From mountains to plains, Orissa tribals journey to protest against mining

Representatives of the Dongria Kondhs, a primitive community with a total population of 12,000 residing on Niyamgiri mountains in Orissa.

Representatives of the Dongria Kondhs, a primitive community with a total population of 12,000 residing on Niyamgiri mountains in Orissa, have come to Delhi with a mission. They want to ensure that the Government does not give permission to Vedanta Resources to mine bauxite in the Niyamgiri hills.

They have met a few parliamentarians and representatives from the President’s office. They are awaiting appointments from the Prime Minister and Sonia Gandhi’s office.

The Supreme Court that has been hearing the case since 2004, has decided to reserve the judgment for now. The SC bench comprising CJI K G Balakrishnan and Justices Arijit Pasayat and S H Kapadia had concluded the hearings of the case by asking the company to give a written undertaking within a week that it would set aside 5% of its net profits for tribal welfare.

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“These mountains are our life . We don’t know where to go once the mining starts,” says Jeetu, one of the handful of those tribals who is educated and can speak a few English words. “We cannot understand why our arguments were not heard in the last hearing in the Supreme Court,” he added. They consider the mountains to be sacred.

The clearnace, if granted, will negate the findings of the Central Empowered Committee (CEC), appointed by the Court. They had pointed out that the forest land was cleared in violation of the Forest Conservation Act for the Vedanta refinery. The hills were also repository of rich biodiversity and should not be destroyed for mining. Alternative sources could have been found for the refinery, they had contended.

Based on the CEC report, last week, Norway Pension Fund decided to withdraw investments in the UK-listed Vedanta for alleged environmental and human rights violations.

Rallying under the banner of Kashipur Solidarity Group, the representatives of the tribals said in Delhi, “Allowing Vedanta Alumina Ltd to mine Niyamgiri hills would open the floodgates for several mining projects and reinforce the view that adivasis can be sacrificed for projects whose gains for the people at large will be minimum or even non-existent.”