Bungle in the jungle - I
Source: By Kisor Chaudhuri: The Statesman
The inevitable has happened. To please a Korean steel giant with phenomenally deep pockets, the Manmohan Singh government has installed an obliging crony to head the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) after moving out an unrelenting minister. Among the first things this new hand did was to allow environmental clearance for mining of iron ore in a highly sensitive forest environment in Keonjhar district for a proposed steel plant in Odisha in violation of the laws of the land. This wholly irresponsible action ran counter to observations by experts from the MoEF as well as the Green Tribunal.
To the great dislike of a neo-liberal Prime Minister, wholly unaware of the needs and aspirations of the countrymen who believe that economic growth can only be achieved through liberalised trade, the discredited minister had denied permission for this enormous venture, considering the views of the experts who predicted that it would have an adverse impact on the sustainability of biodiversity and a great mass of humanity in and around the proposed areas of industrial activity. This single action by an outgoing political head, in addition to turning the Wild Life (Protection) Act of 1972 and Forest (Conservation) Act of 1980 totally worthless, will open the floodgates for exploitative ventures in highly vulnerable wildlife habitats in the country. Hundreds of vultures are sitting on the fence waiting for the opportunity.
Earlier, relaxation of trade barriers had led to changes in the land-use pattern, altering the physical and biological geography of the central Indian forest landscape. At Singbhum in Jharkhand, Keonjhar in Odisha and Bastar in Chhattisgarh, land-use changes were introduced to accommodate open cast mines. Such adventurous initiatives in sensitive forest locations ultimately proved to be utterly detrimental to human and animal ecology.
State-supported displacement of tribal communities, who inhabit forests, has proved to be the major reason for the prevailing hostility in the jungles spread across Jharkhand, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. Ironically, apart from resulting in a mass exodus of indigenous forest dwellers and destruction of wildlife habitats, industrialisation of these locations, contrary to the assurances by project proponents, miserably failed to generate any employment opportunity for the locals. The indigenous people, mostly uneducated (in the conventional sense) and unskilled in any profession, were conveniently found to be redundant by the project promoters and discarded. Instead of creating pools of skilled workforce among local inhabitants, the promoters of industries depended on human resources from outside to run machines. This led to violent conflicts between neo-settlers and land losers. On paper, the rehabilitation and resettlement policies of several states stipulate that all industries that displace settlers in their place of activity have to reserve 90 per cent of unskilled and semi-skilled, 60 per cent of skilled and 30 per cent of supervisory and managerial jobs for the affected families. A joke indeed!
By conservative estimates, between 1950 and 1990, mining in forested locations has displaced 2.55 million people in India. I am quoting a few figures generated in 2012 ~ A study in Odisha found that 3143 families from 79 villages on 2427 hectares were displaced between 1950 and 1993. In Chhattisgarh, a total of 57,528 villagers have been compelled to leave their homes and are living as Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) within 23 relief camps in the southern part of the state. An additional 45,000 to 60,000 villagers have abandoned their villages and migrated to nearby states (Analysis and Situation Report on the Displacement Camps in Dantewada by Subash Mohapatra).
In Jharkhand, the number of forest dwellers who were displaced since 1995 because of industrialisation of forests is a staggering 1.5 million. Today, no one knows anything about the fate of these displaced persons and regrettably, none in the civilised world seems eager to know.
Not long ago, the rulers of our country identified the protesting tribes as the “biggest threat to the nation’s internal security”, overlooking the reasons for their changing attitudes. Such allegations made with a bias towards the proponents of industry have raised questions about the sincerity of our government’s commitments towards the poverty-stricken. Cynics believe that the policy-makers are acting at the behest of hidden faces with money-making ambition ~ a dubious way to please the rich and powerful by ignoring the needs and aspirations of the poor.
In course of my visits to the forest locations in central India, now the hotbed of extremism, I have encountered disgruntled and deprived village folk, armed with bows and arrows, threatening the state machinery for this injustice.
The USA’s Central Intelligence Agency has predicted that “globalised economies will be a net contributor to increased political stability …although its reach and benefits will not be universal. Its evolution will be rocky, marked by chronic volatility and widening economic divide. Regions, countries and groups feeling left behind will face deepening economic stagnation, political instability” (Global Trends 2015, quoted by the National Intelligence Council, USA). The predictions appear to be uncanny considering the scenario in contemporary India.
The areas that have suffered on account of industrialisation have become fertile ground for Maoist operations. Dubious state action added fuel to the dormant fire of anger among the deprived people and fashioned conditions that offered an opportunity to the Left radicals to fill the leadership void among the unwary villagers. This led to the emergence of violent village groups in the jungles of India. These Maoist leaders or strategists, predominantly from Andhra Pradesh and with no attachment to the soil or community and equipped with deadly weapons, sought certain assurances from the village tribes, notably shelter, local logistic support and... silence. In the early days of the insurgency, which coincided with the period of globalisation of the Indian economy and resultant mayhem in the jungles, there was an exuberant display of arrogance by neo-converts under the guidance of these self-seeking Maoists. The Journal of the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies reported that the income generated from ‘levies’ in the seven most Maoist-infested states of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Bihar, West Bengal and Maharashtra, amounts to nearly Rs 1,500 crore per annum (this does not take into account “grants” like the amounts paid by mining majors).
The inevitable has happened. To please a Korean steel giant with phenomenally deep pockets, the Manmohan Singh government has installed an obliging crony to head the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) after moving out an unrelenting minister. Among the first things this new hand did was to allow environmental clearance for mining of iron ore in a highly sensitive forest environment in Keonjhar district for a proposed steel plant in Odisha in violation of the laws of the land. This wholly irresponsible action ran counter to observations by experts from the MoEF as well as the Green Tribunal.
To the great dislike of a neo-liberal Prime Minister, wholly unaware of the needs and aspirations of the countrymen who believe that economic growth can only be achieved through liberalised trade, the discredited minister had denied permission for this enormous venture, considering the views of the experts who predicted that it would have an adverse impact on the sustainability of biodiversity and a great mass of humanity in and around the proposed areas of industrial activity. This single action by an outgoing political head, in addition to turning the Wild Life (Protection) Act of 1972 and Forest (Conservation) Act of 1980 totally worthless, will open the floodgates for exploitative ventures in highly vulnerable wildlife habitats in the country. Hundreds of vultures are sitting on the fence waiting for the opportunity.
Earlier, relaxation of trade barriers had led to changes in the land-use pattern, altering the physical and biological geography of the central Indian forest landscape. At Singbhum in Jharkhand, Keonjhar in Odisha and Bastar in Chhattisgarh, land-use changes were introduced to accommodate open cast mines. Such adventurous initiatives in sensitive forest locations ultimately proved to be utterly detrimental to human and animal ecology.
State-supported displacement of tribal communities, who inhabit forests, has proved to be the major reason for the prevailing hostility in the jungles spread across Jharkhand, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. Ironically, apart from resulting in a mass exodus of indigenous forest dwellers and destruction of wildlife habitats, industrialisation of these locations, contrary to the assurances by project proponents, miserably failed to generate any employment opportunity for the locals. The indigenous people, mostly uneducated (in the conventional sense) and unskilled in any profession, were conveniently found to be redundant by the project promoters and discarded. Instead of creating pools of skilled workforce among local inhabitants, the promoters of industries depended on human resources from outside to run machines. This led to violent conflicts between neo-settlers and land losers. On paper, the rehabilitation and resettlement policies of several states stipulate that all industries that displace settlers in their place of activity have to reserve 90 per cent of unskilled and semi-skilled, 60 per cent of skilled and 30 per cent of supervisory and managerial jobs for the affected families. A joke indeed!
By conservative estimates, between 1950 and 1990, mining in forested locations has displaced 2.55 million people in India. I am quoting a few figures generated in 2012 ~ A study in Odisha found that 3143 families from 79 villages on 2427 hectares were displaced between 1950 and 1993. In Chhattisgarh, a total of 57,528 villagers have been compelled to leave their homes and are living as Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) within 23 relief camps in the southern part of the state. An additional 45,000 to 60,000 villagers have abandoned their villages and migrated to nearby states (Analysis and Situation Report on the Displacement Camps in Dantewada by Subash Mohapatra).
In Jharkhand, the number of forest dwellers who were displaced since 1995 because of industrialisation of forests is a staggering 1.5 million. Today, no one knows anything about the fate of these displaced persons and regrettably, none in the civilised world seems eager to know.
Not long ago, the rulers of our country identified the protesting tribes as the “biggest threat to the nation’s internal security”, overlooking the reasons for their changing attitudes. Such allegations made with a bias towards the proponents of industry have raised questions about the sincerity of our government’s commitments towards the poverty-stricken. Cynics believe that the policy-makers are acting at the behest of hidden faces with money-making ambition ~ a dubious way to please the rich and powerful by ignoring the needs and aspirations of the poor.
In course of my visits to the forest locations in central India, now the hotbed of extremism, I have encountered disgruntled and deprived village folk, armed with bows and arrows, threatening the state machinery for this injustice.
The USA’s Central Intelligence Agency has predicted that “globalised economies will be a net contributor to increased political stability …although its reach and benefits will not be universal. Its evolution will be rocky, marked by chronic volatility and widening economic divide. Regions, countries and groups feeling left behind will face deepening economic stagnation, political instability” (Global Trends 2015, quoted by the National Intelligence Council, USA). The predictions appear to be uncanny considering the scenario in contemporary India.
The areas that have suffered on account of industrialisation have become fertile ground for Maoist operations. Dubious state action added fuel to the dormant fire of anger among the deprived people and fashioned conditions that offered an opportunity to the Left radicals to fill the leadership void among the unwary villagers. This led to the emergence of violent village groups in the jungles of India. These Maoist leaders or strategists, predominantly from Andhra Pradesh and with no attachment to the soil or community and equipped with deadly weapons, sought certain assurances from the village tribes, notably shelter, local logistic support and... silence. In the early days of the insurgency, which coincided with the period of globalisation of the Indian economy and resultant mayhem in the jungles, there was an exuberant display of arrogance by neo-converts under the guidance of these self-seeking Maoists. The Journal of the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies reported that the income generated from ‘levies’ in the seven most Maoist-infested states of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Bihar, West Bengal and Maharashtra, amounts to nearly Rs 1,500 crore per annum (this does not take into account “grants” like the amounts paid by mining majors).
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