If the chief minister of jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh , West Bengal, Odisha, and chhattisgarh pusure different and opposing policies to deal with maoist or noxalite insurgencies
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If only this were a mere coincidence. Last year the Centre intensified its combing operation to flush out Maoists from the dense Saranda forests of Jharkhand. By August, following Operation Anaconda, it claimed to have “sanitised” the forests of insurgents. In October the Union Ministry of Rural Development announced a whopping Rs 263 crore development package for 36,000 tribals who traditionally inhabit the forest. Earlier in February, the Centre had renewed and expanded the lease of the Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) to mine iron ore in the forest. The public sector unit is the only company mining inside the forest. Nineteen more projects to mine iron ore in the heart of Saranda are in different phases of approval.
Activists working with the forest dwellers doubt the intention of the government. “The Rs 263 crore Saranda Development Plan, piggybacking on the anti-naxal operation has a clear mining interest,” says Gladson Dungdung of Jharkhand Human Rights Movement (JHRM) and member of the Assessment and Monitoring Authority of the Planning Commission. “Villages situated next to the proposed mining projects saw fake encounters and rape cases during the anti-Naxal drive. While the government is yet to settle the land titles of the tribals under the Forest Rights Act of 2006, the security forces burnt down whatever land records they had.”
Spread over 80,000 hectares in West Singhbhum district, Saranda is the largest sal forest in Asia. It also stands atop one of the world’s largest single deposit of iron ore—over 2,000 million tonnes. At least 36,000 Ho tribals live inside the forest. Most of them collect minor forest produce like sal leaves and seeds to earn a living or are small farmers.
These leave Rs 99 crore for development works like providing housing facilities for people below poverty line, clean drinking water and sanitation, watershed projects, installing handpumps, solar lanterns and setting up schools.
Xavier Dias, activist and writer who has worked with mine workers of Jharkhand for three decades, says the plan is a two-pronged strategy. “The package, which will receive funds from industries through their corporate social responsibility, will help garner acceptance from the forest dwellers on opening up of new mining areas. Simultaneously, it will deny Maoists the safe refuge of dense forests as it will be cleared for mining, roads and ancillary development.”
For Maoists, it was a safe haven
Located at the trijunction of Jharkhand, Odisha and Chhattisgarh, Saranda is strategically crucial for Maoists. By the government’s own reckoning, Saranda is the headquarters of the Maoists’ eastern regional bureau. Strategically, it comes next to the Dandakaranya forests of Chhattisgarh, which the Maoists have declared the liberated zone. The forests are also the prime revenue earner for the banned organisation. Dungdung says Maoists earn at least Rs 500 crore per year from Saranda by imposing levies on mining companies. Some offer them protection money to do business in a Maoist bastion, while those mining illegally beyond their lease area pay hefty sums. In 2007-08, Rungta Mines and Usha Martin reportedly paid Rs 25 lakh each to Maoists. Months after the combing operation, the paramilitary forces in March discovered opium fields inside Saranda as another source of their income.
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