Some images through the block placement

Photo credit: Mine worker

This image is shows to the meeting with the women mine labour at budhpura village (Bundi). There are women does the work of grit cutting. Their daily wages are very low, which is not enough to fulfill their requirement.
This meeting was also related to the awareness of DMFT (District Mineral Foundation Trust) and their rights. DMFT is a trust set up under Mines and Minerals Amendment Act 1957 as a non-profit body in those districts affected by the

mining works to work for the interest and benefit of person and areas affected by mining related operations.

Photo credit: Sharad Kodane

This image shows to the house of mine worker. This is a kachha house, which is very problematic in the rainy season. Because, there is no better roof on the upper side of house. So, room has fill by the rain water.

Photo credit: Sharad Kodane

This is another image of mine labour houses. These all are kachha houses. Some mine labour are staying by rent Rs. 1000 monthly. Because, they don't have their own house or land for making a house. They can't afford this monthly rent.

Photo credit: Sharad Kodane

This image shows to the plights of mine labour (Budhpura). The women who is sit on the stone belongs to the bhil community. She don't have pakka house. So, she stay at kachha house, which is made by the wastage stones in mines. There is no roof on the upper side of house. This house is outside of the village.

Photo credit: Sharad Kodane

This image is shows to the, mine worker doing the work of tiles making, this is useful for the house making. They earn daily Rs. 200. Their children are playing at the work place. They doesn't go to the school. According to them children learn the stone work from them.

Photo credit: Sharad Kodane

This is a image of granite mine. The work is continuing by the machines. Granite is very useful for making the various types of tiles. But, its very expensive for buying. People used this stone for house making.

Photo credit: Sharad Kodane

This image is shows to the stone cutting in a shape. After, the mine, this granite stone bring to the outside of mines at workplace of another owner of stones. It is very hard work. Worker cuts the stone in the perfect size. Its very skillful work. But, they their wages are very low.

Photo credit: Sharad Kodane

After the overall process of stone cutting. They packed to this tiles like stone in the boxes. These are export to the Kota for the design in factory. This is also known as Kota (kotah) stone. After, that its buy in very high prices.







Sharad Kodane
M2017DTA013

Glimpses from the field work (block placement in Rajasthan) on the issues of mine labour....

photo credit: Manish Tak, MLPC

                                 
The first meeting that we had with the Bansilal Meghawal at Jodhpur union office. He is a ex-mine worker. Now, he is a union leader of mine labour union of Jodhpur district, which is associated with the mine labor protection campaign. We discussed with him about the basic issues of labour and his role in union and the labour movement of mine labour. He was the part of Jaipur rally which was organised by Nikhil dey and Dr. Rana sengupta for implement the DMFT, they have also demanded the protection for labors in terms of social,economical and health from Rajasthan Government.

Picture credit: Neeraj Bunkar

This a main root that connects chattarpura village to Mandal town. This village situated in the mandal block of Bhilwara district. This is a very backward and mines affected area.
There is no well maintained transportation system. The paths are very muddy inside of the village. People living in very critical condition in this village and mostly they are belongs to the SC and ST community.

Picture credit: Neeraj Bunkar

 This is a feldspar mine. Feldspar is used in the glass-making, ceramics and also used for the extender of paint. In rainy season rain water get filled in the mines. So, the work of mine has stop in this particular season. It's impact to the livelihood of the people. Because, they don't have other source of livelihood.

Picture credit: Neeraj Bunkar

I am observing the feldspar mineral at the mine place (Jognia) and interviewing the labour about the mineral and his work. The stone is a white, which is use for making various types of glass and other things.

Photo credit: Neeraj Bunkar

Interview of  Raghav (change name) at Bhadu Village. He is 45 year old person caused by the silicosis disease. Also, he has a problem of breathing. He left mine work. He can't work due to weakness. His wife works in farming, who is a disabled by leg. So, she can't work so much. He got Rs 1 lakh help from government for the treatment. There is no proper treatment of silicosis. So, people are dying by silicosis. He said, " 1 lakh is not enough for fulfill my family needs and medicines, we both are not able to do the work. Government will give my family Rs 3 lakh after the death. But, this money wont use for my treatment."

Photo credit: Neeraj Bunkar

In-depth interview of Raju Bhil (Change name) at Bhavlas ka kheda. He is mine worker. He was working in the mines for the blasting to break stone into small pieces. It was very dangerous work for the worker. Because, this work was done at night to reduce the risk to the villagers.By the reason of blasting, the houses were vibrate. It's also arises the hearing problem of labors.
Now, he is facing lots of problems.By the reason of rainy season mines work is stop. So, there is no other work for livelihood. In Bhavlas ka kheda, entire ST category doing the work of stone cutting. They have the farm land, but, 2/3 bigha, which is not enough for their livelihood.

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Sharad KodaneM2017DTA013

Learning from Fieldwork

Introduction.

As a student of social work, it’s necessary to spend time in the field to relate learnings from class in the field. Context is much important and therefore developing epistemology through field helps to understand different contextual realities. A theory does not make contexts, it's the context which makes theory and as a student of Dalit and Tribal social work it's necessary to focus on the context and not only on theory. Context is equally as important as theory.

For the student of Dalit & Tribal social work, the clarity of perspective is most important, without clarity of perspective the complex caste and tribe realities will be difficult to understand, therefore the perspective from below is needed to understand Dalit realities and perspective from within is to understand tribal realities. Without perspective, the knowledge will be not that rich and could not make us understand the realities better. Going into the field with perspective from above, will not generate epistemology which empowers the communities, not just community but it will not help the social worker to learn and understand the reality. So, therefore, perspective is very important.

The student has invested enough time in understanding the importance of context, the perspective from below and perspective from within and critical thinking before going into the field.

The student has placed in Udaipur to study the effectiveness of DMFT( District mineral foundation trust) so the target population was people who are directly or indirectly affected by mines, the student has been given an interview schedule by which he conducted interviews and did case studies to get rich qualitative data as so much quantitative data is already there. District Mineral Foundation (DMF) is a trust set up as a non-profit body, in those districts affected by the mining works, to work for the interest and benefit of persons and areas affected by mining-related operations. It is funded through the contributions from miners. Its manner of operation comes under the jurisdiction of the relevant State Government. Setting up of District Mineral Foundations (DMFs) in all districts in the country affected by mining-related operations was mandated through the Mines and Minerals (Development & Regulation) Amendment Act, (MMDRA) 2015.  On 16 September 2015, Central Government issued a notification directing states to set up DMF. The Central Government notified on 17 September 2015, the rates of contribution payable by miners to the DMFs.  In case of all mining leases executed before 12th January 2015 (the date on which MMDR Amendment Act came into force), miners will have to contribute an amount equal to 30% of the royalty payable by them to the DMFs.  Where mining leases are granted after 12.01.2015, the rate of contribution would be 10% of the royalty payable.

So the interview had to parts:

1.     To Give information on DMFT.

2.     To conduct Interview on the effectiveness of DMFT.

·        Expectations from the field.

The student has expected many things from the field. The fieldwork setting is in Massaron ki obri a panchayat 8 km away from Rishabhdev, Udaipur. The village has 85% of the tribal population, and there are some Dalits are living. So the basic expectations from the field were to understand tribal realities as the student was never got the experience of the fieldwork in the tribal village. As there are some Dalits and other castes living with the tribes in the same village it gives an opportunity to understand castes and tribes realities. It's also expected to learn research skills like to identification of potential stakeholders, understand issues of mine workers, politics of labor union, contextualize mine issues in Rajasthan,  and documentation skills like a report, case study writing. It’s also expected to understand the issues of mine workers, politics of labour union, contextualise mine issues in Rajasthan, and to understand effectiveness of government policies, understand DMFT and its effectiveness at ground level, what are key issues of the mining and how to deal with it, also to understand the need of people who are directly or indirectly affected by mines, their view on the spending of the DMFT.

·        Experiences and Opportunities In The Field.

The student was expected to stay in the field for 23-24 days and then the documentation will be done in 7-8 days. The village panchayat selected for fieldwork is Massaron ki obri which is 8 km away from Rishabhdev. There are two villages in this gram panchayat, Massaron ki obri and Odwas. There is mainly tribal population living in the village. So the student has been involved in 45 interviews of the affected people by mines. This includes mineworkers, mines supervisors, Panchayat office bearers- Sarpanch, Upsarpanch, and Ward panch, Health workers, Tribal union leaders of mine workers, Students, Teaching staffs of schools, Ex. mine workers, Anganwadi workers, ASHA Workers, Shopkeepers, and Self-help group members. The student has visited mines and mines affected farms and grasslands, got chance to see ground realities of DMFT, and how it is operating.

·        Understanding Issues of Mineworkers.

There are many issues that are faced by the mine workers in the village. The workers are Meena tribes and the mine owners are upper castes, they are discriminating workers in many ways. There are many issues but I will focus on broader issues. The main issue of the worker is the tender system. The workers of works in the mines in 2-3 shifts, mostly they worked in 2 shifts which causes the workers to work more than 12 hours and many workers are forced to overtime and the working hour's shifts to 12 to 16 hours. In this village women's don't get a job in mines as they considered to be weak and therefore not qualified for the jobs in mines. The workers have only one holiday a month. They feel alienated while working in the mines, most of the workers started drinking alcohol and beats their wives after drinking, they don’t have much time to spend on their children's so it badly affects the education of their children's. Other issues faced by mine workers are related to this tender system, like safety tools, PF Facilities, Health facilities, working hours, 2 shifts, wage rates, this issues are faced by them because of tender system. There is no strong union of labor, the member of unions only speaks on the time of election and then they don't speak for five years, the mine owners don’t recruit the local people as they can be united due to same village identity and can easily protest and therefore the mine owners recruit non-local workers so it became easier for them to manipulate them. The workers don’t know much about DMFT and their rights, only local politicians have little knowledge of it.

·        Issues / Problems faced by villagers due to mines.

The mine workers are not the only victims of the mines, mines affect the geographical area in which mine is operating. So the first impact on villagers is destruction of Aesthetics, as earlier mentioned that more than 85% people in this gram panchayat are Meena tribes, and the identity of tribe is land, but due to mines the people lost their land, the forest has always remained part of tribal life and culture, no one can separate forest from them but what happened in this panchayat is that, due to mines forest has been destroyed completely. Another issue is Destruction of livelihood, due to mines the environment has been greatly affected, the forest and water sources are destroyed by mines. Farming in the village has been greatly affected by mines, due to the white water (salary water) coming from mines into farms destroys crops as well as farms productivity, the farms are now not giving any profit it is used to grow grass for the livestock as the grazing land and community  grassland is destroyed by the mine owners by dumping waste of mines on this lands now the people don’t have any place for the livestock to have grass, due to blasting many animals died, many animals die as they fall in to open mines due to all this reason farming and livestock is almost on end in this village, also the mine owners don't recruit local people as workers, only 30% of workers in the mines are locals others come from different places so the locals started to migrate to other places for work. There are many other issues faced by people like pollution, lack of health facilities, education facilities, transportation services, blasting issues which harms livestock and houses of the people.

Women's of the village faces so many problems, the mining sector does not accept women as a strong human being, so in this panchayat not a single women working in mines. As mentioned above mines destructed livestock and agriculture so now women's of the village don't have any livelihood options, not just livelihood option, nearly 90% of the male population are addicted to alcohol, after drinking the husbands beats their wife, children, waste money on alcohol and therefore it affects the education of children's and health of the family. The life expectancy of the worker is very low, therefore there are many widows there in the village they don’t get any facilities like widow pension, so the condition of the women's and children is very bad in this village.

Students in the village also face so many issues, mainly girl student. Most parents don’t like to send their daughter to school as they don't like the idea of studying girl and boy in one school, most of them believe that there is need of a separate school for both boys and girls. Still its not issue till 12th class, but after 12th class there is no college in the village and there is no bus facility for the village, and the private vehicles are so risky as people have to sit on the roof of the jeep, so many parents don't send their daughter to college after passing 12th, as the economic condition of parents is also very weak many girls cannot study more, most girls get married at the age of 17-18 so the condition of girls in the village is not improving. for boys the situation is different, they don't have any motivation for study as they know that they will easily get married and find a job in the mines, as their parents economic condition is not that good, students who study hard also forced to leave education and start working, many students are studying by doing part-time job.

·        Learnings.

One month period in the field gives good opportunities to observe, learn and reflect. In Massaron ki obri I get an opportunity to see caste and tribal realities. Before fieldwork, the student has invested enough time on learning perspectives, and the importance of context and critical thinking. 

So first thing was to learn what is DMFT and read related documents regarding it, do pilot study to check the usefulness of the interview schedule and then edit interview schedule, then student went into field When student went into the field he didn't have any contact with the villagers, so the first learning was the importance of identification of potential stakeholders, as its a research, and students have to conduct an interview and transform it into case studies, so, therefore, it needs good casework skill for case study, also the perspective is most important while documenting case study. During this period while conducting interviews and meeting the affected people, the student has also invested a good amount of time in observing and reflecting upon various factors of village, the power structure of village, history of village, systemic, structural and sectoral issues in the village and how it defines and affects people's directly. The student has understood it better by discussing and debating with field partner around the things which has been observed in the field. Students came in contact with Mineworkers, mines supervisors, Panchayat office bearers- Sarpanch, Upsarpanch, and Ward panch, Health workers, Tribal union leaders of mine workers, Students, Teaching staffs of schools, Ex. mine workers, Anganwadi workers, ASHA Workers, Shopkeepers, and Self-help group members during this fieldwork. So by meeting and interviewing people with different caste, class, gender, age and occupation gave different views and by it, the student was able to understand their issues better. By visiting farms, grazing land, dumping area, and mines students got chance to observe things clearly and seen grounded realities so the knowledge developed from the field is not just what people said but also directly experienced it by intervening at the grassroots level, and tried to get answers of how and why. The union and local politics is also difficult to understand so tried to understand it, how it operates and how people can be included more, the issues of mining sector is too wide and the workers are facing so many issues it cant be understood by just reading some books it can be understand by visiting them and looking at their house, farms and how their children's studies, how their families lives, the village and tribal communities also facing so many issues in the village due to mines it also affected their religion, traditions, and culture. The learnings in the field don’t have that important if it does not document properly so, therefore, documentation skills are also important, so report writing, case study writing is also important, as well as started to learn how to write a blog, how to articulate different field realities and how to argue an academic manner. There are things which need to be considered as learnings, it's just Aesthetic behavior like, to respect the individual and his choice, and take care of ethics and values, give complete freedom to individual and confidentiality, respect their traditions and cultures, be an agent of change and work to empower the community rather than using them as data and for personal benefits. Understanding things from their perspectives and the documentation will be done by looking from their context and perspective.

·        Recognition Of Strengths and Weakness.

There are many strength and weakness you realize and works on it in the field, understanding tribe realities is different when you are coming from caste realities so, therefore, it becomes little difficult to understand it. The language also becomes sometimes little difficult but still, I didn't face much problem as my hometown is Gujarat and the language is spoken here was same as Gujarati. Traveling so much is difficult, and also the village was too big and has issues with transportation which was time-consuming. If I talk about the strength then, the biggest strength was the course Dalit and tribal social work, because of this it was not that difficult for me to understand the field, as in class we already studied many things about caste and tribal realities so it helped in the field, and due to it student easily got connected with the people and also the people helped so much with this learning process.

·        Conclusion.

So the one month in the field helped in learning and understanding many things, it will help in future while working with this communities, this kind of learning experience is necessary while studying Dalit and Tribal social work as it gives opportunity to see the grounded realities of Indian society and can contextualize the learnings from the class, so when going back to class with the learnings from field it can help in better learning.

An overview of grounded impacts of mining sector in Rajasthan

INTRODUCTION

I have been there in the field for five weeks to analyze the situations of mineworkers in Rajasthan. It was a great experience for me to work in this field as this was very new for me. I came across many things while working in the field. Work that assigned by our fieldwork agency(MLPC) and supervisor which we supposed to do in the field. Our work was, to assess the realities of mineworkers, to analyze the impacts of mines on the mine-affected areas, to spread awareness of DMFT among mineworkers and directly and indirectly affected people from mining, grounded reflections of the Caste and Tribal realities in those areas, enhancing potentials in Research Capabilities. we were total five people who placed in Rajasthan and two of them including me was in Bhilwara and Bundi District of Rajasthan. Before going into detail of the block placement work I just want to brief about both districts which help everybody to understand the historical aspect of the places and how it emerge in different forms.

Inside view of Granite mine in Mandal block of Bhilwara district in Rajasthan.

Rajasthan is the largest State in the country, with difficult terrain comprising desert, forests, mountains, the tribal belt, ravines, and along the international border. Bhilwara district is extremely rich in old temples ranging in time from the 9th to 12th Century AD. The medieval temples at Bijolia, Tilaswan, Dhor, Menal & Mandalgarh etc are the example to exquisite Art and architecture. The multi-storied pound of Bhinay near Kachola is one of its kind. It is not on the record as of how the name of Bhilwara was ascribed to the now forms the district Bhilwara. Tradition has it that it came to be known as Bhilwara because it was mostly inhabited by Bhils in old days. These Bhils were eventually driven away towards the hilly tracts and interior places of less importance by the ancestors of the peasant settlers. Ironically enough, now very few Bhils live in this area.

The region of Bundi has a glorious past. Early man lived here, as is evident by the discovery of early Stone Age tools. Material remains of the pre-Christian times from Keshoraipatan as well as the sculptural heritage from the same site belonging to post-Gupta and subsequent period speak of the glorious by-gone days. The remains of the medieval temples in the area are examples of fine art and architecture Inscribed stone tablets, scattered throughout the district tell the history of the region. With the inception of the princely state in Bundi by Hadas, a branch of the celebrated Chauhans, Rajput monuments in the forms of fort and palaces came into existence. Bundi artists have played a prominent role in the evolution of early Rajasthani paintings. The mural tradition as preserved in the Chitrashala of the places here is a specimen of artistic excellence.

In above description, it has been cleared that Rajasthan was divided into different regions and every region was ruled by kings, who were mainly Rajput. People were controlled by them. Work that people used to do in the past was not the choice of the laborers but by the passage of time, everything has been changed people started merging from one sector to another. Some of them started occupying land but most of the land was captured by powerful communities like relatives of the former ruler and upper caste people. So, those who got less land belonged to lower caste and land which they had was not fertile. So, they weren’t able to fulfill the needs of the family through agriculture and become labor. So, how the process of working class/ daily wage labor from the lower caste has been started.

Mining sector of Rajasthan

Rajasthan placed in top ten mine states of the country.  The State is a major producer of ball clay, calcite, clay, copper ore/conc., feldspar, fireclay, limestone, ochre, phosphorite/rock phosphate, and steatite. The State is also an important producer of marble, granite, sandstone & Kota stone of various shades. Makrana area is the world famous center for marble mining. There are 33 thousand mines in Rajasthan and 25 lakh people working in mines along with this 98 percent people belong to SC/ST population. This data shows that the population that is most vulnerable in society engage in this riskful sector. It clarified that historical journey of the marginalized community (SC/ST) force them to engage in the mining sector as they didn’t have a permanent source of livelihood and unorganized sector like mining was the only option to earn livelihood and situation are same as before. Today even mining is the only option for these communities. Most of the people in this sector migrated from other districts as well as the adjoining states like Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. The reason for migration is that they don’t have livelihood option in their native places as they don’t have land for agriculture.

Mica mine has been closed due to less production.

Quartz and Feldspar mines in the rainy season in Bagore village of Mandal block.

Mining is a very risky sector and the behavior of the mine owners is very arrogant toward workers and they are very careless about the security of their workers.

We Mainly engaged in mandal block of Bhilwara district and Talera block of Bundi district.  In Mandal area mainly mines of mica, granite, feldspar, quartz, soda, white stone is situated. According to CSE (Centre for Science and Environment) Report 2018, In mandal block there are 203 villages that are directly affected,5 villages which are severely affected, 56 villages which are badly affected and 142 villages which is generally affected due to mines. This is a horrible situation in this area in spite of it still the government is not taking into consideration.

A closed stone factory in the mining area.

In Bundi district, we were in budhpura and a dhaneshwar village of Talera block. The most important mineral resources of Bundi are limestone and sandstone.  The limestone deposits cater to one of the oldest cement plants of state at Lakheri. However, most of the deposits are marginal cement grade and also fall in the forest.  Other minerals include silica sand, marble, iron, clay etc. The lower Bhander sandstone in Bundi district has given good splittable sandstone deposits. There are known working quarries around Dhansuara,  Dabi, Parena, Dhonla, Bapu, Budhpura, Laubakho, Naroli, Polopara, Rajpura, and Gudlica etc. The sandstone is pinkish, bluish, color, fine to medium grained jointed and well bedded with flat dips. Splittable sandstone generally occurs below 1 to 1.5 mts. Massive sandstone and has a thickness of 3 to 4 mts. 12 lakh tonnes production was done in 1998-99 from 1355 leases.

Politics around the mining sector

As much I observed and studied about the mining sector during fieldwork in Rajasthan I realized that there are too much politics happening in this sector that only harming workers of the sector. Most of the mines owned by upper caste people who directly or indirectly affiliated with the politician and some owner holding the political position in their areas in the major political party of the country.  The landowner where mining is taking place belongs to SC/ST category. But due to the domination of upper caste and lack of awareness among Dalit and Adivasi. They gave their land to upper caste people for mining by signing the contract with them. They got very less money from the contract but they are happy when I ask some of the people who gave their land for mining about this they said that this contract is beneficial for them as they got money and after some years their land get back to them. I asked them that what will be the use of mining land in replied they said the land will be usable after filling up pits in very less amount and anyway we will be in profit in this process. So, we can see that how upper caste plays a dirty politics with the marginalized section by offering money and showing greed. As most of the mine owners are affiliated with the politics so, they easily divert welfare schemes and benefits which meant for the welfare of mineworkers. Nowadays, demands the formation of union rising by the laborers in this sector but in most the cases after the formation of the union, it becomes the puppets of owners. There are some NGOs working for the rights of labors but due to their politics and vested interest. They work that supposed to do for the workers by NGOs could not complete. One side they talk about sensitive issues of workers and another side they don’t follow an even basic principle of their NGO. After working more than 15 to 20 years for the upliftment of workers people even don’t know about the NGOs in reality. For fulfilling hidden agenda and due to the personal relationship with the political party they sometimes they remain silent.   

The government spent DMF money on the road where the area is not affected by mines.

The government increased financial aid to the silicosis patient from 1 lakh to 2 lakh but in reality, many affected people didn't get even 1 lakh rupees till.  

Caste and Tribal realities of the mining sector

In the above discussion, we talked that how upper caste people made the contract with lower caste people for mining in their land by offering very less money. In villages of Rajasthan where feudalism prevalent still and decision making power and community resources is hold by upper caste, we can’t even imagine that equal treatment by owner who is mostly from upper dominant caste with mineworkers will they do ! 98 % mineworkers belong to SC/ST in this sector and they are highly affected by the mines. How to contrast it is where the landowner is getting poorer and tenants becoming rich.  Manual work in the mines by using hammer and chisel only done by Dalit and Adivasi and other side work of caretaker, cook, Supervisor is done by upper caste people and owner relatives. We can see the difference between work that assigned to people on the basis of their caste. Less risky and comfortable work in the mines is assigned to upper caste people with more wage and on the other Dalit and Adivasi people gets high risk and hard work with less wage.

In budhpura and dhaneshwar village of Bundi district where most of the workers are migrants and they are working in the mines full of insecurity. They don’t have their own house and in rainy season rainwater get filled in their rented houses. They are not getting any kind of facility from the government. Caste plays a very vital role in choosing an occupation. In India, there is always risky work assigned to Dalit like sewage cleaning work.

Adivasi lost their land in the name of development in the mines affected area and got nothing as compensation. Mining not only affects their lives but also ruined their culture, traditional and sustainable livelihood options. They don’t even know that how roads will make them progress if they aren’t able to manage two-time meal to survive. They aren’t able to educate their children due to economic hardship.

Role of Gender in the mining sector

In Granites mines of mandal block wherever I visited no woman labor was there in the mines. As all mines have machines for the processing and there were some men who were operating machines. But in mica mines, women were working to separate mica from soda and stones. They got half less wage than man even if both do same work. As a woman, they face many problems like after coming from the work they have to do housework and look after their children. Their husband work in the mines and they work out of the mines like making small pieces/tiles from waste material. They get wage on the basis of their work that how much tiles they made in a day and wage is very less compared to male workers. Their husbands beat them in the night after drunk. They face double oppression from the owners in terms of wages and from husbands. In budhpura and dhaneshwar village where 90 out of 100 women are widow and they are struggling with their life at the age of 40 to 55. They are rushing from here to there for seeking benefits of government schemes like widow pension and others.

widow woman who works in mines and live in this Kaccha house 

woman showing her fractured hand and need money for the operation.

Government and mineworkers

Government attitude towards mineworkers is negligible. They don’t care about the welfare of people engage in this sector. If we talk about the other government schemes for the people, mineworkers never benefited from it. People even don’t have the basic facilities like ration, water, electricity, and house. When I enquired about these realities I found that most the people don’t have the necessary documents for the access of government schemes. There is no education and health facility in the mining-affected area and in emergency people have to go to the private hospitals situated nearby their villages. If sometimes they go in the government hospital the behavior of hospital administration is very rude towards them.

A road in the mining-affected area of Bhilwara district.

The Central Government launched the Pradhan Mantri Khanij Kshetra Kalyan Yojana (PMKKKY) in 2015. This is a new programme meant to provide for the welfare of areas and people affected by mining-related operations, using the funds generated by District Mineral Foundations (DMFs). This scheme mandated the setting up of District Mineral Foundations (DMFs) in all districts in the country affected by mining-related operations. But after 3 years of the scheme still, most of the districts didn’t set up DMF then how the contribution and use of funds will take place without DMF. This scheme in its first stage till now and it will take a long time to reach at level of implementation if the process goes like this. And wherever the dmf is established, the situations are not as good. Money that is spending through DMF is not for the upliftment of workers but on other unnecessary things like building religious place, roads which already concreted, office for the owner but showing it as the restroom for workers.

Conclusion

Throughout the discussion one thing has been cleared that the conditions of mineworkers getting worse. After coming from fieldwork I got realized that If existing schemes reach properly to the mineworkers, it will be a great help to them. I was not aware of the mining field and the conditions of it. This fieldwork taught me that the labor class always be in the miserable conditions where bourgeois always dominant and happy. Things doesn't change even after 71 years of independence.

House of mineworkers in the Budhpura village of Bundi district.

Although this was a new field for me it helps me to explore myself in terms of conducting case studies and documenting field notes by applying contextual realities and perspective from within. As a student of DTSA( Dalit & Tribal Studies & Action), I learned that rather than putting our knowledge on people it's better to listen to them, it helps us to know more about their life in their way. There are many things which we can apply to get knowledge about people living like observation through it  I able to differentiate between what owners say about the labors and what things are exist in reality and by becoming part of their life and stay with them makes things easy to understand. Through fieldwork I got to know about the demands that mineworkers are raising to the government and demands was very genuine they are not asking any kind of luxurious things, they just want basic needs like home, drinking water, secure jobs, electricity, education, and health facility. Nobody will disagree with their demands but still, the government is unresponsive about labors demand.

By- Neeraj Bunkar

Learning from field work about mine worker situation

                     Learning from field work about mine worker situation

Learning from this last month helped to discover the reality of the mining field and the situation of mine workers. And how the all politics and caste system, exist in this field. India is a caste based society and its impacts we can see in mine field also. Caste is the thing which can be easily find in any area of India. And this minefield is also affected of this caste system. And here I am trying to put some light on issues which are related to this area of mining.

Issues of Mine workers

There are many problems are facing by mine worker in Jodhpur but here I am trying explain in some major point.

1.Mine and Health :

Mine work is very dangerous because it directly impacts on t

he health of the mine workers. And here in this work workers have to do drilling on stones and because of this drilling stones reduce the dust. And according to mine worker mine owners don’t provide proper safety guards to mine workers and also they do not do wet drilling because of this during working mine workers inhale the dust by breathing in their lungs and that becomes cause of the silicosis disease. And symptoms of silicosis are similar to tuberculosis so many times people can understand that it is the silicosis disease and they start to get treatment of tuberculosis. That is why many workers had died in this area. And there is not solution of this diseases. The prevention is the only solution of this disease. And once a mine worker get affected by silicosis he or she have to die. The economic condition is also not good and they can not get proper treatment and can lives some more days. And there are no good doctors in Jodhpur who can handle these type of cases and mostly they transfer these cases to Ahmedabad in Gujarat. Rajasthan government provides one lakh rupee if someone identified as a silicosis patient but it is not enough for the treatment. And three lakhs to the family of the patient after his or her death.

2.Mine and Education issue:

Education condition is very worst here. Most of the mine workers are no even 10th passed. There are no good schools for mine workers children near their house. They have to go little far. There is dropout rate is very high and there are many reason behind this. Like mine worker can not give time to their children because they have to go early for the work and after that children sometimes go to school and sometime do not not go to school. And economic condition is also a reason behind this because the economic condition of the mine workers family are not good they earn very low wages so they need help to run their family so many children have to droop the school for helping their family. After 14 to 15 years they started o find work.

3.Mine and Gender problems:

Gender discrimination is also an issue here. In mine contractors give less wages to women as compared to men by saying that they do less work as compared to men. Where a man gets 300 rupees/day there a woman get only 150 to 200 rupee/day. During these day I found that many women are widows here because their husbands have been died because of silicosis and other reason like alcohol addiction and in accident in mines. Domestic violence is the problem here because many mine workers come their house after drinking vines and fight in their house and beat their wives.

4.Mine workers and their economic condition:

The economic condition of mine workers is very poor. They have to do work more than 8 hours in a day their average wage is around 300 rupee/day. And in this time it is very difficult to manage in 300 rupee. Where they have to spend on their children’s education and food. And they have to do cultural, religious and family occasions that time also they have to spend money also. According to mine workers they can not manage in this much money that they earn by working in mines. On the occasions they have to lend money from the local money lenders on the high rate of interest. Which they can not payback on time. Sometimes they can not get money from money lenders so that time they have sell their jewelry for money. Their living condition is also not good many families of mine workers even do not have pakka house and they are still living in the kacha houses. Where they live there are many problems like there is no pakka roads in their villages, water scarcity, electricity problem etc.  

Mine and Caste and Tribal Question:

This aspect shows the Indian reality because here in jodhpur mostly mine workers come for mainly two categories SC and ST. There are no other categories mine workers I found and according to mine workers there is only two categories are engaged in mines Meghwals and Bhils only. There is need to look it by caste angle because this work is very dangerous for mine workers life and they get very low wages because of they are not growing. And the interesting thing is that no other categories or so called upper caste people not engaged in this work. Here by seen this we can make sense that after many years the situation of Dalits and trials are not good. If they leave their caste based occupation instead of that they have to engaged in this type of jobs there is very less value of their life.

          

Looking at the Realities of Masarron ki obri: Through some photos.

In this photos, we can see the white colored element in water, the local people call it salary, it's the dominant reason for the declining productivity of the farms and destruction of the crops. In rains, it comes from mines to farms and it destroys crops.

The Mines owner dumped its mine waste on the grazing land which was the primary sources of grass for the village people, but as due to heavy dumping the grassland has destroyed so it badly affected the livestock of the village, now only a few people have livestock. It affected people economically, due to this they lose their income as well as now they are dependent on others for basic things like milk.

The condition of the transport system in the village is very poor, there is no bus service for people, they have to wait for 2 to 3 hours for private vehicles. the roads are in very miserable condition. due to overloaded trucks, people face problems. in case of emergency, its become more difficult.

In this village, people have a canal, but it is not that useful as the white water from mines comes in the canal and it pollutes water so therefore it's not useful for the people.

The mines also affected the children in the village, mostly it affected their education and health, as their fathers are working in mines and having less payment while mothers mostly don't have any job to do, many children are facing the issue of malnutrition. In schools, most of the students think that they don't need to study hard as they don't have any scope of studying after completing 12th so they just complete 12th and starts working in mines. So it creates a vicious circle of poverty and people are from generations trapped in this circle.