It took the deaths of 18 lives of the poorest and most destitute for the Prime Minister of the country to announce an ex-gratia payment of Rs two lakhs per life. The question is whether Rs two lakhs will see the family of the deceased through for the rest of their lives. The question to the Home Ministry is why is it not following the Meghalaya High Court directive to appoint central police personnel to check illegal coal mining activities. What interest does the BJP Government at the centre have to give the MDA Government a long rope to continue with illegal coal mining. Unfortunately, Meghalaya does not have a robust human rights organisation to take up such issues consistently and with the determination to bring the matter to its logical end.
In India lives don’t matter. In Meghalaya where the coal mafia pervade every level of politics and administration, accidents occurring due to the unethical rat hole coal mining and its allied activities are pure “accidents.” The coal mine owners call it “inevitable.” Using dynamite to blow apart stubborn rocks to reach the coal seams, without permission and supervision is an illegal activity too but who cares about the law? The excuse that coal mining happens deep inside the jungles too is facetious. It’s a lame excuse to allow coal mining to carry on. The Chief Minister had himself argued a couple of months ago that coal mining is as old as civilisation, without going into the history of commercial coal mining in Meghalaya – an activity that was undertaken on a commercial scale when the British came to these hills. Before that the coal was mined for subsistence only. It wasn’t the money raking activity that it is today. The fact that the coke industry is still flourishing in East Jaintia Hills, West Khasi Hills and Garo Hills and in Byrnihat is in itself a certification that illegally mined coal continues to be fed into those units.
The cycle of illegality and corruption is known to every person in Meghalaya. Words like “High Level” and their power and might to run the system according to their might are known across the state. In East Jaintia Hills trucks are modified to extend their heights so that they can carry 150 tonnes or more weight per truck. These trucks have no registration numbers as demanded by the Transport Department. The state police look the other way or take their commission to allow the trucks to pass through. For the East Jaintia Hills District Police and the Deputy Commissioner to feign ignorance about illegal coal mining is shameful. They can just visit Sutnga to see the coal coming in day in and day out. But when the police and administration feign ignorance about an activity that carries on in broad daylight, it means both these governance agencies are in connivance with the coal mine owners or that they have failed big time and stern action needs to be taken against them. In Meghalaya accidents like the latest one happen regularly but are quickly forgotten because there is no single civil society group to pursue the matter. And why? Because most coal mine labourers who put their lives on the line are non-tribals whose lives don’t matter. In Meghalaya only tribal lives matter and this has been proven time and again.
