Special Article
Iron in the Seoul~I By Manoranjan Mohanty 18 Dec 07–( http://thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=3&theme=&usrsess=1&id=180995)
POSCO In Paradip & An Echo Of Nandigram
Erasama block near Paradip that had suffered nearly ten thousand deaths in the 1999 supercyclone is in the news again awaiting another Nandigram-like onslaught. The pattern of state-aided assault by one group mobilised against a people agitating in defence of their land, natural resources and environment, is again swiftly unfolding itself, this time in Orissa over the South Korean company, POSCO's steel project in the same cyclone-affected region, once again with enormous cost. Unless the forces of peace and human rights intervene another round of bloodshed may be in the offing.
On 29 November as the daily mass sit-in by the POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS) in a village called Balitutha entered its sixtieth day a large mob arrived in procession and attacked the demonstrators brutally. Five bombs were hurled at them injuring a number of people. Police put it at 17 while the PPSS says 40 were injured, some seriously.
Having failed to persuade the Orissa government to reconsider the decision on the project the PPSS had started the mass sit-in at the entry point to the three villages whose inhabitants faced displacement by the construction of the steel plant.
Mob attacks
They had stopped allowing vehicles belonging to the police, POSCO and the administration while allowing other trade and communication activities to go on. After a week long programme of big rallies at Balitutha the PPSS had decided to have groups of 100 to 200 men and women to be present there daily to carry on the agitation.
They were attacked by the mob while the Orissa armed police stood by at a short distance as has been confirmed by several civil liberty teams which have visited the scene since.
Citing the incident as a clash between pro-POSCO and anti-POSCO people and therefore a law and order problem some sixteen platoons, which had camped nearby, moved into the area where they had so far been prevented by the agitators.
The police is now stationed in the Nuagaon and Gadakujanga panchayats ~ two of the three to be taken over for the project. The other one, Dhinkia panchayat where the PPSS has its stronghold remains determined to resist.
The large single-village panchayat has erected gates to monitor entry points and has remained united during the agitation against the project which has continued for more than a year. Dhinkia village is now encircled by armed police where some 12,000 people are denied access to basic services.
The Orissa government has said that the police was deployed there to prevent 'Maoists' from entering the area. This has been the usual ploy to resort to indiscriminate repression by the state all over the country.
In fact, the PPSS is a collective movement of local people from a wide range of parties and groups opposed to the project and is led by the CPI state secretariat member Abhay Sahoo. The local Congress too is part of the resistance movement which has remained peaceful throughout despite much provocation.
As in Nandigram the ruling BJD organised a group of villagers and a large number of goondas from outside to launch the attack and 'occupy' the struggling villages and have indeed succeeded in 'capturing' two panchayats ~ Nuagaon and Gadakujanga.
Operation Dhinkia is on the cards and what form it will take is unpredictable. But in view of the determined opposition by the villagers one cannot rule out violent confrontation.
The opposition to the POSCO project was also spearheaded by two sarvoday-oriented groups ~ Rashtriya Yuva Sangathan and the Nav Nirman Samiti. They had been actively engaged in many action programmes of non-violent protest during the past two years and even before in the post-cyclone reconstruction of Erasama.
On 4 December Yuva Sangathan convener Biswajit started an indefinite fast at Balitutha. On 5 December when a peace delegation led by the well-known poet Shailaja Rabi visited him they were again attacked by a mob of over 50 people.
The police forcibly evicted Biswajit and the members of the delegation and moved them to Jagatsinghpur where the Yuva Sangathan leader continues his fast even now protesting against the violent attack on the peaceful struggle.
Compensation
At a press conference on 8 December the former Lok Sabha Speaker Rabi Ray condemned the attacks and called upon the Orissa government to scrap the mega steel project together with its SEZ and the captive port proposals.
The first ever "talks" between some selected villagers and the administration and the POSCO officials took place on 6 December to discuss compensation and rehabilitation plans.
The local BJD MLA Damodar Raut who was earlier dropped by the Chief Minister reportedly for not fully supporting the project has become very active to make up and earn the CM's favour. Raut has announced that POSCO had agreed to raise the compensation for each household from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 10 lakh.
What Chomsky had called 'manufacturing consent' is in full swing with POSCO announcing scholarships for students, taking journalists to Korea for tour and building a paid cadre of 'project promoters'. Bharat Jan Andolan leader B D Sharma encountered a group of the latter after a press conference on 7 December in Bhubaneswar.
Iron in the Seoul~II 19 Dec 07 (http://thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=3&theme=&usrsess=1&id=181154)
A Steel Plant And The People's Land Rights
Why this resistance to POSCO? After all among all the 40-odd new projects involving Tata Steel, Mittal, Jindal, Ambani, Essar and others that the Orissa government has sign up, it is the largest project with US $12 billion investment which is the single project with the maximum FDI. As per the official announcement while producing 12 million tonnes of steel annually, when it reaches full capacity in 2016, it will generate an earning of Rs 700 crore for the Orissa government and 13,000 jobs directly and 35,000 indirectly. For the cash-starved state government that has cut down nearly half of the public employment, including jobs of teachers as per an MOU with the DFID and World Bank, this little revenue and these few jobs may be some attraction.
However, there are two kinds of arguments against the project, one on the exact location in this fertile area and some specific arrangements; and another questioning the very approach to industrialisation, specifically whether this is the answer to Orissa's poverty and underdevelopment. PPSS started with the first line of thought as did the movement against the Tata steel project in Kalinganagar before the January 2006 firing.
Basic questions
The Nav Nirman Samiti essentially highlights the second as does the Prakrutik Sampad Suraksha Samiti (PSSS) against the Utkal alumina in Kashipur and against Vedanta in Lanjigarh, and the Visthapan Virodhi Jana Manch in Kalinganagar after the firing.
After the Nandigram experience all these movements, including that of the PPSS in the Paradip area, are raising basic questions on the pattern of extractive industrialisation and people's right to participate in making developmental choices.
Of fundamental importance is the people's land rights. According to official statements, of the 4004 acres of land required for the project, only 438 acres are supposed to be private land displacing 471 families and the rest 3566 acres are government land.
This is the typical conception that has guided policy-makers who refuse to see the reality on the ground when they do not find land records. This so- called government land is actually filled with betel vines, fish ponds and paddy fields with many coconut trees and cashew plantations producing a vibrant economy. These lands are treated as encroachments by the revenue department. Many farmers have occupied these lands for generations, first as tenants of the Raja of Vardhaman ~ who had purchased part of this area under the "sunset law". The 4000 and more families of the three panchayats with a population of nearly 30,000 are now fighting for their land right to continue to enjoy their relatively prosperous economy that provides wage employment to migrant labourers from many poorer regions of Jagatsinghpur district.
The MOU of June 2005 with POSCO provides for supplying of water from the Mahanadi Barrage from Naraj which will severely affect the water supply for drinking purposes and irrigation to many adjoining districts. The provision for building a captive port in Jatadhari river mouth at a distance of only seven kilometres from Paradip Port is a dreaded eventuality for it would worsen the waterlogging situation in the entire Jagatsinghpur-Kendrapara coast and adversely affect Paradip port as well.
And there are many other issues such as the commitment to allow captive mines to POSCO in Keonjhar and the strange arrangement to export iron ore from Orissa and import from Brazil. The other major irritant is the unprecedented single project Special Economic Zone surrounding the POSCO project area in Jagatsinghpur where as Rabi Ray puts it, "a foreign territory within Indian territory" will function without obligation to respect Indian laws and democratic procedures.
Poorest state
The larger question is whether POSCO and the like are the needed response to the problems of India's poorest state. ( The latest poverty figures from NSS 61st round once again puts Orissa's population below poverty line as the highest proportion with 46.8 per cent in 2004-2005, a marginal decline from 47.15 in 1999-2000).
Rourkela Steel Plant, NALCO aluminum complex in the public sector and now an array of steel plants in the private sector represent the continuation of the colonial development strategy which exploited the mineral and forest resources of regions like Orissa, Chattisgarh and Jharkhand for metropolitan capitalist development.
That strategy did not set up manufacturing industries, did not develop agriculture and rural industries. The Orissa elite mostly from the upper castes performed the role of an agent of that process while bulk of the ST (24%), SC (16%) and OBC (at least 40%) remained poor and still toiling. The people's movements are questioning the impunity with which more of the same development is being pushed under coercion.
(Formerly of Delhi University, the writer is currently Durgabai Deshmukh Professor at the Council for Social Development.)
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