At a time when reports are coming in of state action against members of the Dongria Kondh tribe in Odisha, their champion, Prafulla Samantara, has received the highest international honour and recognition that an environmentalist can get. Samantara, who rallied the Dongria Kondh tribals and helped them fight for right over their ancestral land, was conferred the Goldman Environmental Prize on Monday, termed the Green Nobel, in the US.

The citation for Samantara’s award said it was for his “historic 12-year legal battle that affirmed the indigenous Dongria Kondh’s land rights and protected the Niyamgiri Hills from a massive, open-pit aluminum ore mine.” The movement started by Samantara helped the 8,000-strong tribe to fight efforts to mine the resource-rich forests in Odisha by the mining major Vedanta. The Supreme Court’s decision to stop mining in Niyamgiri hills has continued to be questioned by the Orissa Mining Corporation. And the tribal community has faced several state actions, including arrests.

In an exclusive interview via e-mail after winning the award, Samantara told BusinessLine about the struggles of the people.

What has been your motivation to fight for the people most impacted by environmental degradation?

For me, environment protection means to protect and save natural resources as the gift of nature on which millions of people depend for their livelihood. It is also essential to protect Mother Earth from the exploitation of resources by corporates for their profits.

As an activist, I feel it is my constitutional responsibility, as well as a humanist, to be involved in the struggles for the rights of the tribals and to protect the resources in the interest of ecological balance between development and nature.

You succeeded in protecting the rights of the Dongria Kondh tribe on their ancestral land, but they continue to come under fire from the State government and mining companies. How can tribal communities, who often do not have the resources to fight protracted cases, protect their interests?

It is a fact that the Indian state has become a corporate police state after globalisation and liberalisation. So, there is always threat to tribals like the Dongaria Kondh to displace them from their natural habitat. The only way is to fight it through democratic resistance. And there are many legal experts, human right activists and environmental experts in India who are with the people in the fight against corporates.

The tribals of Niyamgiri are determined to continue their democratic struggle against Vedanta to protect their right over resources and activists like me will continue with them till the end. The Constitution is with us, by which we can defeat the undemocratic action of the state and corporates.

Recently, the Dongria tribe has come under fire from the Home Ministry, with a report linking members of the community to Maoists. As per news reports, some community members have even been picked up by police. Your comments.

This report is full of manufactured lies to crush the tribal communities’ struggle against Vedanta. It is also a conspiracy to counter the historical decision of village council (gram sabha) banning mining of bauxite in Niyamgiri.

When the Niyamgiri Surakhya Samiti started the resistance, there was no presence of Maoist activities. The Maoists have opposed gram sabha after the Supreme Court judgment. But tribals rejected it and actively participated in the gram sabha and decided against mining.

Knowingly, the state is branding this movement as supporters of Maoists, which is untrue. Innocent tribals have been the victims of police firing in the name of repression on Maoists.

Similar action has been reported with regard to other communities fighting for rights to forest land, such as in Mahan. How much do these allegations hurt the future of community rights over traditional forest land and livelihood?

Recently, I had been to Singrauli in Madhya Pradesh to conduct a public hearing of displaced people on rehabilitation and compensation denied by Essar. Even there, the police did not allow the public hearing though it was not a protest or any event that would create a law and order problem. This proved that the state is with the corporates, not the people. Due to mindless mining in Mahan forest, the people have been deprived of the right to livelihood.

Concerns have also been raised over violation of the Forest Rights Act (FRA), especially with notifications from the government itself. Your comments.

After the 2014 elections, with the Central government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, there have been attempts to dilute the power of gram sabha in the FRA and also change the environmental protection law to facilitate corporates to exploit mines and minerals at the cost of people’s rights over the resources as well as ecological balance. But, we have been resisting throughout the country and have succeeded in stopping changes in the land acquisition Bill. So, any move by the Centre to violate FRA or any law of rights will be resisted by the people.

On winning this prestigious award, do you think it will change the way your activism and work areperceived?

Personally, I do feel that this is an international recognition of democratic peoples’ struggles against corporate capture of natural resources and global capitalism, which is the cause of global climate change. I never believe in individual achievement and it is the collective effort that could get us this prize. Naturally, I will have more responsibility to go for national campaign with many organisations to prevent corporate loot and against state repression on democratic rights of the people.

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