The battle for bauxite

In February, hundreds of Dongria Kondhs congregated for their annual festival atop the Niyam Dongar Hill in the Niyamgiri hills. This year, however, the mood among the Dongria Kondhs was hardly celebratory. The threat posed by Vedanta being imminent, slogans warning Vedanta to stay out of Niyamgiri rent the air. 'Niyamgiri is ours', the assembled Dongria Kondhs chanted, vowing to lay down their lives to protect the Niyamgiri Hills from Vedanta and other mining companies. Their opposition to bauxite mining is rooted in environmental and livelihood concerns. Bauxite is water-retentive and its extraction will dry up more than 30 perennial streams in the area, leaving no water for their crops. Two large rivers, the Nagavali and the Vamsadhara, also depend on the Niyamgiri Hills for water flow. Mineral extraction would therefore destroy forests and devastate local ecosystems, wiping out the Dongria Kondhs' means of livelihood and driving them out of their home.

Matters are made more complicated, given the fact that the Dongria Kondhs consider the Niyam Dongar Hill to be the abode of their presiding deity, Niyam Raja (literally, the King of Law or the Universal Lawgiver).'We will not sell our god to provide our exploiters with profit,' declares a leader of the Niyamgiri Suraksha Samiti, a mass organisation which is leading the resistance to Vedanta. 'If Niyam Dongar Hill is dynamited to facilitate bauxite extraction, the home of our deity will be destroyed.'