On 7th April 2023, the Indian government dropped bombs aerially with the help of drones on the Bhattum, Kavurugatta, Meenagatta and Jabbagatta villages of Bastar district, Chhattisgarh. This is the fourth bombing since 2021 and the second bombing in 2023. The first bombing was on 19 April 2021 and the second was on 15 April 2022. The third was on 11th Jan 2023 in which security forces targeted and bombed the villages along the Telangana- Chhatisgarh-Orissa border. Bombing civilian areas of a nation being invaded is considered inhuman. And here we have armed forces of a nation bombing it’s own civilian areas! To understand this situation of war in the heart of our nation, we will have to delve deeper into the corporate plunder of jal jangal jameen that the Adivasis in that region are defiantly resisting.
In the advanced nations, companies and investment banks have enormous volumes of surplus capital accumulation which need profitable avenues for investment. Keeping the backward nations dependent on themselves for technology, means of production and investments thus becomes essential for these foreign enterprises. All Indian big corporates are heavily dependent on foreign loans and foreign investments. They are comprador capitalists, that is one who is acting as a middleman in the loot of a nation by foreign enterprises from advanced nations. The profits that they make, majorly become returns on these foreign investments or interests on these foreign loans. Our natural resources and human labour are looted at dirt cheap rates, at the cost of massive loss of lives and livelihoods of people through these comprador capitalists. For example, Adani group employs under 30,000 employees. While their ventures have uprooted lakhs of people from their native lands and livelihoods. They operate on more than 172 sq km of mining area in Chhattisgarh alone. From ports and SEZs to power plants and mines, the Adani group has incessantly grabbed land from people. The mines in Chhattisgarh came to be by uprooting
entire villages. The power plant in Godda also caused the eviction of thousands. The Adani group was involved in illegal iron ore exports from Bellary mines through Belekeri port. Indian government established National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) in 1958. Its role was survey of mineral resources, mining, production, sale, exports, establishment of steel industries and other such things. NMDC made an agreement with Japan Steel Mill in 1961 and vacated 22 tribal villages to start iron mines in Bailadila in Dantewada district of Bastar division in Chhattisgarh state. No one was provided rehabilitation. Since production started in 1968, the iron ore from Bailadila has been looted at a ridiculous cost of Rs. 50 to Rs. 400 per ton by Japanese, Chinese and Korean imperialists (iron ore costs Rs.5600 to
Rs.10000 per ton in the world market). ESSAR and other comprador bureaucratic capitalist companies are also looting it. Iron ore needed for mini Steel Plants and sponge iron industries is given at rates much higher than the export price to the small and medium kind capitalists of Chhattisgarh. This led to the closure of nearly 150 industries and ten thousand workers are on the streets. The mines are being spread further.
More than two dozen goods trains move on the Kirandul-Visakhapatnam Railway line built in the name of ‘development’ and to provide facility to the people and there is only a single passenger train. What for is the Railway line claimed to be a big engineering feat? The rise in water and air pollution is leading to the danger of ill health and destruction of the people, cattle, forest animals and fish. Presently Dalli-Raoghat-Jagadalpur Railway line is being laid in the same name of development. In fact the railway line is meant for shifting of mineral sources from the proposed mines in Rajnandgaon and Bastar divisions of Chhattisgarh. The government allowed the laying of the ESSAR pipeline of a comprador capitalist company by reducing Rs.550 per ton to supply iron ore through rail costing only Rs.80 per ton. Iron ore powder is being shifted through pipelines from Bailadilla to Visakhapatnam. Water resources of Bastar are going waste into the Bay of Bengal for this shift. This is causing a water shortage in Bastar. ESSAR company used land in a stretch of 20 meters for laying the pipeline at a length of 267 km but paid no compensation for the displaced. Thousands of hectares of forests were also cut for this.
There are countless such cases. It is to facilitate such plunder of our resources and labour, that people are being tormented with endless violence all across the nation. The recent dilution of Forest conservation Act, the earlier dilution of Environmental Impact Assessment Act, the weaponizing of draconian laws on activists striving for adivasi rights, all these are done for the sole purpose of enabling this plunder. The parliament continues to pass such laws, the entire media maintains pin drop silence on this, courts continue to turn a blind eye to the persecution of the activists by false cases while the security forces and administration are directly involved in evicting and bombing the Adivasis.
