Protecting The Hills And Forests Is No Crime

The struggle of Adivasis and Dalits to hold on to their land and natural resources has become daunting across East India. The vicious police raids on two Adivasi villages in South Odisha – Talampadar and Kantamal – and the arrests of Adivasis resisting bauxite mining by Vedanta Limited bares the brutality of the state-corporate-military nexus that has become the face of capitalist extraction in India. Village Talaampadar was subject to a midnight raid on March 10 where 21 Adivasis, including 10 women, were picked up by the police and confined in the Bhawanipatna District Jail. On April 10, the same Odisha police carried out a midnight raid on village Kantamal with lathis (batons) and tear gas shells. Kantamal, a small village of around 150 households, is nestled among the bauxite rich hills of Sijimali, Majhingimali  and Kuturumali. One can view all three hill ranges from the vantage point of this village, one of the strongholds of the anti-mining resistance movement, spearheaded by the Ma Mati Mali Surakhya Manch. 

 The Odisha government paved the way for Vedanta Limited’s Sijimali Bauxite Mining Project in early 2023. The project spreads over both Thuamal Rampur block in Kalahandi District and Kashipur block in Raygada District.  The area covers 1549.022 hectares of the hills, estimated to have 311 million tons of bauxite.  The state’s bid for bauxite mining is seeing a heavy price paid by the Adivasis and Dalits of the Sijimali region where the right to dissent is met with warlike operations. Their cultural identity is at stake as the hills are the sacred abode of their deity Tij Raja and is home to them. 

These are Scheduled Areas that are protected by the Fifth Schedule of the Indian Constitution  and the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers Recognition of Forest Rights Act, 2006 (FRA). Private mining in Schedule V areas necessitates prior discussion and consent by the Gram Sabhas or village councils. In expressing their dissent to Vedanta’s bauxite mining project,  the  people of Rayagada and Kalahandi districts had left no stone unturned in the last two and a half years. They appealed to all levels of authority in the district, state and national level, including its Chief Minister Mohan Majhi and President Draupadi Murmu both of whom are from Adivasi origin. The key question is: what role should the state play in regions safeguarded by constitutional protective legislation? 

Since 2013, the antimining movement has been sopped in hundreds of criminal cases on large numbers of villagers. As villagers complied with each aspect  of the labyrinthine  processes mandated by the administration to obtain people’s consent for land acquisition, the stranglehold of the state-corporate-military nexus tightened ferociously.  In Sijimali, what began as foisting of fabricated cases and incarcerations had moved on to drone surveillance, police marches and midnight raids.  It had become a  conflict region solely for its natural resources akin almost to the global wars the world  is witnessing  24x7 between nation states, albeit, here the guns are trained on the indigenous communities of the land by its own elected government.  

The Terror Nights of March 10 and April 7 

On March 10, a village conflict in Talaampadar ended in a ghastly midnight raid by the local police that rounded up and arrested 21 people. As reported in a message by the villagers, the conflict took place when a villager was stopped from playing a DJ set in high volume. There had been hostility and lack of trust between him and the villagers as he was an erstwhile leading member of the anti-mining movement who is believed to have been silenced by the company middlemen.   Allegedly, abusive language and death threats were exchanged between the villagers and the few who stood by him. Unknown to the villagers, he went ahead a filed a complaint with the police.  

According to a villager, “We were all asleep at night when around 2 AM I heard loud banging on the door of my neighbor. He is our leader. We thought there dacoits trying to break open. So we ran out and yelled at everyone that we were being attacked by dacoits. By the time people gathered, we relaised there were 200-300 policement – some in full uniform and some in half uniform. Those in half uniform chased us and broke open doors of houses. Our leader’s house was attacked and raided. Many ran up the hill to hide in the forest. The group was armed with knives, batons and sticks. Each time they dragged out a person, villagers would surround and tried to prevent them from being dragged out by the crowd. There was continuous abuse from the police and the private persons accompanying them. The latter were helping the police identify houses. Whenever a house member was was dragged out and taken from the village to the main road, family members got nabbed as they tried to prevent it. This continued till 7 AM in the morning. By then, most of them had disappeared and only 30 policemen remained. If we have done something wrong, we can apologize and take responsibility but why should the police come in the middle of the night and torture us.” 

Women shared how their houses have been raided and their doorways had broken or damaged. There has been destruction and loss of both meagre belongings and important documents like Aadhar Card and Voter ID cards. The entire village was traumatized as anger seeped in slowly of the injustice inflicted on them by the police based on one conflict with a fellow villager. It did make them question whether  the police assault was deliberately engineered to terrorise and arrest villagers as the village is one of the strongholds of the anti-mining resistance movement. This became more evident when the yet another orchestrated attack with baton and tear gas shells hit Kantamal village a month later. 

In a visit to the jail, the women were seen to be in deep shock. Arrests seem to have been made at random. Some were as young as nineteen or early twenties. They said they did not know what triggered the midnight raid by the police as they were unaware of the initial conflict. They did not eat in protest for a couple of days. They were longing for their small children and filled with worry about who is looking after their families as they had been cooking each meal and tending to household responsibilities night and day. Also, many women and men are wage workers and anxious of the loss in wages. A young woman who lived with her visually impaired mother was most worried how she was managing her life. It is easier to romanticize women in resistance; yet these women appeared perplexed and uncertain, thinking how their families were sustaining in their absence while gradually grappling with the overall political context of the anti-mining resistance movement. The price paid is heavy. 

Less than a month later, in Village Kantamal, the police entered at 3 AM and targeted attacks on sleeping villagers. They were armed with lathis (batons) and tear gas shells. Someone from a neighbouring village working for the police allegedly bolted the doors from outside. And then when the commotion woke up people, most ran out of the backdoors. Tear gas shells were thrown into the houses as well as at them. Lathis were uaed; people were dragged away. The villagers fought back the intruder police force accompanied by private goons. This continued till dawn. 

A nineteen-year old girl said, “We were fast asleep when we were woken up by the noise. We ran out thinking they are thieves. We started chasing them. But they threw something. I do not know what is tear gas. I felt faint and nauseous. My eyes were streaming. I knew that we would die fighting for our hills. So I thought this is death. Let me die then. But soon we saw them whisking off some of our sisters, we ran and pulled them away. It went on for a long time.” Her mother sustained injuries on her hand. There was palpable fear in stepping out for treatment of wounds and injuries sustained. 

Merely petitioning the authorities and courts has run its course. Capitalism has hit the wall where its own regeneration depends solely on repression through massive militarization. Repression is inherent to processes of capital accumulation. It is not confined to the presence of police and foisting of cases. Many modes of repression are deployed when people exercise their fundamental right be it dissent  or demand of implementation of the law in court battles. One is the systematic creation of rifts within the community to pose a “pro-company” lobby that is actually paid a pittance per month for a period of time. By doling out monetary sops, some are made to join the police in hounding their own ilk. This chips away the collective will power of a community whose mores  and customs have rested on practices of mutual aid and reciprocity since ages. Or perhaps, the terror tactics and incarcerations of fellow villagers. Repression involves surveillance where people do not keep records, delete messages, avoid in-depth conversations and cut down on meetings that hamper collective decision making.  

However, the laws and procedures of the state are being flicked aside openly by the state as it lays down the red carpet for mega corporations that are hungry for bauxite. In this global economy, anti-mining and anti-dispossession mass movements need to garner global solidarity instead of remaining confined as isolated battles. The planet and all life on earth is confronting wanton destruction. As it always happens, as repression increases, so does resistance. The people of Sijimali are prepared to take on the fight to the to protect their hills. 

Ah, what an age it is 

When to speak of trees is almost a crime 

For it is a kind of injustice! (Bertolt Brecht)