Corporate Democracy and the Betrayal of People’s Dreams in Odisha

By : vikram jena

In 1950, when the Constitution of India came into force, democracy was imagined as a moral promise — government of the people, by the people, for the people. Yet in the mineral heartland of eastern India, another grammar quietly evolved: development of the land, by corporations, for industrial corridors. Odisha’s history since Independence forces us to confront an uncomfortable question has corporate democracy gradually overshadowed people’s democracy?

The story begins with the Mandira Dam, constructed primarily to supply water to the Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP). Industrialization was the dream of a young nation under Jawaharlal Nehru. Dams were called the “temples of modern India.” The aspiration was noble: to transform a colonially exploited economy into a self-reliant industrial republic.

But every temple casts a shadow.

Thousands of local families many of them Adivasis were displaced. Compensation was inadequate, rehabilitation uncertain, and cultural dislocation irreversible. Industrial water flowed through pipelines; but drinking water, education, and healthcare did not flow with the same urgency to the displaced.

The pattern deepened with the Upper Kolab Project, which facilitated water supply crucial for the operations of National Aluminium Company (NALCO). Similarly, the Indravati Dam became lifelines not merely for irrigation but for industrial giants like Utkal Alumina International Limited and Vedanta Aluminium.

The official narrative calls this progress. The ground reality often calls it dispossession.

By the 1960s, nearly 10,000 acres of tribal land were reportedly acquired in the name of industrial expansion under Nehruvian planning. Yet only about 4,000 acres were fully utilized. What happened to the remaining 6,000 acres? What of the lives attached to that soil not as property, but as ancestry? Land for Adivasi communities is not a commodity; it is cosmology. To separate them from land is to amputate identity.

We do not seek to demonize industry. Industrial growth is necessary for employment, infrastructure, and national competitiveness. The Rourkela Steel Plant, NALCO, and private enterprises have undoubtedly contributed to GDP, exports, and urbanization. They have built townships, schools, and hospitals often within their enclaves.

But the critical question remains: what proportion of profits and prosperity has truly transformed the lives of displaced communities? Has mineral wealth translated into human wealth? Or has it produced islands of affluence amid oceans of rural stagnation?

Corporate democracy emerges when policy priorities align more closely with boardrooms than with village assemblies. When water reservoirs serve factories before farmers. When environmental clearances accelerate but rehabilitation files stagnate. When CSR becomes a ritual, not a redistributive ethic.

Odisha is often described as the mineral backbone of India. Yet backbone regions frequently suffer from chronic underdevelopment the “resource curse” paradox. Despite hosting Navratna companies and multinational corporations, why do many tribal districts remain at the bottom of human development indices?

The tragedy is not only economic; it is intellectual.

Our bureaucratic architecture, filled with degree-holding administrators many with impressive academic credentials often operates within a narrow compliance mindset. Governance becomes file management, not moral imagination. The problem is not intelligence; it is the absence of philosophical courage. Brilliant minds without societal empathy risk becoming technocrats of displacement.

Development without a roadmap rooted in justice inevitably breeds frustration. When youth see malls but not meaningful employment, highways but not accessible education, digital apps but not social purpose, alienation deepens. A generation absorbed in mobile screens may gradually detach from questions of land, water, and community. But history does not forget unresolved injustices; it stores them quietly.

What then is the role of reformers, thinkers, and public intellectuals? Silence in the face of structural imbalance is complicity. Universities must not merely produce managers for corporations but critics for civilization. Economists must calculate not only profits but pain. Administrators must measure not only output but dignity.

Policy reform is urgent:

Transparent Land Audit: A public white paper on land acquired since 1950, utilized vs. unused with a binding plan for redistribution or fair compensation.

Water Justice Framework: Prioritize drinking water and irrigation before industrial allocation in scarcity-prone districts.

Mandatory Local Equity Models: Ensure displaced families receive equity stakes, not just one-time compensation.

Independent Social Impact Commissions: Autonomous bodies with tribal representation to evaluate long-term socio-cultural effects.

Education-Industry Social Contract: A legally binding percentage of corporate profits invested in regional higher education, sports, and skill development.

Industrialization cannot be reversed; nor should it be. But it must be rehumanized.

Democracy must not mutate into a corporate oligarchy where capital negotiates and communities adjust. If the dreams of 1950 were about collective upliftment, then 2026 demands collective introspection.

Odisha does not suffer from lack of resources. It suffers from imbalance in vision. True leadership will not merely inaugurate projects; it will reconcile growth with justice. It will ensure that dams irrigate hope, not despair. It will remember that progress measured only in megawatts and metric tons is morally incomplete.

The question is not whether industries benefited Odisha. The deeper question is whether Odisha’s most vulnerable benefited from industry. A democracy that forgets this distinction risks hollowing itself from within.