CHAPTER -5 Homeless in the ‘Global Village” -Vandana Shiva Brainstorming » Can development and nature go hand in hand? » What makes farmers protest against development? » Which environmental movement are you familiar The Author Vandana Shiva, born on Sth November, 1952 in Dehradun, is an Indian philosopher, environ - mentalist, author, — professional speaker. anti-globalizatior author and social activist. She is one of the leaders, board members of the International Forum on Globalization and has authored more than twenty books. She has received the Right Livelihood Award 1993, an honour known as an "Alternative Nobel Prize”. Vandana Shiva developed an | interest in environmentalism during a visit home, where she discovered that a favourite childhood forest had been cleared and a stream drained so that an apple orchard could be planted. The present essay is taken fom the book Ecofeminism jointly authored by Maria Mies and Vandana Shiva. She argues how developmental activities oot the ecological and cultural bonds with nature. 28i e Global market integration and the creation of the ‘level playing field’ for transnational capital, creates conditions of homelessness in tval and imaginary ways. The transnational corporation executive who finds a home in every Holiday Inn and Hilton, is homeless in terms of deeper cultural sense of rootedness, But the culturally-rooted tribal is made physically homeiess by being uprooted from the soil of her/his ancestors, Two classes of the homeless seem to be emerging in this ‘global village’. One group is mobile on a world scale, with no country as home, but the whole world as its property; the other has lost even the mebility within rootedness, and lived in refugee camps, resettlement colonies and reserves. The cumulative displacement caused by colonialism, development an¢ the marketplace has made homelessness a cultural characteristic of the late twentieth century. Development as uprooting Danis, mines, energy plants, military basis — these are the temples of the new religion called ‘development’, a religion that provides rationale for the modernizing state, its bureaucracies and technocracies. What is sacrificed at the altar of this religion is nature's life and people's life. The Sacraments of d:velopment are made of the ruins and desecration of ot er Sacreds, especially sacred soils. They are based on the dismantling of society and community, on the uprooting of Feople and cultures, Since soil is the sacred mother, the won 9 of life in nature and society, its ———________—_ 0 hature_and_society,have been sacrificed to accommodate mines, dams, factories, and wildlife parks. One word echoes and reverberates in the songs and slogans of Indian people struggling against ‘development’: ‘mati’ used --- soil. For’ these people soil is not simply a resource, it provides the very essence of their being. For large segments of Indian society the soil is still a sacred mother. "Development has meant the ecological and cultural rupture of bonds with nature. and within society, it has meant the transformation of organic communities into groups of uprooted and alienated individuals searching for abstract identities. What :oday are called ecological movements in the South are actually movements for rootedness, movements io resist uprooting before it begins. And what are generally perceived as ethnic struggles are also, in their own way, movements of uprooted people seeking social and cultural rootedness: These are the struggles of people taking place in the ruins wrought by development to regain a sense of selfhood and control over their destinies, Soil as a sacred mother ( Wherever development Projects are introduced, they tear . the soil and sever the bonds between people and the soil; --- The -soil is our ese are the words of adivasi awomen of the 'Save Gandmardhan’? movement as they embraced the earth while being dragged away by the police from the blockade sites in the Gandmardhan hills in Ori: Dhanmati, a 70-year-old woman of the movement had s ‘We will sacrifice our lives, but not Gandmardhan. We want to save this hill which gives us all we need’. The forests of Gandmardhan are a source of rich plant diversity and water resources, They feed 22 22_perennial streams. which in turn feed major rivers such as the Mahanadi. According to Indian mythology, Gandmardhan is the sacred hill where Hanuman gathered medicinal herbs to save Laxman’s life in the epic Ramayana; the saviour has now to be destroyed for ‘development’. It has to be desecrated by the Bharat Aluminium Company (BALCO) to mine for bauxite. BALCO had come to Gancmardhan after having destroyed the. sanctity and ecology of another important mountain, (Amarkantak ---- the source of the rivers Narmada, Sone, and Mahanadi. The destrction of Amarkantak was a high cost to pay for reserves which, in any case, turned out to be much smaller thar originally estimated. To feed it t_at Korba in Madhya Pradesh, BALCO Snow moved to Orissa to begin the rape of the Gandmardhan hills. Since 1985. the trials of the region have obstructed the work of the company and refused to be tempted by its offers of employment. Even police help has failed to stop the determined protest_—The conflict and destruction were unnecessary because India does not need so much aluminium, it already has a uiplus. The mining activity however, is dictated not by the needs of the Indian people but by the demands_of industrialized countries which are closing their own aluminium plants and encouraging i is like India. Japan_has reduced _its aluminium smelting capacity 290,000 tones to 140,000 tonnes and now imports 90 percent of its aluminium requirements. The same Japanese companies have proposed setting up joint ventures in Ind.e~ export ing zones to manufacture their onomies and their luxurious lifestyle. Bihar, the homelands of tribals in the Chotanagpur are being destroyed to mine coal and ironore and to ié_dams_on_its_rivers. The World Bank-financed wv is being built, with a US$127 million n primarily tc provide industrial water for the expanding el city of Jamshedpur. These dams will displace 80,000 In 1982. Ganga Ram Kalundia, the leader of the ement_ was shot dead en years later. his fellow tribals conti to resist building of the den because it will tear them a z i ted iway from the 1 of their bicth, the soil_which has provided them nce W"Our links with our ancestors are the basis of our society and of the re, roduction Of our society. Our children grow up playing around the stones which mark the burial sites of our ancestors. They learn ‘the ways of our ancestors. Without relating to our ancestors, our lives lose all meaning. They talk of compensation. How can they compensate us for the loss of the very meaning of our lives if they bury these burial stones under the dam? They talk of rehabilitation. Can they ever rehabilitate the sacred sites they have violated?" In coastal Orissa, the people of Balliapal are resisting the setting up of the national rocket test_range_ which will displace 70,000 people from their fertile homeland. The protesters repeatedly assert their bonds with the soil as the basis of their resistance to the test range. 'The land and the sea is ours. We shall sacrifice our lives but not our mother earth’. They haye rejected compensation offers because cash cannot compensate for the broken Tinks with the soil which Miles of cocoa : and cashew plantation countless, luxuriant betel-vines draw green artistic designs on the carpet of brown sand. Sweet-potato, ground -nut musk-melon vineshave adorned your dusty soil evergreen. They have given the people a high hope for a long, prosperous life, infused into hearts of working people an eternal hope to live. But, today, suddenly, covetous eyes of a power-mad hunter have falien on your green body To cut it to pieces, to drink to heart's content fresh red blood. A damned hunter has indiscreetly taken aim at your heart To launch a fiery missile. For communities who derive their sustenance from the soil it is not merely a physical property situated in Cartesian Space; for them, the soil is the source of all meaning. As an Australian aborigine said, "My land is my backbone. My land is my foundation’, Soil and socie the earth and its people are intimeel interconnected. In tribal and Societies, cultura: and religious identity derives from the _ soil, which is perceived not as a mere ‘factor of production’ : but as the very soul of Society. Soil has embodied the _ ecological and spiritual home for most cultures. It is the womb not only for the reproduction of biological life butalso of: cultural and Spiritual life; it epitomizes all the Sources of sustenance and is ‘home’ in the deepest sense. The Hill Maris tribe in Bastar see ‘bhum’, or soil, as their home. 'Shringar Bhum! is the universe of plants, animals, trees, and human beings. It is the cultural spiritual space which constitutes memory, myths, stories and songs that make the life of the community. Jagha Bhum' is the name for the concrete location of social activities in a village. Savyasaachi reports a village elder as saying: "The sun, the moon, the’ air, the trees are signs of my continuity. Social life will continue as long as these continue to live. | was born as a part of the 'bhum’, | will die when this 'bhum’ dies... I was born with all others in this ‘bhum'; I go with them. He who has created us all will give us food. If there is so much variety and abundance in ‘bhum', there is no reason for me to worry about food and continuity"> The soil is thus the condition for the regeneration of nature's and society's life. The renewal of society therefore involves preserving the soil's integrity; it involves treating the soil as sacred. Notes: I. Fernandes, Walter and Enakshi Ganguly Thukral. Development, Displacement and Rehabilitation. Indian Social Institute, 1989, p.80. 2. Bahuguna, Sunderlal in Chipeo News. Mimeo, Navjeevan Ashram, Dollars, 1986. 32Bandyopadhyay, J. ‘Havoc’. Illustrated Weekly of India.13 December 1987. 4, Astold to the author during a field trip to Suvarnarekha submergence area in September 1989. 5. Savyasaachi, in Frederique Marglin and Tariq Banuri, Dominating Knowledge. Zed Books, forth- wo coming. Glossary ‘Transnational capital: it is the social stratum that controls the supranational Global village : shrinking of the world into a village due to developed technology Colonialism : the act of one country controlling e the another for economic growth Sacraments :an important religious ceremony in the Christian church such as baptism, etc. Desecration : to damage Sanctity : the state or quality of being holy, sacred or saintly Consign : assign, allocate, entrust Aborigine :a person, animal or plant that has been in a country or region from earliest times Hill Maris za tribeShort Answer Questions 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 1) 8) - 5) Who is culturally homeless? How are the tribal people made physically homeless? What has made homelessness a cultural characteristic of the late 20th century? Name the temples of new religion. What is sacrificed at the altar of the new religion? The victims of progress and state perceived each sacrifice as not a big one for the larger nationai interest. True/False? The victims of progress have sacrificed their liks with the soil to accommodate _ The forests of Gandmardhan are known for a) a source of plant diversity b) a source of water resources ¢) a source of development projects d) a source of Gandmardhan movement (i) aand b (ii) band ¢ (iii) aandc (iv) a and d Who desecrated Gandmardhan? Why? 10) What is the geological significance of Amarkantak mountain? 11) Why are the tribal’s homelands in the Chotanagpur plateau being destroyed? 11) Give one reason for building Suvarnarekha dam. 12) Why did the Balliapal farmers reject compensation offers?Paragraph Answer Questions 1) Which are the two classes of homeless emerging in the ~global village’? 2) ‘Bullets, as well as bulldozers, are often necessary to execute the development project.’ Why? 3) Why do we see the word 'mati’ used in songs and slogans of protesters against development? 4) Write a note on Gandmardhan movement. 5) Discuss the geographical and mythological significance of Gandmardhan forests. Essay Answer Questions 1) How has development destroyed the bonding between man and nature? 2) ‘Though the destruction of natural resources is not necessary, yet in India it continues’. Discuss with examples narrated by the author. 3) How are "the soil and society, the earth and its people" intimately connected? 4) Ecological destruction and industrial development are a threat to everyday life. Elaborate. Suggested Reading 1. ithe citizen- Dr. R. Balasubramanyam, Grassroots. 2. Chief Seattle's Speech