How green was my valley

Vested interests in Orissa painted a spontaneous protest by dispossessed tribal people as an organised Maoist rebellion to make sure that their gravy train does not come to a halt

Sanjay Kapoor Kalinganagar

It is around noon. The February sun beats down mercilessly. The barren but bushy terrain and the red soil of the region make it appear hotter than it is. The usually bustling road to Paradeep Port is unusually calm because of the blockade imposed by protesting adivasis since early January 2006. They are demonstrating against the cold-blooded murder of 12 adivasis. The road has been barricaded at regular intervals by boulders, tree trunks, cots, chairs and anything that these people of meagre means could lay their hands on. That the protest was a spontaneous one was evident from the fact that even everyday — use implements were brought in to block the road.

On the side of this blocked road is a carelessly parked fleet of Chevrolet, Toyota and smaller cars. The owners are confident about leaving their vehicles where they please because of the absence of traffic on the road. Along the highway there is a kuccha road that leads to a little field where a shamiana (canopy) has been put up. Here the urns containing the ashes of those who were killed in police firing had been kept till they were finally immersed. The snazzy car owners descend on this spot to commiserate with the adivasis who had been on the vigil for the last many days.

Cell phone wielding khadi-clad Congress leaders, who emerge from their up-market vehicles, compete with each other to sit next to the visiting union minister. At the far end of the shamiana in a row sit tired-eyed indigenous people. Unshaven and in tattered clothes, they stare vacantly towards the minister, who speaks in an Oriya language that they seemingly cannot comprehend. This is the face of poverty that liberalised India has chosen to be amnesic about. Looking at their unwashed emaciated faces, it becomes clear that the twains of the two Indias, the glitzy
and prosperous India of the metros and the economically challenged country that
lives in poor states and urban slums, just cannot meet.

The adivasis have their representatives who sit alongside the minister and other Congress leaders. They blame the state government and the local Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) of the region, Prafulla Kumar Ghadei, who is also the state's Finance Minister. " He has not even chosen to visit us after the firing," complains a speaker who is one of the bigger landlords of this region whose land has been acquired by the government to be handed over to the private sector for setting up their steel plants. The tribal landowners, both medium and small, have been demanding higher compensation for their land in comparison to what they have got. The grouse of the speaker, angrily supported by the local Congress leaders, is that government is selling the same land acquired by them at a rate (Rs 3.7 lakhs/ acre) that is 10 times higher than what they got it for (Rs 37, 500/acre). The government claims that the higher amount that they charge from the private companies would be used for building roads and developing infrastructure. "Where are the roads that they are talking of?" wonders Kutiya, a Congress leader. "The government is exploiting the locals," he hisses.

Shortly thereafter, the Congress leaders and their supporters return to their air-conditioned cars and back to a different, but more comforting reality. The adivasis sitting under the shamiana do not stir and continue to stare vacantly into nothingness as though the political show did not register on them.