In the postcolonial context of India’s extractives-driven growth, mining on Indigenous lands and the violation of constitutional provisions for Indigenous consent are justified on the grounds of economic growth. This is seen as critical for the national interest of a newly sovereign nation. Indigenous and environmental conflicts over land, livelihoods and forests have significantly increased since the globalisation of the Indian economy since the mid-1990s.

This panel session will question: What are the ways forward for protecting indigenous land and forest rights? What are the challenges and opportunities for transforming the extractives industry in India for sustainability and human rights?

MODERATOR:

Ruchira Talukdar is a doctoral candidate in the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Technology Sydney. Her PhD thesis compares coal conflicts and protest movements in India and Australia. Ruchira has worked within the environment movement in India, with Greenpeace, and Australia, with Greenpeace and the Australian Conservation Foundation. She is a regular contributor to environmental politics at New Matilda and Newsclick (in India).

PANELISTS

Priya Pillai, Senior Researcher at Asar, New Delhi, India. Priya has worked on environmental and social justice issues for 20 years. She works closely with grassroots movements and non-governmental organisations that focus on climate and energy, the right to food, gender equality, and forest rights. She has worked with Greenpeace, the Right to Food campaign, ActionAid, and Oxfam. She is proud of her role in securing forest rights for the people of Mahan in the state of Madhya Pradesh. She is doing a PhD on the socio-ecological impact of large- scale renewable energy from the University of Technology Sydney.

Sreedhar Ramamurthi, co-founder of Environics Trust, New Delhi, India. R.Sreedhar is a Geologist from University of Roorkee (1979) now IIT Roorkee. He worked with mainstream exploration organisations, Atomic Minerals Division, Department of Atomic Energy and later with Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd. In 1985 he moved out to begin working with communities on environmental and alternate technology issues, establishing the Environmental Systems Branch of Development Alternatives, New Delhi. He has been actively involved in institutional and network development, research, implementation of alternate technologies and providing techno-legal support for Human Rights and Environmental Litigations. Over the past three decades, he co-founded and nurtured several groups and institutions broadly addressing issues of community development – TARU (‘91) – a leading Development Research group, the Indian Network on Ethics and Climate Change (’94) – among the oldest network on Climate Change in India, the BCIL (‘95)– country’s biggest green building company, mines minerals and PEOPLE (’99) – the largest alliance of mining affected communities, Environics Trust (’03) the EIA Resource and Response Center (’08) and the Mojolab Foundation (2012).

Environics Trust’s regions of focus also include the Godda region of Jharkhand, India, where Adani’s thermal power plant that will burn coal from the Carmichael mine has resulted in the dispossession of lands and livelihoods of indigenous communities.