All talks of scientific mining are a huge cover-up for the illegal coal mining that continues to happen across Jaintia Hills and Garo Hills. There is a strong mafia controlling this trade and obviously they have the Government eating out of their hands for everyone from police officials to state government functionaries continue to deny that this happens. The recent deaths of two individuals – mine workers due to an alleged blast is surprisingly being denied by the police. If that is the case what was the cause for the burn injuries suffered by the two deceased persons? Can the police not visit the site of the blast to ascertain what the cause of the blast was. Dynamite is an explosive largely used to blast stubborn rocks for quarrying and mining. Accidents can and do happen when the dynamite explodes without being detonated, due to a bump, shock or heat.
This is a fit case for an independent enquiry. After all, two lives were lost even if those who died were poor labourers. Human life must be given due respect. Unfortunately, labourers continue to die inside the mines even today without anyone knowing it except their family members. The bodies of the dead persons are quietly whisked away to their place of residence outside Meghalaya without any noise. Police claim no knowledge of such deaths since they act only when someone files an FIR stating that a family member has died in unnatural circumstances or is missing. Many families are too poor to follow this due process.
The reality in Meghalaya today is that policing is slack and made to be slack because coal mining involves powerful people some of whom are part of the government. If the government of the day is as concerned as the NGT is about the impact of acid mine drainage that is killing all rivers around the mining areas and beyond it could have conducted a thorough investigation to put a stop to this venality. This is where the Opposition party/parties come in. They have full right to conduct their own enquiry into these illegal transactions and demand that scientific mining be carried out. But the Opposition has been lax on this front and on other environmental issues that afflict the state. No Opposition leader has lent support to river cleaning and reclaiming. Trees are being felled mercilessly but the District Councils are silent witnesses. And now the VPP leader speaks of Article 371 of the Constitution to be applied to Meghalaya. If the ADCs cannot even assert their rightful custodianship over forests outside of the 4 percentile State Reserved Forests, then how do they expect to make Article 371 work? Is the VPP actually stating that the Sixth Schedule is a dead instrument simply because its MDCs don’t know the powers provided under the Schedule? In fact, now that the State of Meghalaya is headed purely by tribal legislators the Sixth Schedule is outdated. Bringing in Article 371 will make no difference. Look at the scale of corruption in Nagaland and the elite capture of land there. A similar avarice for land has engulfed the tribal elite here. Instead of clamouring about protecting land from being usurped by non- tribals the focus should now be on passing a Land Ceiling Act pronto before landlessness grips the indigenous tribals.
