Another Singur in Making in Jharkhand

Is Aamgachi village of Kantikund P.S. under Dumka district of Jharkhand going to be the Singur of Jharkhand? Is the ground being prepared for another Nandi gram in making? These are million dollars questions, which every one aspires to enquire into.

The Police Firing on tribal people who were protesting against the proposed construction of a power plant by one Calcutta Electric Supply Corporation Ltd (CESC) of RPG (Goenka) group in Aamganchi revenue village of kantikund police station under Dumka district of Jharkhand on 6th of December which left six people dead and few injured, has once again raised the issue of displacement versus development in this tribal dominated newly created state of Jharkhand.

With the creation of this state on 14th November 2000, the hopes of paradigm shift in developmental strategies ran high across the millions of people in this State. The State got first tribal CM and wheels of change were set in. 

Several MOUs were signed and it seemed, at least apparently, that the fate of this poverty stricken state would catapult into prosperity, but the swelled hopes quickly deflated owing to nasty political games resulting in frequent changing of guards one by one causing political instability and rampant corruption on highest level.

As far as this crisis is concerned, the crux of the matter is that CESC limited proposed to set up a thermal power plant of installed capacity of 1000 MW in Aamgachi village in Katikund block. This region happened to be the Sibu soren’s home constituency.

The company required 700 acres of land, but it initially requested the govt for 328 acres of land only because this much land was required for plants and machinery in this village. The process of land acquisition started and notification to this effect were issued. Initially all went right at least apparently, but subsequently one lady named Munni Hansda came into picture and floated an ‘ulgulan manch’ to what she calls, ‘protect the tribal people from eviction and alienation’.

The thermal power plant requires two basic facilities, coal and water. The company was allotted captive coal mines near the proposed site at Aamgachi by Ministry of Coal govt of India on 9th January, 2008. The company sources say that the proposed plant would require 3.33 MCM of water per month which would be made available by Brahmni river during rainy season, but for the remaining season the plant would require storage facility for which they would require additional land. The locals were knowing the future plans of the company. 

In this backdrop, the agitation against eviction and land acquisition was progressing side by side. In the first week of December, the ‘Ulgulan Manch’ started ‘jail bharo agitation’ and accelerated pace of movement. The district authority seeing the mood of agitators promulgated prohibitory orders under section 144 of Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) in the area.

On 6th December, 2008, the mob turned violent because the police wanted to stop them from violating the prohibitory orders. The mob suddenly went amok and there was heavy exchange of stone pelting resulting into injuries from both sides. The police later opened fire, to what they call; quell the unruly and violent mob resulting into six causalities and several injuries. The entire area turned into a battle field and it seemed that the situation which was witnessed in Singur is being replayed. 

Medha Patker, as usual, appeared on the scene thereafter; and it seems now that the grounds are being prepared for making it another Singur. She led a ‘pratirodh march’ to the Governor House in Ranchi and sought to nationalise the issue. Naturally, when personalities like Medha or Arundhati come to the scene, the media attention gets focussed and the real issue gets somewhat blurred.

Undoubtedly, such incidents of violence would adversely affect the investment prospect in the region and make situation unfriendly for investment and industrial ventures. In this case, the fate of construction naturally hanged in uncertainty. Few months back, in Khunti district of the state, officers of Arcelor-Mittal Steel giant were brutally beaten up and their faces were blackened when they had gone to inspect the proposed site for construction of 12 million ton steel plant. This company requires 11,000 acres of land for this. One Adivasi Mulvasi Astitva Raksha Manch(AMARM) led a agitation thereafter and the project is all set to be scrapped. Similarly Bhusan Steel faced vehement opposition in Patmada in Jamshedpur district of this state. Such vehement opposition has been experienced by a host of other companies also here. There is one more interesting thing about these companies that most of them are interested in mining lease rather than Green field projects. This may be one hidden reason why the tribal people cast doubt on their motives.

Any way these developments have raised questions that why are such incidents of violence happening and how to fix these problems?

We will have to see the entire gamut of problem in an anthropologic- constitutional perspective. States like Jharkhand (south Bihar of erstwhile united Bihar) had been brought in Scheduled Area Regulation Act of 1956 under Article 244 of Indian constitution in order to provide extra safeguards to the tribal inhabiting these areas vis-a-vis their alienation from land. The threat to their unwilful eviction from their ancestral land was sought to be further protected by enactment of Panchayats (extension to the scheduled areas) Act (PESA) in 1996. This law makes it mandatory on part of the govt as well as the companies to obtain the consent of the Gram Sabha before starting any land acquisition process or signing MOUs. But unfortunately most of the MOUs have been signed without obtaining the consent of Gram Sabha as enshrined in the law. 

The previous experience of tribal people with respect to benefits given to them in lieu of their land that have been taken or industries those have been set up, have never been happy. For instance, in a place called Kiriburu in Chaibasa district of Jharkhand, which is believed to be the largest deposit of iron ore in India, mining operation has been underway for the last ten decades. Today these mines are owned by Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL). The company has erected huge infrastructure including plants, machineries, guest houses and quarters but the surrounding area is poorly developed. In fact this area is one of the most neglected areas with dismal literacy rate and poor per capita income.

Nowamundi, another area in Chaibasa is a typical example of utter neglect. In this area, some iron ore mines are owned by TATA group. Mining operation is going on for years but the demography has not yet been benefitted to the extent it should have been. We have a number of examples in this mineral rich state in which poor people has not tasted the fruits of dividends of mineral excavation. The govt’s new mining policy attracted private companies in the state and several mining lease have been granted to them. But these lease and MOUs could not bring about any qualitative change in the life of common tribal.

In this backdrop, the perception of the common tribal people has become hostile to the investment in general resulting sometimes in unjustified opposition. The apathy of the govt towards the legal rights bestowed on the tribal is revealed in the MOUs which are signed by the govt with a host of companies without Gram Sabha’s consent.

On the other hand, there is no denying the fact that investment in sectors like power is a prerequisite for development of any state. If industrialisation as well as agriculture have to make progress, energy is required. This area has been opened for private sector and it is in this background this company decided to setup power plant in kantikund.

The questions which remained answer are why is this distrust? Why do the govt machinery and companies fail to make tribal understand that benefits of such investments would also go to them? Why are tribal people not being convinced about rehabilitation and other govt incentives that are likely to be given to them?

In fact, this communication gap between them is the crux of all these problems. The kind of involvement and association which are required at the outset in such projects are conspicuously absent from govt and company side. The tribal people have captured a stereotype image of govt officials, which they feel is of exploitative for them. This gap of communication gets metamorphosed into mistrust by the NGOs most of the times. The namby-pamby govt machinery fails to counter the misinformation campaign unleashed by the NGOs. They provide with very attractive and imaginary data regarding their dislocation and make the land acquisition process intractable. This was exactly what has happened in Singur and is happening in Kantikund also. The govt must come up with more participatory land acquisition policy in tune with the PESA and take the local people in confidence before launching any project. The role of NGOs vis-a-vis anti-acquisition agitation cannot be countered by legislations only. The civil society as well as the govt will have to think that how and why do suddenly the same kind of people appear on the scene and vitiate the prospects of developmental projects. It does not mean however that all such NGOs are putting stumbling blocks in the way of development, but the experiences which we had in Singur is not encouraging. After the exit of TATA from Singur, even the local people feel cheated by the so-called activists who had promised to them of more bargains, but all went in vain. Everything including their dreams is shattered now. Such nefarious design of these elements must be made known to all concerned and thereafter; make sure that unreasonable and unjustified opposition do not come in the way of the progress of the nation. For this the locals must be made active stakeholders in such projects. They should not only feel but should reap also the fruits of development. They should also taste the growth being achieved by the nation in economic field.

This is not philanthropy, but an economics also, because unless we enhance the purchasing power of billions of Indians, the graph of growth cannot move upward uninterrupted. We cannot afford to go on creating oasis in deserts. Let us make every commoners stakeholder in the development process or else we will continue to invite wrath of the common people. Timely intervention of govt in this episode with precision like a heart surgeon can prevent another collapse like what happened in Singur.