https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6626-3936
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Abstract
Rio Tinto had been developing a diamond mining project in Madhya Pradesh for a decade when in 2017 it hastily abandoned the project. We analyse this counterintuitive exit through an ethnographic approach nested within a qualitative case study framework. We argue that the exit was caused by multi-scalar politics. Local protests over livelihood and labour issues –pre-emptively rearticulated by regional civil society groups through an ecological ‘framing’ – led to litigation. The national forest bureaucracy posed regulatory hurdles, and a change in the national political regime in 2014 brought to power a party that leveraged national capital of a certain variety, which weakened Rio Tinto’s political position. Lastly, a slump in the global diamond market created economic uncertainties, finally leading to its exit. It has not, however, deterred the government from facilitating investment by Indian mega-corporate houses in mining diamonds, once again ignoring local dissent. Under the current regime in India, the space for activism is increasingly restricted, and that restriction, we contend, can lead to the disarray in strategising alliances and goals between ecological and social justice concerns.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Bunder, in Bundelkhand, lies about 500 km south-east of the Indian capital of Delhi.
2 The 73rd Constitutional Amendment Act, 1993 gives villages the power of formalised self-governance through Panchayati Raj Institutions. The Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 extends this power through the functioning of traditional Gram Sabhas (village Panchayats or village councils) in areas to which the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution of India apply and which are inhabited mainly by tribal people. The act applies to Chhattisgarh. In 1997, the Samatha judgement of the Andhra Pradesh High Court, which was upheld by the Supreme Court of India, prohibited the transfer of land in Scheduled Areas to the government or private companies for mining without the permission of the Gram Sabha (Samatha Judgement Citation1997).
3 Partizans’ campaign started in 1978 against the damage wrought by RT, one of the most powerful companies of the world. Partizans set up the London Mining Network (LMN) in 2007. The Nostromo group is associated with the LMN (https://londonminingnetwork.org).
4 The IndustriALL Global Union represents 50 million workers in the mining, energy and manufacturing sector in 150 countries. It works to improve their working conditions and trade union rights.
5 A national trade union backed by the INC, a political party.
6 Interview with an NGO worker, in Chattarpur, MP, on 19 May 2017.
7 Interview with a journalist of Nai Dunia newspaper, in Panna, MP, on 27 May 2017.
8 Interview with a movement participant, a Dalit villager, in Chattarpur, MP, on 19 May 2017.
9 Interview with an adivasi teacher, opinion leader and activist in Chattarpur, MP, on 21 May 2017.
10 There is a precedent: the diamond mine operated by the National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) was closed three times in the past decade. The longest closure was from 28 August 2005 to 19 June 2009 (Jyoti Citation2019).
11 The tiger has significant symbolic value in colonial Indian history, state-making and policy. That symbolic value has shaped colonial and postcolonial conservation ethics, which is in turn influenced by global conservation drives and demands (Jalais 2009). The Project Tiger conservation programme was launched in 1973 to protect the Bengal tiger from extinction, but it was found in 2006 to have been affected by poaching. By 2009, there were no tigers left in the Panna Tiger Reserve; the Wildlife Institute of India then organised a programme to reintroduce tigers, and their number grew to 26 (Shah Citation2016).
12 In India, the tiger is not merely an animal; it is a metaphor for nationalism and pride. ‘Core areas’ and habitats in forests have been designated for its conservation and led the state to displace the indigenous tribes living there. Long-standing activism for the rights of ecosystem people led to the passing of the Recognition of Forest Rights Act, 2006, which gave them the right to live in the forest. Conservationists like Thapar think tiger protection is sacrosanct, but Guha (2006) criticises the cost to the marginalised poor. That exemplifies the current political face-off in Indian politics and policy between the environmentalism of the rich and the environmentalism of the poor.
13 Interview with a local activist working with Pahal, in Chattarpur, MP, on 22 March 2017.
14 Interview with an adivasi villager in Kasera village, Chattarpur, MP, on 12 March 2017.
15 This is a mega-hydraulic river intervention project that will massively affect the landscape, environment and population. This particular project plans to transfer surplus water from the Ken River in Madhya Pradesh to the Betwa River in Uttar Pradesh to irrigate the drought-prone Bundelkhand region.
16 Interview with a local politician, in Chattarpur, MP, on 4 April 2017.
17 The Mines and Mineral (Development and Regulations) Act, 1957 (MMDR) lays down the legal framework for granting concessions of all mineral resources via auctions. In March 2015, the government amended the MMDR and set up a template for natural resource allocation through coal block auctions; this template is being followed for other minerals now. Six mines have been auctioned in Jharkhand, Odisha and Chhattisgarh under the amended MMDR (Sahu 2016).
18 India ranked 9th among 23 countries on the crony capitalism index in 2014 and 2016 (CCI Citation2014; Citation2016).
19 Our view was confirmed in an interview with a local BJP politician, in Chattarpur, MP, on 8 April 2017.
20 Indian MNCs have recently been investing in African and Asian countries – earlier the privilege of only Anglo-American developed and colonising countries – and their exploitative labour relations and unsustainable extractive activities have already led to protests and controversies (Oskarsson and Lahiri-Dutt 2019).
21 Posco and Arcelor Mittal exited India recently. RT’s exit will probably make it tougher to bring in foreign investment (Singh Citation2017), but that is probably what the current government wants: to create a monopoly market of certain national business houses through its prebendalist political economy. India indeed shows signs of resource nationalism and has a relatively long legacy at least among the Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) nations (Wilson Citation2015).
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Arnab Roy Chowdhury
Arnab Roy Chowdhury is Assistant Professor in the School of Sociology at the Higher School of Economics (HSE), Moscow. Prior to this he taught in the public policy group of the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (IIMC). He received his PhD in sociology from the National University of Singapore (NUS) in 2014. His research interests include social movement studies, natural resource extraction and labour, forced migration and refugee studies and postcolonial studies.
Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt
Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt is Professor in the Resource, Environment and Development (RE&D) programme in the Crawford School of Public Policy in The Australian National University, Canberra. She carries out critical research on the length and breadth of community livelihoods in two areas of natural resources: water and extractive industries. Her research is informed by feminist scholar-activist research methodologies and focusses on understanding how the poor, experiencing agrarian and social changes, make a living on mineral-rich tracts.