om e 's Ali a - Land ss De elo en - Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, India Office

14
Women’s Alienation
the Mineral Policy as well as to
push for amendments in other
Acts which are related to mining
activities like the Labour Laws, the
Coal Nationalisation Act, the Fifth
Schedule, the Land Acquisition Act,
the Forest Conservation Act, the
Environment Protection Act, the
Panchayat Extension to Scheduled
Areas Act (PESA) and others, shows
an increasing disrespect of the state
towards the rights of communities.
In the context of gender positioning,
mining has only multiplied the
exploitation and degradation of
From Riches to Rags
An Interview with Saruna Devi
Saruna Devi had just got married to Lal Ravindranath Sahdeo, a resident of Jaganathpur
in Ranchi, when the Heavy Engineering Corporation (HEC) was being set up at Hatia. As
a bride, she got everything – social prestige, lands, full coffer, workers to help her out in
household chores etc, as her husband Shahdeo belonged to a jamindar family. But, as the
HEC acquired the 20 acres of land the family owned, bad days for Saruna Devi started.
“Initially, when the company promised jobs and other benefits, I dreamt that my family
would have a life better than the earlier one. But, that never came. We were given some
Rs 60,000 as compensation amount against our land that had been acquired, but this
money disappeared in no time. My husband was not given a job in the HEC; instead a
subsidiary biscuit factory that had come up on the HEC premises employed my husband
on very low salary. After seven years, it closed down and we were left to earn our own
livelihood by running errands,” remembers Saruna. She remembers how her husband and
she had to face uphill tasks in bringing up their two sons. “As we were at threat that we
would be thrown out of our households due to land acquisition, the thought of where to
go, how to live etc. always put us in turmoil. We had lost our lands and along with it the
social prestige and social security,” she says.
Though Saruna has not been displaced from her ancestral house, thanks to the Jagannathpur
temple to which premises her house belonged, her economic situation never changed for
better. She probably is the oldest lady still alive in the area who has seen with her own
eyes the disaster caused to the original inhabitants on the region. “Original inhabitants
of this region had everything, they have nothing now,” says 85 year-old Lal Ravindranath
Shahdeo. Almost all people of his age have passed away, several of them early due to the
change that occurred in the region and the resultant lack of livelihood options.
Shahdeos, who held a respectable social position in the entire region, now run errands to
eke out a living. Their two sons are still waiting for jobs to be given by the HEC.