Dharavi, Asia’s largest shantytown, made famous by the movie ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, and home to nearly a million people, is slated for demolition and redevelopment by the Adani Group. With their homes and jobs at risk, the people are fighting back.
A dispossessed village leader describes the hardships faced by him and his family despite financial ‘compensation’ for land acquired for an Adani coal project. He warns other villagers facing the same fate from the next Adani coal project not to accept company promises but to keep fighting for their rights.
In the eastern Indian state of Odisha, a struggle by tribal people against displacement by a railway that will carry Adani’s Carmichael coal to its power station at Godda has exposed the violation of rights conferred when India became an independent nation. This story describes how this controversy has its roots in an old Indian fault-line between territories governed by the British Empire, and ‘princely states’ – territories governed in colonial times by native Indian rulers. The violation of indigenous rights enshrined at independence in 1947 has prompted leaders to call for a secession of a former princely state from the state of Odisha.
For over four years, a brave family has refused to hand over their land to Adani’s coal-power project at Godda in north-eastern India. The power plant is the intended destination for Adani’s Carmichael coal. In 2018, Sita Murmu fell at the feet of Adani officials as crops on her land were bulldozed. Last month, she and her family addressed a tribal convention near the construction site, inspiring a struggle to protect indigenous rights in the region. They remain impervious to official threats and enticements to surrender their ancestral lands to the colossal power plant.
गुरुवार को झारखंड के गोड्डा जिले में स्थित सुंदरपहाड़ी ब्लॉक के आमजोड़ा गांव में आदिवासी अस्तित्व और पर्यावरण सुरक्षा का ऐलान किया गया। कल दिनभर चले सम्मेलन में गोड्डा पावर प्लांट, बोआरीजोर ट्रांसमिशन लाइन, साहेबगंज रिजर्वोयर आदि प्रोजेक्ट प्रभावित इलाकों में रहने वाले करीब 500 लोगों ने शिरकत की।
Odisha authorities told to ‘snuff out’ tribal protests against rail expansion for coal from Adani’s Carmichael mine. In March, police in the eastern Indian state of Odisha cracked down heavily on a protest by Adivasi (tribal) people being displaced by a railway expansion. It is the second time in 70 years that this community has been uprooted without adequate compensation.
Since March 16, the displaced persons, led by Oram, were sitting on an indefinite dharna protesting further displacement and demanding the implementation of recommendations made by the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes.
In Sundergarh district of northern Odisha, over 700 Adivasi families are facing displacement due to construction of a railway line that will facilitate the transport of coal from Dhamra port for use in the Adani group’s under-construction power plant in Godda, Jharkhand.
