How gram sabha’s dissent is crushed under infra projects

In January 2015, representatives of 20 gram sabhas (village assemblies) from Chhattisgarh’s coal belt of Sarguja, Korba, and Raigarh met and urged political parties in Delhi to withhold the opening of new private mines in the three districts. They emphasised that as members of bodies empowered to safeguard tribal lands, they reject mining. Back then the central government was yet to enact a law that allows auctioning of coal blocks to private bidders after the ‘coalgate’ debacle.

However, the law was passed, turning Chhattisgarh’s tribal farmlands and forests into potential private mines. Today, one of these gram sabhas in Sarguja district is being pushed to convene its assembly for the third time to decide on a mining project. They had refused to concede their land and forests to mining on earlier occasions. The local administration and project proponents are jointly coercing the village to pass a resolution in favour of the project, as the formal approval of the gram sabha is essential if the mining project is to proceed. Had this public drama been taking place in the precincts of the Central government in New Delhi, such an effort at regulatory capture would have made news headline.

The Constitution of India has empowered the gram sabha or the assembly of adult voters in a village panchayat with wide-ranging powers of local self-governance. The provisions of the Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas (PESA) Act, 1996 extends these powers to ‘Scheduled Areas’, places which have majority tribal populations. In these regions that are listed in the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution (tribal majority areas of the Northeast are listed in the Sixth Schedule), gram sabhas are held as competent to safeguard and preserve traditions as well as community resources and take measures to prevent land alienation.

A minimum of four gram sabha meetings are held each year, and special ones can be called to address time sensitive matters. The decisions are formally recorded in a register maintained as a document of business conducted by the assembly. Every decision is formal and binding as the assembly has the constitutional and legal authority to decide on topics allocated to them. Gram sabha meetings are not comparable to public hearings or consultative meetings that are usually organised by the government to inform the public, take their inputs, or to arrive at common decisions. In such participatory procedures, members of the public may have varying degrees of ‘influence’ on government decisions. Gram sabhas take decisions.

Their role in decision-making has also been upheld by courts.  In the case of the bauxite mining in Odisha that was litigated in the Supreme Court, the judges ordered that the project may proceed only if it gained the consent of the twelve gram sabhas falling within the proposed mining area.

Like the gram sabha in Sarguja, the twelve in Odisha are under immense pressure from the Odisha Mining Corporation (OMC).  

These gram sabhas have their back against the wall in such forms of ‘consensus building’ for development. If they refuse, they are abused as obstacles to economic growth or self-interested groups that hold up ‘public benefit’. Under pressure, many acquiesce to the decisions of the government that sits above them in the state capital and at the Centre. Even if the gram sabhas are in favour of mainstream development they are not given the time or space to outline their terms.

The manner in which the gram sabhas are treated in developmental decisions is reminiscent of the way powerful political parties arm- twist smaller and local entities into an agreement over political coalitions, policies, and decisions that have far reaching consequences on the social and economic lives of millions of citizens. Such consensus building starts with outcomes that are foreclosed instead of arriving at decisions together.

The authors are with the CPR-Namati Environment Justice Program