Earth as Companion Vs Earth as Commodity: The Oraon Ethos of Societal Trusteeship in the Face of Modernisation

Abstract

Albert Einstein famously remarked, “Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” This article “Earth as Companion vs Earth as Commodity”, examines the significant philosophical, theological, and socio-economic divergence between the ecocentric worldview of the Oraon (Kurukh) tribe and the mechanistic, extractivist paradigm of capitalist modernity. Historically, the Oraon tribal community, which spans the Chotanagpur Plateau and adjacent states of central and eastern India, does not conceptualise the Earth as an inert commodity to be owned, plundered, and discarded. Instead, they view it as a sacred and living companion. This ontonomic relationship is codified within Sarna Dharma (the traditional animistic religion of the Oraon), governed by the supreme creator Dharmes and the environmental goddess Chala Ayang. Customary land relations, structured under the corporate, lineage-based Bhuinhari land tenure system, establish the Oraon as societal trustees rather than absolute proprietors. Traditional community-based institutions—such as the village priest (Pahan), the secular village headman (Mahato), the youth dormitory (Dhumkuria), and the supreme council (Parha Panchayat)—historically exercised authority over common property resources, thereby maintaining ecological balance. Since the colonial era, successive state interventions—from the Permanent Settlement of 1793 and the Indian Forest Acts of 1878 and 1927 to post-colonial state-led heavy industrialisation and corporate neoliberal land acquisitions—have progressively commodified this sacred geography. Drawing on Raimon Panikkar’s framework of ontonomy, Michael Cernea’s Impoverishment Risks and Reconstruction (IRR) model, and Joan Martinez-Alier’s notion of the environmentalism of the poor, this paper shows how development-induced displacement has severed the Oraons’ relationships with Jal, Jangal, and Jameen (water, forest, and land), producing tribal neo-poverty and deep sociocultural disarticulation. By analysing historical and contemporary forms of Adivasi resistance—including the Tana Bhagat movement, the Koel-Karo anti-dam struggle, and contemporary Pathalgadi assertions—the study calls for a decolonised paradigm of development. It argues that integrating Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) into contemporary environmental policy is not only a route to social justice, but also an urgent requirement for global ecological survival.