“Our People Can’t Hold the Line!”

Extractive Capital, Fragile Ecologies and Politics of Dispossession and Accumulation in Eastern India

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.37773/ees.v6i2.1061

Abstract

A protracted movement emerged in Kashipur in Southern Odisha in 1993 that stalled a bauxite mining project for over 18 years. It went through fragmentations and eventually petered out by the early 2010s. This paper aims to understand how and why the processes of capital accumulation through dispossession cause fragmentation of social movements and their eventual petering out. I analyse the collective strikes that the villagers engaged in during 2008–2010, paralyzing the company’s incipient construction work over a tumultuous nine months. Critically engaging with David Harvey’s concept of “accumulation by dispossession” (ABD) and Kalyan Sanyal’s concept of “jobless growth”, I argue that ABD processes entail protracted interaction of extractive capital, bureaucratic structures, ecology, and the movements of subaltern communities with existing divisions. Dispossession processes generate new fissures in which ownership of land or lack of it due to land acquisition becomes the central axis of cleavage, shaping the politics and outcomes of dispossession. I further reveal that ‘jobless growth’ is unachievable for a company that can push ahead only through the provision of precarious employment and such promises...

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Metrics

Metrics Loading ...

References

Adduci, Matilde. 2013. “Mining Governance in India: Questioning the Neoliberal Agenda.” In Resource Governance and Developmental States in the Global South: Critical International Political Economy Perspectives, edited by Jewellord Nem Singh and France Bourgouin, 172–181. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Agricultural Census of Kashipur. 2000/2001 and 2010/2011. Details of Land Holdings by Social Group in Kashipur. New Delhi: Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare.

Ahmed, Farzan. 1987. “Starvation Deaths Ignored in Koraput District in Orissa.” India Today, October 15, 1987. https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/indiascope/story/19871015-starvation-deaths-ignored-in-koraput-district-in-orissa-799393-1987-10-14.

Ballard, Chris, and Glenn Banks. 2003. “Resource Wars: The Anthropology of Mining.” Annual Review of Anthropology 32: 287–231. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.anthro.32.061002.093116

Bardhan, Pranab. 2015. “Reflections on Indian Political Economy.” Economic and Political Weekly 50 (18): 14–17. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24481904.

Baviskar, Amita. 1997. In the Belly of the River: Tribal Conflicts Over Development in the Narmada Valley. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Baviskar, Amita, and Nandini Sundar. 2008. “Democracy versus Economic Transformation.” Economic and Political Weekly 43 (46): 87–89. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40278187.

Bharadwaj, Sudha. 2009. Gravest Displacement, Bravest Resistance: The Struggle of Adivasis of Bastar, Chhattisgarh Against Imperialist Corporate Land Grab. Bastar: Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha and Mazdoor Karyakarta Samiti.

Bowman, Andrew, Tomas Frederiksen, Deborah Fahy Bryceson, John Childs, Emma Gilberthorpe, and Susan Newman. 2021. “Mining in Africa after the Supercycle: New Directions and Geographies.” Area 53 (4): 647–658. https://doi.org/10.1111/area.12723.

Burawoy, Michael. 2000. “Grounding Globalization.” In Global Ethnography: Forces, Connections, and Imaginations in a Postmodern World, 337–350. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Büyükşahin, Bahattin, Kun Mo, and Konrad Zmitrowicz. 2016. “Commodity Price Super-cycles: What are They and What Lies Ahead?” Bank Of Canada Review Autumn: 35–46.

Chandavarkar, Rajnarayan. 2009. History, Culture and the Indian City. New Delhi: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511642036

Chatterjee, Partha. 2008. “Democracy and Economic Transformation in India.” Economic and Political Weekly 43 (16): 53–62. https://doi.org/10.21648/arthavij/2008/v50/i1/115446

Crehan, Kate. 2002. Gramsci, Culture an Anthropology. Cambridge: University of California Press.

Currie, Bob. 2000. The Politics of Hunger in India: A Study of Democracy, Governance and Kalahandi’s Poverty. New Delhi: MacMillan.

Das, Prafulla. 2007. “Deathly Inaction.” Frontline, September 21, 2007. https://frontline.thehindu.com/the-nation/public-health/article30192834.ece.

Dash, Minati. 2017. “Resistance and Decline: A Study of an Anti-mining Movement in Orissa.” PhD diss., University of Delhi.

———. 2020. Our Place in the Future: An Exploration of Chalaki Among Young Men Dispossessed by a Mining Project. IEG Working Paper No. 392. https://iegindia.org/working-paper/our-place-in-the-future-an-exploration-of-chalaki-among-young-men-dispossessed-by-a-mining-project/.

———. 2024 (forthcoming). “Researching Social Movement Participation in Global South: What to Do After Discovering and Recording Plural and Ambiguous Narratives in the Field?” In Handbook of Research Methods and Applications for Social Movements, edited by Laurence Cox, Anna Szolucha, Alberto A Lozano, and Sutapa Chattopadhyay. London: Edward Elgar Publishing.

D’Costa, Anthony, and Achin Chakraborty. 2017. The Land Question in India: State, Dispossession, and Capitalist Transition. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

EQUATIONS. 2007. This is Our Homeland: A Collection of Essays on the Betrayal of Adivasi Rights in India. New Delhi: EQUATIONS.

Fernandes, Walter, and Mohammed Asif. 1997. Development-induced Displacement in Orissa 1951 to 1995: A Database on its Extent and Nature. New Delhi: Indian Social Institute.

Government of India. 2008. National Mineral Policy, 2008 (for non-fuel and non-coal minerals). New Delhi: Ministry of Mines.

———. 2014. SIA Statistics (Graphical Representations). New Delhi: Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion. https://dpiit.gov.in/publications/sia-statistics-annual-issue-2013-14.

———. 2015. Indian Minerals Yearbook [Part-I]: State Reviews Odisha. Nagpur: Indian Bureau of Mines.

Goldman Sachs. 2020. 2021 Commodities Outlook: REVing up a structural bull market. New York: Goldman Sachs.

Government of Orissa. 2010. Bauxite Resources of Orissa. Bhubaneswar: Directorate of Geology (Government of Orissa) and Department of Steel and Mine.

——— 2013. Economic Survey 2012–2013. Bhubaneswar: Planning and Coordination Department and Directorate of Economics and Statistics.

Gupta, Akhil. 1995. “Blurred Boundaries: The Discourse of Corruption, the Culture of Politics, and the Imagined State.” American Ethnologist 22 (2): 375–402. https://doi.org/10.1525/ae.1995.22.2.02a00090

Harvey, David. 2003. The New Imperialism. Cambridge: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199264315.001.0001

Humphreys, David. 2015. The Remaking of the Mining Industry. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137442017

Karlsson, Bengt G. 2013. Contested Belonging: An Indigenous People’s Struggle for Forest and Identity in Sub-Himalayan Bengal. London: Routledge.

Kashipur Agricultural Census. 2005. Details of Land Holdings in Kashipur Based on Agricultural Census 2000-2001/2010-2011. New Delhi: Department of Agriculture and Cooperation.

Lahiri-Dutt, Kuntala. 2014. The Coal Nation: Histories, Ecologies and Politics of Coal in India. Australia National University: Ashgate Publishers.

Levien, Michael. 2018. Dispossession without Development: Land Grabs in Neoliberal India. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190859152.001.0001

Marx, Karl. 1867 [1977]. Capital, vol. 1. New York: Vintago.

Mishra, Banikanta. 2010. “Agriculture, Industry and Mining in Orissa in the Post-liberalisation Era: An Inter-District and Inter-state Panel Analysis.” Economic and Political Weekly 45 (20): 45–68. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27807027.

Nappi, Carmine. 2013. The Global Aluminium Industry 40 Years from 1972. London: International Aluminium Institute.

Singh, Jewellord Nem, and France Bourgouin. 2013. Resource Governance and Developmental States in the Global South: Critical International Political Economy Perspectives. New York: Palgrave McMillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137286796

Nielsen, Kenneth Bo. 2009. “Four Narratives of a Social Movement in West Bengal.” South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 32 (3): 448–468. https://doi.org/10.1080/00856400903374335.

Nilsen, Alf Gunvald. 2010. Dispossession and Resistance in India: The River and the Rage. Oxon: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203854976

Padel, Felix, and Samarendra Das. 2010. Out of the Earth: East India Adivasis and the Aluminium Cartel. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan.

Padhi, Ranjana, and Nigamananda Sadangi. 2020. Resisting Dispossession: The Odisha Story. New Delhi: Aakar Books. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-0717-5

Peluso, Nancy, and Christian Lund. 2011. “New Frontiers of Land Control.” Journal of Peasant Studies 38 (4): 667–681. https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2011.607692.

Police Files. 2009. 19-20: Case Diary (Kashipur). 2009. Rayagada Police Station.

Census Commissioner. 2011. Census of India: Kashipur, Orissa. New Delhi: Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner.

PSSP. 2005. Police Repression in Kashipur. Translated from Odia, Kashipur Jana Andolan o Sarkari Damanlila (Kashipur People’s Movement and State Repression). New Delhi: Popular Education and Action Centre.

PricewaterhouseCoopers. 2011. Mine 2011 The Game has Changed: Review of Global Trends in the Mining Industry. Melbourne: PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Rajan, S Irudaya, and Debabrata Baral, eds. 2020. Development, Environment and Migration: Lessons for Sustainability. India: Taylor & Francis. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003049982

Rehabilitation and Periphery Development Advisory Committee. 2005. “Declaration of Special Package to Dwimundi Villagers Those Are Losing More Than 50 per cent of Land.” Rayagada District Collectorate.

———. 2009. Consideration of Rehabilitation Plan in Kasipur-UAIL Project. Rayagada: District Collectorate

Sanyal, Kalyan. 2014. Rethinking Capitalist Development: Primitive Accumulation, Governmentality, and Post-colonial Capitalism. India: Routledge.

Sawyer, Suzana, and Edmund Terence Gomez. 2012. The Politics of Resource Extraction: Indigenous People’s, Multinational Corporations, and the State. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Senapati, Nilamani, and Nabin Kumar Sahu. 1966. Gazetteer of India, District Koraput. Cuttack: Government Press.

Sud, Nikita. 2014. “The Men in the Middle: A Missing Dimension in Global Land Deals.” Journal of Peasant Studies 41 (4): 593–612. https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2014.920329.

TARU. 1996. Environmental Impact of the Mining Project: Assessment of Environmental, Economic, and Social Impacts of Bauxite Mining and Alumina Processing in Kashipur and Kalahandi, Orissa. New Delhi: TARU.

Utkal Alumina International Limited. 2010. Details of Stoppage of Work in the Plant Area, UAIL-Doraguda (January 2005–February 2010). Documents obtained from UAIL office, Doraguda.

———. 2011. Work Orders for the Financial Year 2008–2011 (up to 31 March 2011).

Wolford, Wendy. 2010. This Land is Ours Now: Social Mobilization and the Meanings of Land in Brazil. Durham: Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822391074

World Bank. 2008. India: Orissa in Transition–Challenges for 2006–2010. Washington DC: World Bank.

Additional Files

Published

2023-07-30

How to Cite

Dash, M. (2023). “Our People Can’t Hold the Line!”: Extractive Capital, Fragile Ecologies and Politics of Dispossession and Accumulation in Eastern India . Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal, 6(2), 147–170. https://doi.org/10.37773/ees.v6i2.1061

Issue

Section

Special Section: Political Ecology