India Coal Indigenous People
'Kindly leave from here!' Farmers’ blockade against coal mine thwarts Adani and armed police
At a cluster of small villages in north-eastern India, a David-and-Goliath struggle is being played out between Adani and the local people. Government authorities have connived with the Adani Group, which is attempting to take over farms, forests and villages for a huge coal mine. But the people have fought back, blocking Adani’s henchmen at every turn.
The name of Adani’s 550-ha coal project is ‘Gondulpara’, a misspelling of the main village affected, Gondalpura. Four other villages would also be severely impacted in this fertile region of the Indian state of Jharkhand.
This powerful film shows hundreds of local people blocking an access road to one of the threatened villages in October 2022. Adani and government officials confront the people, reading officious verbiage through a megaphone. The are backed by uniformed, armed police. Not far from here, in 2016, villagers protesting against a coal mine proposed by a different company were gunned down. This film by the Rimil Umul Collective is testament to the courage of people defending their land, water, livelihoods and way of life.
