Forest-dwelling communities in the eastern Indian state of Odisha have long depended on the earth, cultivating betel vines in shaded plots and fishing in scattered water bodies. But nearly two decades ago, this way of life was thrown into jeopardy when the government signed a deal allocating thousands of acres from eight different villages to build an integrated steel plant.

Manas Bardhan has been fighting the project ever since. He guarded village barricades in his school uniform as a teen and bears scars from an incident last January when hundreds of officers baton-charged protestors in Dhinkia.

There have been small victories. This March, the Odisha High Court halted the alienation of land for the project until the government complied with India’s forest rights law. “The judge is like God to us,” says Mr. Bardhan. 

But it might be too little, too late. Dhinkia residents say almost all their betel vines have been flattened in preparation for the project – and with them, a sustainable livelihood. Indeed, experts say the government has repeatedly ignored environmental laws and the needs of marginalized communities in its push for industrial projects. Local researcher Sandeep Kumar Pattnaik calls this vision of development “extremely violent,” pointing to high levels of displacement and criminal cases filed against villagers.

Manas Bardhan was 15 when he noticed a stir in his village in the eastern Indian state of Odisha. Dhinkia elders had begun to huddle together every evening, and when he tagged along with his parents one night, he was alarmed by what he heard. 

Their land had become the site of a lucrative industrial project, and if the village didn’t stand up in resistance, they would lose it. 

For generations, the community has cultivated betel vines in shaded plots and fished in water bodies scattered across the forested area. They depended on the fertile earth – “sweet sand,” as the locals called it – and the sea flanking them on one side. Mr. Bardhan would spend hours helping his father irrigate the fields one day, collecting cashew nuts with his mother another. But in 2005, this way of life was thrown into jeopardy when the Odisha government signed a $12 billion deal with South Korean steel giant POSCO – the biggest foreign direct investment in Indian history at the time – allocating thousands of acres from eight different villages to build an integrated steel plant.

The project has since changed hands, but Mr. Bardhan and other villagers continue to fight against the development nearly two decades later. There have been small victories – courts and expert committees have intervened at times and villages have passed resolutions. In March, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) suspended the new company’s environmental clearance and ordered a fresh environmental impact review. However, the fact that the project hasn’t been canceled yet, activists and experts say, underscores a broader pattern where the state and national governments have repeatedly ignored environmental laws and the concerns of forest-dependent communities in their push for industrial projects. 

The laws in place are “not implemented and not honored by the state itself,” says Prafulla Samantara, an Odisha-based environmental activist who filed the petition at the NGT. Moreover, “after the [Bharatiya Janata Party] government came into power, they’ve tried to change pro-people laws and rules to give more opportunities and advantages to the corporates. This has happened at the cost of the people … and at the cost of climate justice.”