Letter to Hugh Bayley MP, member of the
Committee, from Action Village India
I am writing to you about the International
Development Committee's inquiry into DFID's programme in India.
I attended the hearing with Hilary Benn last week[9]
and wanted to comment on a couple of points you made.
Action Village India currently has one CSCF
funded project on panchayati raj in Bihar and Jharkhand and has
applied for another project in those two states to develop a network
of small grassroots groups.
The first point was your quote from Edward Luce
about India being the most callous society. I would entirely agree
with that, but there is a related issue which has a significant
impact on the success or failure of rural development policies—the
urban-rural gap. Urban Indians have enormous disdain for rural
people. I come across this every time I go there, people in Delhi
are always very concerned when I say I am off to Bihar to visit
projects. Yet this state, with its terrible reputation, has a
large number of remarkable people trying hard to create a better
society. Unfortunately that means that they come up against politicians
and bureaucrats, the vast majority of whom are doing very well
out of the system (including aid programmes) as it is.
That brings me onto the second point. Action
Village India has been supporting the activists of Ekta Parishad
in Orissa for a couple of years (Ramesh Sharma of Ekta was trying
to get some evidence to the Committee for this inquiry as he did
for last year's World Bank session with the Chancellor). You mentioned
Orissa to highlight problems with World Bank loans to states in
India. Ekta's activists and many other NGOs would ask you not
to have any sympathy for the government of Orissa and they are
indeed very sceptical of the close relationship with the World
Bank, which Hilary Benn claimed never to have come across. He
really should get out from the shadow of his officials more often.
Earlier this year several AVI supporters spent
up to a month with Ekta Parishad on a yatra (protest journey)
through parts of Orissa. In Kalahandi District, the uplands of
the state, the government is rushing to open up new bauxite mines
and processing plants. One of the concessions has been given to
Sterlite Industries, the Indian subsidiary of a UK registered
company, Vedanta Resources. Our supporters went near the mining
area at Lanjigarh and were shocked by what they saw and heard.
The state and the company have collaborated to cheat indigenous
tribal people out of their land. Protestors have been beaten and
arrested. It has now been discovered that the company did not
have clearance from the central government to start mining on
forest land, which has created a highly publicised scandal in
India. There have been constant allegations of corruption in this
project—but no proof as yet, but the Chief Minister has
been found guilty of corruption in another mining agreement. Given
John Barrett's question about corruption, I wonder again how DFID
can expect to work successfully with a government that is so clearly
corrupt and not prepared to consider the needs and basic human
rights of its most vulnerable citizens. Tribal people at Lanjigarh
and other potential mining sites, deprived of their land and access
to forests, have nothing to fall back on. No amount of monetary
compensation is of any use to them, yet urban Indians' have no
understanding of them or respect for them or their traditions.
DFID really should not be collaborating so closely
with such a government and a British registered company should
not be buying politicians and officials and hiring thugs to keep
`order'. Does DFID really not have any guidelines about working
with corrupt governments?
I am enclosing two pieces of evidence. One is
a short article on the issue from the Indian environmental magazine
Down to Earth. The other is one of several emails we have received
recounting police brutality against unarmed protesters at another
nearby potential mining site at Kashipur where for about 10 years
now local people have refused to sell their land to allow mining
to start[10].
I believe I heard you say that this was your
first ever visit to India. In October next year we are planning
a two week programme in Chhattisgarh for the second AVI Partners
Forum. We will bring up to 20 people from our six partners and
up to 20 AVI supporters together to see some of the work of Ekta
Parishad in the area and to discuss issues such as peace education,
panchayati raj and local democracy and economic development programmes.
Ivan Nutbrown
Co-ordinator
13 December 2004
9 Tuesday 7 December 2004. Back
10
Not printed. Copies placed in the Library. Back
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