMC), which entered the area in 2016.

As per official records, between 1950 and 1993, 81,176 families from 1,446 villages have been displaced in Odisha due to development projects, which acquired 14,82,626 acres of land. For Hirakud dam, only 2,185 of the 4,744 displaced families were ‘resettled’ in 17 rehabilitation camps. A survey of families displaced by Bhilai, Bokaro, and Rourkela steel plants revealed that ‘while 90% of the ousted families were holding agricultural land in the pre-displacement period with an average holding size of four acres, now only 70% of them are reported to be holding some agricultural land’ of 1.3 acres. Only 5% of this land is irrigated.

People’s assertions of their rights have escalated in comparison to the past due to rapid increases in land acquisition and displacement. Odisha has seen some of the most significant people’s movements that in many cases have succeeded in preventing firms from acquiring property. Indigenous communities have many incentives to be more assertive now. The Kalinganagar people’s movement, which used roadblocks to halt business, set a precedent for future protests in the state, which also witnessed successful peoples’ struggles against POSCO and Vedanta.

villages surrounding the Kulda opencast mine in Odisha’s Hemgiri block of Sundargarh have been fighting coal pollution for over a decade without any respite from the government or the mining company. Residents of Taparia, Ratanpur, and other Hemgir villages have seen an estimated 3,000 coal dumper trucks travel through their villages every day, causing pollution, dust, crop failure, respiratory ailments, and countless accidents.

In February 2021, Rajendra Naik, a resident of Hemgir and a grassroots leader filed an application in the Odisha High Court against the government and the Mahanadi Coal Fields, a subsidiary of Coal India which manages the Kulda mine. He submitted that the coal transport passing by 25 villages in Hemgir along a 30 km stretch towards Chhattisgarh violated the environmental clearances for the mine in 2002 and 2018, which specified that the coal transported by road should be carried in covered rather than open trucks.

The High Court in its order of 17 March 2021 directed the Collector of Sundargarh to hold a detailed enquiry involving local villagers and representatives of the Government of Odisha and the Centre. The Collector held a meeting on 23 March, following which he passed an order on 24 March restricting the plying of vehicles from 6 a.m. to 1 p.m. except on public holidays. His order called for covering the vehicles, increasing water sprinkling in the villages for dust suppression, and raising school walls to prevent dust. The district administration was asked to assess crop damage due to dust and impacts on ponds.

Despite the seriousness of pollution and non-compliance with the Environment Clearance, the MoEFCC’s Expert Appraisal Committee proposed in January 2021 that the Kulda mine’s capacity be increased from 14 to 19.6 mtpa. The company failed to monitor fugitive dust emissions from mining operations, among other things.  Particulate Matter 10 and 2.5 concentrations in the vicinity are above permissible values, according to a site inspection and monitoring report provided by the MoEFCC in 2019, and more sprinkling and control measures are required. 

After a decade of fighting pollution and investigating legal possibilities, the devastated communities launched a ‘do or die’ campaign in 2021. Many of the protesting villagers were detained, and some even imprisoned. False cases were made against protestors in Taparia village in January 2021, and 16 individuals were imprisoned. Protests went to Kandadhoha village when police issued prohibitory orders. While most detained protestors awaited bail in prison in March 2021, their children continued to demonstrate. On the 23 March, eight platoons of police arrived in Kandadhoha and detained 40 schoolchildren aged 12-14 in Hemgir Police Station. They were detained for thirty hours and urged to cease their protests. The villagers are still waiting for justice to be served.

The Odisha state government acquired the land for railway infrastructure in 1954 in Sundargarh district. Even after nearly seven decades, those who lost their lands are still waiting for compensation. Three generations are fighting to get compensation already promised by the court, as the land is in the 5th Schedule area. There are the court order and Human Rights Commission recommendations for land compensation per family, jobs in the railways, returning unutilized land to the community to ensure at least 5-acres of land per family. Even though this compensation has not been made yet, new land acquisitions were proposed during the lockdown.

The new land acquisition for railway projects has stirred strong protests, from fear and anguish that previous acquisitions have not been compensated. This situation spotlights the apathy of government officials who have put all their efforts into acquiring more Adivasi lands amidst the pandemic – lands that are agriculturally rich and the families’ sole source of income. Land acquisition is escalating, yet compensation it seems is never as promised.

The construction of a railway line to transport coal from Dhamra port to Godda district, Jharkhand, for use in Adani’s contentious new power plant there is displacing over 700 Adivasi communities. The Rourkela Steel Plant, who bought it in the 1950s but never used it, previously owned this railway land. Residents who continued to farm the land after the acquisition claim that they are not only entitled to compensation under various government circulars and orders, but that their entitlement was recognized by the district authorities as recently as February 2020, and that no new construction work would begin until their concerns were addressed.

Deme Oram, a grassroots leader, spearheaded protests against the new land acquisition in Sundargarh during the pandemic. Protestors peacefully stopped surveying and measurement activities by government officials, demanding that before any acquisition, there should be talks with the local communities, taking their concerns into consideration.

To understand the history here, on 16 February 1954 a Gazette Notification was published to acquire 67 sq km to construct a steel plant of Hindustan Steel Ltd under the Land Acquisition Act 1894. After six days, on 22 February 1954, the earlier notification was cancelled and a new one published where 76 sq km comprising 84 villages were proposed to be acquired under the Orissa Act XVIII of 1948. Approximately 19,000 acres were acquired. From 1955 to 1973 in different Notifications, approximately another 4,000 acres were acquired. Till today, many of these lands have not been utilized for the purposes they were acquired for.

A Government Order was passed in 2008 to provide a minimum of five acres of unirrigated or two acres of irrigated land to displaced tribal families, with guarantee of ‘Railway Group D’ jobs. This compensation has not been implemented, despite further recommendation by the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes, Delhi, in 2018. Instead of implementing this, local authorities are impudently constructing different projects in these disputed areas, displacing yet more tribal communities. Over the years, conditions in Adivasi villages around extractive sites have worsened, facing the toxic consequences of unprecedented resource extractions in the name of national development and revenue generation. In Deme Oram’s words, ‘the state government had bought a large amount of land for SER, but compensation and rehabilitation issues have yet to be resolved. The administration should first address the SER’s land oustees’ unresolved grievances. No new land acquisitions would be permitted until then.’

Land in the tribal hinterlands of India is not just an economic resource but forms a very important part of cultural identity. Alienation from customary land not only leads to physical landlessness but also personal disorientation. Even in instances where land is allotted in the name of compensation, often it is found unfit for cultivation. Joblessness is another critical risk, coming from both lack of access to employment opportunities and downward occupational mobility. Indigenous communities are at higher risk due to their familiarity with traditional methods both in agriculture and industry.

A lack of common property resources is another major threat, forcing displaced people to take up jobs in which their skill sets are not applicable. This has a serious impact on their standard of living. The economic inequalities lead to irreversible social inequalities. The ability of marginalized populations to handle cash transactions is precarious. Displaced communities face a problem of social disarticulation, with family ties breaking apart and social networks atomized. Food insecurity is a major threat, with traditional diversity of cultivated crops annihilated, leading to higher morbidity and mortality, further aggravated due to lack of access to public services.

The fight against land acquisition is thus a fight for survival and an expression of self-determination. Social Impact Assessments have barely been articulated, let alone means found to enforce violations. How to move towards participatory planning that makes Adivasi part of the decision-making process?

While Laws to uphold Adivasi rights have been enacted, the state’s idea of development has denied Adivasis these very rights. Defensive legislations like PESA (Panchayats – Extension to Scheduled Areas – Act, 1996) remain largely unimplemented, diluted by individual states, as land and decentralization are state subjects. In their competition to attract investment, states have been reluctant to uphold legislation such as PESA that could discourage such investment.

In this situation, there is a need to look beyond the law, and give a thought to how development itself is being envisaged. The capability of Adivasi community to govern themselves or to cultivate forest land sustainably is affected by wider policy decisions such as those regarding industrial corridors, smart cities, SEZs, use of wastelands and mining. The last decade has witnessed major policy initiatives increasingly seeking new territories for investment. There remains a yawning legislative gap between enacting and implementing PESA, and similar protective legislation. The result of this failure, in many several tribal areas, is a destructive mix of misgovernance, estrangement, unrest, and violent political extremism. This widespread failure to fulfil fundamental Adivasi rights demands re-examination and debate about extractive industries in India.

Tribal identity and culture stands at the crossroads of development. Identity is essentially linked with the dignity of the individual and hence it becomes important to protect and be sensitive to the identity and culture of the tribal population. Policy making and policy implementation should not look at tribals in isolation from their traditions and cultures. The state’s development idea of ‘mainstreaming’ tribal society neglects the age-old traditions and knowledge the communities possess. There is a lot for us all to learn from indigenous knowledge, including a fundamental questioning of the extractive model of development we have invested in so heavily.