How James Cameron’s Avatar relates to the exploitation of Indigenous People of the world and India
By Rohini Hensman
With forced expulsion and violence on their homeland, persecuted outsider-advocates, and commercial mining interest driving it all, James Cameron’s Avatar has striking parallels to events on the ground in India.
The plot of Avatar is relatively simple. In the year 2154, a colony of humans has been set up by RDA corporation on Pandora, an exotic planet inhospitable to humans but rich in a rare and incredibly valuable mineral, ironically named unobtanium. RDA is keen on exploiting this natural resource but the indigenous inhabitants, the Na’vi, are an obstacle to this goal, since the unobtanium lies beneath the forest they inhabit, with the biggest deposit beneath their ancestral Hometree. In a science fiction flourish, the humans interact with the natives through the Avatar programme, which blends the DNA of individual human beings with that of the Na’vi to create Na’vi avatars which can be controlled by the mind of the human. Through this, they can establish contact with the Na’vi, find out about them and their habitat, and try to persuade them to cooperate with the company. But should they fail, the military wing is poised to remove them by force. Our heroes, including Jake, a paraplegic ex-marine, who adopts his deceased twin brother’s avatar (which represents a sizable investment by the corporation) connect with the natives and learn to appreciate their culture. When the powers-that-be get impatient and give Jake and his colleagues an hour to convince the Na’vi to vacate their habitat, they rebel against their paymasters in an attempt to protect the Na’vi from ecological ruin and genocide.
The contemporary relevance of this film derives from the fact that, as the recent UN Report on the State of the World’s Indigenous Peoples (United Nations 2010) reminds us, there are still 370 million indigenous people in the world. Many are still being subjected to displacement and dispossession, and suffer physical abuse, imprisonment, torture and even death if they try to assert their rights. Nowhere is this more true than in India’s forest belt, where the Adivasis are being displaced from their traditional habitats by the pursuit of ‘development’, of late driven mainly by commercial interests including mining. As an official report notes, ‘As tribal areas are also rich in mineral resources, the mining projects proposed such as in Orissa, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh threaten the very existence of tribal people’ (Government of India 2008).
Indeed, the heart-breaking moment in Avatar when the ancestral Hometree of the Na’vi is destroyed, and many are killed while the rest are displaced, could well be a metaphor for what is happening in the state of Chhattisgarh in Central India, where the security forces of a fascist state government, together with a state-sponsored, largely tribal militia (Salwa Judum), have driven tens of thousands of Adivasis out of their villages and destroyed them. In the process, many have been injured, tortured, raped and killed. One non-tribal activist fighting against these injustices, renowned Dr Binayak Sen, was arrested and kept behind bars for over two years on false charges; another, Himanshu Kumar, had his Gandhian ashram destroyed, and has suffered continuous harassment. Journalists and human rights activists trying to investigate and report on the situation have been assaulted physically and kept out. Inordinate effort was needed to get Sodhi Sambho, a young Adivasi woman who was witness to a massacre, the medical treatment she needed for her bullet-shattered leg; yet even in hospital she remained a virtual captive of the state police, effectively cut off from journalists and even from her lawyer in the case pertaining to the massacre. Three other witnesses were detained by the police, who are the alleged perpetrators: the very opposite of a witness-protection programme (Jha 2010; Iqbal 2010;Sethi 2010).
Some Adivasis have joined the Communist Party of India (Maoist) (also known as ‘Maoists’ or ‘Naxalites’) in order to fight the state security forces, even though the goal of the CPI(Maoist) (capturing state power) and its methods (destruction of schools and infrastructure, recruitment of child soldiers, summary execution of those labelled as informers, etc.) are inimical to the welfare of the Adivasis and their own demands (Human Rights Watch 2008). The central government is supporting a military attack on the Maoists, despite the fact that many unaffiliated Adivasis will be caught in the crossfire, even though its own report makes it clear that so long as unchecked violations of the legal and constitutional rights of Adivasis continue, they will continue to be pushed into the ranks of the Maoists. It is probably in recognition of this fact that the government is considering legislation that will restrict mining by private sector companies in tribal areas, and take into consideration constitutional provisions for the protection of tribal communities and their rights. Mining companies are already lobbyingagainst this proposed restriction of their access to our earthly equivalents of unobtanium. Unless there is even stronger counter-lobbying by tribal rights, human rights and environmentalist groups, it is unlikely that this legislation will ever make it to the statute books. Poor implementation of the otherwise laudable Forest Rights Act (2007) demonstrates that pressure for implementation is equally important.
The bows and arrows of the Adivasis are as ineffective against the firepower of the invaders as they are in Avatar. Yet they do have weapons that were not available to the Na’vi: legal and constitutional rights, environmental laws, international law, greater knowledge of the devastating environmental impact of deforestation and militarism, and modern information and communication technologies. Struggles in the real world are more complicated and messy than the clearcut fight between good and evil in the world of Avatar: the invaders are not necessarily White; some of the indigenous people may collaborate with them while others may join groups like the Maoists whose interests clash with their own; indigenous people belonging to different tribes may fight each other for control over the same territory; some tribal customs may be extremely oppressive, especially to women; for many indigenous people, their biggest problem may be the discrimination and exclusion they face in mainstream society; and all these actors have to share the same planet, in some cases the same country. But despite these over-simplifications, the happy ending of Avatarencourages us to hope that the surviving indigenous people of the world, including the Adivasis of India, can win sufficient control over their lives and habitats to secure freedom from poverty, indignity and violent abuse.
Rohini Hensman is a researcher and writer active in the women’s liberation, trade union, human-rights and anti-war movements in India and Sri Lanka.
Source: http://himalmag.com/blogs/blog/2010/01/28/of-avatar-and-adivasis/
By Rohini Hensman
With forced expulsion and violence on their homeland, persecuted outsider-advocates, and commercial mining interest driving it all, James Cameron’s Avatar has striking parallels to events on the ground in India.
The plot of Avatar is relatively simple. In the year 2154, a colony of humans has been set up by RDA corporation on Pandora, an exotic planet inhospitable to humans but rich in a rare and incredibly valuable mineral, ironically named unobtanium. RDA is keen on exploiting this natural resource but the indigenous inhabitants, the Na’vi, are an obstacle to this goal, since the unobtanium lies beneath the forest they inhabit, with the biggest deposit beneath their ancestral Hometree. In a science fiction flourish, the humans interact with the natives through the Avatar programme, which blends the DNA of individual human beings with that of the Na’vi to create Na’vi avatars which can be controlled by the mind of the human. Through this, they can establish contact with the Na’vi, find out about them and their habitat, and try to persuade them to cooperate with the company. But should they fail, the military wing is poised to remove them by force. Our heroes, including Jake, a paraplegic ex-marine, who adopts his deceased twin brother’s avatar (which represents a sizable investment by the corporation) connect with the natives and learn to appreciate their culture. When the powers-that-be get impatient and give Jake and his colleagues an hour to convince the Na’vi to vacate their habitat, they rebel against their paymasters in an attempt to protect the Na’vi from ecological ruin and genocide.
The contemporary relevance of this film derives from the fact that, as the recent UN Report on the State of the World’s Indigenous Peoples (United Nations 2010) reminds us, there are still 370 million indigenous people in the world. Many are still being subjected to displacement and dispossession, and suffer physical abuse, imprisonment, torture and even death if they try to assert their rights. Nowhere is this more true than in India’s forest belt, where the Adivasis are being displaced from their traditional habitats by the pursuit of ‘development’, of late driven mainly by commercial interests including mining. As an official report notes, ‘As tribal areas are also rich in mineral resources, the mining projects proposed such as in Orissa, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh threaten the very existence of tribal people’ (Government of India 2008).
Indeed, the heart-breaking moment in Avatar when the ancestral Hometree of the Na’vi is destroyed, and many are killed while the rest are displaced, could well be a metaphor for what is happening in the state of Chhattisgarh in Central India, where the security forces of a fascist state government, together with a state-sponsored, largely tribal militia (Salwa Judum), have driven tens of thousands of Adivasis out of their villages and destroyed them. In the process, many have been injured, tortured, raped and killed. One non-tribal activist fighting against these injustices, renowned Dr Binayak Sen, was arrested and kept behind bars for over two years on false charges; another, Himanshu Kumar, had his Gandhian ashram destroyed, and has suffered continuous harassment. Journalists and human rights activists trying to investigate and report on the situation have been assaulted physically and kept out. Inordinate effort was needed to get Sodhi Sambho, a young Adivasi woman who was witness to a massacre, the medical treatment she needed for her bullet-shattered leg; yet even in hospital she remained a virtual captive of the state police, effectively cut off from journalists and even from her lawyer in the case pertaining to the massacre. Three other witnesses were detained by the police, who are the alleged perpetrators: the very opposite of a witness-protection programme (Jha 2010; Iqbal 2010;Sethi 2010).
Some Adivasis have joined the Communist Party of India (Maoist) (also known as ‘Maoists’ or ‘Naxalites’) in order to fight the state security forces, even though the goal of the CPI(Maoist) (capturing state power) and its methods (destruction of schools and infrastructure, recruitment of child soldiers, summary execution of those labelled as informers, etc.) are inimical to the welfare of the Adivasis and their own demands (Human Rights Watch 2008). The central government is supporting a military attack on the Maoists, despite the fact that many unaffiliated Adivasis will be caught in the crossfire, even though its own report makes it clear that so long as unchecked violations of the legal and constitutional rights of Adivasis continue, they will continue to be pushed into the ranks of the Maoists. It is probably in recognition of this fact that the government is considering legislation that will restrict mining by private sector companies in tribal areas, and take into consideration constitutional provisions for the protection of tribal communities and their rights. Mining companies are already lobbyingagainst this proposed restriction of their access to our earthly equivalents of unobtanium. Unless there is even stronger counter-lobbying by tribal rights, human rights and environmentalist groups, it is unlikely that this legislation will ever make it to the statute books. Poor implementation of the otherwise laudable Forest Rights Act (2007) demonstrates that pressure for implementation is equally important.
The bows and arrows of the Adivasis are as ineffective against the firepower of the invaders as they are in Avatar. Yet they do have weapons that were not available to the Na’vi: legal and constitutional rights, environmental laws, international law, greater knowledge of the devastating environmental impact of deforestation and militarism, and modern information and communication technologies. Struggles in the real world are more complicated and messy than the clearcut fight between good and evil in the world of Avatar: the invaders are not necessarily White; some of the indigenous people may collaborate with them while others may join groups like the Maoists whose interests clash with their own; indigenous people belonging to different tribes may fight each other for control over the same territory; some tribal customs may be extremely oppressive, especially to women; for many indigenous people, their biggest problem may be the discrimination and exclusion they face in mainstream society; and all these actors have to share the same planet, in some cases the same country. But despite these over-simplifications, the happy ending of Avatarencourages us to hope that the surviving indigenous people of the world, including the Adivasis of India, can win sufficient control over their lives and habitats to secure freedom from poverty, indignity and violent abuse.
Rohini Hensman is a researcher and writer active in the women’s liberation, trade union, human-rights and anti-war movements in India and Sri Lanka.
Source: http://himalmag.com/blogs/blog/2010/01/28/of-avatar-and-adivasis/
