The Posco story is getting more pathetic day by day. There are the agitators – Dhinkia being the epicenter – who want to intensify the stir against forcible land acquisition. Though the district administration has suspended the land acquisition for five days – till June 17 – for a local  agrarian festival, the anti-Posco activists including women and children continue the human barricade at the main point of the entry.

Then there is the Orissa government’s latest  claim that 2,000 acres of land have already been acquired and at least 200 families from the main centre of agitation   have come forward – with written requests – to offer their land.

Politically, Posco’s become a  clever tool with parties  taking their stand according to  their expediency. CPI general secretary AB Bardhan has on Monday flayed the role of the Centre in Posco's land acquisition. While questioning the inevitability of environmental clearance when there isn’t a signed contract with the Orissa government, the party is planning a visit to the villages once the land acquisition resumes after the festival. It wants to continue its support to the people who are opposing the project.

The Orissa Congress also has demanded stoppage of forcible land acquisition as the MoU with the South Korean company is yet to be renewed. It has accused the state government of trying to rush through the land acquisition process in a forcible manner. The state team, which visited the site last week, found that force had been used for the land acquisition. Orissa chief minister Naveen Patnaik, on the other hand, has categorically denied on Monday that any force being used to acquire land for the Posco project and peaceful industrialisation is what his government stands for.
BJP’s former national president Rajnath Singh, too, on Monday asked the Orissa government to stop land acquisition till the proposed national  bill is passed by parliament.

In the face of such claims and counter-claims legitimacy has taken a severe beating. There is no denying the fact that after the centre’s clearance the Orissa government is acquiring the  land required for  the Posco  project with unusual alacrity. Even if union minister Jairam Ramesh argues (as a postscript!) that forest clearance is no licence for forcible land acquisition, his appeals and wiles have no takers.

What is heartrending is that the opponents of the Posco  project have since the past few days been engaging children and women as a human shield to prevent government officers and security personnel from entering into the area. Also pitiful is to watch their attempt to rebuild the betel vines the district administration is alleged to have demolished.

Political support to the anti-Posco movement has never been sturdy. While CPI, CPM, RJD, Samajwadi Party and Forward Bloc have been standing up for the cause, their posturing is too feeble to get  a response given their weak presence in Orissa politics.

The official justification to the land acquisition for the Posco project has yet another, and interesting, dimension. No less than the central revenue divisional commissioner (under which the project area comes) says that, "even if no project comes up, the government has the right to retrieve its land. People cannot grow betel vines on forest land".

Another official thinking is that the process to make government land encroachment-free had started in 2008 with the survey of betel vines.Further, the official line is that the compensation being given is not for the land, but for the livelihood of the encroachers in consonance with the rehabilitation and resettlement policy.

An area of 3,700 acres of land is earmarked for the Posco project and an estimated 1,800 betel vines exist on around 300 acres and here lies the crux of the problem. The people simply cannot withstand their livelihood disappearing in a twinkle of an eye. The government officials claim to have demolished 650 vines and have plans to remove all of them in the coming weeks. The Posco site is also rich with a couple of lakh of casuarinas trees, thousands of fruit-bearing trees like cashew nut, mango coconut and jackfruit et al.

Post-clearance, the Orissa government has  now a blank cheque in its hand; and given its intent and obstinacy it is hell bent upon to acquire the land, no matter how insensible such acquisition might be.

As things stand today, once the land acquisition catches up, the agitation will cave in, although the Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS) will continue to  fight the government tooth and nail.

What is saddening in the whole Posco episode is that there isn’t a Mamata Banerjee to do a Singur in Orissa. The silence of the intellectuals is equally disturbing.Civil society’s role, too, is not awe-inspiring.