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.
Soon after it was elected to power in December 2019, a minister in the new government of the Indian state of Jharkhand said Adani’s massive coal-power project at Godda should be reconsidered. Construction was at an early stage and there had been a powerful grassroots campaign against the project. Media reported that the contentious project now stood on ‘less sure ground’. For over two and half years since those comments, however, Adani has forged ahead with construction.
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.
Chintamani Sahu, 72, is spearheading a legal challenge to the Adani Group’s massive coal-power station at Godda. Having refused to surrender the land on which his ashram stands, he has led a group of refuseniks to file a case at the state’s High Court. They argue that the acquisition of land for the project was illegally carried out. Today, as the power plant’s skeleton hulks over his ashram, and the government stalls the case, Sahu is undeterred.
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.
In the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand, tribal people from three separate parts of the state have joined forces to tackle Adani’s Godda coal-power station. The power plant will use coal imported by Adani from its Carmichael mine. The Godda power plant is impacting people’s lives in several far-flung locations.
Governor Ganeshi Lal assured the Adivasis that he would write to the Odisha Chief Minister recommending that they be rehabilitated and resettled as per law, no further projects are taken up in the area, and no penal action is initiated against them until then.
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.
This is an eye-witness account of the weekend’s protest by hundreds of Indian tribal people (Adivasi) against coal projects in the Hasdeo forests. They gathered in one of the threatened villages to call on the Adani Group and governments to end the takeover of ancestral lands for coal mining. It was the first step along a 300-km path to the state capital that started on Monday, facing down attempts by supporters of Adani’s coal-mining agenda to disrupt the peaceful protest.
