In a tragic development, two children, one and half year old girl Sumi
(D/O Punjabi kalundia, Gadapur Village) and five years old Raoul (S/o
Debendra Kalundia, Gadapur village), died of hunger and heat, while
their family was hiding from the police in the hills near Duburi. Two
more tribal men, Suren Tamsay, Chandipur Village and Gardi Gaipai,
Gobarghati Village who were injured in a police lathicharge, have also
died while hiding from the police. Another child, son of Sana Bhadra,
has been missing as his mother has been arrested by the police. The
deaths of innocent children and tribals caps a larger tragedy wherein
thousands of tribals are being thrown off their ancestral land to
make ways for industries in the Kalinganagar complex of Jajpur
district of Orissa.

On 9th May 2005, at village Khurunti, narly 300 tribals and harijans
gathered to oppose the Bhumi Puja of the proposed steel plant of
Maharastra Semaless Steel ltd. The plant is expected to displace over
6000 people in 13 village. They had to face severe lathi charge by the
police in presence of ADM, Kalinga Nagar. In the melee that ensued,
the ADM Kalinga Nagar and the Inspector in charge were injured and
have been hospitalized. Their injuries have been covered extensively
and sympathetically in the press and in the TV channels whereas the
other side of the story has been completely ignored, including the
tribals who were injured in the lathi charge. The ensuing massive
police repression on the local tribals and the arrests meant that all
these people had to flee to the mountains and forest in the vicinity,
leading to the tragic death of four people, including two children.

Kalinganagar Complex is a massive industrial park set up by IDCO in
Jajpur District where industries are being allocated land. IDCOL has
already acquired the land in the area through the Land acquisition
act. The land acquisition by IDCO had provisions of providing
compensation for patta land and 10 decimal of land for homesteads for
the landless. However, the local tribal people have been mostly
cultivating non-patta land due to faulty survey and settlements and
regularization of land. Even though they are absolutely dependent on
these lands for their livelihoods, they are neither being offered
compensation or land in return for the land cultivated for them. The
tribals also allege that even people who were eligible for receiving
compensation have not received it because of faulty procedures and
delays. At the same time, the tribals say that they depend on their
landscape i.e. the forests, the streams and the common land, and how
will the government compensate for the loss of these resources.

The threat of forced displacement without any alternative livelihoods
and loss of ancestral lands have led to a strong resistance- as long
back as in 1996, the local people has successfully stopped the
establishment of a plant by Bhushan Steel at the same site. Therefore
the opposition to the Bhumi Puja of Maharastra Seamless Steel was to
be anticipated. For the last four months, the locals have been saying
that they will not allow the Bhumi Puja unless all their demands are
met.

The local people say that the ADM, Kalinga Nagar, promised them that
there was no plans for holding the Bhumi Puja. However on seeing the
preparations for Bhumi Puja on 9th May morning, the local villagers
spread the word, and soon 300 tribals, men, women and children,
gathered to stop the Bhumi Puja. The ADM and the IIC discussed with
the leaders of the gathering and told them that the Bhumi Puja is
being postponed and that they should surrender all their traditional
weapons including bow and arrows. The leaders, not wanting any
confrontation, asked everybody to surrender their traditional weapons.
Immediately the ADM and the IIC changed their stand and asked the
people to disperse saying that they will have the Bhumi Puja at any
cost. When people didn't move a lathi charge was ordered. The menfolk
in the front of the gathering lay down on the ground offering no
resistance and were beaten up brutally. Seeing their menfolk being
beaten up brutally, the women started pelting stones on the policemen
and officials to save the men. In the melee that followed, a number of
people including the Officials were injured. The police force left the
scene threatening the women that they will be back.

Immediately, strong police repression started and 26 persons,
including 25 women, have been arrested and sent to jail. Strangely,
the same Sub-inspector filed the FIR against almost 300 people,
received the FIR and then conducted enquiry, on which basis arrest
warrants for over 300 people have been issued. The administration
along with OSAP is still conducting raids in the villages. Almost all
the other families have fled to the forests and hills nearby and the
villages are empty. Temperatures of more than 40 C in the hills and
lack of food and water has led to the death of two kids and two men.
The two men, Suren and Gardi were already injured in the lathi charge
and had taken shelter in the hills. Another old man aged 70, Pandu
Gagasai of Gadapur Village, has had his ribs and back broken in the
lathicharge. The villagers allege that Prafulla Ghadei, the local MLA
and the Finance minister in the current BJP-BJD Government has
informally instructed the local hospitals not to treat the people from
the resisting villages.

The tribals of Kalinga Nagar have taken a decision that they will not
leave the land that they have been cultivating. Today, i.e. on 15th
May, the Bhumi Puja of Tata Steel is proposed at village Champa and
the tribals have decided to oppose it. It is expected that another
round of police repression and conflict will be initiated with today's
Bhumi Puja.

The Kalinganagar tragedy and repression is but the tip of the larger
tragedy facing the tribal people of Orissa. Deprived of their
traditional land and forests by wily outsiders and the forest
department, they eke out meager livings through cultivation on
government land and through collection of forest products.
Unfortunately for them, they also sit on some of the most valuable
mineral deposits including iron ore, bauxite, coal, which are now
attracting massive investments from Indian corporate houses and MNCs.
The State, utterly dominated by a ruthless, corrupt and non-tribal
political leadership, is bent on facilitating the loot of Orissa's
mineral resources by the MNCs and Indian Corporates, without any
thought to the price being paid by the poor tribals being displaced by
these projects. , their land taken away, the air and water polluted
and their forests destroyed. Whole cultures and societies are being
uprooted in the name of industrial and mineral development in Orissa.
The arc of displacement by mining and industries in northen Orissa
spreads from Kalinganagar area of Jajpur, extending through Angul,
Dhenkanal, Keonjhar, Sundargarh, Jharsuguda and Sambalpur – much of
which is primarily inhabited by Scheduled tribes. In South, Bauxite is
the major mineral to be extracted from the flat topped malis (tallest
mountain peaks), each one of them sacred to the local tribes and each
one the source of life giving perennial streams originating from the
bauxite deposit.

The tragedy of displacement of the tribals has been compounded by the
fact that the State owns most of the land in these districts, thanks
to faulty Survey and Settlement processes which has taken away all the
land used by the tribals except for the land in the valleys. In some
tribal districts such as Gajapati, Kandhamals and Rayagada, as much as
85% of the land is owned by the Government, either as Revenue Land or
Forest land whereas as much as 50% of the tribal households are
landless. Treated as encroachers in their own traditionally owned
lands, the tribal is evicted without any compensation whenever the
land is required by the State for any development projects, including
the industries now being installed. Thus the tribal people of Orissa
are being made homeless and landless in the land and forests which
their ancestors had been living for ages. Their resistance to this
cultural and economic genocide is termed as their being
antidevelopment and is countered with massive police repression and
arrests, as evidenced in Kashipur, Lanjigarh and now in Kalinga nagar.
The Kalinga nagar episode is yet another tragedy in the larger drama
of internal colonization, expropriation and repression faced by the
tribal people of Orissa.

Nachiketa,
Independent media, Bhubaneswar