Battle Ready

Chhattisgarh stays mining operations in a Bailadila hill after protests by tribal people. But can it withstand pressure from mining giants?

- Ishaan Kukreti, Prashanth S Chinnappanava, Purushottam Thakur

IT WAS an unusual morning in Kirandul, a hilly town in southern Chhattisgarh. On June 7, as soon as day broke, thousands of people from 200- odd tribal villages surrounding the Bailadila hill range started congregating at the gates of the National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC), a public sector unit that runs all iron ore mines in the hill. Carrying food and drums, and wielding ax, bows, and arrows, they had come prepared for a long fight and declared an indefinite protest against NMDC’s attempt to raze a distant green hill, which they referred to as the abode of Nandaraj, their nature god.

Their mood is reminiscent of the rage among forest dwellers of Odisha’s Niyamgiri hills during the country’s first environment referendum in 2015. The Supreme Court had asked Dongria Kondh and several other tribal communities, who worship the hills as their deity, to decide if mining in the hills would affect their religious and cultural rights. At least 10 villages had unanimously rejected the proposal, forcing the state government-owned Odisha Mining Corporation and London-based Vedanta Resources to abandon the plans of extracting bauxite from the hills and supply it to Vedanta’s alumina refinery.