ORISSA, INDIA, May 2, 2008: For centuries, life has remained unchanged for India’s Dongria Kondh tribe. Living on the remote Niyamgiri mountain, they keep to a daily routine of tilling crops, picking wild fruits and worshipping the hill god Niyam Raja. The existence is a simple one, but, because of a British FTSE 100 mining company, their way of life, their mountain and, indeed, their very survival, is under threat. Vedanta, a mining company owned by the London-based Indian billionaire Anil Agarwal, is planning to mine at the mountain, deep in the state of Orissa in eastern India. Its subsidiary, Sterlite, is hoping to receive permission from India’s Supreme Court to begin mining bauxite, the most important aluminum ore, on land considered sacred by the tribe. The open mine would destroy the habitat that has been their home for centuries, destroying the forest and drying up water sources.
Norway has already excluded Vedanta from its national pension fund investments on the grounds that such investment would carry “unacceptable risk of complicity in present and future severe environmental damage and systemic human rights violations”. Members of the Dongria Kondh are now calling on British shareholders to follow suit and take their money elsewhere. The human rights group Survival International has launched a campaign to raise awareness of Vedanta’s intentions and back the boycott.