Those of you who followed the long-running saga about British mining company Vedanta and its efforts to begin mining on a sacred mountain in eastern India may have thought the story was all over when the Indian Supreme Court ruled a couple of weeks ago that the company could proceed.
Ignoring the pleas of the tribal Dongria Kondh people who live on the mountain as well as its own environmental advisors, the court granted permission to develop a vast bauxite mine in the Niyamgiri Hills of Orissa.
For tribespeople, the mountain is not just their home but their deity. They say the mountain gives them everything they need for their survival and that they could not live anywhere else.
But however much of a set-back the court decision may have been, campaigners are not giving up. The tribal rights group, Survival International, reveals that Martin Currie, an Edinburgh-based investment firm has sold its £2.3m stake in Vedanta after listening to the arguments of campaigners.
The company's chief spokesman, Scott White, said: "It's fundamental that we expect companies to behave both within the law and morally."
Last year the Norwegian government's council of ethics recommended that the country sell its shares in Vedanta because of "unacceptable risk of complicity in current and future severe environmental damage".
The battle over Niyamgiri encapuslates so much of what is happening in modernising India, as the rights of marginalised, poor and voiceless people are increasingly unheard in the full-on race for econommic growth.
The companies inolved, in this case Vedanta, argue that the tribal people of the mountain will benefit from the mine and that it will provide them with jobs. That is far from certain, as it is far from certain what benefits have been derived by other people driven off their land elsewhere in India in the name of development and progress.
One thing I will not forget for a long-time was meeting a couple of Dongria tribespeople who had flown into Delhi from their mountain for the Supreme Court judgement and for the launch of an exhibition of stunning photographs of the tribe and their home by photorgraphers, Jason Taylor and Sanjit Das.
The tribespeople, Doddi Pusika and his wife, Maladi, had never left their mountain before and they were not particularly impressed by what they saw of the outside world.
Doddi said: "Our life is very simple. There is the forest, there are the animals, there are streams. We work in the fields. I am very sad because we live on the mountain. These people have come and want to take the mountain. Our community will be dead... Without the mountain we will not get anything."
It's heartening to know that the people who promised to continue their campaign whatever the Supreme Court ruled were not making empty promises.
(Photo: Lindsay Duffield/Survivial)
Dear spellchekcer. Thanks very much indeed. I think that five errors in the space of one piece is a record for me. I appreciate you pointing out my slips. [My pathetic excuse is that the programme I use for the blog presents the text in a tiny font size that I can barely see. I've not yet mastered the skills of all this technology.]
Posted by: Andrew Buncombe | Friday, 22 August 2008 at 02:36 PM