Odisha’s Dongria Kondh Take On Corporate Mining: The Niyamgiri Forest Fight

Source: Vikalp Sangam | October 13, 2023

Niyamgiri in Odisha is not just a green hill on a map. For the Dongria Kondh, it is sacred ground, the home of their deity Niyam Raja, and the base of their everyday life. That is why any push for mining or large “development” activity here becomes more than an economic debate. It becomes a question of rights, identity, and survival.

Niyamgiri Is Sacred, and Also Practical Life-Support

For the Dongria Kondh, forests are not a side income. Forests are food, water, medicine, and dignity. Their relationship with Niyamgiri is both spiritual and deeply practical. When forests are diverted, the community does not only lose trees. It loses its life-system: streams, hill ecology, forest produce, and cultural continuity.

Why This Became a National-Level Issue Earlier

The Dongria Kondh are known for resisting Vedanta’s bauxite mining plans in the past. That earlier episode turned Niyamgiri into a symbol of a larger Indian question: can a Scheduled Area community protect its sacred ecology when powerful industrial interests arrive?

What Has Triggered New Anxiety: Recent Forest Governance Changes

The current concerns are linked to changes in forest governance such as the Forest Conservation Rules (2022) and amendments to the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 through the Forest Conservation Amendment Act, 2023.

Critics of these changes fear that if the legal-administrative meaning of “forest” is narrowed in a way that excludes certain categories (like “deemed forests”), then diversion for mining and other projects can become easier. They also worry that Gram Sabha consent—so crucial in Scheduled Areas—may get weakened in practice.

In simple words: people fear that forests could start being treated like paperwork, not like community habitats.

What the Dongria Kondh Are Demanding

Through local collectives such as the Niyamgiri Suraksha Samiti and the MSS, the core demand is straightforward:

Recognise forest rights first, as promised by law.

They are demanding immediate recognition of:
Community Forest Rights (CFR)
Individual Forest Rights (IFR)
as mandated under the Forest Rights Act, 2006.

Anthropology Lens: This Is Not Only About Land, It Is About Displacement

In Anthropology, development-induced displacement is not only relocation from one place to another. It also includes:

Loss of sacred geography and cultural meaning
Breakdown of traditional institutions and community authority
Stress on social life, nutrition, and health due to ecological disruption

That is why such movements often look “emotional” from outside, but are actually rational fights for cultural survival.

Relevant PYQs 

1. Examine the impact of Forest Policies from 1878 to 2006 on land alienation and deprivation of rights of tribal communities in India. (15M/2024) 

2. Discuss the impact of the Forest Rights Act (2006) on the livelihood and culture of tribal people in India. (20M/2021) 

3. Explain the impact of development-induced displacement among tribal people in India with examples. (20M/2020)