The Gandhamardan hills are spread over around 190 square kilometres across Odisha’s Bargarh and Balangir districts. Two religious and tourist places – Nrusinghanath Temple and Harishankar Temple – are on the Bargarh and Balangir sides of the hills. To the local people, both the temples and the entire hills are sacred entities.

The dense forests in the hills are also a major livelihood support for thousands of people. The hills are full of flora and fauna, and known to store rare medicinal plants. But they also have abundant reserves of bauxite, which is used to make aluminium, among other things.

In the early 1980s, when the government allowed the Bharat Aluminium Company Limited (Balco), a government-owned company, to start mining the Gandhamardan, it triggered a huge people’s protest. The protests continued throughout the 1980s, until Balco gave up its mining plans.

The protest to protect the biodiversity of the Gandhamardan hills was known to all as the ‘Balco movement’. In the history of people’s struggles, the Balco movement is claimed to be India’s first successful grassroots movement against a major mining project.

Gandhamardan Hill Bauxite Reserves and Renewed Mining Controversies

However, now, after three decades, there seems to be renewed interest in mining in the bauxite-rich hills, after the recent purchase of land by a corporate group. The Mahanadi Mines and Minerals Limited, a subsidiary of the Adani Group, has purchased around 112 acres of land in several villages across both the districts, sparking suspicions that the corporate group might have plans for bauxite extraction from the Gandhamardan hills.

The purchase has stoked local protests. On November 23, people in Temrimal village on the foothills of the Gandhamardan in Bargarh detained two geologists from the government-run Mineral Exploration and Consultancy Limited when they went for a survey in the hills.

Since November 25, local residents have launched an indefinite demonstration in front of the tehsil office at Khaprakhol in Balangir under the banner of the Gandhamardan Yuba Surakshya Parishad (GYSP).

Government Denials

Bargarh Lok Sabha MP Pradeep Purohit dismisses the alleged mining plans as a rumour. Purohit, who cut his political teeth on the Balco movement, avers that he will never allow mining in the Gandhamardan.

In a statement, the Adani Group also said that its subsidiary MMML had purchased private land from willing landowners with the purpose of transferring it to the Odisha forest department for compensatory afforestation.

Seeking to allay the mining fear, Odisha Deputy Chief Minister K.V. Singh Deo said in the Odisha assembly that the BJP government would never destroy the Gandhamardan hills for bauxite. He blamed the previous Biju Janata Dal (BJD) for allegedly giving Adani Group the permission to purchase land for compensatory afforestation. The company supposedly purchased the land in Balangir district in lieu of the loss of forest cover caused by its coal mining project in Sundargarh district.

Present Protests and Distrust

Even so, the clarifications by the state government and ruling politicians do not seem to have convinced the local people. Villagers around the Gandhamardan wonder why a company would acquire land in a densely forested area for afforestation. According to former Sambalpur Lok Sabha MP Bhabani Shankar Hota, who was at the forefront of the movement against Balco in the 1980s, the deputy chief minister’s statement only compounds the suspicion of people on Adani’s mining plans.

While the Adani subsidiary has so far purchased only private land, he says, the minister’s reply on government permission – whether from the previous or present – may hint that it might also have got permission for acquiring government land, which is beyond public knowledge till now. 

Hota and many others involved in the Balco movement suspect that the recent development at the Gandhamardan hills is a way to test people’s strength to resist a project again, more than three decades since the Balco movement.

History of Resistance

The people of Gandhamardan have a history of resistance to mining plans, and there is a valid reason for it. The hills have a rich biodiversity with more than 1,200 plant varieties, around 500 of which are medicinal, according to the local people. At least 220 of those medicinal plants have already been recorded in a report of the Botanical Survey of India. Thousands of people, mostly tribals, owe their livelihood to the hills.

The villages around the hills are known to have several traditional practitioners of ayurvedic medicine. There are two ayurvedic colleges and hospitals on the Bargarh and Balangir sides of the Gandhamardan, with more than 50,000 people depending on them.

In 1983, when Balco began its construction work after being granted a lease to extract bauxite in the Gandhamardan hills, the local people were the first to raise the banner of protest. In 1985, the GYSP was formed and it spearheaded a movement against mining that continued for the next four years.

The movement attracted several leaders and activists from across the state. Leaders like socialist thinker Kishan Patnaik and Hota played an important role in taking the movement to the national level. Noted environmentalist Sundarlal Bahuguna of Chipko movement fame spent days in the villages around the Gandhamardan to enthuse the local protesters.

Academicians from metro cities like Delhi launched a signature campaign to stop mining in the Gandhamardan. Though the Congress was in power both in Odisha and at the Centre, many local Congress leaders openly opposed mining the hills for bauxite.

Finally, due to sustained protests, the government backtracked from Balco’s mining project, though the company had already constructed roads, rail tracks and colonies for workers. The movement produced many future leaders out of young activists, including Purohit. 

Challenges of Balancing Development and Conservation

However, the topic of mining in the hills kept coming up time and again. It is obvious because, according to a survey by the government run Mineral Exploration Corporation Limited in 1980, the hills have a total reserve of 104.78 million tonnes of bauxite, as compared to around 72 million in the Niyamgiri hills, spread across the Kalahandi and Rayagada districts. Odisha has the largest bauxite reserves in India.

In 1990, after Biju Patnaik became the chief minister by defeating the Congress government, he again raised the issue of mining in the Gandhamardan but abandoned the idea after facing protests. Five years later, J.B. Patnaik returned to power in the state, and it was speculated that the Continental Resources Ltd, a Canadian company, might be invited to extract bauxite from the Gandhamardan.

By that time, the government had initiated a policy of inviting private corporate companies for mining. However, the Balco movement had created enough awareness among people to thwart any mining move.

Renewed Mining Proposals and Persistent Resistance

The present suspicion about fresh mining plans has put the activists on high alert. Meetings are being held in villages. Women are taking an active part in organising people.  

GYSP activists have made it clear that they do not trust the government’s “afforestation” clarification. They say that their protests will continue till a “sankalpa patra” (pledge) is passed in the Odisha assembly to ban mining in the Gandhamardan completely, as the government had already declared the hills a Biodiversity Heritage Site in March 2023.

Two factors had made the Balco movement of the 1980s a success: Religion and regionalism. The sanctity of Nrusinghanath and Harishankar temples was a major magnet that attracted people of all classes to the movement. Besides, there was disillusionment among the people in western Odisha that the state government was exploiting the western parts to benefit the coastal people.

Both factors remain more or less the same. However, time and government policies on dealing with people’s movements have changed. Many Balco movement activists, who have grown older, feel the governments have become less democratic and more aggressive while pushing for mining or infrastructure projects.

The present controversy around mining will have a bearing on Purohit. Once a convener of the GYSP, he owes his political career to the Balco movement. Interestingly, in August 2024, Pradeep Purohit had, in the Lok Sabha, demanded a survey of medicinal plants on the Gandhamardan hills.

The controversy is also a test for the BJP, which rules Odisha — how it allays the mining fear and balances development with conservation of rich biodiversity and sacred places with immense tourism potential.

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