Resilience in the face of modernization: India’s Supreme Court protects the Dongria’s right to living in Niyamgiri forests – Odisha

[…] Twelve Dongria villages have now unanimously voted against Vedanta’s mine during consultations ordered by India’s Supreme Court in April 2013, because their religious, cultural and social rights would be jeopardized if mining were to go ahead.

Dongria leader Lodu Sikaka said, ‘Our God lives in open space, you keep your God locked up with a key. We won’t leave Niyamgiri.  […]

Survival International and its supporters have backed the Dongria’s fight by staging protests, sending thousands of letters to the Indian government, recruiting the support of celebrities such as Joanna Lumley and Michael Palin, and bringing the tribe’s struggle to worldwide attention. Vedanta’s treatment of the Dongria was slammed by the British government, amongst others, and several shareholders such as the Church of England pulled out of the company on ethical grounds. […]

Source: Real ‘Avatar’ tribe deals fatal blow to Vedanta mine – Survival International
Address : https://www.survivalinternational.org/news/9478
Date Visited: 21 April 2020

A Supreme Court judgment projects the historical thesis that India is largely a country of old immigrants and that pre-Dravidian aborigines, ancestors of the present Adivasis, rather than Dravidians, were the original inhabitants of India. – Comment “India, largely a country of immigrants” Photo © The Hindu >>

“Is it eccentric to live in beautiful scenery in the hills among some of the most charming people in the country, even though they may be ignorant and poor?” – Verrier Elwin quoted by G.N. Devy in The Oxford India Elwin >>



View Tribal culture in the Indian press in a larger map