It is a cruel irony that in many parts of the world where valuable minerals have been found and exploited, significant sections of local people experience increased distress and disruption instead of benefiting from the new economic boom. This is particularly true of rural people, farmers, pastoralists and those dependent on forest-based support systems, who may find farms, pastures and forests devastated by indiscriminate mining.
At times an entire region may be devastated to such an extent that its capacity to support people in sustainable ways is destroyed within a few decades of indiscriminate mining. The harm to water sources and rivers, in particular, may extend over a much wider area. Thus a system capable of protecting the environment and providing sustainable development for hundreds of years—in the past and in the future—can be destroyed within a few decades of mining on a scale and using methods that are beyond the carrying capacity of a region.
The concept of carrying capacity is very important, particularly for ecologically fragile regions, and even more so in times of climate change. We must recognise the value of a system that is stable in the sense that its communities’ time-honoured practices have evolved in tune with local environmental conditions, remain sustainable, and can continue to support life patterns that people consider satisfactory for the most part, without transgressing critical environmental boundaries. Any distress experienced by people within such a stable system—for example, drought, other forms of adverse weather or minor disruptions—can be reduced or overcome with community support or help from the welfare state.
When much bigger interventions like large-scale mining are to be introduced in such systems, the first question that needs to be asked is: what scale, location and methods can be allowed so that the essential stability and sustainability of the existing system is not disturbed? Having explored this question in satisfactory and democratic ways with local communities—regarding the extent and type of mining that can be allowed and the safeguards required—the government can then permit, assist or pursue mining accordingly.
This is very different from auctioning huge mines and then allowing big mining companies to carry out mining according to their profit-maximisation practices, regardless of local and wider environmental impacts. On the basis of past experience, this can cause immense harm to local sustainable livelihoods and life patterns and, beyond that, to water sources and the environment over a much wider area. It can disrupt time-honoured community life of great value and increase the possibilities of widespread social discontent.
All this is of great relevance to the ongoing debates on bauxite mining in Odisha’s Rayagada-Kalahandi-Koraput belt, which has the biggest bauxite deposits in India, concentrated in the ecologically fragile Eastern Ghats region with a significant tribal population. Most of this area has significant constitutional and legal protections—Fifth Schedule areas, the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act (PESA) and the Forest Rights Act (FRA)—which provide a good base in India for protecting people’s livelihoods and, in turn, the environment and natural resources.
A lot of media attention has focused on the distress experienced by these communities during droughts or other adverse times. While well-intentioned, this may have diverted attention from the wider reality that people here value their sustainable livelihoods and self-reliant life patterns, and that more problems are caused when they drift away from these, often due to external factors. Of course, help is needed and appreciated to overcome difficult situations, and the activities of the welfare state are appreciated. However, it is important to emphasise that while people need and welcome genuine help, they do not want any disruption of their time-honoured life and livelihoods.
When I visited several villages in this region several years ago, I documented farming practices of several families which could be improved further with thoughtful ideas aimed at strengthening such livelihoods and climate resilience.
The government in recent times has often emphasised the importance of higher and better production of millets and legumes. Here in this region we have many farmers, particularly women farmers, who can teach us a lot about this. The government rightly talks of promoting improved self-reliance and climate resilience, and here again these farmers, including women, can teach us a lot, as their farming has traditionally been ecologically protective and based mostly on better use of local resources.
We talk a lot about biodiversity and the protection of diverse seeds, crop rotations and mixed farming systems that are in tune with the soil and water conservation needs of a village; in the traditional system here we already have much of this. We talk of protecting nature and the environment; in many villages here we have the best of this, based on regarding forests and the water sources arising from them as sacred.
Unfortunately, as huge mining blocks are sanctioned and huge amounts of money are involved, some of the most powerful persons tend to ignore all these considerations and push only large-scale mining interests.
This has already led to a very distressing situation in the Odisha mining belt. Things can be done in a very different way, with due emphasis on the environment, people and all forms of life. The Indian and Odisha democratic systems revealed earlier that they are capable of truly great democratic achievements when, about a decade ago, during 2013–16 or so, the state and Union governments, social and environmental activists, all guided by the Supreme Court, achieved highly democratic processes resulting in decisions to avoid destructive mining practices and protect tribal communities in Niyamgiri. This was a clear victory of protective precepts over money power, a victory of the humble tribal hut over the mansions of mining billionaires, and a victory guided by the Supreme Court of India which won praise and appreciation all over the world.
Now these earlier achievements can be crushed in the new mining areas, or even the old protective decisions can be reversed—efforts are already being made for this—if the ongoing acts of repression continue. In the same wider region or neighbouring areas where Supreme Court-protected gram sabha decision-making had achieved a great democratic victory in the context of Niyamgiri earlier, it has been deeply disturbing to hear reports of faking public hearings and people’s consent in recent times.
Several disturbing developments of recent times include arbitrary arrests of community members and activists, even a doctor deeply committed to serving the people, Dr. Randall Sequeira. As per reports, a delegation of senior citizens, comprising retired civil servants and police officers, met the Odisha Chief Minister in August to check the relentless spread of indiscriminate mining, which ignores essential safeguards to protect the concerns of local communities and the environment. The government at the highest level should not only heed this advice but also seek the help of some of these experienced officials to make overdue reforms, starting with the release of arrested community members, social and environmental activists and community leaders such as Laxman Naik, Lingaraj Azad and Ladda Sikaka, and of course Dr. Randall Sequeira. The government rightly calls upon doctors to serve the poor in remote rural areas; it should not at the same time arrest and humiliate those who voluntarily decide to serve the poor in remote villages in the middle of many difficulties. Cases should be withdrawn. Everyone should strive sincerely to make a new beginning to ensure justice-based policies in the mining areas of Sijimali (also known as Tijimali), Kutrumali and elsewhere.
With the help of communities and activists, retired officials who have demanded reforms in mining policy, the legal experts who helped with the earlier report of the Supreme Court’s Central Empowered Committee on Niyamgiri, and scholars who have studied areas like Sijimali, the government should prepare a new mining policy that meets the most essential concerns of the people as well as the environment.
The Odisha government should live up to this responsibility. In the past, the state government won well-deserved international praise for saving human life in disaster situations. Its officials have shown that they can rise to meet big challenges. Now the challenge is to have a mining policy that can integrate the concerns of protecting livelihoods, the environment and human rights. Odisha has the wisdom and capabilities, the officials, the communities and the civil society to achieve this.
The Odisha government should be known widely in the near future for such achievements, not for equating the spread of mining with repression. Will the state government, helped by the national government, rise to this challenge? Will the courts also continue to live up to the great democratic achievement of the Supreme Court earlier in the context of Niyamgiri?
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The writer is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Man over Machine (The Vision of Mahatma Gandhi), When the Two Streams Met (Freedom Movement of India), Protecting Earth for Children and A Day in 2071. His website is bharatdogra.in and his YouTube channel is Bharat Dogra | Save Earth Campaign
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