Undermining Development - by Ranjan K Panda

Ranjan K Panda is a senior researcher and development practitioner, currently heading Manav Adhikar Seva Samitee (MASS) in Sambalpur, Orissa. Skillshare has worked in partnership with MASS for over six years. We have placed development workers as doctors at MASS and supported a major community health programme to train tribal community health volunteers. Through this project, 69 tribal women were trained over three years in preventive, maternal and child health, and nutrition. This was a positive change for the tribal communities whose access to institutionalised health care is near absent. These volunteers became change agents in their villages. We have also enabled MASS and the tribal communities to participate in key advocacy initiatives around the Forest Rights Act to help them gain access and control over forest resources on which they depend.

The mad rush for mining minerals in India’s two poorest states - Orissa and Jharkhand – continues. The dream of development that the state governments promised in the form of mines has turned out to be a nightmare for the communities. People who have lost their resources and livelihood to mining now wonder what the promised development means for them.

For tribal communities, this model of developing the land and economy does not work as it takes away their capital – forests. They feel that it is the ecology that can provide them with a sustainable source of livelihood.  But for the government's policy makers, a ‘future super-power’ like India cannot keep on depending on fragile resources like land and forests. Amid these debates more and more people lose their crucial natural resources.

As mining grows, people’s lives shrink
in this village. They have lost land and
forests to the mines.

Coal mining has left all water sources polluted in this village. Without any provision for clean water, people are forced to use water laden with contaminants like heavy metals.

This visual essay takes us to some of the mining and forest areas in Orissa and Jharkhand to show us an alternative meaning of development from the perspective of those in whose names governments are mining. Local residents, dominantly adivasis and dalits, have been stripped of their livelihoods and left to fend for themselves. Their most important source of livelihood has fallen prey to industrial development and despite a new Act in their favour, the indigenous communities have lost their basic rights to access the forest resources.

In Orissa, the photo chronicler travelled across mining areas in Sambalpur, Jharsuguda and Keonjhar districts.  These areas were once known for rich forest resources; the local economy totally depended on it. Sustainable development, much before it became a modern buzzword, was the way of life here. 

Travelling along a modern highway, you pass grotesque mines and sponge iron factories which spew out smoke. These districts report high deforestation and land degradation. People have been displaced, both from their land and source of livelihood, by increasing industrialisation. Rehabilitating them is not a concern of the modern developers. Some have reconciled themselves to an existence on the periphery, being slowly choked by the pollution.

In Jharkhand, the chronicler travelled to uranium mine areas in Jadugoda. This is where India’s nuclear dream is fuelled. It is India’s only uranium mine. The government insists that there is no threat of radiation to local people or any health hazards from uranium mining. Reality belies the claim. Dumps of uranium ore wastes are scattered everywhere and unsafe storage of mine tailings greet you as you enter this small town. The radioactivity associated with uranium and nuclear waste dumped in this area has been a cause of major health hazards and severe deformities have been observed among the children of the area.  Women complain of severe health problems including disturbed menstrual cycles, miscarriages and still-births.  As the government explores new mining sites in the area, there are eruptions of public anger.

He gave away his land for
mining and is now homeless.

The faster the arrival of
mining projects, the vaster
the destruction for local people.

After decades of battles, when the forest communities of India heard that the Indian Parliament had passed the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Bill, 2006 (popularly known as the Forest Rights Bill), they cheered as they thought they had finally found a weapon to fight the historical injustice done to them.  This happiness was short lived.  They soon realised that recommendations of a Joint Parliamentary Committee of 30 MPs had been ignored and were not included in the Bill. 

The fight continues.  And, with growing indiscriminate mining and mega development projects, the forests are thinning fast for the indigenous communities of Orissa and Jharkhand.  While radical transformation has happened in India in the field of public forest management systems, political and operational constraints have slowed the devolution of rights over forests to communities. The powerful community initiatives in forest management have been grossly ignored and neglected by policy makers and administrators.  Reports say, while up to 35 million hectares have been brought under the control of community groups, this still represents a very small percentage of the area that could benefit from regulations and methods introduced by the villagers themselves. There are currently about 300 million people in India who depend on the forests for their livelihoods. Much of India's forest land is over exploited and caught in a process of biotic degradation. (Ministry of Environment and Forests, Volume 1. 1999a:p.124). 

Orissa and Jharkhand have large tribal communities. These states also have evidence of pioneering community forest management initiatives.  The communities are losing their hold on their forests because of government apathy and rapid deforestation. 

So called development projects such as mining are a major cause of deforestation. That’s where this essay provides a link between mining and forestry and the growing marginalisation of the tribal communities who depend on these resources.  In Orissa alone, about 10,000 hectares of rich forests have been cleared for these kinds of projects.  Mining and deforestation displaces poor communities who depend on natural resources.  Development here has thus excluded the very people in whose name the projects were started.

Mining affects are seen everywhere.
A choked drain floods agriculture fields rendering them useless.

On his way to nowhere: A man
looks on as his crop field is being mined.

Three men walk in their crop field
which has turned into a dumping
yard for mining companies without
being legally acquired.

Mining has taken away everything.

A man who had been given a job as part of the compensation package was sacked because he was ill. “I gave my livelihood
to earn disease.”

Slow poison: Sponge iron
pollutes water bodies.

A resident shows how a sponge iron
factory has choked a nallah that used to irrigate farm lands.

A 19-year old boy suffers from rare disabilities due to the mining.

As uranium mines disable children in Jharkhand, lack of proof prevents people from claiming rights or compensation.

The nuclear child's play: Children suffering
from disease around uranium mines can hardly form a team to play.

The forests provide a sustainable source of livelihood for some communities, but they face lot of hardship to access these resources.

Livelihood from forests. 

Protecting the future.  Tribal communities in Orissa and Jharkhand have been protecting their forests for generations, but their efforts are not recognised.

Weaving life.  Six to eight months a year, the forest communities earn from the forests.  However, the increasing number of forests marked for mining and other projects like
dams is shrinking this livelihood source.

Even though the Forest Rights Bill has come into force, forest communities in Orissa and Jharkhand still find their access to forests restricted and are protesting.

Critical time: “The past was better".

"When forests were near, we lived healthier
lives.  Now that mines have eaten up our forests, we are stressed."

Photos copyright Skillshare/Ranjan K Panda (2007).