It’s been called the real life Avatar. Or a battle between David and Goliath. Whatever the metaphor though, it’s a rare case of the little guy winning against a formidable adversary.
At the end of August, India’s Environment ministry quashed mining giant Vedanta’s plans to cut off a mountaintop to reach the bauxite in the Niyamgiri Hills in the eastern state of Orissa. Plans which would have dispossessed the 7-8000 Dongria Kondh tribal people who live there.
Vedanta already had an aluminium refinery in the area and needed an accessible supply of bauxite to feed it. The multinational had powerful backers – Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik lobbied hard for them and Indian home Minister P. Chidambaram is an ex-director. In 2007 it seemed that the case was lost when the Supreme Court was on the verge of ruling in favour of the mining company - despite evidence that Vedanta had breached a plethora of regulations in its expanded base there.
A major turning point came when the Norwegian government sold its stake in Vedanta stating ethical reasons. Other important investors pulled out and NGO’s like Survival International and Amnesty International started campaigning on behalf of the Dongria Kondh. Rahul Gandhi visited a couple of years ago and pledged support. 
Activist Biswanjit Mohanty says that without the support of Congress Party supremos Rahul and Sonia Gandhi, and Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh, the case wouldn’t have stood a chance.
”Without the international players and people like Sonia and Rahul Gandhi backing us, the Dongria would never have had a chance to win this fight. There are only about 5000 of them who are eligible to vote so that’s nothing for the voting banks, and most of them can’t even read and write in their own language, let alone English. They would have never been able to file petitions and fight their case in court.”
However, critics accuse the Gandhis of jumping on the environment bandwagon in non-Congress ruled states like Orissa while giving the green light for massive money generating projects in states where the Congress Party stands to gain.
Whatever their motivation though, activists like Mohanty don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth.
“This development is not sustainable - the Dongria don’t want to give up their land for jeans and coca cola. And what happens when the bauxite is gone. What happens to them then?”
Will this case be the kind of legal precedent that it’s being heralded as? There are dozens of similar cases of helpless tribal or rural people around the country being threatened by powerful mining or industrial interests, and it remains to be seen whether the little guy is going to keep coming out on top.
