The sordid saga of
Accumulation through violent dispossession: Contextualizing the massacre of
Adivasis in Kalinganagar (ODISHA)
Asit Das
Tribal societies can be an
example for discussing a probable model for a future democratic, egalitarian
social order for their inherent democratic social relations and economic
equality . As their name, Adivasi, suggests, their civilization preceded vedic
Hindu social order with its constitutive graded inequality. The tribals who
inhabited almost the entire Indian peninsula were pushed to the forests by the
consistent attacks by successive marauding armies of the Hindu Rajput Kings,
Marathas, Muslims and British imperial invaders. Our neo-liberal rulers and their professional
army of upper caste bureaucrats, establishment academicians rarely mention the
fact that the Adivasis were the first to take up arms and last to lay down arms
against British colonialism, we are all aware of the heroic rebellions of Birsa
munda, Sidhu Kano in the east, Khajyanayak, Tantyabhil, Rani Durgavati etc in
central and western India against British colonialism, not forgetting the
martyrdom of Laxman Naik in Orissa and stiff fight of Venkatappu Satyanarnyan
in Andhra. According to a conservative estimate every tenth Adivasi family has
produced a martyr in the fight against British imperial invaders . They died defending their people’s
traditional rights on land, water, forests and other natural resources, which
they had been enjoying since time immemorial. There was no concept of private
property or corporate control over natural resources in the lexicon of the
indigenous population ; these concepts of commodification were imposed on them
by the colonial masters.
An outstanding case in point of
the non-commodified mind-set of indigenous people is the letter of native
American chief of Seattle
to the American President whom he called the great White chief. In that letter he wrote to the American
President, how can you buy air, land or sunshine? Anyone who is aware of modern
American prosperity knows too well that the entire edifice of the modern industrial American empire was
built on the ruthless bloody massacre and decimation of native Americans to
take possession of their land and natural
resources; to build modern American industrial capitalism accompanied by
ruthless exploitation of slave labour of African slaves who were captured from
Africa; to build the so called free civilized America and capitalism in
Europe[ApJa5] . The colonialists all over the world replicated this story of
brutal primitive accumulation or ruthless capital accumulation through
dispossession, as is evident in the plunder of Latin
America, Asia & Africa.
In India the glaring example of
dispossession of tribals from their habitat is the Indian forest act, enacted
by the British imperialists in the nineteenth century, which snatched away the
forests from the Adivasis, which had been their main source of livelihood, the
rights over which they had since millennia. Adivasis are still struggling
against the draconian provisions of the act. Millions of Peasants workers and
Adivasis fought against the British imperial order in the hope that they could
regain their rights over the commons and the natural resources in independent India
and lead a dignified life, with total control over their means of livelihood.
Unfortunately this turned out to be a sour dream.
The newly independent post
colonial state took the same path of plunder in the name of development,
further displacing vulnerable communities of dalits and Adivasis by snatching
their commons and means of livelihood. This path of neo-colonial development
has displaced around 50 million people (Arundhati Roy - Greater Common Good),
which is almost equal to the population of United Kingdom. These displacements
occurred due to mega project like hydropower dams, factories, mines etc. These
projects were mainly in the territories inhabited by the Adivsis. When they
protested against displacement the state came down heavily against them,
imprisoning the protesting Adivasis in large numbers. In the early nineties,
when the Indian economy was opened under neo-liberal globalisation, there was a
rush of multinational corporations to plunder the resource rich tribal areas of
India.
The government of India
laid the red carpet for profit seeking multinational corporations bending all
the protective laws to give away the resource rich tribal areas to these
corporations for a song. Wherever the Adivasis protested, the most oppressive
provisions of the penal laws were used to put down their revolt.
Orissa, like the other Bimaru
states of Bihar and Jharkhand, is quite low in
the human development index with one of the lowest per capita incomes; on the
other hand it is a highly endowed state with extensive mineral rich areas.
Since the globalization of the Indian economy the state is up for sale to the
predatory multinational corporations eyeing the resource rich tribal areas of
Orissa. Orissa is a fifth schedule state with a high concentration of tribals
living in hills and forest tracts where most of the mines, dams, factories and
other mega projects are located. Since independence lakhs of Adivasis have been
displaced and pushed into penury - the state has no account of them, nor does
anybody know their fate.
POLICE FIRING IN KALINGA NAGAR
The recent police firing in
Kalinga Nagar, in which more than a dozen Adivasis were killed, is the result
of the eagerness of Orissa's rulers to catch up fast with other states. Though
endowed with rich natural resources Orissa was late to get industrialized.
Following the Nehruvian model there were several industries set up in Orissa,
mostly rich in mines, which included almost one fifth of the country's iron ore
deposit and the largest deposit of bauxite in India.
During the neo-liberal era the
state is selling off its commons and rich natural resources for a song to the
National and International big business. In this ruthless process millions of
vulnerable communities like Adivasis and dalits get uprooted from their natural
habitats and loose not only their livelihoods but also their cultural moorings
and sense of belonging. This ruthless process of dispossession contributes to
the slums in the cities and increases the pauperised reserve army of labour
bulging the ranks of the unemployed.
Orissa’s tribal population is
22.21% of the total population and 73% of them are below poverty level.
According to studies of displacement in the tribal areas of Orissa done by
Dr.Walter Fernadez, ex-head of tribal research section of Indian Social
Institute, displacement of tribals in Orissa caused by industrialisation,
between 1951 and 1995, was more than 2 million people without any satisfactory
rehabilitation. Out of these, 40% were
tribals, 20% dalits and 20% were other backward castes. Since the past decade
and half during the liberalisation phase, multinational giants have been
usurping the mineral rich areas of Orissa and when the tribals protest the
state government resorts to extreme repression.
A well known case is the Kasipur mining
belt of Rayagada district formally part of the undivided District of Koraput,
which has a cruel history of untold miseries caused to the Adivasis due to
various mega projects like the Hindusthan Aeronatics Limited, National aluminum
company, the upper Kolab hydro-electric dam etc. A few years ago six Adivasis
were killed in police firing in the Maikanch village of Kashipur
block in Rayagada district. They were protesting against their displacement to
be caused by the bauxite mining and Alumina smelter plant, by the Canadian
multinational Utkal Alumina, whose parent company is Alcan in Canada . This is one of the poorest
regions in Orissa but with almost on half of the bauxite deposit of India,
through mining, project people will be further pauperized after loosing their
homestead and agricultural lands. The poor Adivasis of this area have been
fighting against the management of Alcan and Hindalco under the banner of
Prakrutik Sampad Suraksha Parishad since ten years. During their struggle, the
villagers and activists of Kasipur have undergone being jailed, lathi charged
and clamped with false criminal cases etc.
Another despicable incident in
Kasipur was when the government decided to set up a police out post and police
barrack at Karol near Kuchipadar village in Kasipur. On December 2nd 2004 the
collector and SP of Rayagada arrived with 10 platoons of central reserve police
and Orissa state armed police force. Around 400 people, men and women, sat down
on the road in a peaceful Dharna. When asked to move they refused, to which the
police force threatened the women if they don’t move each one of them will be
raped; all this was happening in the presence of the district Collecter and SP.
Ultimately when the people refused to budge there was a brutal lathi charge in
which more than a dozen men and women were seriously injured and later sent to
jail on trumped up charges.
In the neo-liberal era some of
the backward states with overwhelming tribal population have been bending over
backwards on inviting multi-national companies (MNCs) to invest in the state,
and competing with each other in the mad rush of getting foreign direct
investment (FDI). The state governments
are in a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signing spree. The government of
Orissa has signed 43, the government of Jharkhand 42 and the government of
Chhatisgarh 48. It should be noted that all these states have high
concentration of tribal population. These MOUs have been singed by some of the
well known International and Indian mega corporations like Posco (Korea),
Vedanta Alumina (UK), Rio Tinto(Uk), BHP Billiton (UK-Australia), Alcan
(Canada), Hindalco, Jindal, Larsen and Tubro and Bhusam. Overall mining
projects worth Rs. 30,000 crore have already begun in Orissa and projects worth
a further Rs. 1.10000 crore are in the pipeline[i]. All these multinational
corporations eye the resource rich tribal areas, a result of which tribals
continue to get uprooted and marginalised.
The Kalinga Nagar police firing
in Orissa should be seen in the context of a fast globalizing world where
rapacious multinational and national industrialists try to grab every inch of
land in the tribal areas, the areas of one of the most dispossessed and
marginalised of the social groups in India. When they stand up to resist
this predatory encroachment on their habitat and traditional livelihood they
face the most brutal repression by the security forces acting on behalf the
MNCs and National big businesses.
The state repression against
trible resistance reached its Nadir in the recent Kalinga Nagar firing, in
which 12 people were killed in police firing.. Here is a brief sketch about the
objective facts of the predatory industrialisation which culminated in the
police firing and Killing of tribal protestors at Kalinga nagar in Jaipur
district of Orissa. The police firing should be seen in the context of peoples'
uprisings in Orissa against the missile testing range in Baliapal, the
privatisation of Chilika lake, the bauxite mining and Alumina complex in
Kasipur, bauxite mining in the Gandhmardan hills in western Orissa, the
resistance against the Tata steel plant in Gopalpur of Ganjam district, mining
in Niyama giri, a dam in Lower Sukhtel and so on. The Kalinga Nagar area in Jajpur district
lies contiguously with iron ore and other mineral rich regions of nearby
Keonjhar district. In early decades of independence an express highway was
built from this region to Paradip port with Japanese aid mainly to export iron
ore to Japan
at a cheap price. Since the past one and half decades of the liberalisation
regime these areas have been handed over to the MNCs and Indian big business by
the government of Orissa at a throwaway price, forcibly evicting tribals,
dalits and marginalised peasants. Most of the metallurgical plants coming up in
this region are hi-tech export oriented enterprises, with minimum scope of
employment generation for the local unemployed youth. They simultaniously cause
massive destruction of livelihood by displacing people from their villages,
thus adding to the unemployment by erasing rural communities with their artisan
skills which had provided them self employment in agriculture and allied
traditional artisan employment.
The police massacre of tribals is an eye
-opener to what has been happening in Orissa in the name of industrialisation -
the competition to get more and more foreign direct investment, where the
government of Orissa has been acquiring tribal lands at a very low price and
handing them over to the MNCs without properly rehabilitating the tribals and
paying them fair compensation. In the Kalinga Nagar area the land of the
Adivasis of different villages was acquired in early 1990’s by the industrial
development corporation of Orissa (IDCO) and were handed over to the house
Tatas who wanted to build a steel plants. IDCO acquired the land from tribal
for Rs. 35,000 per acre and sold it to Tisco (Tata iron and steel company) for
Rs.3.5 lakh per acre.
What happened in January 2nd in
Kalinga Nagar, when 12 people were killed by the state police in the presence
of the district offcials, is the result of a new awareness spreading in the
Adivasi regions in Orissa, thanks to the relentless struggles and campaigns
carried out by different people
movements and left organisations pointing out the fact that the Adivasis and
other marginal communities can not be the sacrificial lambs in this ruthless
march of capitalism in the name industrialisation and development. This
incident was symptomatic of the deeper malaise of intense commodification of
the commons and ruthless accumulation through dispossession under the
neo-liberal regime. Through their resistance from Kalinga Nagar to the Narmada valley to Koelkaro they are asking the pertinent
question - development for whom? Where will this greedy senseless commodification
of commons and war of elimination against Adivasis lead the country? Is it development for a few urban elites
including the national and international big business, corrupt politicians and
bureaucrats or a dignified life for the teeming millions?
It is
high time the Left and democratic organisations build up a powerful mass
movement of tribals, dalits, women, peasants and workers against Neo-Liberal
globalisation and usher in a democratic egalitarian society where there is no
exploitation of man by man, man of woman, and man of nature, and build a
society of producers where the development of each is the condition, for the
development of all.
(This writeup was published in
Mainstream April 2007 and Hindi translation was published in “Filhaal” (Patna)
in July 2007. it was also published in red star July 2007 and Hindi translation
in “Barg Sangrash ki Pukar” in July 2007.)
Email-Id: asit1917@gmail.com
