By Patricia Mukhim
It is disappointing to hear the State’s chief bureaucrat negating what the National Green Tribunal has done out of concern for people who have borne the worst brunt of coal mining in Dima Hasao (formerly North Cachar Hills) by having to drink poisoned water. His predecessor, Ranjan Chatterjee who is currently the expert member in the NGT, surely is not an imbecile to talk about rat hole mining if the rich Jaintia Sheikhs were using scientific methods. A scientific method would imply that machines would do the work that ten or twelve year old kids have been doing. Also, those machines would be able to haul up to the top of the mines all those dead bodies trapped inside due to landslips. Several journalists and film makers have produced documentaries and gone right inside these death traps to capture the voices of children. If Mr Barkos Warjri wants to do a literal translation of rat – hole meaning the size of holes that only rats can traverse in and out of then, yes, the entrance to the coal mines of Jaintia Hills are big enough for small humans to enter and mine the coal on behalf of their fat masters who would never fit into those holes.
Some people take offence at the use of the word ‘mafia’ but actually this is not such a bad word after all. We have come a long way since the days of the Sicilian Mafia which was involved in international drug-dealing, racketeering, gambling and prostitution. Today the word mafia has a more respectable sound to it. The modern dictionary terms a mafia as a close-knit or influential group of people who work together and protect one another’s interests or the interests of a particular person. To that extent the mafiadom would include mutually supportive cliques in business, in politics, the bureaucracy, the media and what have you. Such mutually supportive cliques defend each other publicly even when they know one of their own is committing an indefensible act. This is not to say that the Chief Secretary belongs to any clique. But he is obviously well briefed by some ‘experts’ possibly from the Mining and Geology Department which is why he speaks of ‘workers digging vertically identified areas and then move horizontally using science to remove coal from the seam which is just over one meter.’ May we ask what that science of digging vertically and then moving horizontally for miles until sometimes the miners hits the foundation of a house or a church, called? Is there a name for it that is coined by the Mining and Geology Department?
Granted that Meghalaya coal occurs in shallow depths and runs horizontally, as the CS informs us , so may we ask if the geologists in our State have any experience of such mines existing elsewhere and how coal is mined in such places? Is Meghalaya the only state where coal occurs at shallow levels and therefore perhaps the extraction of such coal is not taught as part of the curriculum in the Indian School of Mines? Is this why our geologists support the archaic form of mining because they have nothing better to offer? Things don’t end with mining alone. There is the aftermath of mining. Acid Mine Drainage (AMD) has poisoned the water systems around the coal mining district of Jaintia Hills. The question to our learned geologists is whether they have ever lent their expertise to the coal mine owners on how to tackle AMD so that it is treated at source and is not allowed to drain out and pollute the living environment? If this is not what our learned geologists do then what exactly is their brief? Prospecting for new minerals should not take up so much of their time and effort. So what do they do most of the time? Is the Directorate of Mineral Resources supposed to be just a revenue earning wing of the Government? And this is a job they do very badly as well. The recent CAG reports indict the Department for being the one with the heaviest revenue leakage, which of course happens intentionally. No wonder the people manning the DMR check gates live in mansions we all gape at in wonder.
It is obvious that the DMR works at cross purposes with the Forest and Environment Department. The DMR should have shared its expertise not just in better, more improved mining procedures but also about how to tackle the after effects of mining. And by the way, just because coal miners live within a Sixth Schedule area does that give them unfettered rights to violate Article 21 of the Indian Constitution which enjoins upon the state to protect the environment? The Sixth Schedule is not a tool to exploit and extract all natural resources belonging to the collective tribal community. In a tribal community there is community ownership of all resources. The owner therefore has the right to speak. Who gave the mine owners the license to destruct every facet of the environment including the right to pollute the habitat of riverine/marine life?
In fact, this is a good time to raise questions on how community land has been insidiously converted to private land. What is the modus operandi used? Does the mere possession of wealth give those people the right to lay claim over all the natural resources which by “tradition” was meant to be shared? Why do we use tradition as a selective, manipulative tool of self-deception? If we have failed to follow tradition in respect of land alienation (and let us not just speak about alienation when it comes to non-tribals only) and land ownership patterns then how dare we claim to be “a unique society of indigenous people descended directly from the heavens?” There is too much hypocrisy in our society and there are layers of association which are hard to decipher. And underneath these deceptive associations the big player is pure and simple – MONEY. Just money, nothing else.
At this point in time, the society is split down the middle on the issue of the NGT ban. Coal mine owners have been wooing all those with a profile who want to say anything good about coal mining. Hence we have journalists coming from Assam and saying that the ban on coal mine has affected 50% of the population of Meghalaya and hence the NGT ban is evil. This without any ground research! So much so the once clear line separating journalism and public relations has today been completely blurred. Then there is a section of society including young people who feel the NGT ban is a blessing and could not have come a day sooner. These young people feel the burden that the environment is experiencing. They see destruction all around; they see unthinking, unscrupulous mining, quarrying and sand banking destroying the fragile eco-system. They see deforestation destroying the green cover of Meghalaya and they feel the impact. Are we to conclude that those who welcome the NGT ban are traitors, hence non-tribal in their outlook and attitudes while those who are against the ban are right and therefore have more claim to be tribal?
And by the way isn’t it strange that those who are most vehement in issuing press releases on a daily basis accusing the state of human rights violation are curiously silent on this issue? Isn’t the destruction of our once pristine rivers and farmlands a gross violation of our collective human rights? It’s funny how people take sides based on the principle of the “mutually supportive clique” syndrome? Coal money does run deep and we don’t know whose voices it has co-opted.
Coming to the Chief Secretary’s second comment on dialogues with militant groups who apparently become militants because of frustration and lack of development, it is my view that the word ‘militancy’ should be deconstructed. People who loot, extort, kidnap and kill in cold blood are criminals. It’s time to do away with the euphemism ‘militants’ and ‘militancy.’ Criminals have to be treated as per the criminal procedure code (CrPC). Soft peddling and making excuses for criminals is the rhetoric of the weak. In fact, we begin to wonder if Meghalaya has completely lost it and if we are now going to sink deeper into a morass of our own making. How unfortunate indeed!