BENUDHAR PRADHAN, AGE 95. HIS LAST Mission – Saving Jagannath Puri from Vedanta University
The reality is starkly different when our car reaches the villages whose families will lose their land to the project. It is difficult to visualise spanking new laboratories, classrooms and libraries replacing the huts, houses, muddy streets, courtyards and cattle that are the hallmark of rural India. Gaindala village – just a few kilometres away from the holy town of Puri – will lose all its land to the project, including the cremation ground. Villagers here are not poor; they cultivate three crops in a year in the fertile land and most have sent their children to schools & colleges. Just across the road from the village is the breathtaking Bay of Bengal, its waves pounding against a reserved sanctuary. The entire village is now simmering in frustration & rage. People here seem to be well versed with intricacies of arcane laws like the Land Acquisition Act. Says Kailash Chandra Swain, a resident of Gaindala, “The state government is playing mischief with us. Normally, land for a university is acquired under Section-2 of the Land Acquisition Act. But out here, they are acquiring land under Section-7 of the Act, which is meant for industries.” The cluster of villagers standing around Swain nod vigorously. One of the sons of VVSS President Benudhar Pradhan is accompanying us, eating paan in an inimitable style. Quite clearly, villagers here hold the 95-year-old Pradhan in deep respect. A local activist Bishnu Prasad Mishra who is also the spokesperson of VVSS proclaims, “We will not give an inch of land to Vedanta University.”
Land, I had always suspected, would also be at the root of this controversy and the protests. Who, after all, wants to surrender fertile land to someone whom locals consider to be an interloper? But there is clearly a lot more to just land acquisition by the state to help a tycoon here as villagers reel off numbers like professional number crunchers. Vedanta University needs 6,000 acres of land. Villagers, many of whose children have been educated in colleges & universities, wonder why the University needs 6,000 acres of land. Six thousand acres works out to almost 24.5 square kilometres, far more than what the holy town of Puri at 2,800 acres can claim. Villagers talk about another slightly controversial university project promoted by the Sri Sri Ravi Shankara Foundation elsewhere in Orissa that has been green lighted by the state. This University has been given 186 acres of land. You would naturally ask: what in God’s name does Anil Agarwal want to do with 6,000 acres? Actually, the original MoU signed between Vedanta & the Government of Orissa in 2006 had allocated 8,000 acres for the University with a provision that the state government will actively assist Vedanta in acquiring more land as and when required by the project.
If you talk to local villagers, they mutter darkly about the real intentions of Anil Agarwal. The spokesperson of VVSS Mishra throws up two conspiracy angles in one breath. “Scientists of Bhabha Atomic Center have identified this area as a treasure of thorium & titanium. Therefore Vedanta wants to acquire this area. What is the necessity of a township for 5 lakh people here? Vedanta wants to make real estate business over this beautiful area.” Mainstream media is so focused on the POSCO, Tata Steel & Niyamgiri controversies that these issues being raised by the villagers seem to have largely escaped public notice. Hardly anybody in Bhubaneswar – forget Delhi – seem aware that the University will eventually evict the potters who make clay pots used in the Jagannath Temple to distribute and sell the holy Prasad to the thousands – and often hundreds of thousands – of devotees from across India and the world who throng to the temple everyday. Even as we are being bombarded with these facts, my colleague Dhrutikam gets a call on his mobile. We promise to come back in a while and head for the spectacularly beautiful Marine Drive that links Puri with Konark.
We turn left on Marine Drive and reach the edge of the reserved sanctuary that adjoins the Bay of Bengal. I am introduced to a local newspaper journalist who requests me not to use his name because he claims that his job might be in danger because some of his seniors in Bhubaneswar prefer to see things the way Anil Agarwal wants to see them. There is a strong breeze blowing from across the sea as we stare at the trees that dot the sanctuary. Very close to the sanctuary lie cranes and machines abandoned by Vedanta because the locals would not allow it to start work. According to the journalist (later verified by us), the Orissa High Court has declared this a complete no construction zone and ordered the state to plant trees. We see saplings and some trees struggling to grow right next to the sea. This particular place is critical because water plants use freshwater to supply the residents of Puri. Two plants have already been shut as per the orders of the court because the supply of sweet water is now dangerously low. The 6,000 acre Vedanta University will gobble up the only source of freshwater available in these parts in the form of a small river called Nuanai. “In no time, the sanctuary will wither away and the holy town of Puri will be left with no water whatsoever. This place has such deep religious significance for so many Indians, I am amazed how locals don’t seem to realise that their town will be destroyed and there will be no water for the Jagannath Temple.” The journalist says (later confirmed by us by going through the MoU between Vedanta and the government of Orissa) that the University project will be supplied 1,10,000 cusecs of water every day.
Are people living in Puri aware of this? Are the priests – who so vociferously dominate the age old rituals at Jagannath Temple aware of the threat posed to the very existence of the holy shrine? We travel back a few kilometres to Puri to meet a few priests and get another shock. No one with any authority is willing to go on record, though many lament the abode of Lord Jagannath has been sold by some priests and trustees for a pittance. “The then administrator sold the land of Jagannath to Vedanta University at a throwaway price. Can you imagine , the temple administration has received only Rs.80 million for 500 acres of land in Puri-Konark marine drive area. Vedanta University has caused heavy loss to Lord Jagannath. The cost of this land is minimum Rs.5 billion in market rate. If Vedanta establishes the University here, it will destroy the sanctity of this holy town and also Jagannath Temple,” says a senior member of the Managing Committee of Jagannath Temple who refuses to be quoted. He says he can’t be seen to be publicly disagreeing with his own committee. I talk to a few locals in a shambolic version of a straw poll and no one seems to have a clue; and nobody seems interested, saying Lord Jagannath has always protected Puri and will continue to do so.
We are taken by VVSS spokesperson Mishra to Beladala village. This is the place from where Benudhar Pradhan is waging his classic David versus Goliath battle against Anil Agarwal and Vedanta. Though the Rabi crop has been harvested quite some back and the Kharif crop is yet to be sown, the fertile land looks green and tempting. The green coconut milk that we drink and the home grown ‘non-hybrid’ bananas that we get are delicious and soothing. We stare at acres upon acres of fields that belonged to the Jagannath Temple trust and have now been sold to Vedanta. Benudhar Pradhan is adamant, he and his band of warriors will not allow anyone to take away the land. “This land has always belonged to Lord Jagannath. Who are these trustees to sell away our God?”
