Three villages in Odisha have got no mail for the last five years. It’s not that no one sends any letters to the inhabitants of Dhinkia, Govindpur and Paatna — the three villages in Dhinkia taluk bordering the Paradip port in Jagatsinghpur district. They stopped getting letters ever since Babaji Charan, the postmaster in Dhinkia for 28 years, was suspended on December 14, 2007.
The 65-year-old postmaster continued to work even after his suspension, and delivered the post every day for eight months till July 2008 when the postal department stopped sending him the bag of posts. Since then, no mail has ever arrived for the people of these three villages.
Charan has not committed any crime but his suspension letter notes that he has been a part of anti-government protests. His main offence is that he lived in the area required urgently by Korean company Posco to set up a steel plant and a captive power plant. The other offence of Charan and the rest of the villagers is that their main source of income is betel farming, which would be lost if their farms are acquired.
According to a recent report by a fact-finding team of two non-governmental organisations (NGOs), there are 230 cases under various sections against 2,000 people in those three villages. The report called “Captive Democracy” talks of how the three villages are like jails, since the people have not dared to step out for fear of getting arrested.
The cases range from murder and attempt to murder to dowry death and rape. In one case, a woman has been charged with rape. Manorama Kathua of Dhinkia village, who is an accused in a rape case, has 20 other cases against her. The 29-year-old has been actively involved in the resistance movement against Posco.
There is no way these people can be free, for the moment they leave the village they get arrested. And a bail costs Rs 1,500 to 2,000, says Sanjeev kumar of NGO Delhi Forum, one of the authors of the report.
They plan to move court to seek quashing of these cases, which they believe are false. The people have been forced into a conflict with the government since 2005 when Posco and the state signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) that allows the company 4,000 acres in the eight villages adjoining the Paradip port to set up a steel plant, a port and a captive power plant. While villages have been resisting acquisition of land, attempts to seize land are on with the police raiding the villages as recently as last week. This is despite pending environment clearances for the Posco project, and a case in the Supreme Court challenging the MoU.
A kinsman of postmaster Charan, who didn’t want to be named, says the problem can be solved if there is direct communication between the government and the people.
“If the company gives a monthly income as high and lasting as the money earned from betel vines they have been cultivating for over a century, then why would the villagers refuse?” he asks. And he gives the reason, too.
“No one trusts either the company or the government. And there is no direct contact between the people and the government.”
As for letters, pensions, and other mails, he says, people go to the sub-post office in Kujang, a good 13 km away, to collect those.
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