Revenue rules over rights

By Hartman de Souza
12 Jul 2010

Environment ministry of India says the Dongria Kondh tribals are threatened by the proposed Niyamgiri mine in Orissa. Yet, Prime Minister's office is keen to grant it approval. Do these poor tribals not qualify as being people under the constitution?

It is now common news that the office of the Prime Minister has written to the Environment and Forests Ministry asking it to clear Vedanta's proposed Niyamgiri mine in Orissa. An agency report quotes an Adivasi, a Dongria Kondh tribal, from the area telling Survival International that the mining of ore only makes profit for the rich and that his people will be reduced to being beggars if the company destroys their mountain and forest for mining.

His words parallel a report commissioned by the Environment Ministry to investigate Vedanta's plan earlier this year that warned that the Niyamgiri mine could 'lead to the destruction of the Dongria Kondh people'.

The Ministry on its part appointed yet another team of experts to conduct further investigations, before making a decision on granting official clearance urging it to report back by the 29th July - the day after London-based billionaire Anil Agarwal's FTSE100 company Vedanta holds its Annual General Meeting in London. The expert team will investigate the mine's potential 'impact on the livelihood, culture and material welfare of the Dongaria Kondh' and its 'impact on the Wildlife and Biodiversity in the surrounding areas' as if the world and its mother did not already know.
One suspects the position that may be taken by the new expert panel thanks to a diktat from a GDP growth rate-obsessed Government or, for that matter, by a new cash-strapped government in the UK. Just last year the then UK government condemned Vedanta, declaring that it 'did not respect the rights of the Dongria Kondh' and that a 'change in the company's behaviour [is] essential.'

Not to be left out of the critique, the Church of England, the Norwegian government and the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust were among the high-profile investors that sold their Vedanta shares over serious human rights concerns, and as Survival's director Stephen Corry rightly noted: India's Prime Minister "ought to be protecting the rights of India's most vulnerable citizens, not helping to railroad through a project that government experts have warned could destroy them".

Even as this is being written, the Dutch Asset management firm, PGGM has disinvested its €13m stake in Vedanta Resources, including its subsidiaries Sterlite Industries, Hindustan Zinc and Sesa Goa citing the company for "persistently ignoring environment and human rights. The firm which manages the €91billion healthcare scheme PFZW, said it had exchanged letters and held numerous talks with the company over the last two years regarding its mining activities in Orissa, but that the company made no concrete improvements. It further noted Vedanta's refusal to co-operate on environmental and human rights issues had increasingly put the company's reputation at risk, which, PGGM felt, translated into a financial risk.
Perhaps most damning is that Vedanta declined to participate in a roundtable meeting with experts - initiated by the group of investors - to discuss possible solutions for problems in Orissa.

Through all this, one must perforce ask why the Prime Minister's office is determined on bringing this company to our Adivasi lands. Does this population of ours left dangling at the antipodes all these years not qualify as being people under the constitution? Our English TV Channels in Delhi covering the problems in our eastern Ghats are quick to refer to the misdirected Naxalites as 'butchers' although there are some facts, courtesy publications of the Centre for Science and Environment, that they ought to engage with:
Mining royalties in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand contribute only 10 to 13 percent of total revenue receipts; in Orissa it is 5 to 6 per cent; in Andhra 3 per cent. Is there reason to suspect that the Adivasis are angry at losing their livelihoods?
In 1995 to produce 1 crore tonnes of ore, the mining industry employed 25 people, in 2005 this number dropped to 8, a decrease of 70 per cent. Where will the jobs come from? As there is no comprehensive date on people displaced by mining, available data suggests less than 25 per cent have been actually looked after.

For every armed Adivasi there may be close to 10 armed government personnel. In the same areas the average landholding is less than half a hectare and perhaps one drinking water source for 1,000 Adivasis. It makes one wonder what is really more obscene: a reluctant Adivasi with an AK 47 in his or her hand, or bulldozers taking away sacred shrines, forests and traditional water sources at the behest of a mining baron who probably doesn't even know what Adivasi means or stands for.