Koraput, India – Raghunath Khara was shocked to look at his thumb impression on a piece of paper that declared he had consented to a government proposal to mine his village’s pristine forest land for bauxite.
He says he never gave that thumb impression.
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“I always sign in English. It was someone else’s thumb,” alleged Khara, a shopkeeper in Balda village in the tribal-dominated Koraput district of Odisha state in eastern India.
Khara is among hundreds of people from Indigenous tribes in Balda and neighbouring Bannur village who have lost their lands to the new bauxite mine. It is being developed by Kalinga Alumina Limited, a subsidiary of Adani Enterprises Limited, a conglomerate owned by Gautam Adani, India’s second richest businessman and close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The $۲۴m project will consume a large chunk of the tabletop Balda Hill – home to forests, grasslands and caves that are considered sacred by at least ۱۰ tribal villages surrounding it.
To push the project, the purported signatures and thumb impressions of nearly ۶۰۰ tribals were allegedly collected during village council meetings in Balda and Bannur held on October ۹ last year. Bannur is ۵km from Balda.
Khara says he never attended the meeting at Balda and was instead protesting against the proposed mine with his wife, sister and other villagers about ۱۰۰ metres from the village council office.
“It [thumb impression] was fake. We didn’t attend the village meeting at all. We were all busy protesting outside,” he told Al Jazeera.
India’s constitution recognises the rights of Indigenous communities over their traditional lands. Forest laws and laws granting autonomy to tribal areas dictate that village council resolutions are mandatory for any diversion of such lands for other purposes.
A resolution passed in a village council meeting is valid only if ۵۰ percent of all the adults in the village consent to it in writing. Government documents claim all the ۵۸۰ adults – ۳۶۰ in Balda and ۲۲۷ in Bannur – agreed to give up their land for the Adani mine. But the elected village heads in both villages denied any signatures were collected and called the two meetings “invalid”.
Even photographs taken by villagers at both council meetings show a combined attendance of about ۱۰۰ people – nearly ۴۰ in Balda and ۶۸ in Bannur – far below the minimum ۵۰ percent quorum required to pass a valid resolution.
Moreover, the villagers allege that most signatures on the resolution documents are fake, forged or impersonated.
They also claim the documents contain signatures of fictitious persons and even the names of people who died years ago. Some even said their signatures from a previous, unrelated village council meeting were fraudulently pasted onto the bauxite mine document.
Al Jazeera emailed the Adani group and its communications chief on August ۱۸ seeking responses to the accusations of forgery and fraud. Then we followed up with a second request for comments on September ۲۵, but did not receive any response. Al Jazeera also sought responses from Manoj Satyawan Mahajan, the district magistrate — the most senior bureaucrat in Koraput – to the concerns raised by villagers but did not receive a response. Rohit Varma, the superintendent of police for Koraput district, also did not respond to Al Jazeera’s queries.
‘They took the paper away from me’
Many of those who attended the meetings said they were opposed to the mining project.
“We were told that if mining was allowed, the village would get roads, jobs, drainage and water connections and a school built,” said Madhav Kuntili, a farmer in Bannur.
Koraput is one of India’s least developed districts and similar promises often have a significant sway. Kuntili said a document was passed around, seeking signatures.
“I said if the forest was being diverted, then I would not sign it. They took the paper away from me,” he told Al Jazeera.
Across Balda and Bannur, Al Jazeera met many villagers who said they were shocked to find their signatures or thumb impressions on the resolution.
Rama Hantal sat motionless by the doorway of his rusted tin-and-wood hut. The ۶۰-year-old has been paralysed for several years and is unable to talk.
“There is no chance he could have attended the meeting or even signed,” said Chandrama Hantal, his daughter-in-law.
While Hantal had apparently signed the consent form in Odia, Odisha’s official language, Chandrama saw a thumb impression against her name. She also denied attending the meeting.
Among the signatories are three Gurubari Kharas – their purported thumb impressions in support of the mining project.
In Balda, villagers could only track two “Gurubaris” – one living ۳km away who denied attending the meeting – and another from the village itself, who had died well before the village council meeting was held.
“My mother died in February ۲۰۲۵. How can they forge her presence and signature eight months later?” asked her son, Sahdev. She was nearly ۷۵ when she died of natural causes.
Two other persons from the first Gurubari’s family are also listed as signatories – her bedridden husband, who has been paralysed since falling from a tree three months before the council meeting and her nephew. Both deny attending the October ۹ meeting.
The third Gurubari remains untraced.
Al Jazeera interviewed more than ۲۰ people and accessed records from both Balda and Bannur villages, but could not trace at least ۶۷ persons named as signatories in the resolution.
In Bannur, at least three deceased persons were represented through thumbprints. The families of all three – who are also listed in the documents as consenters – confirmed the deaths of their kin.
“My mother died four years ago,” said Nakul Alang, the ۳۵-year-old son of Sanai Alang who is listed at serial number ۱۰۸ in the Bannur resolution.
Nakul’s signature appears in Odia, but he says he was working at a construction site in Visakhapatnam, a coastal city in Odisha’s neighbouring Andhra Pradesh state ۱۷۰km (۱۰۵ miles) from Koraput.
“I don’t know who put our names and signatures,” he told Al Jazeera.
Hurried, ‘fraudulent’ meeting
On page ۱۰ of the ۱۶-page Bannur resolution document, ۱۳ names are written by the same hand, followed by a neat array of thumb impressions next to them.
When Sunadhar Muduli, a ۵۰-year-old farmer, saw the sheet, he immediately recognised that it was his own handwriting.
“But none of us ever attended the Gram Sabha meeting,” he said.
Muduli said Ramnath Pungi, who works for the local revenue office on contract, visited the village in December and handed him a registry. He was asked to fill the names of those residents who wanted to get their traditional lands recognised by the government.
Many tribal communities, who have been historically kept out of land documentation, have been cultivating on “government-owned” lands for generations. There have been frequent promises to transfer such lands to their names, and it is not uncommon practice in the region to send contracted officials to collect information about farmers.
“He said he needed everyone’s signatures. I told him I would gather the residents, but he said that was not necessary. That I could sign on their behalf,” said Muduli, who then called some residents to get their permission.
“I wrote down the names on one side of the page and then he and I placed our thumbs alternatively against the name. It was his idea and I just followed the instructions,” he said.
It was only in June when Al Jazeera visited Bannur that Muduli saw the inclusion of the same sheet as part of the mining resolution draft.
Pungi also confirmed to Al Jazeera that the signatures were taken on another pretext.
“I was paid ۳,۰۰۰ rupees to collect documents and sign land settlement documents from each village. That’s what I did. I only submitted the signed sheet to the [revenue] office,” he said.
“I did not know they would use it for this [Adani project]. I am also against mining in our region.”
Official guidelines state that the announcement of a Gram Sabha meeting should be made two weeks before the scheduled date in order to ensure a quorum.
However, several residents told Al Jazeera that the notices announcing the meeting were pasted outside the village council offices on October ۸, only a day before the meeting. The notices, accessed by Al Jazeera, were dated September ۲۲ and September ۲۳, ۲۰۲۵.
‘Abnormally rushed’ mining approval
Meanwhile, the government pushed the Adani mining project in Odisha – hastily, according to the residents and activists.
In February ۲۰۲۳, the Odisha government declared Adani Enterprises as the preferred bidder for the mine at Koraput, triggering immediate protests by the tribal people in Balda and Bannur. They marched to the local government office to protest against the mining of ۱۵۷ hectares of forest land by destroying the trees around them and displacing residents.
Two years later, on March ۶, ۲۰۲۵, the state government held a public hearing – a mandatory process to obtain approvals where villagers are given details of the project and their objections formally recorded. An overwhelming number of villagers expressed their opposition to the mining project.
Despite the objections, an environmental clearance – a key approval given by the government after assessing possible ecological damage of a project – was granted a few months later.
Under Indian laws, forest-dwelling communities who have been historically left out of land -ownership can seek individual or community rights over traditional forest lands. Balda and neighbouring communities applied for rights over ۲,۵۰۰ hectares of forest land in ۲۰۲۵. A majority of those claims overlapped with the mining lease area.
Usually, the settlement of claims involves the collation of claims and documents, approval from local bodies, verification by officials and ample time for appeals if the claims are modified or rejected. The process is usually notoriously slow.
In January, authorities “settled” these community rights claims without informing the village councils in the area. Less than one-fifth of the claimed area was recognised while the entirety of the mining area was excluded from the claims. Villagers are usually given time to appeal.
However, in this case, two appeals committees affirmed the decision in just three days, without even allowing the villagers time to submit their appeals, allege the villagers.
Ajaya Muduli is part of a three-member team authorised by the affected villages to approach any court in India, sign documents, take necessary legal steps and liaise with government committees in their fight to prevent the takeover of their lands.
Muduli told Al Jazeera that the land acquisition process was “abnormally rushed”.
“We have safeguarded this sacred land for centuries and yet were not even consulted,” Muduli told Al Jazeera. “This is a clear tactic forcing the mines on us without our consent while snatching our rights.”
Immediately after the October ۹ Gram Sabha meetings, the villagers wrote to the local authorities asking for the deliberations to be held again. They flagged the hurried nature of the meetings and pointed to the fact that the village heads had declared them “invalid”.
Yet, on October ۱۵, the allegedly forged resolutions were added to the official file. It was only on February ۱۱ this year that those documents were made public on the environment ministry’s website.
So far, more than ۵۰ people from several villages in Koraput have issued sworn affidavits declaring that they did not attend the village council meetings and that their signatures or thumb impressions were forged. They have also filed petitions in court and with district authorities, as well as complaints with the police, alleging forgery and demanding an investigation into the land given for the Adani mine.
In March, the ۱۰ affected villages around Balda Hill held meetings where they rejected the previous resolutions passed by their village councils and reiterated their opposition to the proposed bauxite mine.
In May, Muduli approached the court on behalf of the villagers. But it was too late.
On May ۷, all required approvals were granted to Kalinga Alumina Limited and the forest land was handed over for the $۲۴m bauxite mining project, with an associated alumina refinery on a lease of ۵۰ years. No compensation has been promised to the villagers.
“What they have done is illegal, but we will not back off,” Balda resident Rajendra Khara told Al Jazeera.
While the approvals have been granted, actual work has not started on the ground. Villagers have vowed to stop construction. “Whatever happens, we are never going to give it to Adani. This is our ancestral land,” Rajendra said.
‘Deeply troubling trend’
Arpitha Kodiveri, assistant professor of political science at Vassar College in the United States who has worked on environmental law and justice related to mining in India, told Al Jazeera that bypassing the consent of landowners sets a trend for illegal practice.
“What you are starting to see across multiple jurisdictions is an administrative approach to bypassing the consent provision. What I fear is that it has become an illegal administrative practice of implementing the consent provision without adhering to procedure and law, and that is something we should be worried about,” she said.
Kodiveri said alleged irregularities in the consent process could also provide grounds for the affected parties to challenge the government clearance granted to such mining projects. She also argued that the rules should make consequences for irregular consent practices clearer and must seek accountability when mandatory provisions are bypassed.
“Guidelines must be established so this process is implemented in spirit and not just in letter, and to signal to administrative actors that there are consequences for practising fraudulent signatures or taking signatures of the deceased. This has happened so many times in Odisha and elsewhere that it is a deeply troubling trend.”
Land Conflict Watch, a New Delhi-based research organisation, has tracked at least ۲۸ instances of consent-related “conflicts” from projects such as mining, plantation, energy and other infrastructure across India since ۲۰۰۳. The organisation also found allegations of forgery, evasion of mandatory public consultations and forceful mining of ancestral land while studying such conflicts.
Even the studies conducted by the government show a similar trend.
A ۲۰۲۴ report by India’s Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), an independent constitutional authority, on land management in tribal-dominated areas revealed ۱۳۶ consent violations in mining and other projects. In ۷۳ of these violations, no Gram Sabha meetings were held, while in another ۲۹, land acquisition was done while disregarding the views of the village council.
Over the past few years, however, allegations of outright forgeries of Gram Sabha resolutions have emerged.
In ۲۰۲۳ in Sijimali, about ۱۸۰km from Balda, villagers discovered similar forged consents and meetings for a bauxite mine by Vedanta Resources, India’s largest mining company backed by a London-based conglomerate. At least eight villages denied consent to hand over ۷۰۸ hectares of forest land, despite official documents claiming otherwise.
Sijimali has seen near-continuous protests since, escalating to violence in April when clashes between the police and protesters injured ۷۰.
“If the Gram Sabha has not given consent, then the forest clearance given is illegal. It has to be quashed. They are making a mockery of the law,” Shomona Khanna, a Supreme Court lawyer specialising in environmental and tribal law, told Al Jazeera.
“These are criminal offences … Any person who dispossesses a forest dweller of their forest right or interferes in the enjoyment of the forest right is committing a crime, which is called an atrocity under Indian law,” she said.
Back in Balda, the villagers fear that if mining starts, the rainwater-fed streams that sustain paddy cultivation will dry up. Forests that provided gourds, fruits, flowers, bark, firewood and medicinal plants will be affected.
Like many Indigenous tribal communities, their animist faith is linked to the surrounding forests – home to small shrines, idols and caves considered to be sacred.
“The forest is everything for us,” said Raghunath Hanthal, a ۷۰-year-old priest in Balda. “Our maa [goddess] is here.”
On the official document, the priest’s name is listed as serial number ۱۷۱, with his purported signature in Odia.
“I did not even go to the meeting. We were here, protesting that day,” he said. “Taking away our forests will not just destroy our livelihood, but it will incur the wrath of our goddess.”
