Can one really help wondering if the whole talk of development, democracy &
peace couldn't be euphemism for war?
What Makes Bauxite So Precious?
Why could the 'HUNT' be so indispensable for the largest democracy?
[ Excerpt from 'Caterpillar and the Mahua Flower' [Collection of Essays
Edited by Rakesh Kalshian, Published by PSA, India (2007)]
".. During the Second World War, aluminium was used as a prime ingredient
in fire bombs, including napalm, which killed tens of thousands of civilians
in air raids over Germany and Japan. In fact, the main ores for war metals
are
all found in Orissa — iron, chromite and manganese for steel, bauxite, and
uranium. Hitler was apparently well aware of Orissa’s iron and bauxite
deposits,
one reason why Japanese bombs were dropped on Orissa’s ports.27 One of
the main purposes of America’s mega-dams was also to power aluminium
smelters. “Electricity from the big Western dams helped to win the Second
World War”, as it was used for making the aluminium that shaped arms and
aircraft.28
After the war, profits from aluminium plummeted, until it was
spectacularly revived by the Korean War, the Vietnam War and a succession
of US-instigated wars. Aluminium lies “at the very core of the
military-industry
complex” set up by the then US President Dwight D Eisenhower during the
Korean War. He left his office in 1961 with a warning: “We have been
compelled to create a permanent arms industry of vast proportions.”29
The US started to stockpile the metal in 1950. As an American aluminium
37
CATERPILLAR AND THE MAHUA FLOWER
expert wrote in a pamphlet in 1951: “Aluminum has become the most
important single bulk material of modern warfare. No fighting is possible,
and no war can be carried to a successful conclusion today, without using
and destroying vast quantities of aluminum.... Aluminum is strategic in
defence. Aluminum makes fighter and transport planes possible. Aluminum
is needed in atomic weapons, both in their manufacture and in their
delivery...
Aluminum, and great quantities of it, spell the difference between victory
and defeat....” 30
Every US missile fired in Iraq or Afghanistan uses aluminium in a
combination of explosive mechanisms, shell casings and propellants. The
“daisy cutter” bombs used in “carpet bombing” exploit aluminium’s explosive
potential, as do nuclear missiles, including the 30,000 nuclear warheads in
the US. Between the two World Wars, there was widespread understanding
that arms companies played a crucial role behind the scenes in promoting
wars. The League of Nations declared in 1927 that “the manufacture by
private enterprise of munitions and implements of war is open to grave
objection”. But vested interests were too strong. At the League’s Conference
on Disarmament at Geneva in 1927, an American lobbyist was paid 27,000
dollars to carry out six weeks’ propaganda for arms companies, which
scuppered any agreement. The arms industry then, as now, was at the centre
of the economies of the most powerful countries. As a British commentator
noted after the complete failure of this conference, “War is not only
terrible,
but is a terribly profitable thing.”31 Behind the arms companies stand the
mining companies and metals traders. Every shell used in the US-led wars
has to be replaced by new shells, made from newly mined minerals..."
Every US missile fired in Iraq or Afghanistan uses aluminium in a
combination of explosive mechanisms, shell casings and propellants. The
“daisy cutter” bombs used in “carpet bombing” exploit aluminium’s explosive
potential, as do nuclear missiles, including the 30,000 nuclear warheads in
the US. Between the two World Wars, there was widespread understanding
that arms companies played a crucial role behind the scenes in promoting
wars. The League of Nations declared in 1927 that “the manufacture by
private enterprise of munitions and implements of war is open to grave
objection”. But vested interests were too strong. At the League’s Conference
on Disarmament at Geneva in 1927, an American lobbyist was paid 27,000
dollars to carry out six weeks’ propaganda for arms companies, which
scuppered any agreement. The arms industry then, as now, was at the centre
of the economies of the most powerful countries. As a British commentator
noted after the complete failure of this conference, “War is not only
terrible,
but is a terribly profitable thing.”31 Behind the arms companies stand the
mining companies and metals traders. Every shell used in the US-led wars
has to be replaced by new shells, made from newly mined minerals.
Manufacturing Consent
If one were to look at the question of sustainability, there is no doubt
that
the tribal communities that are being dislocated hold most of the answers.
They take very little from nature and waste almost nothing. Therefore, it’s
38 CATERPILLAR AND THE MAHUA FLOWER
no surprise that Bhagavan Majhi and others wonder whether the planned
mining projects represent development at all, considering they will last
only
about 30 years, at such high costs to the local people and the environment.
At conferences that promote aluminium, the view expressed is that India
is “backward” as its per capita aluminium consumption is low per year: less
than one kilogramme per year, compared to the 15-30 kilos in ‘developed’
countries. Yet, if one looks at the high cost of manufacturing aluminium and
the dire effect it has on climate change, India’s low consumption should be
viewed as the more developed alternative. Besides, medical research widely
agrees that tiny yet significant quantities of aluminium are constantly
leaching
into the human body from packaging and water supply. These deposits cannot
be excreted and are collected in the brain, and it has even been linked to
Alzheimer’s disease. 32
Ironically, aluminium claims to be “green”, based on two points: one,
that it can be recycled, and two, it reduces the weight of cars, thereby
cutting
down the use of fuel. But these benefits are misleading and in fact do not
count when environmental costs are considered.33 The social costs involved
in running aluminium factories, and the amount of fuel these units require,
actually mandate reduced extraction and consumption of the metal.
An important point to be noted is that tribal people, being less used to
compartmentalising ideas, are able to immediately see the connection between
Bapla Mali’s bauxite and the bombs and wars that “consume vast quantities
of aluminium”. The questions that locals such as Bhagavan Majhi ask need
to be given answers and there should be a Cost Benefit Analysis of aluminium
projects. What are the environmental and social costs of NALCO’s existing
Orissa projects? As each tonne of the metal produced takes up 1,378 tonnes
of water, to what extent will it leave the land around Damanjodi barren? The
answers to these questions represent the other side of the big profits that
the
company makes as it increases its aluminium exports.
39
CATERPILLAR AND THE MAHUA
FLOWER
This leads us to the most important question: who is actually
controlling
the policy of industrialisation? Orissa is the most highly indebted state in
India due to the various infrastructure projects in the state that the World
Bank and other organisations have lent money for. These loans create
tremendous pressure on the government as repayment has to be made in
foreign exchange. Besides, the Bank’s conditions, such as those demanding
removal of all legislation that curtails corporate power, have to be met. As
a
result, SEZs are being created and for “improving the climate for foreign
investment”, and the safeguards in Indian Law and the Constitution that
protect land rights, labour rights and the environment are being dismantled.
Orissa’s main policies and financial decisions are now being decided
from
London and Washington, in a hierarchy of power that is unknown to the
people who have been affected by the projects. A letter from the policy
director
of the British Government’s Department for International Development
(DFID), to the person overseeing the Extractives Industries Review in 2003,
shows how this power is exercised. The director warns in the letter that
there
is a “real risk” that the WB Board will reject the report [which indeed did
34
happen], unless certain basic changes are made. The letter states,
“The
issue of Prior Informed Consent [note how the word ‘free’ is not used with
consent] needs some clarification. It is not clear whether consent is a
blanket
requirement over the whole project.... To what extent is the Bank or
Government prepared to veto a national development package on the basis
of disagreement from an individual?” The last question fundamentally
misrepresents the issue of tribal communities’ land rights by confusing it
with the rights of an individual. Here is a representative of the British
government expressing exasperation at the idea that tribal people in India
or
any other country should have a blanket veto on a mining project taking
over their land — a mindset that is astonishing similar to the colonial
attitudes
the East India Company flaunted before India’s independence.
40 CATERPILLAR AND THE MAHUA FLOWER
When the idea of Free Prior Informed Consent is discarded, it basically
validates the occurrences in Orissa, where ‘consent’ is manufactured in
public
hearings that are manipulated by heavy police presence and threats. It’s
also
the reason why villagers affected by hundreds of projects in Orissa and
neighbouring states are forced to give their ‘consent’ and part with their
land,
though the non-alienability of tribal land is guaranteed by the 5th Schedule
of India’s Constitution as the basic right of Adivasis.
The Environment Impact Assessments of projects are not taken seriously
either; they are inevitably delayed and the methodology used is
questionable.
Social Impact Assessments hardly exist, and when they do, they are conducted
by officials who have no training. There is no recognition of the fact that
the
projects come at a tremendous cost to India’s cultural heritage.35 What is
Indian culture, and where is located? The traditions of Indian music,
religion
and craft are now so heavily marketed or politicised that their essence is
often
contrived and artificial, in sharp contrast to the unbroken traditions of
village
society. This was Indian culture as Mahatma Gandhi understood it.
Cultivating the land and collecting plants from the forest lie at the heart
of
tribal culture, and when villages are displaced, this is also a tradition
that is
lost. Yet, compounding the cultural genocide, there has been a constant
process
of censoring and sidelining Advasi voices and denying the existence of their
knowledge, as Bhagavan Majhi and others point out.36 He says, “We want
permanent development. Provide us with irrigation for our lands. Give us
hospitals. Give us medicines. Give us schools and teachers. Provide us with
land and forest. We don’t need the company. Dislodge the company. We
have been repeatedly saying this for the past 13 years. But the government
is
just not listening to us.”
India is already a highly developed country, and was before European
companies ever reached it. Protection of people’s basic rights and
protection
of the environment for future generations are the hallmarks of a developed
41
CATERPILLAR AND THE MAHUA FLOWER
-- society. Yet, the laws ensuring this protection, which developed in a
long and
painful process in the 60 years after independence, are being dismantled
because of pressure from abroad. The industries that are being imposed on
the local population are not sustainable and their activities certainly do
not
ensure development in any real sense of the word.■
FOOTNOTES
1. Fernandes 2006 pp 110-111
2. The Telegraph, December 7, 2004: ‘Opposition Takes Naveen Case to
Governor’
3. Fox 1932: Bauxite and Aluminous Laterite, p 136 (previous editions:
Bauxite and
Aluminous Occurrences of India, Calcutta: GSI Memoirs 1923, and Bauxite
1927)
4. Fox 1932 p 135
5. The story of Mangta’s death has been neglected in writings about the
Kashipur
movement. We have heard first-hand accounts of it from his son and the
Kendukhunti men
as well as other witnesses
6. The three tribes living around Bapla Mali are Kond, Jhoria and Pengo. The
plan is to
mine approximately six million tonnes of bauxite a year, similar to what
NALCO is doing
on Panchpat Mali
7. SP is the Superintendent of Police. This quotation, and others from
Bhagavan Majhi
given later in the paper, is from the documentary film Wira Pdika: Matiro
Puko, Company
Loko by Amarendra and Samarendra Das, which gives Orissa’s Adivasis’
response to mining
in their own voices, without any commentary
8. Kalam & Rajan 1998: India 2020: A Vision for the New Millenium. Penguin
9. Human Rights Forum December 2006: ‘Death, displacement and deprivation.
The war
in Dantewara: a report’. Hyderabad
10. Fernandes 2006, Mathur 2006
11. Fernandes 2006 p109
12. Fauset 2006
13. Ritthoff et al 2002 p 49. It’s estimated that when a tonne of aluminium
is produced,
5.6 tonnes of carbon dioxide are emitted if the smelter is hydro-powered
from a dam; the
emissions reach up to 20.6 tonnes if it’s powered by a captive coal-fired
power station
(Richard Cowen: Geology, History and People, chapter 14, Cartels and the
Aluminium
Industry, www.geology. ucdavis.edu/~cowen/~GEL115/115CH14aluminium.html).
Most
of India’s smelters apparently use a combination of electricity from dams
and from their
own captive coal-fired power stations, which they build to ensure a constant
supply of
42 CATERPILLAR AND THE MAHUA FLOWER
electricity as well as to keep prices low. These statistics are from the
International
Aluminium Institute’s website (www.world-aluminium.org), plus the IAI’s ‘The
Aluminium
Industry’s sustainability report’ [no date], IAI’s Aluminium Applications
and Society:
Automotive, Paper 1, May 2000
14. Nicholas Stern, 2006. A previous report by the Department of Environment
of the UK
government estimated 56-223 dollars per tonne of carbon dioxide (Andrew
Simms in Ann
Pettifor ed, Real World Environmental Outlook, London: Pallgrave 2003 p 66)
15. Goldberg 2007, Monbiot 2006, Simms 2005, J Roberts & D McLean 1976 pp
86-9
16. BICP Dec 1988, Energy Audit of Aluminium Industry
17. Haberl et al 2006
18. Ross 1999, 2001
19. Rowell et al, 2005
20. Graham pp 20-23 & 93-101; Cheddi Jagan 1975: The West on Trial: The
Fight for
Guyana’s Freedom; Marcus Colchester 1997: Guyana: Fragile Frontier (London:
Latin
American Bureau with the World Rainforest Movement); Mark Curtis 2003 Ch 17
21. Girvan 1971: Foreign Capital and Economic Underdevelopment in Jamaica;
Graham p
259 ff; Blum 2003 p 263; Holloway 1988 p 73
22. McCully 1996 pp 265-6, Caufield 1996 pp 1979-83, Gitlitz 1993 Ch 4 on
Ghana’s
Volta dam
23. Graham 1982 pp 21-22, 117-188. The complex twists and turns of these
negotiations
for Ghana’s dam and smelter forms a large part of Graham’s book
24. J Roberts et al 1976, Gitlitz 1993
25. Graham p 20
26. Statistics from the International Aluminium Institute, London
27. Hitler’s interest in Orissa’s bauxite/aluminium and iron ore is outlined
in an article in
Oriya in Samaj, May 3, 2005 by Ajit Mahapatra who met one of Hitler’s key
metal experts,
and the widow of another
28. Graham p 23
29. Graham p 79, Eisenhower quoted in Anthony Sampson 1977 p 103
30. Dewey Anderson 1951, Aluminum for Defence and Prosperity, Washington, US
Public
Affairs Institute, pp 3-5
31. Quotations from Sampson 1977, passim
32. Exley 2001
33. Research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology shows that when
the
43
CATERPILLAR AND THE
MAHUA FLOWER
emissions from aluminium production are taken into account,
aluminium-intensive cars
would only start emitting less than steel cars after being used for 15 years
(Mathias 2003)
34. Sharon White to Professor Emil Salim, October 20, 2003
35. Mathur 2006 pp 46-48
36. Padel 1998, and testimony from several people interviewed in Wira Pdika:
Matiro Puko,
Company Loko
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since World War
Two, London
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NY: St
Martin’s Press
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Aluminium Industry,
Delhi: GoI
6. Caufield, Catherine 1998, The World Bank and the Poverty of Nations,
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Weekly Guardian Feb 9-15 p 1
44 CATERPILLAR AND THE MAHUA FLOWER
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MAHUA FLOWER
36. ———— 2001, Extractive Sectors and the Poor: An Oxfam America Report,
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46 CATERPILLAR AND THE MAHUA FLOWER
You cannot build anything on the foundations of caste. You cannot build up a
nation, you cannot build up a morality. Anything that you will build on the
foundations of caste will crack and will never be a whole.
-AMBEDKAR
http://venukm.blogspot.com
http://www.shelfari.com/kmvenuannur
http://kmvenuannur.livejournal.com
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