rourkela and after

sarini Occasional Papers, No. 5Rourkela and after

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50 years of industrial developmentand social responsibility

in Indo-German cooperation

sarini Occasional Papers, No. 5

Rourkela and after

Edited & Published by sarini and Adivasi-Koordination in Germany, 2006

Papers presented in a conferenceat Königswinter (near Bonn), Germany,

22nd to 24th September, 2006

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Suggested donation for this publication:Indian Rupies 30.00 or EURO 3.00

Rourkela and after50 years of industrial development and social responsibility in Indo-German cooperationPapers presented in a conference at Königswinter (near Bonn), Germany, 22-24 September, 2006Edited and published by sarini and Adivasi-Koordination in GermanyPrinted by CEDEC, Bhubaneswar 2006.(sarini Occasional Papers, No. 5)

sarini Occasional Papers hold NO COPYRIGHT.Widest possible dissemination of these informa-tions is intended.Further ideas about the functioning and inten-tions of this network - and about the work ofAdivasi-Koordination can be found on the backcover.A version will also be available on the Internet.

This sarini publication is distributed from:

Sahayog Pustak Kuteer (Trust)11-A, Nangli RajapurNizamuddin EastNew Delhi 110 013, IndiaPhone ++91-11-24353997email [email protected]

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CEDEC/NISWASS3, ChandrashekharpurBhubaneswar 751 016, Orissa, IndiaPhone ++91-674-2300052 / 2300831

HUMAN RIGHTS LAW NETWORK(Rourkela Unit)and ASHRA LEGAL AID CENTRER.C. Church Complex JaldaP.O. Jalda C BlockRourkela 769 043, Orissa, Indiaemail [email protected]

C.R. BijoyDoctors’ QuartersSri R.K. Hospital395, Avaram PalayamCoimbatore 641.044 , T.N., Indiaemail [email protected]

Adivasi-Koordination in GermanySecretariat: Dr. Theodor RathgeberJugendheimstr. 10D-34132 Kassel, GermanyPhone ++49-561-47597800Fax ++49-561-47597801email [email protected]

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Earlier publications of sarini:

Jai Adibasi - A political reader on the life andstruggles of indigenous peoples in India150 p., 1994.

Indigenous Peoples in India(sarini Occasional Papers, No. 1)61 p., Bhubaneswar 1997.

Jai Jharkhand(sarini Occasional Papers, No. 2)126 p., Bhubaneswar 1999.

Adi-dharam.Religious beliefs of the Adivasis of IndiaBy Ram Dayal Munda(sarini Occasional Papers, No. 3)48 p., Bhubaneswar 2000.

Adivasis of RourkelaLooking back on 50 years of Indo-Germaneconomic cooperationDocuments - Interpretations - International Law(sarini Occasional Papers, No. 4)184 p., Bhubaneswar 2006.


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List of abbreviations or local names 4

Preface 5

Papers presented at the conference

PART I THE GERMAN PERSPECTIVE

G. v. Gemmingen 50 years of Indo-German development cooperation 7

K. P. Pischke 50 years of Indo-German financial cooperation 9

T. Kroes Technical and human challenges in industrial cooperation 12

J. B. Sperling Socio-economic issues over the last 50 years 15

F. Matic German Trade Union perspectives on international steel business 18

PART II THE ADIVASI PERSPECTIVE

C. Xaxa Legal issues unsolved after 50 years 20

N. Soreng The destruction of Adivasi culture in the industrial age 28

S. Bilung Experiences in displacement 37

S. Sawaiyan Democracy and self-determination vs. industrialisation and globalisation 40

Table of Contents

HUMAN RIGHTS LAW NETWORK (RourkelaUnit)AND ASHRA LEGAL AID CENTRER.C. Church Complex JaldaP.O.Jalda C BlockRourkela-769043,Orissa, INDIA

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List of Abbreviations or Local Names

Ac./ac./acr. acre(s) (1 ac. = 0.4071 hectares/1 hectare = 2.471 acres)ADM Additional District MagistrateBAIF Bharatiya Agro Industries FoundationCNT Chotanagpur Tenancy Actcrore 10 million (= 100 lakhs)dalal “middleman”DEG Deutsche Investitions- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft (a member of KfW Group)DfID Department for International Development (UK)DGM Deputy General ManagerDIG Deputy Inspector General (of Police)diku “alien”, “stranger” (“exploiter”)FC Financial CooperationGTZ Gesellschaft für technische ZusammenarbeitHSL Hindustan Steel LimitedHSM Hot Strip MillIAS Indian Administrative ServiceILO International Labour OrganisationIPS Indian Police ServiceITI Industrial Training InstituteJ.M.A.C.C. Jharkhand Mines Areas Coordination Committee, RanchiKfW Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (German Development Bank)lakh 100,000lathi baton, long stick used by policeLDP Local Displaced Person(s)MLA Member of Legislative AssemblyMP Member of ParliamentMTA million tons per annumN.G.O. Non-Governmental organisationNHRC National Human Rights CommissionOAS Orissa Administrative Servicepatta land record papersPDP Peripheral Development ProgrammePESA Provisions of Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996PIL Public Interest LitigationP.O. Post OfficeP.S. Police StationR & R Rehabilitation and Resettlementrayati revenue land, settled landRDA Rourkela Development AuthorityRDC Revenue Divisional CommissionerRKL RourkelaRS Resettlement ColonyRSP Rourkela Steel PlantRRIT Rourkela Rural Improvement TrustSAIL Steel Authority of India LimitedSDO Sub-Divisional OfficerSNG Sundargarh (District)SP Superintendent of PoliceST Scheduled Tribe(s)U.N. United Nations


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The present publication is meant as an annexe tothe earlier publication: Adivasis of Rourkela -Looking back on 50 Years of Indo-German Econo-mic Cooperation. (sarini Occasional Papers, No.4), Bhubaneswar 2006. It contains the papers readin a conference at Königswinter, Germany, 22-24September, 2006, which had the same theme thatis now adopted as the title of this publication. Thisconference was organised by Adivasi-Koordina-tion in Germany in collaboration with Südasien-büro at Bonn and Arbeitnehmerzentrum Königs-winter (an adult education centre).

BackgroundBased on German planning, one of the most ad-vanced steel plants of the world at that time wasconstructed at Rourkela, Orissa, from the mid1950s. In 1953, the Government of India heldconsultations with German steel companies. In1954, the first notifications for acquisition of theland required for the steel plant and the newtownship were issued. In 1955, German plannersand engineers visited the site. In 1957, notifica-tions for vacation of the Mandira Dam site wereissued. From 1958 onwards, the German Govern-ment gave loans to secure this undertaking whichwas orginally started by the private sector. In 1959,the first blast furnace of Rourkela Steel Plant wasinaugurated in the presence of the then Presidentof India, Dr. Rajendra Prasad. By 1961 the con-struction activities were completed. Much later,during the 1980s, the modernization of the steelplant was again made possible with loans fromGermany.

The area around Rourkela - having mostly tribalor Adivasi population - was considered as mostbackward and, therefore, a priority area for deve-lopment. But the majority of the Adivasi popu-lation had no share in the economic growth ofthe region. Many of them are till date complain-ing about their forced eviction and unsatisfactoryrehabilitation.

The Rourkela Conference at Königswinter, 2006Thus, there is a history of round about 50 yearsof this Indo-German development project , whichhas been the biggest project ever in German deve-

lopment assistance. Against this backdrop, theconference held at Königswinter near Bonn, theformer German capital, undertook a first step tocritically reviewing ‘Project Rourkela’. Beyondacknowledging the successes of this project, it alsoconsidered the aspects of social responsibility andthe lessons that could be learned from the Rour-kela experience for future industrial projects. Tothat extent, the conference may be rated as anhistorical event. The main idea of this conferencewas to bring face to face: representatives of theGerman institutions responsible for Project Rour-kela (then and now) and speakers of the displacedAdivasis. Probably for the first time, a dialogueon parallel level was held.

Adivasi-Koordination in Germany - with supportfrom two German developmental agencies (MI-SEREOR and Bread for the World) and a generousgrant from an individual person - had been ableto invite four Adivasi speakers for this conference.Unfortunately however, even repeated invitationsto the management of Rourkela Steel Plant wereignored by them. The research library of AlfriedKrupp Foundation at Essen in Germany - wheremany documents are kept which could be usedfor deeper research - was unable to send a staffmember to attend the conference. Two Germanofficial participants - one from the Federal Ger-man Ministry for Economic Cooperation and De-velopment and one from KfW Development Bank- attended the conference, but only for half a day.

The conference was also attended by some Ger-man “veterans” - workers and other staff who hadbeen in Rourkela during the construction phaseor who were engaged in developmental activitiesin the Rourkela region then and later. The orga-nisers of the conference had also prepared a photoexhibition on the theme: “India’s industrial deve-lopment and the survival of Adivasi cultures”, inwhich historical and present day photographs ofRourkela and Adivasi life in the resettlementcolonies had a prominent place.

Towards the end of the conference, a work sched-ule and action plan for the next 2 - 3 years wasproposed focussing on three major areas:

Preface

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sarini is an informal network of social and humanrights activists in India and Germany. Adivasi-Koordination in Germany is a (registered) civilsociety organisation and network of NGOs en-gaged in human rights and developmental acti-vities, working with the indigenous or Adivasicommunities in India.

- In Rourkela and India: to be in touch with thedisplaced communities and their organisa-tions, but also with the administration and theauthorities of RSP; possibly a second confe-rence could be held at Rourkela itself.

- In Germany: to continue advocacy work andlobbying with German authorities (KfW, Mi-nistry for Economic Cooperation and Develop-ment, political parties). Towards this, supportwill also be sought from civil society institu-tions like the media and developmental organi-sations, including German Rourkela “vete-rans” or senior experts.

- In the international context: by linking up withinternational human rights organisations andhuman rights wings of international bodies(ILO, UN).

The conference papers are printed here in theoriginally proposed sequence:- PART I deals with the planning, economic and

socio-political aspects from the German side;- PART II presents the Adivasi perspective.These papers will also be published in Germanwithin a few months. Further publications inGermany on Project Rourkela and related issuesare expected as an outcome of this conference.

Further dialogues and contactsAfter the conference, the Indian guests - accom-panied by members of Adivasi-Koordination inGermany - had more detailed discussions with afew German developmental agencies and theGerman Ministry for Economic Cooperation andDevelopment. They also met Members of the Ger-man Federal Parliament in Berlin, who belong todifferent parties, and who are also active in com-mittees on human rights and developmentalissues. For the MP’s, the inputs from the Indianguests were quite revealing, and they offered tosupport in different ways the cause of the industryaffected and displaced people of Rourkela andbeyond.

Adivasi-Koordination in Germany will continueto follow up the developments in Rourkela andwill be in continuous dialogue with Germanauthorities, developmental agencies, the politicalinstitutions, and with the local organisations,activists and the affected people of Rourkela. Thisis being done with a perspective to help bringfuture industrial developments in consonancewith national and international law, fundamentalhuman rights and the pursuance of ethics in therespective projects.


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Introduction

In preparing for this conference, I realised thatthere is already a 50-year history of Indo-Germandevelopment cooperation. In the Ministry, some-how, we missed this anniversary. When readingthe conference documents, I became rather hum-bled because it seemed impossible to me to get acomprehensive overview about why and how cer-tain parties involved in the project acted in a cer-tain way at a certain time. One tends to forgetthat - then as now - the persons in charge acted tothe best of their knowledge and belief. Therefore,I tend to be rather cautious about making quickjudgements from today’s point of view.

Within these limits, I hope to provide you with avery brief and non-comprehensive sketch of Indo-German development cooperation in the past fiftyyears, the German role in this particular coope-ration project and an assessment of its impact onGerman development cooperation from today’spoint of view. My colleague Mr. Pischke willelaborate more on financial cooperation.

A brief sketch of Indo-Germanbilateral cooperation (not comprehensive)

1950s until early 1990sDuring this time the focus was mainly on indus-trial development in the public sector, on transferof technical know-how, and on some activities inso-called soft sectors dealing with health, ruraldevelopment, etc. There were high annual com-mitments during the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and early1990s. Particularly in the beginning, the Rourkelaproject played a prominent role in this coopera-tion, along with the Indo-German Institute ofTechnology in Madras.

Early 1990s - 1998The year 1992 was marked by the OECD con-sensus on untying aid. This led to increased focuson poverty alleviation, mainstreaming of cross-sectoral criteria in development cooperation andgradually reduced annual commitments.

1998 - 2001During these years the intergovernmental dia-logue was interrupted because of the Indiannuclear tests (Pokhran II).

From 2001 until todayAfter re-commencement of cooperation there wasa concentration on new priority areas: environ-ment, energy, economic reforms (and health). Atthe same time portfolios were streamlined, whichmeant:- drawing together projects to form program-

mes;- cooperation between various development

partners;- contributions to important Indian reform pro-

grammes;- new financing instruments.Today industrial development is no longer apriority area of Indo-German development.

From the 1950s until today, India has receivedabout 8 billion EUROs from the German deve-lopment cooperation budget. India is thus the big-gest recipient of German development coopera-tion.

The role of the Rourkela Steel Plant projectin Indo-German development cooperation

The Rourkela project was announced by the firstPrime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, in1953. Many individual contracts were awardedto German companies without official German in-volvement. It was only after organisational andfinancial problems had occurred, that the Germangovernment became involved in the project at therequest of the Government of India in 1955. It wasasked to provide funding and expertise in build-ing up the steel plant with the assistance of theGerman industry. The project was implementedaccording to the knowledge and experience avail-able at that time - also with regard to the handlingof social issues.

For a long time, this industry project was a land-mark of Indo-German cooperation. Including the

50 Years of Indo-German Development Cooperation

By Gottfried von GemmingenFederal German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development

Part I: The German Perspective

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modernisation of the plant in the 1990s, around650 million EUROs were provided as loans fromthe German Federal Budget. The success of theproject - particularly regarding its economic andtechnical aims - is exemplified by SAIL’s impres-sive financial result last year, with an overall netprofit of around EURO 1.28 billion. My colleaguefrom the KfW will further elaborate on the detailsof the project.

The Rourkela project provided a multitude ofvery important learning experiences for the fur-ther development of strategies and criteria forGerman development cooperation, also in the so-cial sector. Since then, these have been continu-ously adapted to take account of new insights.Nowadays, these include a variety of cross-sector-al topics such as participation, human rights, goodgovernance, gender and environment. So onecould say that German development cooperationused the project to further develop its policies.

With the help of these cross-sectoral criteria, Ger-man development cooperation for example alsoassessed social issues during the design of theRourkela modernisation project. As a result, KfWagreed with SAIL that the latter should establisha “Peripheral Development Fund”, aimed at im-proving the livelihood of the population in thevicinity of the steel plant, including Adivasis.Since it is funded from what are known as “inte-rest differential funds”, this scheme is funded

until the loan is repaid and thus hopefully muchlonger than the cooperation itself, which is al-ready completed.

Even now that Indo-German development coope-ration in Rourkela and in Orissa has come to anend, the German government is still observingwith interest the policy development processesin Orissa, dealing particularly with the acknow-ledgement of tribal land use rights, mitigation ofthe impacts of mining and industrial developmentand assistance to vulnerable groups. In this re-spect, we welcome the fact that related policy re-form programmes in Orissa are being substan-tially and effectively supported by the UnitedKingdom’s Department for International Deve-lopment (DfID) and the World Bank. We regardthis as a meaningful follow-up to our completedcooperation at Rourkela which supports Orissain solving these important policy issues.

Before concluding, I would like to express myregret that neither a representative of the Govern-ment of India - e.g. from the Indian Embassy inBerlin - nor from SAIL is attending this confe-rence. I deem the participation of these main ac-tors in the discussion as critical, since one goal ofthe conference is to discuss such a complex issueas responsibilities with regard to social deve-lopments dating back 50 years. To discuss thiswithout the main parties involved seems to meto be a challenging task.



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I. Introduction

KfW Development Bank is part of KfW Banken-gruppe, a public finance institution, whollyowned by the German Federal Government andthe state governments. It is one of the major im-plementing agencies of German development co-operation. On behalf of the German Federal Go-vernment it finances investments and advisoryservices in developing countries. It typicallyworks together with governmental institutions inthe countries concerned. Its aim is to build up andto expand a social and economic infrastructureand to create efficient financial institutions whileprotecting resources and ensuring a healthy en-vironment. Since 1995, KfW Development Bankhas an office in New Delhi, sharing its premisesthere with GTZ and DEG (a member of KfWGroup).

II. More than four decades of German financialcooperation with India

Indo-German financial cooperation started withthe Rourkela project in the late fifties. Up to now,around 7.5 billion EUROs were committed toIndia in the framework of Indo-German financialcooperation. This amounts to 140 million EUROsper annum on average. This figure includesroughly one billion EUROs of KfW funds in theform of mixed and composite loans. Althoughtoday the average yearly commitments of Germanbudget funds are much lower than before - in therange of 40-50 million EUROs per year -, Indiastill is one of the priority countries of Germanbilateral development cooperation.

The cooperation always reflected the prevailingpattern of German development policy, whichtakes into account the changing priorities in Indiaas well as the worldwide discussion on develop-ment. The sixties were the time of projects in in-dustry and infrastructure - with the main em-phasis on transport, energy supply and irrigation.

If we look at the sector-wise composition of theoverall India portfolio, the industry projects of

the early days of cooperation still have a share of26 per cent of the total commitments, energy pro-jects come second with 20 per cent. Progress inindustry and infrastructure was seen as a majorprerequisite for economic growth, and thus itwould help to overcome the bottlenecks in deve-lopment.

In the following years, direct poverty alleviationand addressing the needs of the weaker sectionsof the population were at the centre of the effortsof German development cooperation. The finan-cing instruments of the KfW Development Bankwere further elaborated and more differentiated.In this context, projects in social sectors, projectsconcentrating on income generation, and projectson environmental protection had been given prio-rity. For example, watershed development pro-grammes were introduced with the aim to im-prove the living conditions in rural areas. Amongthe projects are also Adivasi development pro-grammes in Gujarat and Maharashtra, which areimplemented by the non-governmental organisa-tion Bharatiya Agro Industries Foundation (BAIF)as implementing agency. The projects mainly pro-moted commercial fruit growing to improveincome generation.

Considering the actual economic situation inIndia and the topics on the Indian agenda ofeconomic reforms, the Indian development policyhas to follow a twin-fold strategy: on the one sideit has to be oriented towards efficiency andgrowth to create employment and income op-portunities, and on the other side it has to directlyinvest in health and education of its people. India- by size and population - has a decisive import-ance for the solution of global issues. Simul-taneously, due to its economic successes and itsincreasing geo-strategic significance, India isemancipating from the role of a developing coun-try, though we all know that the issue of wide-spread poverty remains on the agenda.

India and Germany are both interested in a dia-logue to contribute - through their developmentcooperation - to reaching the Millennium Deve-lopment Goals. At present and in the near future,

50 Years of Indo-German Financial Cooperation

By Klaus-Peter PischkeKfW Development Bank

The author is presently heading the Energy Sector and Policy Division Asia; until 2002 he had been workingas head of the India Team


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the German development cooperation with Indiaconcentrates on priority areas like:- energy (especially energy efficiency and re-

newable energy),- environmental policy, protection and sustain-

able use of natural resources,- sustainable economic development

(financial systems and services, enterprise de-velopment).

III. Rourkela Steel Plant

In the 1950s, in accordance with expectations ex-pressed not only by the USA but also by importantdeveloping countries like India and Egypt, thethen still young Federal Republic of Germanyjoined the worldwide development assistanceefforts in a way of burden sharing. At the sametime the state owned bank KfW took over a speci-fic role in the German development assistanceconcept. Since then, there is a clear allocation ofresponsibilities between the German governmentand KfW:- the overall planning and political issues are

handled by the government,- the technical, financial and socio-economic

assessment as well as the monitoring of theproject implementation are the tasks of KfW.

The fundamental principles of Financial Coopera-tion (FC) include:- enhancing the partner countries’ sense of re-

sponsibility and ownership, and- aligning operations with their national deve-

lopment strategies and structures.The partner countries propose the FC projects andprogrammes and are responsible for their pre-paration and implementation. KfW, however, isusually involved in the individual projects rightfrom the beginning:- We discuss the project idea and project concept

together with our partners who propose them,- we support them during preparation,- we appraise the project and accompany the

project-executing agency during the wholeimplementation process.

The first commitment of KfW in Rourkela was,nevertheless, not typical for the handling of pro-ject aid under German financial assistance. In the1950s, the public sector corporation HindustanSteel Limited (HSL) had purchased a completesteel plant from 36 German companies (amongthem such leading German companies like Man-nesmann and Krupp) with roughly 3,000 sub-contractors, but without sufficient coordinationof the numerous supplies. During the construc-

tion period, a large number of German expertswere present at the project site, partly living to-gether with their families in this fairly remoteplace. All this led to a number of problems; butalso some lessons could be learned. Unfortunate-ly, the Indian side was not able to pay in cash aswas originally considered, so that in 1958 KfW -with the support of the German Federal Govern-ment - took over the promissory notes to prolongthe Indian obligations to pay.

The lack of experience on the side of HSL in hand-ling such a technically complex project, the inap-propriate project concept (too many suppliers, noturn-key contractor) and weaknesses in operatingand maintaining the plant - all this resulted insevere technical and organisational problems al-ready during the project implementation as wellas the start-up phase. But with seizable amountsof German financial assistance, very intensiveadvisory work of KfW and considerable deploy-ment of German experts - and in spite of somesetbacks - Rourkela developed into a productivesteel plant in the sixties.

IV. The modernisation of Rourkela Steel Plant

In the second half of the eighties it became ob-vious that this steel plant was in urgent need ofmodernisation: the existing production capacitiescould not be used in a satisfactory manner. Thiswas due to meanwhile technically outdated andnot sufficiently maintained equipments as wellas to an inadequate quality of the raw materialsused, and also due to weaknesses in staff quali-fication.

Since Indo-German cooperation had played animportant role in this plant when it was set up,the Government of India asked the German Go-vernment - under the financial cooperation bet-ween both the countries - to render support forthe proposed modernisation scheme and thus toovercome these bottlenecks. This led to the secondinvolvement of KfW in Rourkela.

The German financial support in the range of 145million EUROs was concentrated on a part of themodernisation programme including mainly anew sintering plant, a new steel mill, moderni-sation and extension of the plate mill and the hotstrip mill. After a public international tender, Ger-man companies like Mannesmann-Demag andSchloemann-Siemag were awarded the contractfor this. Based on the experiences made in the firstproject, KfW assisted RSP in reducing interface



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problems and clarifying liability issues throughan acceptable coordination concept. With theobjective to improve product quality, the RSP ma-nagement followed the recommendations madeby external experts while planning and imple-menting the modernisation scheme.

In addition, advanced training measures for thequalification of management and staff were sup-ported through a grant. From the German per-spective, the comprehensive environmental pro-tection measures to reduce the unacceptably highpollution in the Rourkela region were very im-portant. This was partly financed by special fundsaccruing from the German loans to India.

When KfW appraised the modernisation projecton behalf of the German Government in 1992, thesocio-economic situation in the Rourkela regionalso had to be analysed according to the applic-able procedures for German Development Coope-ration. German grant funds were made availablefor a feasibility study for peripheral development.On the basis of this feasibility study the PeripheralDevelopment Programme was developed by RSP.The main objectives are coverage of basic socialneeds in the urban slums and rural outskirts ofRourkela, income creating measures, training andbasic health. For the implementation of these mea-sures, KfW reached an agreement with the SteelAuthority of India Limited (SAIL, the successorof HSL) that special funds accruing from theGerman FC loan are made available by SAIL(“Zinsspaltungsgegenwertmittel”). The Periphe-ral Development Programme finally started in theyear 2000, up to now around 30 projects have beenidentified, funds for more are available. In theframework of these activities, the “Institute forPeripheral Development” was founded. In 2005,a Memorandum of Understanding was signedwith BAIF to further develop and implement thePeripheral Development Programme.

V. Is the modernisation of Rourkela Steel Planta successful Indo-German developmentproject?

When decisions for the modernisation of Rour-kela Steel Plant were taken in the late eighties, ashortage of steel supplies for the Indian economywas regarded as a risk for the economic growthin India. The objective of the modernisation pro-ject basically was to increase the utilisation of theinstalled production capacities, inter alia, throughgood maintenance and improved operation pro-cedures for the modernized steel plant.

Given this objective, the project clearly can be re-garded as successful. The production of crudesteel increased from 1.2 million tons per annum(MTA) in 2000 to 1.6 MTA in 2005. For 2006, pro-duction is expected to exceed 1.67 MTA. With acapacity utilization of 87.4 per cent, a good levelhas been reached. As a result of the modernisa-tion, energy efficiency in all parts of the steel planthas increased. The environmental impact of thesteel plant meets the current Indian environmen-tal standards. The state owned SAIL, the holdingcompany of RSP, has grown into a profitable andcontinuously expanding company. While beingan unprofitable enterprise in 2000, it is generatingprofits since 2003. By now SAIL has a marketshare of 35 per cent in India, and with this it isthe major steel producer in India.

The fifty year old association between Rourkelaand German development cooperation has beenclearly a rewarding one for both sides, with a richhistory. Many people in Germany had heard ofRourkela, because local German engineers hadgone there on assignment. Now, of course, SAILis a globally competitive company and has gradu-ated beyond development cooperation. Thisachievement, we believe, reflects the success ofGerman development cooperation.


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Introduction

SMS Demag is one of the world´s leading design-ers, manufacturers and suppliers of iron and steelplants including so-called Continuous CastingMachines, Hot and Cold Rolling Mills, CSP MiniMills, Strip Processing Lines and associatedequipment.

Bokaro Steel City - originally in Bihar state, nowin Jharkhand which was separated from Bihar inthe year 2000 - is approximately 250 km north-east of Rourkela and 320 km west of Kolkata. It isin some ways comparable to Rourkela.

I would like to present in brief, under which con-ditions and in which environment an industrialorder, namely the modernisation of HSM BokaroSteel Plant, was carried out recently by a Germanenterprise, and what will be the trends for thefuture.

The modernisation of HSM Bokaro Steel Plantformed part of the overall modernisation pro-grammes of the SAIL production units, whichanalogously at the same time also took place atRourkela, Durgapur and Bhilai.

Scope of supply

The task given was: Modernisation of the 2000mm Hot Strip Mill at Bokaro Steel Plant, originallydelivered by NLMK/Russia, during the years1973-1974. Its capacity was to be enhanced to ap-proximately 3.3 million tons per annum (MTA)of Hot Rolled Coils and Plates. Towards this,supply of mechanical machineries and mediasystems was agreed. The order was granted toSMS Schloemann-Siemag AG (SMS) underconsiderable competition with MannesmannDemag Sack (MDS) who in the meantime havemerged into SMS Demag AG. The contract wassigned on 14.08.1994 and came into force on29.09.1994. The main shut-down was planned for21 days, beginning in 14.08.1996, but actually tookplace on 09.06.1998 and lasted for 37 days.

As for the Contractual Constellation, there was aconsortium ofa) foreign contractors consisting of:- SMS Schloemann-Siemag AG, Hilchenbach

und Düsseldorf (as “Principal Contractor”):engineering, know-how transfer, training,supply of descaling system, pumps, HGCF9-F12, laminar cooling, down coiler 1-4,hydraulic-, grease- and oil systems.

- GFA Gesellschaft für Anlagenbau, Hilchen-bach und Düsseldorf:supervision of erection and commissioning.

- VAI, Linz Austria:electric and automation, level 1 + 2.

andb) local contractors consisting of:- ABB India, Bangalore (a subsidiary of ABB

Sweden and Switzerland):electrical installation, motors, drives, loadcells.

- TCPL Tata Construction Company, Jamshed-pur:execution of erection and commissioning(local).

- TGS Tata Growth Shop, Jamshedpur:descaler, pinch rolls.

- SMS India, Kolkata (a subsidiary of SMS):water treatment and filter houses, civilfoundation.

- Simplex Engineering, Kolkata:run out roller table, KSB pumps, AC andventilation systems.

The consultant of the customer was Mecon, Ran-chi.

The contract constellation was SAIL Standard.The foreign principal contractor had the main re-sponsibility. The principle contractor was solelyresponsible for the timely supply, erection andcommissioning of the mechanical equipment andmedia systems, as well as to reach the guaranteeperformance of the plant according to the pro-duction parameters in the contract.

The customer would release payments to the con-sortium members by separate indigenous con-tracts, not through the principal contractor (fo-reign portion). The principal contractor, however,

Technical and Human Challenges in Industrial CooperationAn Experience from the Modernisation of Bokaro Steel Plant

By Thorsten Kroes

The author is a Project Manager of SMS Demag and was working from June 1997 until October 2000 as Deputy GeneralSite Manager and Head of Consortium for SAIL for the modernisation and technical assistance of Bokaro Hot Strip Mill.



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had the overall guarantee parameter responsi-bilities. This is equivalent to a turn key characterof the contract.

Therefore the main commercial problem was thatthe principal contractor had no real monetarypower to manage its consortium members. Themost important critical technical point was thatthe Hot Strip Mill was revamped during pro-duction (there was only one shut down as percontract which was shifted for two years) and noone could foresee, in which bad condition therolling mill really was.

Living conditions and working conditions

Undivided Bihar had more than 80 million in-habitants which is similar to reunited Germanybut on less space, that means with higher popu-lation density. It is the state with the biggest po-verty and lowest literacy.

According to a survey of ‘Business India’, only 3per cent of the interviewed companies plan toinvest in Bihar (against 6 per cent in Orissa and64 per cent Maharashtra). This is rank number 27out of 27.

The reasons for this are: poor infrastructure ingeneral, diseases, bad skill (there are no trainedworkers), insufficient energy supply and subse-quent power cuts, critical law and order situation,riots (with shoot at sight orders), strikes, ineffi-cient bureaucracy, corruption scandals, hard cli-mate (up to 49 degree Celsius heat waves duringpre-monsoon, monsoon floods, cyclones).

This stands in opposition to the capacities of thisparticular area. Bihar, Jharkhand and Orissa areholding the major (about 40 per cent and more)deposits of metal and mineral resources. Theyconstitute the “Iron and Coal Belt” of India.

The area, however, has the lowest per head in-come which results into cheap labour. The per-formance of the Indian subcontractors was verypoor. TCPL, the erection company, hired manydifferent local companies at low cost.

Our job on the site was to supervise the local ta-lents during the phase of erection and commis-sioning of the revamped plant until final accep-tance. They generally had no education or work-ing experience. The provision of tools and tackleswas insufficient, they had no protective cloths.The Indian personnel which we trained were

leaving soon after to get well paid jobs and inbetter environments to live in than Bihar .

Contractual difficulties

The major difficulties from our experience werewith regard to the “Completion” clause for thecomplete package, although this was beyond ourcontrol. A principal difficulty concerns the envi-ronment for high-tech while modernising an oldworn out rolling mill. Machines have been canni-balized due to a lack of spare parts. Robots andautomatic machines (“manless machines”) weresabotaged. There was no “Latest” clause and,therefore, no “Delay of acceptance” certificates.

SAIL experienced high losses due to deviationsin the exchange rates (1:18 up to 1:25), whichmade up for approximately 40 per cent.

The “Third Party” clause was problematic in sofar as dismissal of bad contractors was mandatoryin the contract, but not practical because of thepersonal ties between customer and local erectioncompanies.

The biggest monetary crisis came with the lowsteel prices in the years 1998-2000 and subsequentlow cash flow of SAIL and low payment moral(e.g., payment with finished products such assteel coils).

Mentality of the customer

SAIL belongs to the public (government) sector.Employees have a permanent job, which is a bigbenefit, but not usual in India. Nevertheless, thehigher employees tend to have tight relationshipswith the local erection companies. Frequent chan-ges of our counterparts as Executive Director, Ge-neral Manager, etc. (because of the rotation andpromotion system in the government sector)made it more difficult to develop a good relation-ship to the customer.

There was only a commercial, but no technicalinterest from the customer side. All were mainlyinvolved in the commercial details of the contract,not in technical solutions. This was found evenwith the technical people on the site (like chiefengineers, etc.). The commercial interests of thecontract outvoted suggestive technical require-ments on site. The consultant of SAIL for BokaroSteel Plant, Mecon Ranchi - which is anothercompany of the public (government) sector with


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similar structures as SAIL - was working ontechnical standards of 30 years ago.

When a decision was required, a file was openedand circulated throughout all divisions includingthe Managing Director and sometimes even theManaging Board in Delhi. No decision was taken,unless all queries had been solved and the filecleared. In this way, extremely large bureaucratichierarchies were found at work.

The Russian design Rolling Mill was in a very badcondition, it had huge dimensions and was notstate of the art. Almost all parts were worn out,old and rotten, and thus dangerous for the peopleworking there. Repairs were carried out underthe motto “trial and error” and maintained onlyuntil further break downs occurred. No spareparts were available. The indigenous supply partsand components did not match to the minimumquality standard. Materials and servicing pro-curement were carried out under the “LowestCost Principle”, even with simple parts. Therewas insufficient quality control in the work shopsof the sub-suppliers. Examples for this are thedescaling pumps with 400 bar system, where theKSB India shafts broke and were re-supplied fromKSB Germany. The stainless steel from India wasfound to be carbon steel, which yielded insuf-ficient piping material resulting in many leakagesand high oil losses, which in turn had an impacton the people and the environment.

German supervision personnel

At the project peak during the main repair andshut-down of the mill, there were maximum 40German supervisors at site, which is compara-tively much less than at the time of the construc-tion at Rourkela. There was a high grade of soli-darity of the team at site which was also due tohigh isolation (camp like situation) and insuffi-cient opportunities for spare time activities, socialcommunication, etc. Staying together after theday’s work has led to lasting relations betweenthe families. While executing their day-to-day job,no one was aware about Adivasi people, or about

what had happened to their land and where thesepeople had gone...

There were many shortcomings, e.g. diseases,problems with energy rationing (“power cuts”),etc. Most of the foreign supervisors got the so-called cultural shock, which led to extreme physi-cal and mental stress. A special critical situationarose at Bokaro: There were personal threatstowards the German supervisors like shootinginto a window of a German supervisor, car bombthreats and killing orders. This was because thelocal mafia dons felt that the employment of theirwork gangs was at risk (“Bokaro has 52 unions”).Special Forces were deployed from the HomeMinistry at Patna. Cars went in convoy to the steelplant with military cars in front and at the back.Personal body guards were provided, and thecamp was manned with soldiers to protect theforeigners.

Summary

The trend is that the cost pressure and, subse-quently, the local (indigenous) portion of supplyof plant equipment and machines is steadily in-creasing. Dispatching of foreign personnel forsupervision of erection and commissioning is ondecrease, and therefore also the responsibility orinfluence of the foreign enterprise. It is nowlimited to the scope of the contract. This showsthat the Indian industry, especially RSP, is able torun its steel plant almost without German as-sistance to serve its markets. But RSP will needGermany to obtain new technology and inno-vation in order to save energy, for production ofsophisticated steel grades, for more efficientproduction routes, for training, etc. India hasstepped into the global world, where it is facingsevere competition. With regard to its steel indus-try, however, it should not longer be consideredas a Third World country.

I have great respect for Indians and the Adivasipeople of India and hope, that there will be ahappy and harmonic agreement which enablesboth to exist side by side.



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Personal experience in Rourkela

For me, Rourkela began as a physical adventurein 1958 and ended after four years as an exceptio-nal intellectual challenge which resulted in- three subsequent years of additional sociolo-

gical and political studies at the universitiesof Aachen and Harvard;

- a book on the human dimension of technicalassistance based on the experience of thou-sands of German technical personnel at Rour-kela (this book was published in German andin English in the U.S.A.);

- a book describing the situation of the Adivasipopulation that had to give room to the indus-trialisation taking place on their hereditary ter-ritory;

- an experts’ report on the accompanying pheno-mena to be observed in the social field as a con-sequence of industrialisation in the area ofRourkela, prepared by order of the GermanFederal Government.

The extended learning I took home from the Rour-kela experience, later on I succeeded in success-fully investing into a 15 years’ assignment withthe United Nations in many countries in Asia,Africa and Latin America as an expert on inter-cultural training. Again much later, I founded aninternational consultancy company in Germany,Austria, and Switzerland chiefly concerned withintercultural problems of organisations and in-dustrial enterprises.

The German cultural shock of Rourkela

An analysis of the construction of Rourkela SteelPlant can be summarised as follows:- technologically the planning of the whole pro-

ject was excellent;- technically and organisationally the erection

period produced a good number of short-comings as well as unforeseen mishaps mostof which were successfully overcome;

- politically the project was highly problematic.Since nobody had thought of the necessity tosupport the process by public relation mea-

sures, the German authorities woke up to allkinds of public criticism in the Indian press,particularly to well-placed anti-reports trig-gered by competing parties like the Russianand the British steel plants, being erected inIndia at the same time;

- as far as the human resources factor of the pro-ject is concerned, with one or two exceptions,the planning as well as the execution was adisaster.

Let me pick up this last point and explain it inmore detail:- positive I would rate the fact that during the

planning phase of several years a good num-ber of Indian engineers were recruited for spe-cialised training in Germany by German com-panies subsequently engaged in the erectionprocess at Rourkela;

- positive I would rate the fact that the Germanplanners thought of creating a social servicescentre at Rourkela for German staff in orderto help them to cope with potential hardshipsand problems caused by the foreign environ-ment of Orissa and its tropical climate;

- mildly negative I would rate the fact that theGerman companies were unable to agree onstandard contracts for their personnel at site.As a consequence considerable differences intheir conditions on work, housing and paymade German fitters and engineers (includingtheir families) bicker amongst each other andthus created an unhealthy climate of life andwork at Rourkela;

- extremely negative I would rate the fact thatGerman industry over a period of several yearssent men and women into an assignment in aforeign far away country under unknownworking and living conditions without anyguidance and preparation for a fruitful andsuccessful adaptation vis-à-vis India and itspeople. (For details see my book “The HumanDimension of Technical Assistance - The Ger-man Experience at Rourkela, India”, Ithaca/London (Cornell) 1969);

- extremely negative I would also rate the factthat the planning of Germans and Indians didnot include sufficient provisions for effectively

Socio-Economic Issues Over the Last 50 Years

By Dr. Jan-Bodo Sperling

The author is a social scientist with a background of practical work in craft, commerce and industry. He was sentto Rourkela1958 in order to safeguard the well-being of the thousands of Germans involved in the construction of

Rourkela Steel Plant.


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assisting the local population - mainly the Adi-vasis - as to their resettlement and long rangedevelopment with a prospect for improvingtheir economic conditions. (For details see mybook: ROURKELA, Sozio-Ökonomische Prob-leme eines Entwicklungsprojektes, Bonn (Eich-holz) 1963).

The Adivasi problem

While for a good number of years I was personallyactively involved in what I have presented above,the Adivasi problem remained largely outside ofmy scope of work. Whatever I can say in this re-spect is either largely based on mere randomobservation during the years 1958 to 1962 or onfacts and information collected after my active pe-riod at Rourkela, when I returned to Orissa in 1964on behalf of the German Government with a teamof social scientists and practitioners in order toassess the Indian human resources situation inthe environment of Rourkela Steel Plant (Fordetails, please read: Bericht über Begleiterschei-nungen der Industrialisierung im sozialen Bereichim Raume Rourkela/lndien. Vorgelegt von FranzLepinski, Dr. Krista Rauhut, Dr. Erna Seller, J.Bodo Sperling. Angefertigt im Auftrage des Bun-desministeriums für Wirtschaftliche Zusammen-arbeit im Februar 1964).

My analysis of the Adivasi problem as I have de-scribed it in my book in 1963 as well as in theexperts’ report submitted to the German Govern-ment in 1964 can be summarised as follows:- The Indian Government including the then

state owned steel company “Hindustan SteelLtd.” has done little or next to nothing to as-sist the local population to master the conse-quences of displacement and drastic changeof environment. Obviously compensation incash or kind - as it is claimed to have been done- is useless in a situation where alone mediumand long range measures of education, train-ing, social assistance and change supportwould have had the required effect.

- As far as the German planners are concernedit is difficult to judge today whether they hadthe experience and/or an opportunity at all tooffer assistance as to the needs of the localpopulation. In this regard, one must take intoconsideration, that (a) at that time Germanyhad no or little experience and know-how inthis kind of field, and (b) the Indian partnerwas highly touchy in accepting foreign advicebeyond purely technological and technicalmatters.

- However, in 1964 the German Federal Minis-try for Economic Cooperation apparently rea-lised that things had gone terribly wrong as tothe human resources situation in Rour-kela’simmediate environment - why else would theyhave sent a group of experts to investigate andto make proposals for remedy and improve-ments? On the other hand, the answer to thequestion still remains to be given:

- Why did the German Government not follow-up on the experts’ proposals recommendingto send a group of specialists in social work toRourkela? Did they not agree with the pro-posals? Did they not have the funds? Were theyafraid to discuss these problems with theirIndian partners? I have no explanations.

Conclusions

We know that the Adivasi situation of the Rour-kela area is still an unsolved problem.

Today, 50 years after the Rourkela project waslaunched, it is no longer a question of know-how- neither on the German nor on the Indian side.There is sufficient knowledge accumulated by ex-perienced change agents, social scientists andadult educators to tackle the cross-cultural prob-lems identified in the human resources field ofRourkela Steel Plant and its environment. Ob-viously this holds true for Germans as well asIndians.

What is not clear, however, is whether the amountof awareness and the realisation of the importanceconcerning the cross-cultural difficulties that needto be overcome are available amongst those whoare supposed to be decision makers in this respect.

Personally I am extremely pessimistic. Even today,after 50 years have elapsed, there still seem to existtwo different cultures that need to be merged: thepeople of the steel plant and the Adivasis. Al-though those experts whom I mentioned beforeknow very well that merging people of two diffe-rent cultures is a difficult task that requires speci-fic skills, patience and a lot of time, unfortunatelythis expert knowledge is rarely made use of bymanagers, decision makers, and politicians.

As part of the famed globalisation, we all live ina world of mergers. Large as well as small indus-trial enterprises on all continents are more andmore trying to come together, to form even largercompanies by means of mergers. And despite ourknow-how, despite our experience: decision



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makers of all colours and nations continue toneglect experiences made everywhere over andover a hundred times. They seem to be blind tocultural differences with all their consequences.In their endeavour to enlarge their power playand their profit making they forget the peopleinvolved, they overlook the enormous gaps thatexist between cultures of different groups of per-sonnel: with the result that today world-wide twothirds of mergers go bust, they are not successful!

We constantly read about these failures in thepress.

How can we expect that decision makers in theRourkela situation will prove themselves to havemore foresight, more empathy, more understand-ing for the prevailing human problems than any-where else in our modern world?

I have reason to be pessimistic.


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The Branch Office of IG Metall deals with inter-national aspects of steel production. It was found-ed at about the same time during the 1950s whenKrupp Company (later merged into Thyssen-Krupp) decided to invest in India. In those days,nobody could foresee that once Europe would befacing a major crisis in the steel sector. Thus theybuilt up huge production capacities for the Indianmarket. This development of the steel sector hadnothing but economic reasons. Social aspects inthis development were totally neglected. Mr.Matic himself, in his role as a Trade Union repre-sentative on the management board of KruppCompany, visited India twice and made someobservations on the working conditions there. Asa result of this, IG Metall - through the manage-ment board of Krupp Company - achieved anagreement saying that future investments of thisdimension should not be made without due con-sideration of social aspects.

Looking back on 50 years of Rourkela from theTrade Union perspective, one is left with ambi-valent impressions. On the one hand, it is true:The steel sector provides excellent opportunitiesfor developing countries who are interested inindustrialisation. By appropriate investments, itis possible to generate employment. Steel is a basicindustrial sector, and to that extent it is indis-pensable for the overall development in develop-ing countries. On the other hand, there are prob-lems with working conditions, with the excessivelabour available, and with the social conditionsof the workers in general. The steel sector is alsoa high-tech industry. Trade Unions, however,would expect that - compared to European condi-tions - in the case of investments in such countriesmore jobs per ton of steel will be created. In India,for example, five to six times higher employmentrates could thus be achieved.

The steel business has always been an interna-tional business. In recent years, this has growneven further. Now we have investments in China,Brasil, Russia, Turkey, etc. Considering the social

conditions in these countries, the fact of a boom-ing demand for steel could very well be utilizedby Trade Unions to push forward their socialconcerns. Unfortunately, however, the structuresof Trade Unions in these countries - includingIndia - are quite unlike those in Western Europe.Trade Unions in those countries are more servingparticular, clan-like concerns, rather than the con-cerns of all workers. There is hardly any organi-sational structure of workers that would becapable of negotiating better conditions for theworkers of an entire steel plant site or even theentire steel sector. At the same time, employmentas such is not very stabilized.

IG Metall, the German Metal Workers’ Union, hasa seat in the management board of Arcelor Com-pany, and through this also in that of Mittal SteelCompany. It was only in 2005 that the Union pre-sented to the management board of Arcelor a me-morandum on the socio-political orientation ofthe company. This also addressed the issue of in-dustrial development in Europe and world-wideas well as employment perspectives. It becamepossible to secure employment in Western Europeand to make suggestions for investments in otherareas. Each country has its own specific experien-ces in the field of labour. So the point is not totransplant the western type of workers’ partici-pation in company management to other coun-tries and cultural spheres. However, a generalconsensus is certainly that capital investmentsshould not only result in profits for the share-holders, but also provide for participation of thepeople and the workers in those countries.

The agreements made with Arcelor in 2005 alsomention how the company should look after itsemployees all over the world. And the sameshould be applicable for Arcelor’s business part-ners. In India and many other countries, industrialcompanies operate with a comparatively lownumber of permanent workers, but with a num-ber of subcontractors. This is a problem. There-fore, also the local managements should be made

German Trade Union Perspectiveson International Steel Business

By Friedhelm Matic*German Metal Workers’ Union (IG Metall), Branch Office at Düsseldorf

* This text is a summary prepared by the editors, as no written paper of Mr. Matic was available.



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to follow certain norms and rules. In principle,these are the basic norms of the InternationalLabour Organisation (ILO) which prohibit childlabour, forced labour, discrimination, and putsstress on freedom to form unions and to negotiatepayments, on health and safety of the work place,on avenues for further qualification, etc. Anotherimportant aspect is communication between themanagement and the workers, a kind of socialdialogue with those affected by management de-cisions. This concerns issues like environmentalprotection and its costs and also long term plan-ning, especially with regard to future investments:“What does a company having its headquartersat Luxembourg plan for India?” It was also agreedthat the above agreements made in 2005 should

be reviewed and audited after two years withparticipation of the company’s European or inter-national Trade Union representatives. This wouldinclude local visits and detailed reports on all theinternational plant sites. If found necessary, theTrade Union representatives in the company ma-nagement would take up specific issues and pressfor further improvements.

Mittal is planning to construct a new steel plantin India during the next few years, with a pro-duction capacity of 10 million tons per annum. Ajudgement on this venture is again ambivalent: Itwill generate employment. But it may also leadto over capacities which may ultimately affect alsothe European steel market.


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Legal Issues Unsolved After 50 Years*

By Celestine Xaxa

Advocate and human rights activist, Rourkela, Orissa, India

* Many details of constitutional and other legal provisions have already been given in the author’s earlier publication “TheLife and Struggles of the Displaced Adivasis of Sundargarh District” (2002). This and also more details of displacement canbe found in “Adivasis of Rourkela”, Bhubaneswar 2006, sarini Occ. Papers, No. 4.

BACKGROUND

A. Constitutional provisions and safeguardsfor Scheduled Tribes (Adivasis) in India

India is a secular and democratic country. Thereare many provisions and safeguards to protectthe interests of Scheduled Castes and ScheduledTribes. The constitutional provisions for Sched-uled Tribes (STs) are generally divided into fourheadings, namely :1. Protective provisions

The Articles 15, 16, 19, 23, 29, 46, 164, 330, 332,334, 335, 338, 339, 342, 371, (A) (B) and (C) ofthe Indian Constitution deal with protectiveprovisions for Scheduled Tribes.

2. Developmental provisionsThe Articles 15, 16, 19, 46, 275, and 399, dealwith developmental provisions for ScheduledTribes.

3. Administrative provisionsArticles 244 and 244 (A) under Part-X of theConstitution provide for the administration ofScheduled Areas and Tribal Areas. The Sched-uled Areas are governed by the provisionscontained in the Fifth Schedule. These may alsobe called the Fifth Schedule Areas whereas theTribal Areas are governed by the provisionsof the Sixth Schedule. Specifically, the Gover-nor of a State having Scheduled Areas has beenvested with special powers.

4. Reservational provisionsThere are provisions for reservation to STs fortheir overall upliftment in the Constitution ofIndia. There are other provisions to providereservations to STs in admission to educationalinstitutions, government jobs, Parliament andState Assemblies.

B. Orissa Regulation (2) of 1956On the basis of the protective and administrativeprovisions, the Government of Orissa has madethe Scheduled Areas Transfer of Immovable Pro-perty (By Scheduled Tribes), Regulation, 1956,which is known as Orissa Regulation (2) of 1956.

It was further amended by the Orissa Governmentin the year 2000.

C. The Provisions of Panchayats (Extension toScheduled Areas) Act, 1996(PESA Act, 1996)

This Act provides for the extension of the pro-visions of Part-IX of the Constitution relating tothe Panchayats to Scheduled Areas: In ScheduledAreas, the Gram Sabha of a village has beenempowered to have control over natural re-sources like land, water and forest.

D. International LawIndia has also ratified International Labour Orga-nisation (ILO) Convention No. 107 of 1957“Concerning the protection and Integration ofIndigenous and other Tribal and Semi-TribalPopulation in Independent Countries”, and theInternational Covenant on Economic, Social andCultural Rights

DEVELOPMENTS IN ROURKELADURING THE LAST 50 YEARS

For the establishment of Rourkela Steel Plant, theGovernment of Orissa acquired 19,722.69 acresof land, and 2,465 families of 32 villages weredisplaced. Similarly in the year 1957-58, MandiraDam was constructed by Hirakud Dam Organi-sation on the river Sankha to facilitate water supp-ly to Rourkela Steel Plant. For Mandira Dam Pro-ject, 11,923.98 acres of most fertile land wereacquired, and 941 families of 31 villages were up-rooted. They were allotted small pieces of rockyland that gave them sustenance of life hardly forthree months. Thus a total area of more than30,000 acres of tribal land has been acquired forthe purpose of Rourkela Steel Plant, Steel Town-ship, Railway Lines, Fertilizer Township andMandira Dam Project.

The Government of Orissa intentionally ignored

Part II: The Adivasi Perspective


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the Executive Instructions issued by the Board ofRevenue, Bihar and Orissa under Land Acquisi-tion Act, 1894 (Act I of 1894) as amended fromtime to time and incorporated in Bihar and Orissa,Land Acquisition Manual, 1928 issued on date 11.3.1928 and adopted from Madras Law Acquisi-tion Manual.

It is pertinent to mention here that for the acquisi-tion of lands for Rourkela Steel Plant and MandiraDam, Government of Orissa made an independ-ent legislation, i.e. “The Orissa Development ofIndustries, Irrigations, Capital Construction andResettlement of Displaced Persons (Land Acqui-sition) Bill, 1948”, in short term herein after re-ferred to as Act XVIII of 1948. For the purpose ofthe acquisition of Adivasi land for Rourkela SteelPlant and Mandira Dam Project, the Governmentof Orissa established an office known as ‘RourkelaLand Organisation’ headed by an officer of therank of Additional District Magistrate (ADM)who has been entrusted to look into the matter ofland acquisition and resettlement of displacedfamilies. Adequate provisions were supposed tohave been made under the Land Acquisition Actfor requisition, acquisition, taking over possessionand payment of compensation.

What exactly has happened in the last 50 yearswith regard to the establishment of Rourkela SteelPlant and Mandira Dam?

1. The notice of acquisition of land as requiredunder Section-3 of the Act XVIII of 1948 waspublished but no notice was served on theowner or occupier affected by the notice ofacquisition in view of Section-4 of the said Act.By invoking the power under Section-5 of theAct XVIII of 1948, the District Administrationforcibly took over the possession of the landand houses of the illiterate and innocentscheduled tribe persons of the affected villages.

2. As per the given assurance, the Governmentof Orissa gave a plot of land measuring 60’ x40’ in the resettlement colonies of Jalda, Jhir-pani (and later Bondamunda) free of cost forconstruction of house to some of the displacedpersons, but none of the displaced families wasgiven the cultivable land in proportion to theirpossession of landed property nor paid theland reclamation subsidy of Rs.100/-. Only anominal amount has been given to some of thedisplaced persons towards the loss of crops forthe year of acquisition, but no compensationhas been paid.

3. After the construction of Mandira Dam, a vastarea of rayati agricultural lands of 8 villages,i.e. the upper side of Mandira Dam, were badlyaffected by sand cast due to stagnation of waterin the Mandira Dam Reservoir. A map showingthe land acquired and affected areas has beenmarked by Pillar No. 690 and 698 which hasbeen constructed by the engineers of HirakudDam.

4. The HSL, RSP occupied 15.15 acres of land inthe Air Strip, although possession of this areahas not been handed over by the State Govern-ment.

5. In the year 1962, the State Government hasallotted 647.82 acres of HSL land in villageKantajhar and Uparbahal for establishment ofthe Regional Engineering College at Rourkelawith the understanding that they would givean equivalent area to HSL in exchange. TheDeputy Commissioner in his Letter No.1683,dated 19.11.1963 agreed to include this area inthe exchange proposal.

6. In the year 1966, the Agriculture Departmentof the State Government required land forestablishment of a vegetable farm and a poul-try farm at Rourkela. So, an area of 120.70 acreswas handed over to the Agriculture Depart-ment and Animal Husbandry Department on29.6.1966.

7. As per the copy of Letter No.2374/ Rev.(A)dated 23/08/1972 from Sri. J.N. Naik, OAS (I)Secretary to Commissioner, Addressed to theDeputy Commissioner L.A. &R. Rourkela atSundargarh in reference to the Governmentdecision communicated in memo no. 45532,dated 10.8.1972, it is stated that the allotmentof the land surrendered by the HSL had to befinalized in favour of the original tenants. Buttill now it is not ascertained whether the saidsurrendered lands have been finalized infavour of the genuine displaced persons or not.

8. The State Government have requested to HSL,RSP for surrender of some lands, but on thecontrary, the RSP authorities have leased out29.70 acres of land to the following organiza-tions –i. Bastia Memorial, Sector-6, Village Purna-

pani – Ac. 2.00.ii. Adarsa Pathagara, Sector-5, Village Purna-

pani – Ac. 3.20.iii. GEL Church, Sector-18, Village Purnapani

– Ac. 0.27.


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iv. Ispat Anjuman, Sector-15, Village Tumkela– Ac. 0.23.

v. Sri Aurobindo Yoga Mandir, Sector5, Vil-lage Purnapani – Ac. 5.00.

vi. Vivekananda Education Society, Sector-6,Village Purnapani – Ac. 8.00.

vii. Satyasai Seva Samiti, Village Chhend – Ac.11.00.

9. A large area has been unauthorizedly occupiedby employees and key supporting populations.The area under encroachment as revealed fromthe present settlement records comes to Ac.3,769.32 which includes an area of Ac. 3,517.70unauthorizedly occupied for cultivation pur-pose. An area of about Ac. 135.00 though notencroached, cannot be utilized because ofcongestion and slum life situation.

10.So many encroachments have been developedowing to the callousness of the Revenue andRSP authorities. Construction of Basanti Colo-ny, Chhend Housing Colony, Kalinga Vihar,Durgapur Foot Hill Housing Scheme, 7 & 8Area land allotment, Balughat area, Koelnagar,LIC Colony, and all sector areas are full of en-croachments. The above mentioned coloniesare constructed on the land acquired for Rour-kela Steel Plant. That is to say that the coloniesare set up to give en-masse settlements to non-tribals and outsiders by evicting the indige-nous people. So it is very clear that the Go-vernment of Orissa has undemocratically,illegally and unconstitutionally authorized toset up these colonies for outsiders and non-tribals.

11.The State Government of Orissa has framed arule, vide Revenue Department NotificationNo. 22333/ R.G.E., Sundargarh, 1 of 68 on12.1.1968 in the name and style ‘SPECIALRULES FOR DISPOSAL OF GOVT. LAND INCIVIL TOWNSHIP AREA AT ROURKELA.’This civil township area is named as 7 & 8Developed Area. About 300 acres of land ac-quired by the State Government from the localAdivasis are being allotted from 1971 to non-tribals particularly to influential prospectivelessees such as bureaucrats (IAS officers & IPSofficers), political leaders, ministers, highofficials of the state, big business persons ofthe state, revenue authorities and industrialistsat exorbitant rates by way of lease, allotment,auction, sale, which is beyond the reach of thepoor displaced persons. The action of the StateGovernment as mentioned above is contraryto the provisions of the Fifth Schedule of the

Constitution of India. It is also in violation ofthe provisions of Orissa Regulation (2) of 1956.

12.Land Transfer Agreement and Settlement ofAccountSurprisingly, the Land Transfer Agreement bet-ween the State Government and HSL has notbeen concluded even after 20 years of hand-ing over formal possession of land by the StateGovernment for establishment of RourkelaSteel Plant and its allied units.On 19.5.1973 a meeting was held between theofficers of the State Government and HSL andit was decided that final figures for settlementof accounts will be worked out by the Col-lector, Sundargarh, and the Town Administra-tor, Rourkela Steel Plant. The IndustriesDepartment of the State of Orissa in their letterdated 14.9.1973 have finalized that the leasedeed will be finalized incorporating the agreedterms and conditions of the draft agreementand lease deed will be signed only after fullpayment of the dues of the Government out-standing, i.e. Rs.16,46,23,234.27 against HSL upto 1972-73.

13.On 3.4.1974 the State Government sent a draftlease deed for acceptance and execution (videLetter No. 8580 dated 3.4.1974, I.D. Dept. On28.5.1974, the General Manager, HSL sug-gested certain modifications to the draft leasedeed for consideration of the State Govern-ment on the points mentioned, but the saidagreement has not been executed till 1991. Inthe year 1954, land was acquired for establish-ment of Rourkela Steel Plant and MandiraDam from the Adivasis, but the Governmentmachinery made agreement only for 15,714.21acres of land because of strong protest by theaffected tribals in the year 1993. The authoritiesleft the rest of the land so acquired for agree-ment till date. This is highly illegal and unlaw-ful.

14.The HSL authority without prior approval ofthe Central Government or State Governmentauthorities illegally leased out valuable landsto so many unauthorized persons destroyingthe main objectives for which the land was pri-marily acquired from the local Adivasis forestablishment of the steel plant. The steel plantauthority brought a novel but illegal plan tolease out under different types and forms, suchas 99 years lease, 30 years lease, 10 years leaseand 5 years lease to different persons on pay-ment of a huge amount of premium andmonthly rents per acre, such as Rs. 37,230/- as



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ground rent, which will be increased at the rateof 20 per cent after completion of every 10 yearsof occupation, Rs. 50,000/- as premium respec-tively. And in this process from 1955 till 1991they are collecting a huge amount of money.

15.As per the extract copy of letter No. BC/7101/69, dated 8.2.1972 of Mr. R.K. Kanagat, Ad-ministrative Officer, addressed to the LandOfficer, Rourkela Steel Plant, the land transferdeed - with which the proposal has a directlink - has not yet been finalized between theGovernment of Orissa and HSL, and thescheme may clash with the non-companyhousing scheme. The details of the lease casemay come to Rs. 5,43,42,390/- approximately.

16.Dhebar Commission Report (1961)The Dhebar Commission has categorically re-ported in favour of the displaced persons re-garding employment, education, payment ofadequate compensation, refund of surplusland, periphery development, subsidy pay-ment for construction of houses, house site andproviding facilities for development of settle-ment of colonies, but due to half hearted inter-est of the government and RSP authorities, therecommendations of the Commission werenever complied.

17.The details of displaced families - compensa-tion paid or not, if paid, how much, if not, howmuch due - should be worked out honestly.This is a vast question. But it is not impossibleon the part of the government to make a com-prehensive study to calculate the unpaid com-pensation. In the year 1955, when the rates ofcompensation fixed were Rs. 200/-, Rs. 400/-,Rs. 600/- and Rs. 900/- per acre, the unpaidcompensation was Rs. 1,47,20,565.51 which hasgone up to Rs. 16,46,23,234.27 without interest.It should be calculated 40 time in 36 years.

18.The promises, press notes and agreementsmade by the government and SAIL authoritiesto the local Adivasis from 1955 till date, havenot been fulfilled even up to 25 per cent of whatthey promised. Such as,- grant of cultivable agricultural land in lieu

of acquired cultivable land free of cost upto a maximum of 33 acres to each recordedtenant,

- employments for them in special quotas asDisplaced Persons in HSL and other con-nected industries,

- refund of unutilized vacant land (an areaof about 15,000 acres of land),

have not yet been done by the HSL after 40years of acquisition. Allotment of house sites,shops and commercial establishments oughtto be made for the displaced persons by theGovernment of Orissa or HSL authorities.

19.The Adivasis were treated by the governmentauthorities and HSL authorities as if they arethe encroachers in their rayati land and theyhave been forcibly ousted under threat, forexample(i) in Sector-18, and(ii) in Bhagamunda,there were two firings on the tribals in orderto throw them out from their lands unlawfully- just in the same way as it took place at KalingaNagar in Orissa on 2.1.2006.Due to this unwanted brutal firings, on fear,the tribals of the said two places left their landsand houses. It is pertinent to mention here thatthe administrative authorities by putting thefalse and fabricated thumb impressions of theScheduled Tribe persons have misappropri-ated the compensation awarded in favour ofthe tribals, who were actual owners of land.Till date substantial amounts of compensation,which could not be misappropriated by thestate administration are lying in the CivilDeposit.

20.It is also very clear that without giving em-ployment from out of the list so prepared bythe district administration and authorities ofRourkela Steel Plant, both connived with eachother and have appointed a large number offake persons who were neither affected by theconstruction of the Rourkela Steel Plant andMandira Dam nor have they been displacedfor the aforesaid purpose. Even some outsidershave been appointed in the Rourkela SteelPlant in the name of the displaced persons,though they are not the actual displaced per-sons.

21.After a long gap of 50 years of establishmentof Rourkela Steel Plant and Mandira Dam, theState Government by Resolution dated 13.5.2005 formed a High Level Committee underthe chairmanship of the Principal Secretary toGovernment of Orissa, Revenue Department,to look into the matter of rehabilitation andresettlement of Rourkela Steel Plant and Man-dira Dam Project in the District of Sundargarh.But so far the said committee has not takenany sincere steps to find out solutions of suchserious and sensitive issues.


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22.This high power committee presided, over byMr. Tarunkanti Mishra, IAS, Principal Secre-tary to Government of Orissa, Revenue De-partment, conducted its meeting and drew upa Proceedings on 4.7.2005. In the said Proceed-ings, it has been specifically mentioned:(i) To provide employment to at least one

person from each displaced family in ad-option of erstwhile T.N. Singh formula andinclusion of persons in the list of displacedpersons who were adversely affected dueto coming up mines and railway lines withthe project.

(ii) To find out such persons who have beenprovided employment on the basis of fakedisplacement certificates.

In para 3 of the Proceedings, it is mentionedthat records of the district administration andRourkela Steel Plant should be cross-checkedto verify complaints of getting employment onthe basis of fraudulent certificates. In the saidProceedings it is mentioned that in a reply toa question put by the Hon’ble M.P. of Sundar-garh on 21.12. 2004, the then Hon’ble Ministerfor Steel and Mines had specifically stated that,“the number of displaced persons for any pro-ject is determined on the basis of report of theconcerned State Government. If State Govern-ment has given any report on number regard-ing displaced families and they have not beenprovided with employment on the basis ofsuch report, the Government will not only seethat such report is implemented, but also ini-tiate suitable action against defaulting autho-rities.”In the said Proceedings it is mentioned that inthe matter of rehabilitation and resettlement,the decision of the State Government is finaland binding and the present case of RSP shallbe no exception to it. In the aforesaid meeting,the Managing Director, Rourkela Steel Plantraised a point that REHABILITATION ANDRESETTLEMENT IS THE BASIC RESPONSI-BILITY OF THE STATE GOVERNMENT.INDUSTRY CONCERNED IS NOT RESPON-SIBLE FOR ITS PROPER IMPLEMENTATION.It proves that the authorities of Rourkela SteelPlant are indifferent with regard to the rehabi-litation and resettlement of the actual displacedpersons, i.e. mostly the local tribals affectedby the construction of Rourkela Steel Plant andMandira Dam.

23.A comprehensive Affidavit has been filed byShri Tarunkanti Mishra, IAS, Principal Secre-tary to Government of Orissa, Revenue De-partment in Writ Petition bearing W.P. © No.

43388/04 Augustine Kujur & 36 others vs. Stateof Orissa and others, where he has solemnlymentioned in his Counter Affidavit dated 16thJanuary, 2006 that “AS REGARDS EMPLOY-MENT IN ROURKELA STEEL PLANT, NORECORD IS AVAILABLE WITH GOVERN-MENT IN REVENUE DEPARTMENT ANDTHERE IS, HOWEVER, NO RELIABLERECORD TO SHOW ANY SYSTEMATICPROCEDURE FOLLOWED FOR PROVIDINGEMPLOYMENT TO ALL THE DISPLACEDFAMILIES.”Further, he has mentioned in his Counter Af-fidavit that when they were requested to com-ply with the decisions of government level,they (i.e. RSP authorities) came up with repliesstating that they cannot provide employmentto such displaced persons. It has also beenstated that the list of names of 453 persons pre-pared in the year 1979 and 1,327 persons pre-pared, in the year 1981 has been supplied tothe Rourkela Steel Plant. A document has beenattached to the said Counter Affidavit whichis none-else than the letter dated 11. 1.2006 ofthe Hon’ble Chief Minister, Orissa addressedto the Hon’ble Prime Minister of India. In thesaid letter it has been stated by Shri NavinPatnaik, Hon’ble Chief Minister, Orissa thatduring the year 1992-93 a joint verification wasdone by the district authorities and RourkelaSteel Plant authorities and 1,098 persons eli-gible for employment had been identified. TheRevenue Department of the State Governmenthas been consistently pursuing the matter withRourkela Steel Plant authorities but they arenot taking any positive steps in this direction.It was requested in the said letter to take im-mediate steps in directing the steel plant autho-rities to initiate the process of recruitment tothe displaced families, as per the joint list pre-pared, so that the continuing agitation can beamicably withdrawn.

24.The original list of displaced persons by theconstruction of Rourkela Steel Plant and Man-dira Dam Project has been deliberately and in-tentionally kept by both the authorities of StateGovernment and the Rourkela Steel Plant.Despite repeated request and order, the origi-nal list has not been produced by the afore-said authorities. A large number of outsidershave been working in the Rourkela Steel Plantin the name of the displaced persons. Thoseoutsiders (dikus) have been appointed in aclandestine manner in collusion with the StateGovernment and Rourkela Steel Plant autho-rities. More over, Rourkela Steel Plant autho-



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rities are avoiding to produce the list of personsto whom they have given appointments asdisplaced persons.

25.The Principal Secretary in his Counter Affida-vit has stated that the lists of 453 and 1,327 dis-placed persons were prepared in 1979 and 1981respectively. But a list has been filed in theHon’ble Court, which contains the names of1,406 displaced persons. This proves that eitherthe State Government is not sincerely main-taining the government record or the govern-ment authorities are playing foul with thedisplaced persons and making dilly-dally tac-tics to avoid dire consequences. Whatever maybe the case, if the Orissa Government does notproduce the list of displaced persons of Rour-kela Steel Plant and Mandira Dam Project andthe list of the persons to whom they have givenappointments in the place of actual displacedpersons, definitely, unpleasant situations arelikely to arise in future.

26.It is also to be noted here that when the KoelHousing Complex was under construction atRourkela by HSL, the Government of Orissain Revenue Department in their Letter No.57099 – R dated 1.10.1981 has given assuranceto give priority in accommodation, allotment,employment and other facilities to the localdisplaced persons, but the government hasfailed to fulfil the norms of the above letter tilldate.

27.With the amount of compensation in the mat-ter of acquisition of land and selling, leasing,transferring land by the HSL, RRIT (RourkelaRegional Improvement Trust, now renamed asRDA or Rourkela Development Authority),Government of Orissa are leaving far reachinggaps of lakhs of Rupees per acre of land ori-ginally acquired from the local Adivasis. TheGovernment of Orissa has withdrawn from theacquisition of about 600 acres of acquired landwhich were not required by the Government,especially of village Bandposh, Pradhanpali,Luakera and Tumkela, vide Govt. of OrissaPolitical and Services Department NotificationNo. 1229-RKL-30/59-P, dated 27th February,1959.

28.It may be mentioned here that section 7 of theAct XVIII of 1948 provides for the method ofdetermination of compensation. It says that thecompensation can be fixed by agreement bet-ween the parties and if no such agreement canbe reached the State Government shall appoint

an arbitrator who is a person qualified for ap-pointment as a Judge of a High Court to deter-mine the said compensation. But neither anyagreement has been made between the dis-placed persons and the state authorities inview of section 7 (a) of the Act nor the StateGovernment has appointed any arbitrator inthe rank of Judge of a High Court for determi-nation of such compensation till date.

29.The authorities of the State Government as wellas RSP have grossly violated the provisionsunder section 4 of Land Acquisition (OrissaAmendment and Validation) Act, 1959, where-in it has been expressly directed by addingwords “SHALL” that within six months ofacquisition, execution of documents with thepersons or company concerned for where theland has been acquired, and it shall publishthe same according to section 42 of Land Ac-quisition Act, 1894.

30.Under the provisions of Section 4 of Act I of1894 as amended by Act XXXVIII of 1923 andunder the provisions of sub-section (1) of Sec-tion 3 of Orissa Act XVIII of 1948 with regardto the acquisition of tribal land, the Govern-ment of Orissa circumvented the provisionsof the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution ofIndia as to check and control the immovableproperties of tribals in Scheduled Areas asprovided in sub-paragraph (2) of Paragraph 5of the Fifth Schedule.It is pertinent to mention here that prior to theacquisition of lands for RSP and Mandira Dam,the Orissa Government had not made any lawfor the protection of tribal land. On the otherhand only after the acquisition of land for theabove projects, “The Orissa Scheduled AreasTransfer of Immovable Property by ScheduledTribes), Regulation, 1956”, i.e. Orissa Regu-lation (2) of 1956, was introduced to controland check the transfer of immovable propertyby Scheduled Tribes in the Scheduled Areasof the State of Orissa. The Government of Oris-sa and the Steel Authority of India or RourkelaSteel Plant never bothered for the protectionof the tribal land. In the name of the publicpurpose, the tribals have been massively alien-ated from their century-old landed property.

31.The local displaced persons strongly feel thatthey have sacrificed their ancestral landedproperties only for the public purpose and notfor any private business which is contrary tothe law of the land. But about 15,000 acres ofunutilized land have been sub-letted to dif-


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ferent private persons, and with the passageof time innumerable unauthorized construc-tions, illegal transfers, auctions, leases with thehelp of the implication of false litigations,strong arm tactics, engagement of dalals adopt-ed by the mafia group. All such steps have beendirected against the main purpose of settingup of Rourkela Steel plant. There was no con-cept of “multiple uses for public purpose” withregard to the acquisition of tribal land.

32.The displaced persons of Sundargarh Districthad moved several writ petitions before theHon’ble High Court of Orissa from time totime for redress of their grievances. Recentlyanother writ petition, W.P.© No. 4388 of 2004,has been filed by the displaced persons ofMandira Dam which is subjudiced before theHon’ble High Court of Orissa. After carefulscrutiny, it has been observed, that in the abovecases the aforesaid constitutional provisionsand statutory laws mentioned above have notbeen taken into consideration, for which thelocal displaced persons have been deprived oftheir human rights and legal justice.

CONCLUSIONS

Now it is being 50 years after the establishmentof Rourkela Steel Plant and Mandira Dam Project.After a survey made by the fact finding humanrights group ‘ASHRA’, it is discovered that thedisplaced persons of resettlement colonies ofLachda, Kendro, Silikata, Hathidharsa, Champa-jharan (Jhirpani), Laing, Ushra, Banki Bahal,Jaidega, Dhuankata, Jhandapahar, Jalda, Jhirpani,Bondamunda, Ulandajharan and Gahami etc.have been badly cheated and they have beendeprived of their basic amenities of life. They havealso not been given adequate compensations.About 90 per cent of displaced persons who havebeen rehabilitated in the above mentioned re-settlement colonies belong to the tribal communi-ty. The periphery development programmes orschemes of Rourkela Steel Plant have not reachedin or covered most of the resettlement coloniestill date.

So, the displaced persons are not in a mood tocompromise with both the authorities of theGovernment of Orissa and Rourkela Steel Plant.An ill feeling is gradually developing against theState Government, steel plant authorities, RRITand other persons dealing with land. So far themovements and agitations of the displaced per-sons were by and large within the control of ad-

ministrative authorities through their suppressiveand oppressive methods. In fact, the victims, par-ticularly Adivasis of Rourkela Steel Plant andMandira Dam Projects, are struggling for theirsurvival. They are fighting for their inalienablerights and justice, because they have been forciblyand unjustly evicted from their hearth and home.They have been systematically and methodicallydispossessed of their ancestral lands. Land, waterand forests are the basic natural resources of theirmeans of livelihood. They have a symbiotic rela-tionship with these resources. By tradition, theyare agriculturists. The Adivasis cannot survivewithout their lands and forests.

In the name of public purpose, the Governmentof Orissa has acquired excess lands of the Adivasisat random without having any specific pre-plan.As a result, a major influx of non-tribals, outsiders,exploiters and land grabbers, businessmen, cor-rupt government officials have destroyed thesocio-economic, political, cultural life of the localtribals. Now the Adivasis of Rourkela have be-come slaves and refugees in their own home land.Their social, economic and community life hasbeen completely shattered. They are now livingin a starving and wretched condition. They arelanguishing due to economic distress. They areliving from hand to mouth. The majority of theAdivasi population have no share in the economicgrowth of the region.

The government officials and RSP authorities aregiving priority to the productivity of the steelplant. The Government of Orissa has been strong-ly pursuing industrialisation and exploitation ofthe mineral resources in the State. Hence, theGovernment of Orissa and RSP authorities do notbother about the legal issues of Adivasi land, theirprotests and their struggle for survival. Therehave been severe demographic changes as mostlyoutsiders occupy the creamy jobs in the indus-tries. The tribal population of Rourkela Steel Cityapproximately has been reduced from 85 per centto 10 per cent within a span of 50 years in andaround the vicinity of industrial complex. Grab-bing of land is a big threat to the tribal communityfor their survival.

Sundargarh District is a scheduled district andthe Governor of Orissa is the real authority of suchScheduled Area. So in this matter, the Governoronly can intervene and take necessary steps toprotect and promote the interests of the Sched-uled Tribes. Because the Governor has been em-powered to make regulations for peace and goodgovernance in Scheduled Areas, especially for the



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solution of the long standing problems of thedisplaced persons of Rourkela Steel Plant andMandira Dam Project. Hence, for the end of jus-tice, the displaced persons of the affected areashave finally submitted a memorandum to HisEminence, the Governor of Orissa for the redress-al of their grievances, to look into the matter per-sonally and pass necessary appropriate orderkeeping in mind with the following points:

(i) Stay order ought to be given to further con-struction, alienation, mortgage, transfer,sale, lease in any way dealing with the landacquired for public purpose. In this regard,the guidance of a Judge of High Court orSupreme Court ought to be taken.

(ii) Thorough enquiry ought to be made whe-ther compensation was paid or not for theland acquired. Government should takeappropriate measures whether displacedpersons were rehabilitated or not.

(iii) The money illegally collected by HSL andState Government by their illegal acts, to atune of Rupees two hundred crores shouldbe disbursed to the per-sons whose landswere used in that fashion.

(iv) Stay order ought to be issued on furtherconstruction of any permanent structure inand around Rourkela till the finalizationof this dispute and specific orders be

passed to the SAIL authorities and/or StateGovernment, who should execute the orderin true sense.

(v) Land already surrendered by HSL to Go-vernment of Orissa be returned back tooriginal tenants or the difference value ofthe land received by way of lease, sale,transfer etc. in all the above areas be paidto the displaced persons along with theinterest.

(vi) The lands allotted, leased out, sold to pri-vate persons out of the land acquired bythe Government for the purpose of HSLought to be cancelled. Strict order ought tobe given to the State Government not tosell, lease or sub-let to private persons.

Indiscriminate large-scale, economically damag-ing and socially harmful transfer of fertile agri-culture land for non-agricultural use should bestopped forthwith, because in so doing theGovernment is throwing away the rice bowls ofthe farmers.

The Government of India is spending crores ofRupees for the victims of FLOODS, EARTH-QUAKES AND TSUNAMI. But in this case, it isfound that the prosperous farmers, mostly tribals,are made have-nots and beggars due to SAIL,Rourkela Steel Plant and Mandira Dam.


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INTRODUCTION

Industrialisation is perceived to be a boon to thepeople of a given area. It is believed to enhancethe economic status, leading to an improvedquality of life. Establishment of industries pro-vides economic opportunities, opens up com-munication networks, enhances educational aswell as health facilities and ultimately links thearea with the external world. Industrialisationthus is a symbol of prosperity.

For the Adivasi world, industrialiszation has adifferent meaning. The process destabilizes theAdivasi world, uproots them from their land,natural resources, spiritual world, demolishestheir political systems, and above all, destroystheir culture, which includes every reality of theirlife. Culture here would mean every reality thatgoverns their life.

Placing the Adivasis in the center of our discourse,we can divide the entire population in to twogroups: (i) the Non-Adivasis, and (ii) the Adivasis.The Non-Adivasis, who are the decision makers,establish industries in the Adivasi inhabited areasand derive all the benefit. The Adivasis, who arethe indigenous people and the original inhabi-tants of the area, are the victims of the process,which has been imposed up on them.

THE PRE-INDUSTRIAL TRIBALOR ADIVASI SCENARIO

Population characteristicsOraons, Kisans, Mundas, Kharias, Bhuiyans andGonds are the major Adivasi groups that inhabitSundargarh District, the area of our concern. Theyhave got their ancestral, social, cultural and spiri-tual links with the Adivasis of Chotanagpur.While the Oraons and Kisans form the part of theDravidian linguistic family, the Munda and theKharias belong to the Kolarian linguistic group.

Settlement patternEach of the Adivasi groups had individual homo-geneous villages. The villages were away from

The Destruction of Adivasi Culture in the Industrial Age

By Nabor Soreng

Social scientist and expert on cultural communication, working with National Institute for SocialWork & Social Sciences,Bhubaneswar, Orissa, India

the Non-Adivasi mass, located in the hills andjungles. Care was taken that the water sources,i.e. hill or forest streams, and deep land with pos-sible water sites, were close to the village. In someplaces, mainly close to the hills and jungles, onenoticed scattered villages, with the houses locatedmostly close to the land. The reason behind thiswas that the land reclaimed by the families fromthe forests was not located in a single patch, butwas distributed over a large geographical area.The houses grouped in twos and threes, some-times more, were located close to the fields. Some-times one found such villages occupying morethan two to three square kilometres as their terri-tory. The villages, though scattered, kept up theirother attributes, i.e. social, cultural, spiritual,political and economic solidarity.

In the Non-Christian Adivasi villages, one noticedthe village deity which was responsible for theprotection of the village. The Christian Adivasivillage invariably had a common village chapel,located mostly in a central or otherwise conveni-ent place. The houses mostly were erected of fo-rest timbers, some times with manually processedmud. Timber walls were mud plastered.

Socio-spiritual practices of the life cycleBirth, puberty, marriage and death are associatedwith specific rituals. Each ritual has a scientificreason. Elaboration of the practices associatedwith birth could throw a light on the reasons.

With the birth of the new baby, the family becomesimpure. The mother, the baby and the entirefamily for about seven days are in the state ofimpurity. Normally on the 9th or 10th day, andafter the umbilical chord has fallen, the puri-fication ceremony is conducted. This ceremonyis called as ‘Chatti’. Bathing of the baby and themother with turmeric water, marks the ‘Chatti’.Once the purification ceremony is over, the baby,the mother and the entire family is declared astouchable and normal visits can take place.Separation of the family for these days is toprovide a time for the mother and the baby togain immunity from external contacts.



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Death too brings impurity to the family. Oncedeath occurs in a family, the family is consideredas impure till a purification ceremony is con-ducted after ten days. On this day everybodypresent at the ceremony takes a ritual bath, theyrub with turmeric paste on their hands andbodies. Once all the rituals are over, the family isconsidered to be pure and worthy of visits. Theconcept of pollution in this case is to preventpeople from touching the corpse and visiting thefamily unnecessarily, since the cause of death isunknown. After 9 or 10 days, the family becomesfree from the harmful germs and hence becomesworthy of visits.

Both birth and death rituals and also marriageceremonies invariably brought the people to-gether. In all these occasions, the relatives far andnear and the neighbours shared the joys andsorrows with the family. Joyous occasions, i.e.birth and marriage ceremonies, are accompaniedby feasting, singing and dancing. Collectivegrieving is commonly observed during death. Allthese occasions expressed solidarity and cement-ed the social bond of the Adivasis.

Cultural LifeLanguageSingle tribe inhabited villages invariably talkedtheir own Adivasi language. While the Khariasand the Mundas belong to the Proto-Australoidor Kolarian linguistic group, the Oraons and theKisans spoke Kurukh, which falls in the Dra-vidian group of languages. In the mixed Adivasivillages, ‘Sadri’ was the common dialect of thevillage, while the individual families spoke theirown Adivasi language at home. The languageplayed a cementing role in the society.

Songs and dancesMusic forms a part and parcel of the life of theAdivasis. One cannot imagine life of the Adivasiswithout music. Songs and dances not only pro-vide entertainment to the Adivasis, but also pro-vide avenues for encoding and transmittingvarious messages through them.

Every lean period created an avenue for songsand dances. The Adivasis therefore have songsand dances for every season. The themes normal-ly include the activities and various events thathave taken place, and they may include forecastedproblems as well. The instrumental rhythms anddances differ from season to season. During mar-riage and spiritual festivals, the songs, rhythmsand steps are different. During religious festivalsthe themes relate to the occasion and are mostly

spiritual by character. Marriage ceremonies havedifferent themes. Themes here also include narra-tions of the occasion, various rituals, history ofthe tribe, problems as well as prospects and soon. The singers also compose on the spot, whichthe others join in singing. Marriage, which has aseries of feasts and rituals, has another form ofmusic. While in the former form only young boysand girls are the participants, in the latter formmostly the elderly people are the singers. Thesongs popularly known as ‘Durang’ are slow bytempo, melodious and meaningful. Here themesplay the prime role. The tune re-emphasizes themeaning of the song. The elderly men and womensit together in the courtyard under the leaf-thatch-ed canopy, and sing alternately. One group startsand the other repeats it. With the completion ofone song, the latter group becomes the beginnerand the former then follows. This goes on for thewhole night. The songs contain themes of history,migration, agrarian situation, problems and alsothe theme of the occasion.

The Adivasi dancers hold each others’ hands be-hind the waist and form a circle while dancing.The first in the file is the one responsible for themanagement of the session that includes initiatingsongs, controlling the steps of the dance, main-taining the size of the circle, etc. The leader is as-sumed to be the best dancer. Anyone, however,can become the leader, if he or she is able to initiatethe dance and manage a session with appropriatesongs. No outsider willing to dance is rejected,but if the new entrant is unable to synchronizewith the others, the rhythm gets disturbed andthe flow breaks. The new entrants, therefore, ifunable to dance, move out of the circle voluntarily.There has to be a perfect synchrony in the Adivasidance.

The instrumentalists beat the drums to the rhythmof the song that has been initiated by the leaderof the dancers. There is a leader among the drum-mers. The leader is assumed to be the best drum-mer of the group and normally initiates therhythms and manages a particular session. Any-one can become a leader, provided he is able toinitiate a rhythm and manage a particular dancingsession.

A dancing session does not only consist of songs,dance and drumming. It has a continuous processof communication elements in it. The songs havespecific messages. The themes could be amorousor even contain messages of appreciation, narratehistory, bravery, morality and so on. In betweenthe songs and dances, the non-verbal symbols,


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i.e. smiles, intentional gaze, pitches of songs oreven stress on a rhythm, etc., have specific com-munication elements. The singers through thesongs and non-verbal symbols encode variousother messages, which the target receives withutmost accuracy. The transmitter and the receiverunderstand each other, respect the position of theother, and hence there is a parallel and perfectcommunication.

Feasts and festivalsThe Adivasis have their special feasts and festi-vals. All of them have special purposes, meaningsand modes of celebration. A glimpse of a few ofthem is as follows:

Sarhul: The Sarhul festival is celebrated duringApril-May. It unfolds not only the tribe’s culturalbeauty, but also their deep philosophical conceptof God, the Creator, Mother Earth and the Ladyof the Environment. This festival is celebratedspecifically by the Oraons, but the Kharias andMundas also observe it. They celebrate it as a feastof fertility. According to tribal/Adivasi belief, God(‘Dharmes’ or ‘Singbonga’) is especially pleasedto bestow upon them his blessings of fertility andprosperity through the ‘Sal’ tree, which is there-fore very significant in Adivasi life and culture.Their worship place is the holy grove of ‘Sal’ trees.

Karam: While Sarhul is a festival that begins withhunting and ends with the hopes of good agri-cultural production, Karam is a festival relatedpurely to cultivation: involving sowing, sproutingand growth of crops. Along with its associationwith expectations of good crops, it has becomean occasion for the sisters to wish for their bro-thers’ successful life. Karam is celebrated in themiddle of the period of five months from Asadhto Kartik, i.e. some time in August/September,which are especially devoted to cultivation. Themain activities are: (a) ceremonially placingdifferent kinds of grains in baskets for germina-tion, (b) fasting and offering prayers, and (c) thefinal event of music and dance.

Sohrai - the cattle festival: Among the agricul-ture-centred festivals, Sohrai is the second mostimportant festival. Basically it is an observanceof honour to the cattle, which assist in cultivationoperations, and in this festival they are symbo-lically placed at the level of gods. This feast is cele-brated mostly in the month of October-November.Once the rituals are completed, mixed gruels ofrice and lentils - prepared in honour of the cattle- is served to the cattle and to the people of thehouse as well. On the second day, which is the

day of eating and drinking, the people get to-gether and dance with a few decorated bulls andoxen tied on to a strong pole, and turn by turnthey dance and make the cattle dance also withthem to the music played at that time. The com-bined dance of the people and the cattle continuestill sunset. In the evening, after meals, youngpeople get together at the dancing ground againand their dance continues till morning.

Annual hunt: The Adivasis end the year with thecelebration of the annual hunt. This normallyculminates on the full moon day of February-March. On the day of the festival, after the ritualsand prayers to the forest deity have been dulyperformed, the group sets out to the forest withbows and arrows. Upon their return, the huntersare received at the entrance of the village by wash-ing their feet. Amidst music and dance, they aretaken to the place of the forest deity, where themeat of the game is divided keeping in mind therole the people have played in this expedition.The man with whose weapon the animal was hitfirst, is given a hind leg as token of bravery. Therecipient, after formally receiving the prize, polite-ly returns it in the interest of the village. Share isgiven even to the dogs, which helped in catchingthe animal at the expedition. Portions are madeout also for persons who could not participatedue to illness or for those households where thereare no men. At times the game is so small that amember gets only a piece or two, but it does notmake any difference in excitement. The main ele-ment behind the expedition is the joy of coopera-tion.

Social communicationCommunication among the Adivasis of Sundar-garh District is very much influenced and guidedby the ethnic characteristics of the Adivasi society.Based on the fact that the traditional Adivasisociety of the area is very much community cen-tred and egalitarian by character, that it is havingan element of simplicity, truthfulness, and that itis hospitable and altruistic, their dominant formof communication is complementary by character.This implies understanding of the other, respect-ing the overall status of the other and consideringhim/her as the equal partner. The communicationmost of the time therefore is direct, straightfor-ward - except when the communicator does notwant to offend the receiver. Messages are simpleand encoded either in words, phrases, songs, andnon-verbal symbols. The objectives of communi-cation among the Adivasis, therefore, used to bemaintenance of inter-personal relationship, familyharmony, tribe and sub-tribe harmony, conflict



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resolution, inter-tribe relationship, maintenanceof the Adivasi world-view, maintenance of the spi-ritual relationship with the supernatural world,social control, controlling deviances, and consoli-dation of Adivasi solidarity, motivating and enter-taining.

EconomyThe distinguishing feature of the Adivasi informalsociety was that it was community based asagainst the individual based formal system. Se-condly, it was oral tradition based as against thewritten words of the present system. The com-munity accepted the oral undertaking of the indi-vidual in trust. In this system, truth was un-animous - not evidential as in the litigation basedformal system. Thirdly, the informal Adivasieconomy did not have the concept of property asit is understood today.

(a) Land ownership: The Adivasis since ages havea special relationship with the land they own.They do not consider land simply as an economicasset. In the first place, ownership of land wasvested in the community. No individual had theright to permanently alienate it from the commu-nity. The community or the tribe includes not onlythe living members but also the ancestors andfuture generations.(b) Subsistence agriculture: Adivasi agriculturewas subsistent by character. An Adivasi personproduced for his day-to-day consumption, andnot for the market. Hence extra products wereoften shared among the neighbours.(c) Common ownership of natural resources:Water resources, i.e. rivers, tanks, ponds, etc. werecommunally owned. All the water products, i.e.fish, etc., were shared by the people. An indivi-dual Adivasi person owning a private tank withfish shared the product with others. There werecommunity fishing days.(d) Work-cooperation: The Adivasis had a systemof collective work or work cooperatives. They callthis cooperation as ‘Pancha’, literally meaning thecooperation of five members. According to thissystem, all the members of the cooperation workin a family on a fixed day every week. The workcould be of any category ranging from ploughingto wood chopping or house repair, construction,digging and levelling. The host family providedthem with a token drink of ‘Handia’ (the tra-ditional rice beer) and a nominal amount of cashfixed by the group, which went to the collectivefund. Difficult tasks were performed through‘Pancha’.

Ethnic characteristicsThe traditional ethnic characteristics of the Adi-vasis may be summarized in this way:- Straightforwardness: They said whatever they

felt.- Faithfulness: They felt bound by the assigned

responsibility.- Simplicity: They meant what they said. They

did not say one thing and then did another.- Bound by oral promises: What was once orally

said had to be fulfilled at any cost.- Self-discipline in community life: They could

not imagine life without a community.- Courageous/brave in adversity: They were

brave enough to survive in a hostile naturalenvironment.

- Hospitable: Hospitality was one of their great-est wealth. They treated a guest without ex-pecting a return.

- Truthful: By nature, they were truthful. Theybelieved the same characteristics to be presentin everyone (and hence got deceived).

- Peace loving: Unless disturbed, they loved tolive in a peaceful environment. One could,therefore, see smiles radiating from their faces.

- Disciplined: This was reflected in their dis-ciplined behaviour in every place, ceremonies,meetings and group dances.

- High sense of morality: They had their ownmoral norm codes. Once moral norm was de-fined, they adhered to that to the fullest extent.Deviants were taken to task.

- Egalitarian by character: Equality was givenprime importance, and hence sharing was oneof their characteristics. They helped each otherin work and adverse conditions.

THE POST-INDUSTRIAL SCENARIO

Population characteristics and settlementpatternThe Adivasi villages close to the towns and indus-trial areas are large in size and heterogeneous bycharacter. This is a result of displacement and im-migration of Non-Adivasis into the area for jobs.Though most of these villages now are Christian,they also have Non-Christian population in them.

The Adivasi families that traditionally opted forconstructing their houses close to their land can-not do so now due to the population pressure andscarcity of virgin plain and forest land. The exist-ing Adivasi villages now have been forced toaccept people from other Adivasi groups or evenNon-Adivasi communities. The homogeneouscharacteristics of their villages have thus gone.


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Due to the heterogeneity of the villages, the exis-tence of a single village deity is not possible.Therefore, one could find different deities amongthe Non-Christian Adivasis located at differentplaces. The Christians, however, have a commonvillage chapel, where Sunday services are mostlyconducted in ‘Sadri’, a common dialect in the area.

The social scenarioFamily characteristicsIn the industrial areas, there are more tendenciestowards nuclearisation of the families. There arealso joint families up to the first generation of line-age. The families, however, are patriarchal andpatrilocal by character. Widows can remain as thehead of the family as long as the sons are not ofage and are working in the field or elsewhere.

As a result of industrialisation, distances betweenthe nuclearized families (from the joint families),have widened. One brother having a job in theindustrial set-up or town is economically far bet-ter off than his own brother who stays in thevillage and engages in agriculture. It is not onlyan economic difference, but there are also socialand psychological differences between them,resulting in further destruction of family soli-darity. Within the same village, there are diffe-rences between such families who are dependenton agriculture and the ones who have membersworking in the industries and town. The housingpattern, therefore, is not uniform. The ownershipof assets ranges widely, leading to huge economic,social and psychological gaps between differentfamilies. There are also unfair competitions bet-ween different families, resulting in the weaken-ing of village solidarity.

Social practices and ritualsThere is a tendency to undervalue and disrespectthe rituals and traditions that carried differentmeanings during the past. Rituals and traditionsthat brought the village and community togetherhave started becoming diluted and no more holdthe same meanings. This results in less participa-tion of people and - in some places - even inundervaluing of their meanings. There are ten-dencies to imitate rituals and practices duringbirth, marriage and death ceremonies from theother neighbouring communities, which are per-ceived to be higher than their own. The onesworking in the urban areas even have the ten-dency to imitate practices from the Non-Adivasicommunities of the urban areas. The erection ofmodern canopies in the manner of the urban areasduring various ceremonies, the use of Non-Adi-vasi sacrificial elements, the drastic changes of

rituals by individuals in the manner of the urbanareas: All these are the consequences of industri-alisation.

In several places, there have been cases to imitatethe dowry system, in the direct or indirectmanner, which goes totally against the Adivasisystem. There are also cases where the Adivasisfrom the urban centres have refused to recognizetheir social, spiritual and political leaders andtried to impose their own views. Traditionally, theKharias led the bride to the groom’s house formarriage, but now they follow ‘Barat’ or thegroom’s festive journey as the other groups do.

The spiritual scenarioAmong the Non-Christian Adivasis in the indus-trial areas, there is tendency to imitate the Non-Adivasi practices. Hinduism is day-by-day in-fluencing the Adivasis in this area. They even havestarted denouncing their traditional Adivasireligions, and have started calling themselves asHindus. Popular Hindu festivals, i.e. Durgapuja,Dipavali, Ganesh Puja, Saraswati Puja, Holi, Raja,Rath Yatra, etc., are being observed by them. Theirtraditional deities, ancestral spirits, family deitiesand feasts as well as festivals have started beingpushed to the backgrounds. Sarhul, Sohrai, Ka-ram, their former grand feasts have lost their fer-vours in these areas. Hindu activists and preach-ers are very active and popular in such areas.

The cultural scenarioSocial communicationAs against ‘simple message’ and ‘straight commu-nication’, the Adivasis in the industrial and urbanareas no more retain the ‘simple’ characteristic ofthe message. They have learned how to have an‘ulterior’ communication. This was as a result ofthe people frequently getting deceived by the out-siders in work places and markets. They havebeen constantly observing people telling one thingand doing another. Similarly, having dual mean-ing in words has become a part of the communi-cation system among the Adivasis of the area.

Since the Adivasis in the industrial areas growvegetables as cash crops, they do the marketingin the industrial towns themselves. This has madethem to learn market communication, i.e. hidingthe real value of a product and extracting as muchas possible from the buyers. This implies havingdual meaning in verbal and non-verbal communi-cation.

Since altruism in the industrial areas is vanishing,the people are less concerned about the others and



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hence people do not bother about the type of inter-personal transactions. While traditionally most ofthe interpersonal transactions were complemen-tary, now they have started crossing people indis-criminately and also engaging in ulterior trans-action. This is resulting in further deteriorationof the Adivasi society.

At the basic group/family levelSocial drinks among the Adivasis were a socialaffair. Drinking sessions brought the Adivasigroups together, where they shared their day-to-day problems, ideas and even planned for thefuture. ‘Handia’ (rice beer) was the traditionalAdivasi drink. Today drinking has become an in-dividual affair. And it is no more the traditional‘Handia’. But the non-indigenous distilled liquoror foreign liquor are the stuffs consumed by theAdivasis going to the industries and mines forwork. Coming back drunk in the evening is a com-mon occurrence among the Adivasis of the indus-trial areas. This results in quarrels, wife and childbeating and an overall disturbed family.

Family communication, therefore, is no more a‘complementary’ one, but crossed and ulteriortransactions are the common characteristics of theday. The days of harmonious interaction betweenthe husband, wife and children have more or lessgone. There are families that still maintain har-monious communication. Such families feel thethreat of being dragged any time into such kindof environment.

At the village levelWith the changes in the village structure and thesocio-economic and political environment, thereis a change in the communication system. In theindustrial areas, with the emergence of multi-tribevillages, the traditional village head is no more acaste based head, but he now is a purely politicalhead. In such areas, the ward members have be-come the political leaders, not the traditional casteheads. The caste heads have gone to the back-yards, dealing only with caste affairs.

In the Village Council matters relating to externallinkages, i.e. village development programmes,schemes for the village, school, work contract, etc.are discussed. All these activities are concernedwith external development agencies, i.e. the Pan-chayat Head Office, block and district offices, non-governmental developmental agencies and diffe-rent political parties. The meeting, therefore, isno longer a traditional Village Council, but at theprimary level - the Palli Sabha and the Gram Sa-bha - the ward member, i.e. the one elected from

different political groups, takes the lead. Theissues, therefore, naturally create cliques andgroups in the villages, where people go in theparty line. Some of the issues like disputes onsocial issues are also discussed. In serious dis-putes the cases invariably have to be referred tothe police.

Given the above background, the communicationwithin the village is not parallel or complemen-tary as traditionally it used to be. Presentation offacts does not have the same sanctity, but politicalaffiliations here seem to take over. The ward mem-ber is supported by his/her political group, butgets critically questioned and even obstructed inproceedings by the rival factions. Cross communi-cations are very much prevalent in such situa-tions.

In case of displacement and perceived feelings ofoppression by the industries, the Adivasis seemto be united to a great extent. They discuss toge-ther since they have been experiencing the im-pacts irrespective of the caste groups or politicalaffiliations. Here also one finds changes nowa-days. Where there was an absolute unanimity,some deviants with outside links are found in theinfluenced villages that try to subvert the proceed-ings. The outside agencies, i.e. the industries andthe concerned political parties, try to catch holdof such persons, to bring a division in the villagecommunity. These individuals might also manageto influence a few others, and hence the subvers-ive elements around the villages close to theindustries and urban centres become a commonfeature.

Cultural communicationTraditionally ‘Durangs’ (slow tempo songs)played an important role in the wedding ceremo-nies. They encoded messages of love, apprecia-tion, narrated history, tradition, valour, etc. They,however, have more or less vanished in the in-dustrial areas. The young people no more giveimportance to the ‘Durangs’. The elderly people,for whom ‘Durangs’ used to be the means of en-tertainment, have more or less given themselvesup to the whims and wishes of the young people,who have already experienced the taste of moder-nization. The elderly people today in the indus-trial areas have become onlookers in the enter-tainment activities during marriages and othersocial feasts.

‘Dholki’, ‘Nagada’ and ‘Mandar’, constituted themusical instruments of the Adivasis. Though‘Dholki’ is hard to play, everybody in the village


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knew how to play it. Similarly ‘Mandar’ and ‘Na-gada’, which need a sense of musical timing, werethe instruments of everybody. Today many of theurban-based youths and the ones residing in faraway school hostels hardly know how to playthese instruments. The educated youths and eventhe elderly people, who are based in the industrialareas, hesitate to touch such instruments.

Songs constituted an invariable component ofentertainment among the Adivasis. Young andold, irrespective of social or economic status,knew the melodious tunes and got the messagesof different kinds. Today the youths and the job-holders in the industrial areas do not hesitate toundervalue the traditional tunes and modes.

The dance steps are fast changing. The youths inthe industrial areas learn different other dancesteps, devise now steps and incorporate them intothe Adivasi dance. The dances, therefore, becomecomplicated and the rhythms are not exactlyconforming to the Adivasi dance steps. Theelderly people of the villages find it difficult tofollow such steps.

There is an increasing tendency of the urbanyouths to follow disco steps in the dancing circle.Formerly, only the drummers were in the middleof the dancing circle, while the rest, irrespectiveof sex, joined the circle. Only a few, who did notjoin the circle, stayed in the centre, but went roundwith the drummers singing the same song thatthe dancers sang. Today the youths, especiallyboys who do not join the dancing circle, stay inthe middle, do not sing along with the dancers orfollow in any manner the dance steps, but try toimitate disco steps. This disturbs the synchronyduring the dance.

In traditional religious feasts, i.e. Sarhul, Karam,etc., though they still continue possessing the tra-ditional themes, the music including songs anddances are no more the same. Traditionally thesefeasts had specific rhythms, songs and dances.Except in the remote areas, the Adivasis in theindustrial areas have more or less forgotten Sarhuland Karam songs. Both these songs had seasonalrhythms as well as songs, and the youths of todaydo not know them. During Karam celebrationsin the interior areas, the dancers imitate Karamtunes and dances, but immediately switch overto some other steps since many are not familiarwith the traditional steps. Besides, the urbanyouths insist that different steps should be ini-tiated. The traditional Karam and Sarhul steps,therefore, are dying out.

The greatest danger in the cultural forms of theAdivasis of the area is the advent of the modernform of music. The urban youths and people go-ing frequently to the industrial and urban areasfor work regularly see different marriages andreligious ceremonies being performed. In reli-gious ceremonies, like Ganesh Puja, SaraswatiPuja, Durga Puja, etc., they have seen micro-phones being used and non-religious modernmusic being played there. The Adivasis backhome have started to imitate the same. In placeof traditional dance and songs, the families in thisarea have started using microphones duringreligious and social ceremonies. This disturbs thedancing group. Traditionally the Adivasis werenever the onlookers, but participants in socialceremonies, songs and dances. The use of micro-phones has reduced the Adivasis to dumb specta-tors. This trend is increasing day by day, andspecifically the youths of the urban areas areinsisting on it and take pride in hiring microphonesets and playing non-indigenous songs. Not onlythat, the youths have started disco dancing to thetune of such music.

An Adivasi reception always consisted of tradi-tional songs and dances. Adivasis sang anddanced for the person who was being receivedand the guest also participated in the dance. Nowin such occasions modern songs are sung andnon-indigenous musical instruments are utilizedto felicitate a person. Very recently in one of theweddings, there was a band party that played mo-dern music after the completion of the weddingrituals. The people, who were eager to dance theirtraditional steps, got disgusted and even com-plained to the host. The host, however, took pridein organizing the band party since it showed hiseconomic status.

‘Barat’ (the groom’s party) - as it used to be celeb-rated by some of the Adivasi communities in thetraditional way - was a journey full of joy. Theparty covered several kilometres crossing forests,hills, streams, and plateaus, etc., and enjoyed ateach place. It consisted of singing and dancingon the route. Today in the urban areas, like theoutsiders, the Adivasis have started hiring ve-hicles, buses or smaller four wheelers for ‘Barat’.This reduces the time on journey and the entirejoyous feast en route is missing. The trip that pro-vided enormous joy to the group and kept up thesolidarity as well as the culture of the people hasgone into the backyards. Even for a short distance,people today hire a vehicle and take pride in do-ing so. Enjoyment is not the objective of such trips,but the show of status.



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Influence of modern mediaIn the industrial areas and especially in the peri-pheral Adivasi villages, the media has a great rolein changing the life styles of the Adivasis. Sincethe people have access to money, they have mo-dern communication equipments, i.e. radio andtelevision. Through radio the Adivasi youths getassociated with modern music, specifically filmsongs. News is not an important item in radio,but the songs. These songs have greatly changedthe musical taste of the Adivasi youths. They havestarted giving more importance to modern songsrather than to their traditional tunes.

The Adivasis residing in the cities and other urbanareas have television sets for their entertainment.Where traditionally songs and dances constitutedtheir main source of entertainment, today theyhave been substituted by television. Films, serials,sports items and advertisements have become themain source of entertainment for the Adivasis ofsuch areas. Not only that, the Adivasis are alsoadopting the values and life styles that they havebeen seeing in the television. Many of them donot distinguish between the reality and fiction,and thus all the things presented in the screenare taken as realities, and it is thus totally in-fluencing their lives. The harmonious communi-cation system that was the traditional charac-teristic of an Adivasi family is no more there insuch areas. The family is getting further nuclear-ized with the children of different age groups, theelders and parents having different tastes, fight-ing for their share in the screen. This has startedbreaking the families.

Economic lifeThe traditional informal society that was com-munity based has become individual based in theindustrial age. The oral tradition based societynow is totally dependent on written words. Oralundertakings during economic transactions havenow been replaced by written documents.

Land traditionally was not just an economic asset.In the pre-industrial era, there was the system ofcommunity ownership and no individual had theright to permanently alienate it from the commu-nity. Now land has become an individual assetand the owner can use or dispose of it as he wish-es.

Subsistence agriculture and food cropping hasbecome now cash cropping in the industrial areas.Since the surplus products go to the market, thesharing of extra produces has vanished from theculture in these areas.

Water resources, tanks and ponds, etc., were com-munally owned and all the products in it belong-ed to the community. Now the fish of a pond isan asset of the individual owner, which he sellsfor profit. Community fishing has vanished fromthese areas.

Work cooperation, which cemented the social andeconomic relationship of the people, is more orless dead. An individual Adivasi now in order toget a work done, has to hire labour or appointfellow Adivasis on payment.

Ethnic characteristicsAs a result of imposed and rapid industrialisationof Adivasi areas, several of their valuable ethniccharacteristics have been changed or are changingfurther. The Adivasis living close to the industrialareas and working in them seem to adopt suchcharacteristics, which traditionally were nottheirs. The Adivasis in such areas have startedbecoming individualistic and adopt unfair meansof competition. Many of them have lost their sim-plicity, truthfulness, straightforwardness, andpeace loving characteristics and have been dilut-ing their original moral thinking. Hospitality to-wards guests also has started becoming purposeoriented. Oral promises no more hold good insuch areas and the Adivasis have started givingmore importance to individual achievements ra-ther than showing egalitarian behaviour andcommunity centredness. Self-dignity is no morea valued characteristic for such people.

CONCLUSIONS

There is a difference between forced rapid changeand gradual change through an evolutionary pro-cess. Evolutionary changes - that enable a societyto perceive the incoming change, to understandits consequences, to accept and to welcome it -are desirable. The imposed and rapid changeswhich mostly are caused by industrialisation anda rapid modernisation process, throw the societyinto chaos: The Adivasis are not ready for thatand also are not welcome in this process. Thisdestroys the society, breaks its social fabric, itseconomic strength, its moral strength, the spiritualas well as the political life, and ultimately theoverall ethnic characteristics.

For these reasons, the Adivasi societies all overthe world have been opposing such processes. Itis, therefore, necessary that the indigenous com-munities are to be completely associated in thedecision making process, so that they are aware


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sarini Occasional Papers, No. 5Rourkela and afterPart II: The Adivasi Perspective

of the forthcoming changes, and are suitablyprepared for that. Any imposition of such changes

by external agencies is a violation of the humanrights of the indigenous people.


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Introduction

My grandfather was a displaced person. He alongwith his two brothers was a resident of Katabedavillage, which now is submerged in the water ofMandira Dam. The dam was constructed during1957 to 1959, and the entire village was asked tovacate. My grandfather’s two brothers migratedto the jungles of Bonai along with others. My owngrandfather was in the army and was somewherein Europe during World War II. He had some mo-ney and hence did not move to Bonai but boughtsome land in Jaidega, close to the rehabilitationcolony and settled there. My grandfather, my ownfather and all the uncles are dead and only aliveare my mother and one of my aunts. The des-cendants of the brothers of my grandfather arelost in the jungles of Bonai. My father had thedirect experience of displacement and hence wasa Jharkhand activist for a pretty long time beforehe was elected to the Legislative Assembly ofOrissa. He could manage to educate us since byprofession he was a school teacher before joiningpolitics, and today what we are is because of hishard labour and struggle.

I do not have the direct experience of displace-ment, but the things I am sharing with you, reflectmy direct experience with the people who havebeen displaced. The people who were displacedfrom Mandira Dam established my village Jai-dega. Jaidega is a rehabilitation colony, but thepeople residing in my hamlet are the ones whorefused to stay in the colony but moved out andcleared the virgin forest on their own. Also peoplelike my grandfather, who had some money, ac-quired some agricultural land. The experience Iam sharing now is the result of my regular andyear long dialogue with the people who have beendisplaced.

I have taken a few dimensions that are directlyrelated to displacement. They are: (i) the geo-graphical dimension, (ii) the psychological di-mension, (iii) the economic dimension, (iv) thesocial dimension, (v) the political dimension, and(vi) the spiritual dimension.

Experiences in Displacement

By Suchita Bilung

The author is from a displaced family and presently works in a bank in Bhubaneswar, Orissa, India

I. The geographical dimension

Displacement caused total geographical disloca-tion. The people had to leave their familiar geo-graphical environment, which provided themwith everything. The jungle, hills, streams, eventrees, that were familiar to them, had to be leftbehind. Each component of the nature providedthem with joy and fulfilment. All these had to beabandoned.

The rehabilitation and reclamation colonies werelocated far away. Lachda and Kendro in Bonai,where my ancestors migrated, were about 150 ki-lometres away from Katabeda, the displaced vil-lage. Moving away to such a far place was as goodas dying. In no way they could come back to visittheir relatives during feasts, festivals, marriages,deaths and necessities. My ancestors could notrecover from this shock and many of them diedin early age.

The mode of physical displacementOur elders say that the displacement was sudden.Notice was given barely a week before, and beforethey could understand as to what was happeningthey were asked to vacate the village. When thepeople refused to move or were slow in moving,bulldozers came in and razed their houses. Thetrucks stood in the village asking the people toload their belongings and move. The people couldgather whatever was possible, but not everythingthey had. Animals, i.e. cattle, buffaloes, goats andpigs, which are the valuable possessions of theAdivasis, could not be loaded. The trucks thendrove them to unknown far away places and un-loaded them in the jungle or near some unknownvillages.

For example, in Bhaluburh, close to the villagenow I am married to, which is about 130 kilomet-res away from my village, families, who had beentaken by a truck from the Mandira Dam river-bed, were unloaded in the jungle close to thevillage. The families cried there continuously. TheAdivasi people of the village, who happened tobe Christians, gave them shelter in their houses.The families stayed in those houses till they erect-


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ed their own huts and shifted. Out of those fami-lies, two families have further migrated else-where, and all the first migrants, including theirchildren are no more. Their grandchildren areliving in those houses.

II. The psychological dimension

There was a psychological shock due to forceddislodgement. The pain of detachment from allfamiliar surroundings, things and natural envi-ronments including forest, hills, streams as wellas trees, relatives, friends, etc., could not be imagi-ned. They fully knew that there were only remotepossibilities of coming back to their friends andthat they were losing their natural environment.The pain was not only for moving away fromthem, but also from the perception that all thesewere going to be submerged under the water.

The people who were the masters of their ownenvironment were powerless in front of the forcedsituation. They were powerless in front of the dis-placing agencies, and in front of the new social,political, economic as well as geographical envi-ronment. All these experiences have been res-ponsible for the development of some defensivebehaviours in the shape of aggressive behaviourtowards the displacing agents and agencies.

III. The economic dimension

Agricultural lands both recorded and unrecordedwere alienated. Unrecorded ones included the fo-rest patches where the people grew minor millets,pulses and oilseeds. These could never be record-ed in the normal procedure. Homestead land in-cluded the land around the house. In several caseshouses were located on the hill slopes and hencethese homestead lands could never be recordedaccording to the normal revenue and forest rules.The people lost such lands, which were nevercounted as land lost, and hence no compensationwas considered.

The traditional economic activity of the peopleincluded cultivation of deep land, shallow landas well as forest land, gathering from the forest,minor forest collections, fishing in the rivulets ortanks, animal husbandry, etc. The economy of thepeople was self-sufficient, though subsistent bycharacter. There were cooperatives for labour,agriculture, etc. The people shared the extra pro-duces. Producing for the market was a rare con-cept.

The government promised to pay compensationfor the loss of land, but since many people hadunregistered forest patches under cultivation,they were not considered for compensation. Thecompensation for the properly registered landwas also not paid in several cases, and the peopletill today complain of not receiving it. Mr. LivinusKindo, a senior bureaucrat now retired from theIndian Administrative Service, mentions that hehimself had distributed ‘Patta’ (land record pa-pers) only in 2002, when he was in the RevenueDepartment.

The promise of job provision lacked vision. Sincethe people at that time were mostly illiterate, theygot jobs as labourers during the construction pe-riod. Once the construction was over, the industryneeded technical persons and the educated. Thedisplaced people did not have such qualificationsand hence were not in a position to demand per-manent jobs. Besides, they felt helpless and de-ficient in front of the authorities, and hence re-frained from demanding jobs. Though the people,who once lived independently in the forest, gotengaged as construction labourers, it was againsttheir wish, and they considered this as degradingto them. The Adivasis considered labour as a de-grading concept since, traditionally, work wasshared among them. And working as labourersin the industry was quite degrading.

Dislodged from the traditional self-sufficient eco-nomic system, the people had to yield to a neweconomic system. They had to create a new eco-nomic environment, clear the forest again, dig,level and make cultivable land, again get acquain-ted with the new geographical environment andfind out possibilities of an economic life in thenew forests. Since the rehabilitation colonies in-cluded people of different castes and tribes, therewere undue competitions for portions of the land,forest and other natural resources for survival.The people, who traditionally had a culture ofsharing their surplus products or forest products,became individualistic, selfish and non-altruistic.Individual ownership and gains became theculture in the new environment.

People in the process of getting acquainted withthe new marketing environments, got deceived.The new markets became oppressive. In the vil-lages, the people had a system of exchange ofgood for good. In the new markets, money inva-riably was the means of exchange, and the peopledid not know the proper use of money - nor didthey have money. Forest products had differentrates and their uses were different. For everything



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the people had to depend on others. They, there-fore, were forced to move from self-sufficiencyto dependency.

IV. The social dimension

The forced dislocation broke the cohesive society.The relatives got scattered. In my family’s case,our relatives are now located more than 150 kilo-metres away in the inaccessible jungles, with nocommunication facilities. These relatives in everypractical sense are lost since we cannot visit eachother. Our traditionally homogeneous villageshave become heterogeneous by character. Morethan one tribe or caste now lives in the new en-vironment. Community sharing which was thecore of the social fabric is less prominent now.Now we do not have blood relatives in the villagesand thus intimate relationship and sharing is ab-sent.

The relatives, who had migrated to Bonai area,face great difficulty in establishing marital rela-tionships. Since all the blood relations and Adivasimen are located more than hundred kilometresaway and the new settlements are heterogeneousin terms of caste and faith, they find it difficult tofind marital partners. Inter-tribe marriages -which is against the community norms - thus havestarted coming into the picture.

Relationship with the ancestral world is a keycomponent in the Adivasi life. The displacedpeople lost their relationship with their ancestralworld. The community graveyards, where thedear ones had been buried, were submerged un-der water. In our Adivasi society, ancestors arepart of the living community. Displacement brokethe relationship with the ancestral world, andothers could not understand the pain of it.

V. The political dimension

Traditionally there were Village Councils in eachvillage, and it was easy to decide things in it, sincethe villages were homogeneous by character. Eachone knew the problem very well, there was nosiding of anyone and decisions were impartialand very much genuine. These councils of homo-geneous villages were demolished due to dis-placement. In the rehabilitation colonies and vil-lages of new category, such impartial councils arenot possible since they are heterogeneous by

character, and frequently there are instances ofindividuals supporting and favouring their owncaste men.

Among various Adivasi groups there are regionaland apex tribal councils. Regional councils de-cided the caste problems of the region, while theApex Tribal Council formulated as well as amend-ed laws and monitored the discipline of the Adi-vasis. The displaced villages do not have regionalcouncils, and the leaders of the apex council arelocated far away. The people, therefore, cannotplace their cases in the apex council. They are thusmore or less outside the entire Adivasi politicalsystem. They now have become part of the newsystem.

VI. The spiritual dimension

Besides losing ancestral relationships, displace-ment has caused the disintegration of feasts andfestivals. Our traditional feasts and festivals,which had a spiritual origin, are no more obser-ved in the rehabilitation colonies located far away.An individual Adivasi group in a rehabilitationcolony does not feel at home to celebrate its ownfestival, since many other groups inhabit the vil-lage. The entire meaning, fervour and pomp ofthe ceremonies are lost. Traditional dances, there-fore, are more or less gone from the new areas.Cultural forms, which were linked with spiritualceremonies have been very much diluted, as aresult the Adivasi communities in these areas areat the brink of destruction.

Suggestions

Neither our people were informed about theforthcoming industrialisation process, nor had theauthorities held a discussion with them. This hasmade the people feel humiliated and renderedthem powerless. The people, therefore, suggestthat the authorities in future should have a dia-logue with the people before displacing them andnever take them for granted.

The loss cannot be compensated in any manner,hence the authorities should not think of onlymonetary or material compensations, but under-stand all the dimensions of an established societyinvolved. This can be possible only when thepeople and the displacing authorities sit at parallellevel and engage in a dialogue.


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It is “Destination India” for most corporate giantsworldwide. Business is either shrinking or almoststagnating elsewhere, but the possibilities of aboom in India are written large and clear on thewall. And no one wants to miss the bus - especiallywhen India is ready to open in a big way everysector of its economy.

Currently, India is producing 36 million tons perannum (MTA) of steel. To cater to the needs ofthe fast growing Indian economy, India needsmore steel than it is producing presently. Thereis a huge gap between the demand for steel andits supply. According to the government‘s ownassessment, by the year 2020 India will need 110MTA to maintain the momentum of the develop-ment. To enhance the production level, the go-vernment is inviting Indian and foreign compa-nies in the steel sector and is giving them manyincentives. Thus for foreign companies, it is timeto fix up their travel plan. Because for them: it is“Destination India”.

But wait….The environment within which the industry ope-rates, is growing more and more turbulent: parti-cularly in the central geographical belt which isthe Adivasi heartland. Why are Adivasis oppos-ing industry? What can be done about this issue?Is globalisation multiplying the problem for theAdivasis - or do they have a role in solving thisproblem? These are questions, which deserve aserious consideration.

Understanding Adivasi resistance

In fact, the victims of industrialisation and moder-nisation are communicating a message throughtheir resistance. We must try to decode this mes-sage as sincerely as possible. If we do not graspthe meaning, the communication gap will onlybe widened. But it must be bridged as soon aspossible. Let us first discuss the message in timeand space, and then analyse its content.

Industries are like double edged swords withregard to the Adivasis and Dalits of India. It is

destroying our land, water, forest, and it is alsodamaging our community life and culture.

The term Adivasi signifies ‘first dwellers’. Resist-ance is not new in the Adivasi heartland, a lookat the history of this region shows that the presentunrests are similar in nature with the movementsagainst the British regime. In the 19th century, thearea was rocked by the several Adivasi uprisings.The cause for these revolts was the ‘invasion ofour land’ - or colonisation. When the British estab-lished their rule, the Adivasis were subjected toincreasing alienation. We lost our land to the newinvaders, our assets to the moneylenders, our cashto the traders. Our traditional administration sys-tem, which can be duly termed as the first demo-cratic system, lost its power to the courts. TheAdivasi languages fought loosing battles againstPersian, Urdu, Hindi and English. This alienationaccompanied the process of modernisation.

As they were not ready to hear us, and as theydid not even accept us as human beings, our fore-fathers took up their arms against the colonialpower. The revolts were put down with a heavyhand. It took the British a long time to understandthe true nature of these revolts and to addressthe root causes. However, a communication gapstarted separating the Adivasi people from theadministration. It was only in the beginning ofthe 20th century that the British acknowledgedthe land ownership rights of the Adivasis, culmi-nating in the so-called Chotanagpur Tenancy Actof 1908, and the problem was solved to someextent. This Act was drafted by a German Catholicmissionary: Father John Hoffmann. Much later -in 1949 only - Santhal Pargana Tenancy Act wasmade. At least, there is a legal framework to stemthe problem, but land continues to pass into thehands of Non-Adivasis.

Developments in independent India

Independence in 1947 changed the whole politicalclimate of the country, and a new hope for betterlife was aroused in the Adivasi people: that ex-ploitation and other problems would be a thing

Democracy and Self-Determinationvs. Industrialisation and Globalisation

By Shanti Sawaiyan

Activist and convenor of Jharkhand Mines Area Coordination Committee - J.M.A.C.C., Ranchi, Jharkhand, India



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of the past, that the government will respect ourcustoms and cultures. But in a very short span oftime the Adivasis realized that only the regimehas changed, but the basic character of the ad-ministration is not changed.

Because after Independence - in the process ofrapid development - the Government of Indiachoose the same economic model which theirwestern counter part, or in other words: the co-lonial power, had adopted, which was exploitivein nature and had nothing to do with the welfareof the people. It is the biggest failure of our go-vernment that it could not create an economicmodel that can cater to the needs of our country.In fact, the Indian Government forgot that in thewestern economic model, successes are depend-ant on the availability of cheap labour and theminerals from the colonies. And India has no colo-nies. So it should have developed its own econo-mic model. But still, the approach towards deve-lopment and towards the people - particularly theAdivasis and Dalits - whose lives and culturesare continuously under threat, has not changed.

India is referred to as the biggest democracy ofthe world. Our Constitution provides fundament-al and other rights to every citizen of the country.In paper at least, the Adivasis enjoy some specialsafeguards to protect their socio-economic rightsand cultures. In 1996, a milestone bill on Pancha-yati Raj has been passed by the Indian Parliamentto de-centralize the democratic system and bringit to the grassroot level. In this progressive Billspecial arrangements have been made for theweaker sections of the society, i.e. Adivasis, Dalitsand women. It has a clear provision that in theScheduled Areas no land can be taken withoutthe permission of the Gram Sabhas (rural bodies).

But in practice, whenever the government needsland to establish the factories, mines and for otherpurposes, they never take the affected people intoconfidence at the planning stage. Only when theconstruction work is started, the affected peopleare informed by the local authority, “You have toleave this land in the name of ‘National Develo-pment’.” For smooth land acquisition, they createmiddlemen from the community. Adivasis with-out land, however, is like a tree without roots ora base to stand upon.

In this respect, we Adivasis are more intimatelylinked with the land than the more recent popula-tion groups. If we people are deprived of our land,our hunting and grazing grounds and forest, wecannot survive as distinct ethnic groups.

According to a study, from 1950 to 1990, 30 millionpeople have been displaced. Out of it, 40 per centare Adivasis and 20 per cent are Dalits. Of thetotal number only 25 per cent have been rehabili-tated, and the rest are still waiting for compensa-tion and rehabilitation, Now you can understandthe true nature of the present movement of peopledisplaced by Rourkela Steel Plant and their painand misery after 50 years of the steel plant’s exist-ence.

The real focus of economic reforms, that startedin the early Nineties, is reflected in the series ofrecommendations to the industrial policy. And thepush for amendments in Acts, which are relatedto industrial activities - like the Labour Laws, theMineral Policy, the Fifth Schedule, the LandAcquisition Act, the Forest Conservation Act, theEnvironment Protection Act, the Provisions ofPanchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act,and other laws and policies - shows an increasingdisrespect of the State towards the rights of theweaker sections of society.

Impact on women

In this situation, the women’s role in the societyis decreasing. Earlier, Adivasi women enjoyed agreater social status with regard to control overresources, which ensured their active participa-tion in decision making, in land utilisation andpower over cash flow in any Adivasi economy.In contrast, women displaced by industries havelost the rights to cultivate their traditional crops.When the forest is being cut down to establishindustries, they are unable to collect forest pro-duce for food, fodder, medicines, ceremonialneeds or for sale. The cash flow that Adivasis wo-men have been enjoying by the sale of forest pro-duce and by breeding livestock has disappeared.

Rehabilitation is only for men, either in cash oras employment, which has led to complete ‘idle-ness’ in the economic sphere for women.

In such a situation, women from land owningcommunities have been forced into wage labour,which is a socially and economically humiliatingshift. Women are also forced into petty trades orinto other business. But the social taboos of parti-cipation in these sectors, their lack of literacy orlack of skills expose them to further exploitationin these trades.

Industry related pollution is a worldwide pheno-menon, and its worst sufferers are women. Wo-


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men and children are constantly exposed to a highrisk of death and terminal illness due to constantexposure to dust and pollution. Studies have pro-ved that their exposures to hazardous pollutantshave been far above the permissible levels. Yet,no company has ever been held legally responsib-le for this mass abuse of such vulnerable groups.

Displacement caused by the industries is alsoeroding the family system and harmony in theAdivasi society and is creating social conflictsamong them. During rehabilitation, the jobs givenare inadequate to sustain the whole family. Unfor-tunately, compensation is given only to one malemember of the family, and no options exist toothers. This results in families getting disinteg-rated and an erosion of the whole family system.

After the liberalisation of economy, it is observedthat women’s employment in low paid manualwork is increasing. Women are employed in areaswhere the labour value is low while the workloadis high.

Industrialisation and democratic rights

With globalisation and the entry of foreign com-panies - particularly in the mining industry -, themineral exploitation for exports is increasing.With global markets shrinking, the world playersare eyeing for the limited market opportunities.In this highly capitalist set-up with vested inter-ests, the global markets are bound to exploit theThird World nations. The rich natural resourceswhich are tapped, however, are not used for thedomestic consumption, but for export to earn fo-reign revenue. And this takes place at the cost ofthe Adivasi people.

We, the Adivasis and Dalits, in no way reap thebenefits of industrialisation in our land. We aresacrificing our lives, livelihoods and cultures forthe economic development of the Indian Nation,but the benefits of development do not reach us.

In India, theoretically, we have democracy inevery level of administration, we have free press,we have a judicial system, and we have the rightto express our grievances through memoran-dums, meetings, appeals, etc. But in practice, thesituation has reached to the breaking point. Howmuch, in reality, we have the right to express ourgrievances, is reflected in the Kalinganagar mas-sacre. There, on 2nd of January 2006, 13 Adivasiswere killed by the Orissa Police, administrationand the Tata Steel Company, when villagers were

opposing the acquisition of their land for the pro-posed 12 MTA steel plant. Relatives of the victimsare yet to get justice from the government andthe administration of Tata Steel.

In a democratic country, how can we let the or-gans of the state be the champions of the agentsof market and interest of capital? This is happen-ing in the backward regions under liberalisation.But a democratic civil society and strong people’sawareness have not developed yet to confront thisselling over of the State to the brutal industrial-isation.

In fact, our government and, in other words, thedemocratic institutions of our country are pavingthe way for national and multi-national compa-nies by amending concerned laws: the attemptsat the Samata Judgement and the PESA Act aresome of the examples.

The fourth pillar of democracy, the media, also isnot supporting our cause. They allege that vo-luntary organisations are instigating the ‘innocentAdivasis’ to resist the industrialisation process.For them, voluntary organisations are workingagainst the interest of the nation. But whoseinterest do these advocates have in mind? Do theyhave in their mind the plight of the Adivasis andDalits who, for ages, have been dying a slowdeath? However, this is not surprising us, as themedia are owned by the same capitalist andfascists forces that have been administering geno-cide against the Adivasis and Dalits in India.

Conclusion

Adivasis of this region have been exploited bythe government and private companies from thebeginning of industrialisation of the region. Butin this era of ‘Global Village’, the pace of exploita-tion has been increased. Foreign companies arecoming with advanced technology and equip-ments. Now there is no place for the manual work.

This is why employment opportunities are shrink-ing. Permanent jobs have become things of thepast. Some people are fortunate to get jobs, butonly as contract labour.

I do not want to conclude my paper with sug-gestions regarding rehabilitation. I think, this is aduty of “armchair thinkers”. But I would like toassure you that the violence and the attitude ofour politicians in the government, of bureaucratsand so-called experts in the decision making



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bodies, who presently seem to be riding over awave of euphoria over faster and faster growth:all this cannot deter us from our struggle. We have

become more determined in the process. We canbe destroyed, but we will not be defeated. We shallstruggle hand in hand till the better end.


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Adivasi-Koordination in Germany (reg. soc.)

Adivasi-Koordination is a network of NGOs an individuals engaged in human rights anddevelopment work. Since its inception in 1993 - the International Year of the Indigenous Peoples- the main thrust of Adivasi-Koordination’s activities has been:- to support the Adivasi in their struggle for survival and for their human rights

(e.g. participation in protest campaigns);- to document recent developments in the political, social and cultural context,

with special focus on human rights violations;- to provide information to a wider audience through publications, seminars and other

means;- to support Adivasi delegates in their contacts with funding agencies, governments

and international organisations;- to be in dialogue with Adivasi organisations and supporters in India.Other activities of Adivasi-Koordination are:- to publish an Adivasi Newsletter (in German, 2-3 issues per year);- to build up an archive of audio-visual media (tapes, slides, videos, films);- to build up a newspaper clippings archive and service.

Solidarity Action Research & Information Network International(sarini)

Towards a non-violent & non-oppressive society

sarini is a word from Sanskrit language. It means “the one that moves on steadily (like acreeper)”. It is the female form.

sarini is an informal, voluntary network of like-minded people sharing in the view that thepresent political structure, social, economic and environmental conditions require a radicaltransformation, which, however, is unlikely to be achieved and wanted by those in powerand through their traditional top-down planning approach.

sarini takes on a radical bottom-up approach that is responsible to the community in everyrespect.

sarini is coordinated in a strictly non-hierarchical manner. Individuals, action groups or supportgroups sharing in the above view and intention may at any time join sarini and establishthemselves as autonomous local or regional groups. They may also opt out of sarini atany time. No sarini member or group shall ever dominate any other member or group.

sarini operates entirely through the voluntarism of her members.sarini makes relevant informations, consistent with her intentions, accessible at local, regional,

national and international levels by providing for translations into local regional, nationaland international languages.

sarini may function also in the way of a news agency, supplying informations researched and/or communicated by sarini members to news papers, journals and research journals.Multiplicity of publication is intended. Informations rejected or ignored by such mediamay be published by sarini in her own way.

sarini tries to obtain funds for carrying out her activities.sarini research projects are to be formulated, carried out and evaluated in a participatory process

of all the involved, especially the beneficiaries.sarini will be accountable to funding agencies only through the voice of the beneficiaries of

sarini engagements, and that, too, in a non-formalized manner.

sarini has been functioning already in many ways through individual contacts, and she willcontinue to do so. Yet, for her further growth and spreading, communications beyond sarinimay be attached with this leaflet. So any recipient of such communications will get the idea,and communicating further automatically helps in expanding sarini without any obligations.

Secretariat:Dr. Theodor RathgeberJugendheimstr. 10D-34132 Kassel, GermanyPhone ++49-561-47597800Fax ++49-561-47597801email [email protected]

www.Adivasi-Koordination.de

Research & Documentation:sarini, c/o Johannes LapingChristophstr. 31D-69214 Eppelheim, GermanyPhone ++49-6221-766557Fax ++49-6221-766559email [email protected]