Arrest of a Leader: Abhay Sahu

With the UPA Government’s model of development, it is tragic and worrisome that any dissent is not only not allowed but even those who dissent are treated with vengeance and retaliation. The state seems to be saying that those not with it are against it. Those who oppose the neo-liberal model are considered as enemies of the nation. While red carpet welcome has been offered to multinational and trans-national corporations to loot and plunder resources of the country, those who oppose these multinational corporations to protect their local resources are imprisoned and jailed.

 The latest is the case of Abhay Sahu, President of POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS) in Odisha, who has been spearheading the anti-Posco movement for the last eight years. He was arrested on May 11 at Kujang in Jagatsinghpur district of Orissa and falsely implicated in the March 2, 2013 bomb blast at Dhinkia village in which three PPSS supporters were killed. His bail petition has been rejected and he has been remanded in judicial custody for 14 days. As citizens of a democratic country, an arbitrary arrest of this nature with manufactured allegations needs to be denounced by concerned citizens. In spite of such injustice meted out to Abhay and his fellow companions, there is unfortunately no public national outcry against the unjust and unfair arrest. Every citizen has rights and what Abhay Sahu did in protesting against POSCO is within the framework of India’s Constitution. This outright despicable patently illegal arrest is to appease POSCO and to drain the life-blood of Odisha—its land, water, minerals, forests and culture. Hundreds of people are arrested and placed in jails in false encounters and tortured to suppress the people’s struggle to save their land, forests, mines and democratic aspirations to freedom and right to self-determination.

 POSCO and Land Acquisition

POSCO is a multinational corporation and the world’s largest steel-making company. In June 2005, the company had signed a memorandum of understanding with the State of Odisha to invest 12 billion US dollars to construct a plant. The proposed POSCO project in Orissa requires 2700 acres of land, scaled down from the original 4000 acres. Seventyfive per cent of this land is forest land protected under the Forest Rights Act (FRA). This land cannot be acquired without the express consent of the village level bodies (gram sabhas).

The Orissa Government not only has failed miserably in obtaining this consent but resorted to falsification by issuing reports that no such claims were pending. The Saxena Committee had earlier noted similar failings of the Orissa Government. The Mining Zone People’s Solidarity Group (MZPSG) report estimates that the steel plant and captive port alone will either displace or destroy the livelihood of nearly 50,000 people. The government has acquired 2000 acres between 2005 and 2011 not all legally. The remaining 700 acres have to be acquired from Govindpur and Dhinkia villages but these areas are mostly forested areas. Till date the project has not been able to proceed due to strong opposition by the local residents who have not been happy to hand over their land to the corporation. They opine that the project, while displacing thousands, will benefit the company causing environmental damage and looting of India’s mineral resources. They have exhibited their resistance to the project by naked protests against the police atrocities.

Loot and Plunder of Local Resources

A study undertaken by an international research group on the plant, the Mining Zone People’s Solidarity Group, further confirms their claims. The group has found evidence of irregularities with POSCO in dealings with the state, bureaucracy and judiciary debunking the social, economic and environmental claims the company has made. The report no doubt clearly states that the local economy will be destroyed fully and totally by POSCO leaving people with no option but to remain as slaves of POSCO if the plant materialises.

Betel leaf (pan) cultivation is central to the local economy of the area and is a financially remunerative occupation providing employment. The research team had found that even a small plot (1/20th of an acre) can yield an income of up to Rs 15-17,000 a month. As expected from the high returns to cultivation, daily wages for farm labour on the betel-vine plots range from Rs 150 to Rs 240 per day, once again far higher than typical wages for casual labour in the urban informal sector. People have made it clear that they would prefer working as daily wage labourers than working for POSCO. POSCO would destroy their currently existing liveli-hoods and social support networks. Their own knowledge, on the basis of which they could earn a decent livelihood right now, would not be respected under the new regime. They prefer local employment over industrial employment.

The pan cultivators are not the only ones at risk. Even though fisherfolk have been peripheral to most discussions surrounding the impact of the project, it is worth pointing out that the MZPSG report estimates that around 20,000 to 25,000 small fishermen operating in the area would lose their livelihood to POSCO’S captive port. The different activities associated with the project—construction and operation of the steel plant, mining for iron ore, building the port— will adversely affect various water bodies, result in massive deforestation, and threaten the existence of the rich flora and fauna in the area. Indigenous trees such as sal, piasal, mohu etc. and rare species such as limbless lizards, double-nosed snakes, elephants etc. (in forest areas), and the Olive Ridley marine turtles (in the port area) are in serious danger. The amount of water promised to the POSCO project is the highest allotted to any project in Orissa. There is mounting concern that usage on the intended scale will result in shortages for irrigation as well as drinking water use. The experiences of Coca Cola in Plachimada and Mehdiganj have already shown that poorly regulated industrial use can threaten the water supply of entire communities. Aren’t the fears of the people justified?

Nexus between POSCO and State

In implementing the project the collusion between POSCO and the State administration is apparent. Allegations have been made against the State and Central governments of trying to take lands and forests for the project in violation of the Forest Rights Act. With the forest land being used by tribals living in those forests, one wonders how the state could even sign a memorandum of understanding with POSCO without the consent of the people. No state is allowed to hand over the land of the tribals and the forest land to forces of commerce given the tribal self-rule law. This tribal self-rule law protects tribals from the onslaught of the land-mafia which is often backed by the state and transnational and multinational corporations so that tribals could have their own model of development.

Men, women and children have been waging a heroic battle against the Naveen Patnaik Government since 2005 to save their land, water, seashore, rivers, field, livelihood, habitat and culture. The state, instead of standing with the people, has unleashed the most brutal form of repression against the struggling people. Hundreds of people have been arbitrarily arrested and false criminal cases filed on almost 90 per cent of the people in the area. Such is the repressive stranglehold that people of the area cannot go out for marketing, marriages or medical emergencies. To please POSCO, the Chief Minister has been overactive in brutally repressing the people’s resistance to save their lands, livelihoods, mines, forests, waters, culture and democratic aspirations.

Abhay Sahu’s Arrest is a Conspiracy

The arrest of Abhay Sahu implicating him in the bomb blast is a part of the conspiracy to weaken the people’s non-violent resistance to the project. The protestors have been subjected to violence over the years. Local leaders like Abhay Sahu and Narayan Reddy, along with more than 1500 villagers and activists, are facing over 200 allegedly fabricated false charges. Many villagers cannot come out of their villages due to the threat of arrests. The people’s movement against POSCO, that started soon after the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between POSCO and the Odisha Government on June 22, 2005, has witnessed over a hundred bombs thrown at the resisting villagers by the criminal pro-POSCO elements. Around 100 villagers have been shot at by the Odisha Police as part of the campaign to scare and harass the people and break their resistance.

Villages of Govindpur and Dhinkia continue to experience an economic blockade under a virtual siege by the police—just because the villagers are dissenters. The Dhinkia Gram Sabha, affirming the rights provided to it under the Forest Rights Act of 2006, had already come up with a resolution rejecting the project. The government’s support for the POSCO project is also embarrassing, if not scandalous, when the National Green Tribunal has already suspended the environment clearance for the project.

State is Anti-democratic

The state has been anti-democratic in suppressing the legitimate aspirations of the people. The movement is suppressed in favour of the interests of the corporations. If POSCO succeeds in its designs, it will affect many similar struggles in Odisha as well as the rest of India. This SEZ project is the largest FDI investment in this country. People who are resisting the project have looked upon their struggle as a symbol of struggle for localisation against globalisation. In a democracy that stresses the rule of the Panchayati Raj institutions, people have to be sovereign as far as their economic resources are concerned.

It is a matter of decency that the Central Government or State Government does not loot or rob local resources and mortgage the lives of the poor to corporations. It is sad that the State and Central governments, through protection to POSCO and attacks on those who oppose the plant, have been working against the ordinary people. Commenting on his arrest, Abhay Sahu has said: “The anti-land acquisition stir would get further strengthened as my arrest is going to provide fodder to it.” He was arrested in 2008 and kept in jail for 14 months. He was again implicated in another false case leading to his incarceration from November 25, 2011 to March 14, 2012. Every time Abhay was arrested the movement got further strengthened and threw up more leaders.

Alternative Form of Development

When people resist the state, they challenge the power structure and propose a new path of development. Instead of examining that path and asking the people to come for a dialogue, the state is dictating a model of development by force. The state seems to have shifted its loyalty from the people to foreign capital. People’s resistance is to restore the sovereignty of the people over their elected leaders and their designs. Instead of the hold of global corporations on the local economy, people are fighting for localisation, people’s control over their resources. In resisting POSCO, people are challenging the systemic corruption, under-mining of democracy and misdirection of a State Government that puts human needs second to corporate profits. The heart of the conflict faced is the inequity of an unfair economy supported by a corrupt state in nexus with corporations.

People need support. To make local movements national and global, people of goodwill need to come together. For the poor to have control over their economic resources, to oppose POSCO and its designs, to stand by the people who have waged their battle against their land acquisition, the nation needs to express solidarity with Abhay Sahu and demand his release. Simultaneously the state should be made to come to the negotiating table to promote the people’s initiative in development. What we are witnessing today is obscene display of sadistic and ruthless twentyfirst century primitive and violent accumulation through dispossession of millions of people from their land, livelihood, culture and commons to join the ranks of the reserved army of unemployed labour who fill in the ranks of the urban underclass to be equally exploited by the urban and global elite.    The Bretton Woods institutions have declared a war on the natural resources of the people, to hand their lands, waters and mines for imperialist exploitation. The poorest of the poor are resisting to defend their livelihoods. “Operation Green Hunt” has already killed, tortured, maimed and imprisoned thousands of adivasis and working people. During the combing operations women were molested and raped. All this to play into the super-profits of the hungry finance capital and predatory industrialisation! The same action is repeated now. However, the people of India have refused to cow down in front of the Indian state. There is a fierce resistance going on from Dandakarnya to Junglemahal, from POSCO to Nagari, from Jehanabad to Ranchi. In fact we need to salute the heroic men, women and children of the villages waging the anti-Posco struggle. They have become an advanced outpost of the anti-imperialist resistance in this country. It is great to find workers, peasants and tribals, who no doubt see themselves as powerless, standing up and demanding fairness.

Dr Ambrose Pinto SJ is with the St. Joseph’s College institutions, Bangalore.