She became notable for her activism in opposing Arcelor Mittal's steel plant in Eastern Jharkhand that tribal activists say would displace forty villages.

Dayamani's father, like other tribals in the region, was cheated out of his property because he could not read and lacked paperwork to show his rights to the land.

[4] Barla works in a popular Hindi newspaper Prabhat Khabar to bring attention to myriad problems facing the Munda people and other tribal communities in the Jharkhand region.

[1] Barla and her organisation, Adivaasi, Moolvaasi, Astitva Raksha Manch (Forum for the Protection of Tribal and Indigenous People's Identity) argue that, apart from causing massive displacement, the project will destroy the forests in the area.

[1] But Barla counters that the subsistence tribal communities will not survive the alienation from their native land and they cannot be compensated for such a loss.

[1] Barla's activist work was the subject of the 2013 documentary film Ballad of Resistance by filmmaker Leena Manimekalai.