Chitrangada Choudhury

large_k.eranna.jpg

medium_k.eranna.jpg

small_k.eranna.jpg

thumbnail_k.eranna.jpg

k.eranna.jpg

FOR G. Janardhana Reddy, life has never looked this good.
 
 The 42-year-old mining tycoon and BJP minister in the Karnataka state government has made untold wealth in recent years, exporting iron ore to China from the hot and dusty mineral-rich district of Bellary, 290 kilometres north of Bangalore.
 
 On a recent morning, emerging from a meeting to engineer the defection of two opposition councilors to make the 35-member Bellary Municipal Corporation a complete BJP sweep, a buoyant and nattily dressed Reddy says: “Even I do not know how much money I have made in the last five years… I am currently building a Rs 20,000-crore steel plant in Cudappah (in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh).”
 
 Within weeks of coming into power, Reddy drafted a mining policy for the state under which fresh mining leases would be given only to applicants who could “value-add”.
 
 In other words, industrialists like him.
 
 “My personal worth must be around Rs 1,500 crore,” Reddy estimates.
 
 That’s more than the cumulative income of over 50 per cent of Bellary’s 15 lakh voters, and not a bad showing for a police constable’s son who entered business in 1989 by pooling Rs 35,000 with friends to set up a financial savings firm.
 
 Today, Reddy&#39;s wealth has translated into two personal helicopters, numerous luxury cars, and vast political power as he cements his party’s reversed fortunes on election eve.
 
 Till 1999, the backward Bellary district was undistinguished on India’s political map, and a Congress stronghold. The party had won every Lok Sabha election since Independence, and chose Bellary to deliver a win to party head Sonia Gandhi in her debut election against Sushma Swaraj.
 
 Today, things could not be more different.
 
 Three legislators from the district, including Reddy and his elder brother, are ministers in the state cabinet, and at the centre of the BJP’s power in the state.
 
 Reddy’s elder brother won the party its first Parliamentary seat here in 2004, and Reddy promises a repeat by the BJP’s candidate and sister of a local MLA J. Shanti in the elections on April 23.

janardhana_reddy.jpg

Lounging at the cool, blue swimming pool at his Swiss-style chalet being built at the foot of Bellary’s sprawling rock mountain, the businessman says: “I am guaranteeing an unimaginable majority for her.”
 
 Since her painful loss in 1999, Madam (Sushma Swaraj) has mentored the Reddy family and its entry into politics. Their wealth from mining has been deployed to bankroll multi-crore electoral campaigns in the region, and the state.
 
 After the 2008 Assembly polls, election commissioners speaking to seminar audiences in Delhi and Mumbai criticised the rank display of wealth, saying it was “destroying democracy”. Back in Bellary, the criticism means little.
 
 Reddy laughs off charges of bribing voters, saying: “I don’t need to do all that… Deve Gowda [chief of the rival Janata Dal (Secular)] does.”
 
 
 In the slums of Bellary, peopled mostly by Dalits and Muslims, contrary voices tumble out.
 
 
 “The day before the elections, all parties came and gave Rs 1,000 for every voter,” Carpenter Gannana (45) says of the Assembly polls.
 
 Gannana is unsure if the money, a third of his monthly salary, and the vote, are empowering people like him.
 
 “When I went to the mayor for help some months ago with a small loans government scheme for Dalits, she brushed me off, saying, ‘Did you vote for me for free?’”

dsc_2083.jpg

In his modest home, physician T. Ramanath, son of Tekur Subramaniam, Bellary’s three-time Member of Parliament from1947, takes a yellowing album down from a shelf to show five-decade-old pictures of his father breakfasting cross-legged on the floor of their house with a visiting Lal Bahadur Shashtri.
 
 “We became poorer after my father became an MP, because his salary was less than what he had been earning from his legal practice,” the medic says. “Can one say that about any politician today? They are all bribing and making money.”
 
 Ramanath is ambivalent about the recent changes in Bellary.
 
 “A handful of people have made money from mining. Industrial development is spreading, which is good. But pollution has increased, forests are being cut down, and locals are increasingly suffering diseases like cancer and tuberculosis.”
 
 A 65-kilometre drive over broken roads leads to the red-smog-clad Lakshmipura village at the heart of Bellary’s mining flurry.
 
 Residents like farmer Mulemani Eranna are livid at how the rush for iron ore is turning their world upside down.
 
 Staring at the Holi Kunte, a vast rainwater reservoir nestling between mountains, where waters have turned rust red and laced with poison from the iron ore dust, the unlettered farmer in a mud-stained lungi says: “This is the water that once irrigated our farms. Our lands and waters are being polluted, and our forests destroyed.&quot;
 
 &quot;We want a stop to this. But miners are rich ministers, so why should the government listen?”
 
 
 A version of this story appeared in The Hindustan Times in March 2009

Living Under a Red Cloud in Bellary

बेल्लारी में लाल धुंध के साए में हांफता जीवन 

বেল্লাৰীৰ মাটি এতিয়া ৰঙা-অনুৰ্বৰ, প্ৰদূষিত জলাশয়

بیلاری میں سرخ بادل کے نیچے زندگی

Bellary

At present, we can only accept donations in Indian rupees by Indian citizens. All donations made to the CounterMedia Trust are eligible for exemption under Section 80G of the Income Tax Act, 1961. Here is a copy of our exemption certificate.


India is bigger than New Delhi. And people need to know more about the rest of this vast nation.


Younger, media-saturated generations are growing up knowing little about their country, but a lot about the elites of a few metros and towns. For a narrowly-owned, commercially-driven media, the dumbing down of a nation is part of standard operating procedure. The last available data of the Centre for Media Studies (CMS, Delhi) show us that reports from New Delhi account for 66 per cent of news on the front pages of major dailies. The CMS data also found that just about 0.24 per cent of front page news came out of rural India. The TV channels are not much better.PARI exists to change that.We are a non-profit organisation. We publish under creative commons, and do not charge readers a subscription fee or put-up advertisements. Nothing is behind a paywall and we are completely free-to-access by anyone. We guard our independence and receive no direct grants from governments and corporations, nor any funding that could dictate our content. So, we are dependent on volunteer labour, donations from individuals, foundations and institutions that see value in independent and free media.PARI is changing the way Indian journalism reports and documents the rural.India is more than the elite of a few metros and towns. We report on rural lives and livelihoods, languages, communities, migrants and more. We need your help to pull off this most ambitious of Indian journalistic endeavours. The scale of this effort costs money. Donate generously - and spread the word about PARI.&nbsp;

Donate FAQs


ଆସନ୍ତୁ ଆପଣଙ୍କୁ ପରିଚିତ କରାଇବା

ପରୀକୁ ସ୍ୱାଗତ

ଆମର ସମସ୍ତ ବିଷୟବସ୍ତୁ ସବୁବେଳେ ବ୍ୟବହାର ପାଇଁ ମାଗଣାରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ ରହିବ। ଯଦି ଆମର କାମ ଆପଣଙ୍କୁ ଭଲ ଲାଗୁଛି, ଆପଣ ସ୍ୱେଚ୍ଛାସେବୀ ଭାବରେ ଆମକୁ ସହଯୋଗ କରିପାରିବେ କିମ୍ବା ଆମ କାମ ପାଇଁ ଆର୍ଥିକ ଅନୁଦାନ ପ୍ରଦାନ କରି ଆମକୁ ସାହାଯ୍ୟ କରିପାରିବେ।

Want to republish this article? Please write to <a href="mailto:zahra@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">zahra@ruralindiaonline.org</a> with a cc to <a href="mailto:namita@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">namita@ruralindiaonline.org</a>

Living Under a Red Cloud in Bellary

Ministers are getting rich on iron ore in Karnataka, while the red dust from their mines pollutes farms and reservoirs

Related stories

A rain-scented walk in Sivagangai

Living on ravaged land

Biswas and the bamboos on his bike

Recycling energy, Godda style

Bhadels of Goa

Pookadai: still throbbing with morning life

Koli Kadlas

Malnourishment high among children of migrants: study

Wheels of the rural Indian West

Living Under a Red Cloud in Bellary

Vedla – earrings of the Maher community

Dreaming of water, drowning in debt

Kali: the dancer and his dreams

Farmer's diet worse than a convict's

In Yavatmal, life goes on

Suicides are about the living, not the dead

Death of a carpenter

Hoisa Shigmo!

Women farmers: weaving a life in Anantapur

Defiant in Dhinkia

Spice and all that's nice

Kerala's Green Army

The ‘jugaad’ not-a-mobile

Health as someone else's wealth

Calibrating in a Kudumbashree assembly unit