“Future Uncertain!” — Dispossession by Mining and Young Men - Mining Company Engagements in Eastern India

Abstract

A protracted movement emerged in Southern Odisha, eastern India, in 1993 that stalled for over 18 years India’s first private bauxite mining project, Utkal Alumina International Limited, in Kashipur. The movement went through several ups and downs and finally declined in 2010. The project involved the dispossession of 32 villages. The movement’s decline coincided with many young villagers turning to the mining company to obtain low-paying jobs and paltry benefits. Most of the villagers who did this were earlier at the forefront of the movement. This article explores why and how these young, semi-educated, and dispossessed men from Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes responded to this situation. It critically explores their actions and utilizes the sociological concept of responsibilization to understand the actions of these young men facing acute uncertainty about their futures in a context where their existing and familiar economic and social world was rapidly dissolving before their eyes.