At long last the twelve Gram Sabhas are over and the Dongria Kondhs have unaminously rejected Vedanta’s plans to mine high-grade bauxite from their sacred Niyamgiri Hills, which provide the tribe’s livelihood. Now these consultative decisions have to be considered by the Ministry of Forests and Environment, which has the final say. It would be a major volte-face if the Ministry goes against this massive rejection given its record of upbraiding Vedanta for breaking the law, which led Jairem Ramesh to say ‘Therefore the project cannot go ahead’ just three years ago. This should be the end of the matter.

Some thoughts

During the last four years I have made every effort to follow the events without bias. This was to encourage any readers to make up their own minds. In my view, the so-called ‘Avatar’ of conflict is by no means simple and raises many questions. Here are a few: ‘Should tribes that are descendants from 50,000 years ago have inalienable rights to land on which they live’, ‘Given the exponential rise in the world’s population how do we provide food, water and shelter?’, ‘Do mining companies really need to take irreplaceble resources such as aluminium on a vast scale?’, ‘What about less materialism and increase recycling?’, ‘Climate change exists and probably global warming with effects that are harmful to many so what can we do now?’ Something to think about.