Marble Mining and Tribes of Rajasthan: A Small Reflection from the Field

In the Indian context, mining has affected indigenous peoples in a severe manner. In mining areas, those who got displaced by it are the most vulnerable but those who didn’t get the same fate are not in good conditions. The population which lives in nearby places of mines are categorised into two kinds i.e. directly affected or indirectly affected. The population which is directly affected by it has the close proximity to the mines and have to face hardships in their day to day life. On the other hand, the indirectly affected population are those which got affected only when there is a ‘big’ activity like bombing and emission of earthly gases etc.

As a part of the block field work, I got the opportunity to conduct interviews in the mine-affected areas of Udaipur district of Rajasthan. After surfing through the Department of Mines & Geology(http://www.mines.rajasthan.gov.in/dmgcms/page?menuName=/q/rwh/KECGBTz5dXJKcuA== ) and with the help of local contact person I and my colleague selected a village of Rishabhdev Tehsil. After the first visit to the village and a small conversation with the Sarpanch, our team get to know about the demography of the panchayat which was constituted mainly of Meena (Bhil) tribe and a small portion of Meghwal caste group. We discussed with them about how mines have affected their lives in terms of livelihood, health, forests, rituals and customary practices etc. Along with this the discussion also get revolved around the Fifth Schedule, PESA and mining {which I will discuss in upcoming post}. After this, the team conducted several interviews and take some feedback around the impacts of mining.

The points that were put up by the Sarpanch and the people of the village were thrilling and were very calculated in terms of showing the impacts of mining on tribal life and livelihood. Many of them argued that authorities haven’t paid much attention towards our issues and if complaints were made actions were not taken up. For this negligence they claimed that it is the nexus between the mine owner and the political leaders and in fact, many of the mines are owned by politicians in a direct or indirect manner. Forests, grazing land is disappearing rapidly, natural water sources are getting contaminated, farming has become difficult due to water flashed away by mines into the fields, number of livestock has become one-fourth in recent years due to disappearance of grazing land, health of the village is deepening and the mine workers of the village are facing multiple problems in terms of health and poverty. 

Though the level of education has raised the in terms of higher education there are problems. The interesting fact of the village was that despite the availability of jobs in mines majority of the youths are getting migrated to Gujrat in search of livelihood. When we inquired about this sort of migration then the responses came like; ‘they didn’t hire us because we demand good wages and in case of an accident we have protested for compensation’. That’s why mine owners are hiring migrants from states like UP and Bihar because they can compromise in low wages and little amount of compensation in case of mis-happening. The ratio at which the locals are employed is around 3:10, which for me is problematic. It is also argued by many of the respondents that despite coming under the administration of Fifth Schedule none of the mines are owned by tribes (de facto), although many of them argued that mine owners cleverly uses IDs of local people for occupying mines (de jure), since non-tribes can not buy and purchase land in tribal areas.

This small reflection is a glimpse of upcoming posts and my opinions will rotate around the issues that are discussed in this post. Hope I can reflect upon the issues of the Adivasis vis a vis mining with whom I will be engaging for at least three weeks.

Thanking You in Anticipation

Mohammad Imran