Indigeneity on the Move. Группа авторов
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1
ON THE NATURE OF INDIGENOUS LAND
Ownership, Access, and Farming in Upland Northeast India
Erik de Maaker
Indigeneity and Nature
In January 2014 it became clear that the UK-based Vedanta Mining Corporation would lose its concession to mine for bauxite in the Niyamgiri hills of Odisha (India). A campaign by representatives of the Dongria Khond “tribe,” actively supported by Survival International, had been successful. The campaign stated that the hills are “sacred” to the Dongria Khond. “To be a Dongria Khond is to farm the hills’ fertile slopes, harvest their produce, and worship the mountain god Niyam Raja and the hills he presides over….” In short, “Niyamgiri is our soul,” as stated on the webpages about the Dongria land struggle (Survival International 2014). At the core of the campaign was a compelling short documentary film, Mine, Story of a Sacred Mountain, narrated by UK celebrity Joanna Lumley, which emphasized the cultural and economic dependence of the Dongria Khond on the Niyamgiri hills.1 This film helped to convey the struggle of the Dongria Khond for their land to a broad international audience. The campaign by Survival International contributed significantly to rallying support for this cause both internationally and in India, as was evident from the eventual ruling of the New Delhi Supreme Court in their favor. Supporting and explaining that decision, the editorial of the prominent Indian national daily The Hindu concluded: “It is beyond doubt that there is an organic connection between tribals and the land … That bond must be respected” (The Hindu 2013). Attributing an “indigenous” community, such as the Dongria Khond, a privileged relationship to land and nature is common practice. Claims to such relationships tend to be compelling, and are not easily disputed by either policy makers or the general public on the Indian subcontinent. Alpa Shah has shown, in a study on indigenous politics, environmentalism, and insurgency in the central Indian state of Jharkhand, how indigenous activists’ portrayal of the Munda community as “nature loving” played an important role in advocacy for the creation of that state. The creation of Jharkhand by subdividing the state of Bihar, in the year 2000, was generally regarded as a triumph for its “tribal” majority (Shah 2010; see also Chandra 2013).
The two cases mentioned above reveal the leverage that claims based on the assumed privileged relationships of indigenous people to nature can yield. Internationally, the communities which are referred to within India as “tribes,” tend to be equated with “indigenous people.” Globally, policy makers, journalists, and the general public are open and sympathetic to the idea that the “sacrality” of nature is central to the worldview of indigenous people. This allows perceptions of nature, which such communities supposedly collectively hold, to play a central role in legitimizing claims that extend well beyond vegetation and animals to soil, and thus the “place” at which such groups are or want to be located. These kinds of claims are rooted in oral histories, myths, and religious rituals that state that the people concerned (or better, their predecessors) were the “first” to arrive, and that its members are consequently the oldest settlers on their land (Kuper 2003: 390). Such a claim necessarily denies “firstness” to other inhabitants of the same area, whom it consequently positions as later settlers.
From the 1970s onwards, demands made in the name of indigenous people have increasingly gained international credibility. Indigenous people have come to be perceived as “nations”: communities with a shared ethnicity, language, history, and culture. Often, they tend to be cast as victims of “internal colonialism,”