Buxwaha, Sagar (MP): Troubled by a medley of activists, the Aditya Birla group may have developed second thoughts over a big diamond project in Madhya Pradesh. And no one knows why the protests are happening, or what exactly the demands are of those protesting against the mining.
The mine is inside a forest in Buxwaha, located 200 kms from Sanchi, a sleepy town of stupas, hemispherical structures containing relics of Lord Buddha. The mine is huge, the biggest in Asia. The Bunder diamond block has 34 million carat diamonds, valued at a whopping Rs 55,000 crore. The mine has a potential to catapult India into the world’s ten top rough diamond producers and in the process put the diamonds of Africa to shame.
Essel Mining, a subsidiary of the Aditya Birla group with a presence in over 36 countries and revenues worth $46 billion, has won the rights to mining.
Top officials of the Madhya Pradesh Industrial Development Corporation (MPIDC) told this reporter that activists were protesting against mining in the region “for no valid reason”. “They are creating trouble without any logic. But the final word is not out on the Bunder diamond project. EMIL has not walked out of the project, there is a stalemate and this stalemate has continued for long. We are making serious efforts to resolve the crisis. It is an important project of the state that cannot be ignored,” said one official.
POLITICIAN BEHIND THE PROTESTS?
The official, who spoke on conditions of anonymity, said a meeting to discuss the diamond project is scheduled this month. He said he was hopeful things would be ironed out in that meeting. “The activists who are protesting for no reason will—let’s hope—see the light of the day and realise what benefits the project will bring to the state, and to the people in Buxwaha.” Not to mention to the exchange reserves of India. There are reports of an inheritor of a political party being behind the protests in the way his intervention forced India to be an importer rather than an exporter of another metal more than a decade ago. If true, the political links of those behind the protests need to be forensically examined, in the view of a senior official.
In India, Andhra Pradesh (AP), Chhattisgarh, and Madhya Pradesh (MP) are the three states that produce diamonds. Among them, MP accounts for about 90% of the country’s diamond resources.
But because of the current crisis, there is a stalemate and mining has not happened.
Worse, there seems to be a lot of politics behind it. The big question is: Who gains if the mining does not happen?
Essel Mining has flagged its concerns to the Madhya Pradesh government, expressing its apprehension about the “violent atmosphere” in the Buxwaha forest and “serious disruptions” caused by a section of the locals under the garb of environment protection”.
“It is a serious problem and it is virtually impossible to do work in Buxwaha. There are disruptions all around. The atmosphere is not at all conducive (to production),” a senior official of Essel Mining said in a telephonic interview. “A handful of people are vitiating the atmosphere and creating nuisance, whereas the majority of the villagers want mining to happen.” Thus far, this small group seems to have prevailed over public interest.
The official said Essel officials have been working overtime with the locals and their work has been appreciated. “At the height of the pandemic, when the year brought tremendous personal loss, economic hardship and a host of other challenges for the people, EMIL supported the communities in one of the most backward regions of Buxwaha. We donated a digital X-ray machine and pathology equipment to the primary health centre, also a state-of-the-art ambulance and advanced medical equipment,” the official added.
Prior to the installation of these machines, the residents had to travel to Chhatarpur, Sagar, and Damoh, at Chhatarpur District Hospital. But the problems remain unresolved.
The MP government gave the lease to Essel following an open bidding. The mining zone was explored for five years and eventually handed over to RioTinto of Australia in 2012. The global mining giant secured the requisite project approvals from Indian Bureau of Mines (IBM) in August 2013. Rio Tinto also got an environment clearance in August 2015. Yet, Rio Tinto could not mine the diamonds and in 2017 handed back the project to the state government, citing violent atmosphere and went back. Sounds familiar?
What is important to note here is that the MP government, which gave 954 hectares to Rio Tinto for mining, offered 364 to Essel, almost a 60% reduction in area that it said was aimed at conserving the overall environmental footprint.
The block was again auctioned and garnered a highest bid of 30.05% of revenue share to the state government. Essel won the block on December 19, 2019. The MP government was to get Rs 275 crore for granting the lease and earn a whopping Rs 28,000 crore over the life of the project.
Earlier, the mining zone was explored for five years and eventually handed over to RioTinto of Australia in 2012. RioTinto secured the requisite project approvals from the Indian Bureau of Mines (IBM) in August 2013, and an environmental clearance in August 2015. Yet, it could not mine the diamonds because the atmosphere turned volatile due to protests by activists with as yet unknown linkages to some politicians.
ACTIVISTS BEHIND THE PROTESTS
Activists still oppose the mine. These included Narmada activist Medha Patkar, Yogendra Yadav of Swaraj India, and Ishwar Chandra Tripathi, who calls himself Vindhyachal Lion. Some of the other activists belong to the Left parties, and the students’ body AISA (All India Students Association).
Interestingly, the local administration at Sagar told this reporter that none of the activists visited the mines. Nor did they ask the villagers whether they wanted mining to happen or the forests to remain. But stories of their protests regularly fill social media.
“If Essel backs out there will be no development of the region,” Avinash Chanchal, Sagar’s biggest influencer, said in an interview. Chanchal is revered in Sagar for his social work.
“The locals want development, which Rio Tinto had started. And then these activists came and ruined the plot. Sadly, the same thing is going to happen here,” says Chanchal, adding, “it is the loss of Sagar, the loss of the villagers. The state government must not succumb to this vicious propaganda.”
The Bunder project and its controversies have striking similarities with the next-door coal mine in Chhattisgarh. There, the Adani group is being pilloried for mining coal as a contractor for the Rajasthan government, which wanted coal for its power stations.
In Sagar, those with knowledge of the facts say that activists argue without any reason, scientific or otherwise.
One of the key protesters to the Bunder diamond project told this reporter that he believes the entire forest cover of Buxwaha would be destroyed due to mining. “India’s top diamond merchants have brought shame to the nation. We do not want diamonds, everything will be destroyed in Buxwaha,” said Tripathi. There is silence about the benefits that the project would bring to local citizens. This when foreign interests seek to stop India from mass producing diamonds.
Tripathi feels diamonds are products of the rich, the masses in India do not need diamonds, they need jobs, food, homes. A huge tribal population would be displaced if mining takes place, argues Tripathi, who seems unaware that they have remained poor all this time because development has not been allowed by a few protestors.
Photographs of activists hugging trees in the jungle where mining would take place have filtered in the social media. It purports to tell a strange story about the rich trying to steal from the poor who only have the forest for their livelihood. In reality, images of activists hugging the trees are from a location that is more than 15 kilometres away from the site of the mine.
Ramesh Singh, a veteran politician in Sagar, says the mining issue has snowballed into a needless war of words. “The state government has sanctioned the mine, the villagers want mining to happen but the activists are blocking work. Stuck in the middle are the villagers, we are just helpless.”
The local administration at Sagar, the administrative division under which Buxwaha forest comes, claimed that none of the activists had visited the area to be mined. Nor had they asked the villagers whether they wanted the mine, or whether they wanted the forests instead.
Sankalp Jain, an activist, said in a telephonic interview that hugging trees was a symbolic act. Asked if the site actually had loads of fruit-bearing trees that the tribals and villagers live off, he said he was unaware if a census had been done regarding the same.
Manish Jain, a local shopkeeper of Sagar, says the claims of trees to be felled for the project are totally flawed.
Essel has not said it will fell 2.15 lakh trees, for the process will be phased over a decade and half. The guarantee is there in the agreement signed with the state government. Scientific practices will ensure optimum use of land, an estimated 383,000 trees will be planted. It is 1.8 times the trees currently in place. The plantation drive will start ahead of the proposed mining operations in 2023.
The first tree to be felled under the impact of mining would be in 2024, following the phased impact of 10-12 years.
PEOPLE SEEK DEVELOPMENT
Scores of people in Sagar said they wanted the mining to happen, and, in turn, development activities to take place in Sagar. On the issue of human displacement, Manish Jain said facts and figures were as different as chalk and cheese.
“There are no villages within the lease area. The nearest, Sagoria village, is more than 2 km away. So, no one is being impacted. The demand of the activists for rehabilitation and resettlement does not arise.” Then why the protests?
Residents of Sagoria village told this reporter that they had benefitted when Rio Tinto was involved in the mining project. “The Australian company had set up ten borewells near the forests and also in our village. It was of great help. And then they left one day. And all development work stopped,” says Atma Ram, a villager.
Though Rio Tinto did not specify a clear reason for exit from the project, a team of researchers analysed the reasons in a study published in May 2021. “We analysed Rio’s exit. There was not a single valid reason behind it. To them, the money invested so far is simply not worth the trouble bad press would bring,” says Kuntala Lahiri Dutt, one of the authors of the study and professor in the Resource, Environment and Development (RE&D) programme in the Crawford School of Public Policy in Canberra-based Australian National University.
Villagers say they are aware of the fact that the project will guarantee over 4,000 jobs for the locals. “We have been told we would be stakeholders in the project. But work must start,” says Ashok, another villager at Sagoria.
Ashok says villagers do go inside the forest for firewood but under no circumstances they take firewood from the forest that is home to the mine. “The activists claim 7,000 tribals will be displaced but there are only 1,000 tribals. The number of actual tribals close to the mine was authenticated by the state government last year.”
In Sagar, everyone says they need development badly in this highly-parched region. “A large number of people in Sagar are anemic and need help. We need more hospitals,” says Dr Raviraj Mahariya, a physician at Sagar’s only government hospital that is bursting at the seams with hundreds of patients.
“We cannot expect the government to do everything. Rio Tinto took charge of 15 villages and helped people with medical help, water bodies and schools. We need such work in and around Buxwaha,” adds Dr Mahariya.
STALEMATE CONTINUES
What about medicinal plants that the activists claim will be severely impacted because of the mining?
Sagar’s top ayurvedic physician, Dasharat Lal, says he sources medicinal plants from Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Bengal. “The only fruit we source locally is Baheda (Terminalia bellirica).” Interestingly, the fruits are collected mostly from the Malwa region of the state. The pulp is considered by ayurvedic practitioners to be astringent and laxative, and prescribed with salt and long pepper in infections.
But what is equally interesting is that the tree is avoided by some Hindus of North India who believe the trees are inhabited by demons.
The Buxwaha forest also has Indian gooseberries, or amla, and mahua flowers, both used for medicines and country liquor. The trees also produce edible, almond flavoured seeds known as chironji, used for ayurveda and unani medicine. Once the tribals were exploited and offered salt for the seeds but now the state government has formed a forest management team around the trees and each family has a designated area of collection.
The seed market is actually in Chhindwara and not in Buxwaha. The distance between Buxwaha and Chhindwara is over 300 km. “I do not know why this issue of trees keeps cropping up,” says Manish Jain.
This is not all. Jain says there are serious discrepancies over the Archeological Survey of India (ASI) claim that the forests have some rock paintings dating over 30,000 years old. “It is half of a painting on one big rock and the rock is located 15 km from the site of the mining. So can the activists say the painting will be destroyed if the mining happens?”
In Bhopal, Pradyumna Singh, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator from Bada Malhera, 45 km from Sagar, said the state government would ensure Essel follows every environmental norm. Essel and the state government are mandated to plant 15 trees if one tree is cut. “Why would the state government allow Essel to violate norms?” Singh said he has studied wildlife issues in the Buxwaha region which has a sparse population of chinkara, sambar and chital deer and a few black panthers. “The mines are located far away from the region inhabited by these wild animals and it is not a tiger reserve, nor is it an elephant corridor,” Singh told this reporter. Singh said he has based his observation on a government survey conducted in the region as late as 2020. “Mining must start, the economy of Madhya Pradesh must grow,” adds Singh.
But this can happen only if the stalemate ends.
Shantanu Guha Ray, a seasoned journalist, has tracked the Indian diamond market for years. His book, “The Diamond Trail” was published in 2019.