Minerals are also a significant foreign exchange earners. In 1996-97
India exported minerals worth Rs.18956.2 crores and it constituted 16.0%
of the total export value of all merchandise from India. Diamond is the
biggest constituent with a share of 77.57% in the total value of mineral
exports followed by iron ore (9.0%), granite (6.0%), aluminia (1.98%)
and precious and semi-precious stones 1.83%.
However, it should be understood that rough diamonds are imported
into the country and re-exported after processing. And most of India’s
foreign trade are in the raw form and as semi-processed forms. During
1995-96, the value of manufactured mineral-based commodities was only
Rs.56812 crores constituting only 5.35% of the total value of all merchandise.
We are reminded that India is wholly or largely self-sufficient
in 26 minerals which constitute primary mineral raw material for industries
such as thermal power generation, iron and steel, Ferro-alloys, aluminium
cement various types of refractors, china clay-based ceramics, glass,
chemicals like caustic soda, soda ash, calcium carbide
fluorine- based chemicals like aluminimum fluoride, cryolite/chloro-fluro-carbons,
titania and white pigment. India is by and large, self-sufficient in coal
(with the exception of very low ash coking coal required by the steel
plants) and lignite among mineral fuels: bauxite, chromate, iron and manganese
ores, ilmenite and rutile among metallic minerals: and almost all the
industrial minerals with the exception of chrysotile asbestos, borax,
kyanite, potash, rock phosphate and elemental sulfur.[14]
These are all indicators establishing the importance of mining
in the economic growth and the development of the country. It is a moment
in the process that we are unraveling, which is determinate and objective.
We have measured it and quantified. These are basic and important elements
in understanding the political economy of mining industry in India. If
we intend to work out a strategy without understanding the basic features
of the industry, we may not be effective in our intervention.
However, it also manifests the one-sided immediate unity, justified
in terms of, to quote a celebrated article by Arundhati Roy, ‘the Greater
Common Good’[15].
In the above mentioned article, which deals with Big Dams - ‘the temples
of modern India’, she quotes two of India’s greatest political leaders.
Those quotes are worth reproducing because those show the authority and
high moral ground from which State demands sacrifices from some in the
name of public interest.
“If you are to suffer, you should suffer in the interest of the
country.”
- Jawaharlal Nehru, speaking to villagers who were
to be displaced by the Hirakud Dam, 1948.
“We will request you to move from your houses after the dam comes
up. If you move it will be good. Otherwise we shall release the waters
and drown you all.”
- Morarji Desai, speaking at a public meeting in
the submergence zone of the Pong Dam in 1961.
It indicates the raging contradictions beneath the veneer of the
Greater Common Good. What are they? Let us identify three sets of opposites
and try to understand their dynamics: first, is germane to the very nature
of mining itself, let us call it Extraction vs. Sustainability; second,
Development
vs. Displacement; third, Industry vs. Labour.
Extraction
vs. Sustainability
We have seen that mining induces industrial growth and in turn
is induced by it. However, mining as an industrial activity has characteristics
distinct from other industries. The most important among them is the fact
that mining involves extraction of non-renewable resources. Minerals are
by nature depletable and ‘a tonne extracted is a tonne depleted’.[16] It cannot be replenished. Mining, therefore, is
an industrial activity that leads to its own nemesis.
Can mining then be sustainable?[17]
The issue of sustainability in mining is addressed by the method of exploration
or prospecting, which is a process of searching for and locating new mineral
resources hidden under earth’s crust. Unless and until the depleted resources
are replenished by new deposits, the mining industry cannot sustain, it
will come to a grinding halt.
Exploration therefore, is seen as a precondition for a sustainable
mining sector and in turn, a precondition for sustainable development.[18] However, absolute depletability will create a
situation when all resources available in the geographical area will be
completely exploited. There will be no more area to be explored. The admission
of ‘asymptotic limits’[19] to which exploration will reach raises serious
questions on the logical consistency of the argument of exploration as
a means towards the sustainability of mining.
Management of waste generation and recycling cannot also ensure
sustainability of mineral resources, not only because consumerism is the
force that drives industrial capitalism but also because intensive consumption
of processed resources of developing countries takes place in the developed
countries. Western capitalist growth is increasingly recognised as the
mainspring of unsustainability. What is happening at the moment is a process
of ‘externalising ecology and the environment’ of the developing counties,
which amounts to treating Third World rain forests, waters and other ‘public
commons’ as free good. Trade and capitalisation, dominated by Western
MNC’s, have transferred these undervalued assets to promote consumerism
and wealthy concentration in the North.[20]
The non-renewable, location specific and shifting characteristic
of mining has also bearing on the organisation of the industry and the
method of extraction. In India, two distinct trends are discernible in
the size of the industry and the method of extraction. According to the
official figures, in 1995-96, there were 3490 mines in India (excluding
petroleum and natural gas wells and minor minerals), out of which 563
were in the coal and lignite sector, 654 in metallic minerals sector and
2273 in the non-metallic minerals sector. The figure shows that in the
metallic and non-metallic minerals sector, a large number of small mines
operate. However the total number of mines are showing consistent reduction
in size; 4179 in 1983 to 3840 in 1993-94 to 3490 in 1995-96. This points
to a trend in the depletion of resources, and an attempt at consolidation
and cost reduction by the industrialists. There is also an increasing
trend towards open caste mining from underground mining. The minor minerals
sector is overwhelmingly under private benami ownership and small sized.
Mining Towns/Settlements
The
unsustainable and exhaustible character of mining industry leaves a shadow
on the town or settlement which has come up around the industry. A typical
mining town is expected to have four distinct phases in its life-span,
namely (a) birth, (b) growth, (c) peak with stability and (d) decline.
In normal circumstances, a mining township is destined to die down, when
a mining company depletes the mineral resources and go out for a new location.
This may result in major social and economic disruption, unless and until
deliberate policy measures are not taken to broad base economic activities
and sources of employment.
Economic Reforms and Sustainability
Economic reforms, actively perused in our country since 1991 with
its emphasis on liberalisation, globalisation and structural adjustment
programmes will have profound impact on the mineral resources of our country.
It also raises questions on the rate of depletion of our resources and
the sovereign right over them. The immediate linkage between mining and
industrial policy is again manifested in the way in which our Government
brought in changes in the Minerals Policy close on heels with the new
industrial policy.
New National
Mineral Policy
Management
of mineral resources is the responsibility of the Central Government and
the State Governments in terms of Entry 54 of the Union List and Entry
23 of the State List of the seventh schedule of the Constitution. The
Industrial Policy Resolution, 1956 and The Mines and Minerals (Regulation
and Development) Act, 1957 largely lays down the framework for the regulation
and the development of all minerals other than petroleum and natural gas.
The Mining Concession Rules, 1960 regulates the grant of prospecting licenses
and mining leases of all minerals other than atomic and minor minerals.
The State Governments have framed rules with regard to minor minerals.
The Central Government has framed the Mineral Conservation and Development
Rules, 1988 which is applicable to all minerals except coal, atomic minerals
and minor minerals. Under Schedule A of the Industrial Policy Resolution,
13 minerals besides coal and lignite were reserved exclusively for the
public sector.
The Industrial Policy Resolution, 1956 formed the basis of industrial
development in the country for more than three and a half decades. Government
initiated a radical shift from the policies and strategies set by the
Resolution by introducing a New Industrial Policy in 1991 in tune with
its economic reforms programme. Economic reforms have brought in a paradigm
shift[21]
in the developmental strategies - a shift from Government to markets,
public to private sector dominance, State monopoly to market competition
and opening its borders for global trade. With their focussed emphasis
on liberalisation, privatisation, marketisation and globalisation economic
reforms should have definite impacts on the country’s resource base in
many and varied ways. The new National Mining Policy, 1993 (applicable
to all non-atomic and non-fuel minerals) and the amendment in 1994 of
the Mines and Minerals (Regulation and Development) Act, 1957 has to be
seen in this context. Let us look at specifically, the changes brought
about by the New National Mining Policy.
Important
changes in the National Mineral Policy, 1993
1.
Thirteen minerals viz.
Iron ore, manganese, chrome, sulphur, gold, diamond, copper, lead, zinc,
molybdenum, tungsten, nickel and platinum group of minerals have been
deleted from the list of minerals which had earlier been reserved for
exclusive exploitation by the public sector. These minerals are now open
for exploitation by the private sector.
2.
Foreign investment and
technology will be encouraged. Ceiling on foreign equity in the mining
industry has been raised to 50% in the equity of Indian companies engaged
in mining activities.
3.
Mineral and metal processing
units which wish to develop captive mines to secure assured supplies of
raw material will also be allowed to foreign equity participation in the
manner and to the extent already permitted to such processing units. Equity
participation over 50% by foreign parties in non-captive mines can also
be considered on a case to case basis.
4.
States no longer require
Central approval for grant of mining or prospecting licenses in the case
of 15 minerals: apatite, phosphate ores, barytes, dolomite, gypsem, kyanite,
manganesite, molybdenum, nickel, platinum and other precious metals, silimanite
and silver, sulphur and its ores, tin, tungsten and vanadium ore.
5.
The period of prospecting
license has been raised from two to three years with a provision for renewal
so that the total period does not exceed five years.
6.
Similarly, the period
of mining lease increased to a minimum of 20 years and a maximum of 30
years with provision for renewal for another 20 years.
Even after the announcement of New Mineral Policy, Government
continues to liberalise mining provisions. For example, Government extended
the area of mineral prospecting from 25 sq. km to 5000 sq. km for a single
license and 10000 sq. km for a single Company.
In another significant move, Government amended the Coal Nationalisation
Act, 1973, in February 1999, facilitating the entry of private entrepreneurs
in coal and lignite production. It may recalled that till then coal had
remained the monopoly of the State, barring the exception of a captive
coal mine granted to Tata Iron and Steel Company to meet the needs of
their steel plant in Jamshedpur.
Besides liberalising procedures, Government has divested its equity
holdings in a number of units among which are Neyveli Lignite Corporation
(6.01%), NMDC (1.61% of paid up capital involving 21.30 lakh shares),
Kudremukh Iron Ore Co. Ltd (1%), Hindustan Copper Ltd. (1.24%), National
Aluminium Co. (12.85%) and Hindustan Zinc Ltd. (24.08%).
By April 1999, the Central Government has approved 48 proposals
for aerial surveys for over 6700 sq. Km in Rajasthan, Gujarat, UP, Bihar
and Maharashtra for high value materials like gold, silver and base metals
and nickel.
In tune with the policy, Government liberally approved many a
joint venture proposals. In October 1997, MP Government decided on MP
State mining corporation to form a joint company with Finders Gold of
Australia to develop diamond reserves. Hindustan Zinc Ltd. Entered into
a joint venture with BHP Minerals, another Australian company for mineral
exploration work in Rajasthan. Orissa Government granted mining lease
to Utkal Aluminia International Ltd., a joint venture among Indal, Tata
Industries, Hydro Aluminium of Norway and Alcon of Canada, for working
in the Baphlimalli bauxite deposits covering 1388.74 hectares in Rayagada
and Kalahandi. The State Government has allotted 406 hectares with 16
million tonnes of chromium deposit to TISCO.
The New Mineral Policy augmented by the provisions of New Industrial
Policy is bound to increase rate of exploitation of our mineral resources,
its export oriented exploitation and its vulnerability to depletion by
global mining sharks. It has also given a go-by to the principles of conservation
of mineral resources envisaged in the early stages of India’s industrialisation.
Development
vs. Displacement
This
takes us to the second set of opposites that lies beneath the limits of
the Greater Common Good, namely development vs displacement. This formulation
implies that development entails involuntary displacement. Or the principle
of the Greater Common Good demands that displacement as an unintended,
but unavoidable consequence of development should be accepted unquestionably
by the victims.
As we have already seen, the planned development through which
India sought rapid economic growth entailed large-scale investments in
dams, roads, mines, power plants, industrial estates, new cities and other
projects involving land acquisition. This has invariably resulted in the
large-scale displacement of people from their original habitats to make
way for these development projects.
Arundhati Roy calculates those who were displaced by Big Dams
to be 33 million. She quotes N C Saxena, Secretary to the Planning Commission,
who thought the number of people displaced by development projects in
India would be in the region of 50 million.[22]
Displacement is not just a movement of people from one place to
the other. It is involuntary and results in the expropriation of the landed
assets and common property resources of people. Micheal M Cernea has defined
displacement in the following way:
“Displacement
implies not only physical eviction from a dwelling, but also the expropriation
of productive lands and other assets to make possible an alternative use
of the space. This is not just an economic transaction, a simple substitution
of property with monetary compensation. Involuntary displacement is a
process of unraveling established human collectivities, existing patterns
of social organisation, production systems and networks of social services.
The concept of displacement also describes situations in which some people
are deprived of their productive lands, or of other income-generating
assets, without being physically evicted from their houses. Overall, forced
displacement of collectivities causes an economic crisis for all or most
of those affected, entails sudden social dis-articulation, and sometimes
triggers a political crisis as well.”[23]
It has also been observed that displacement consists of two distinct
but related processes namely (a) displacement of people and dismantling
of their patterns of social and economic organisation, and (b) resettlement
at a different location and the reconstruction of their livelihood and
social networks.[24]
Irrespective of the fact that whether the development activity
is carried out by the Public Sector or the Private Sector, State is the
agency that dispossess and impoverishes people. The instrument by which
State executes this action is the Land Acquisition Act, 1894. The precursor
to the LAA had been the Bengal Code of 1824, which was primarily intended
to enable the East India Company to procure land for roads, canals and
other public purposes. ‘Public Purpose’ and ‘Eminent Domain’ are the two
concepts by which LAA provides unlimited powers to the State to acquire
land.
The concept ‘public purpose’ has not been defined in the LAA,
but it reasons that State will have to act to protect, and advance, generally,
the interest of the people. It is also understood as in general interest
of the society as opposed to the interest of an individual. In the LAA,
‘public purpose’ is used in synonymous with a ‘Company’. This ill-defined
concept, practically, gives unlimited powers to the State to determine
what constitutes public purpose.
The doctrine of ‘Eminent Domain’ establishes the supreme right
of the State over not only land, but also natural resources. The power
of eminent domain has been described as the ‘highest and most exact idea
of property remaining in the Government, of in the aggregate body of the
people in their sovereign capacity.’[25]
Strangely enough, law is incapable of dealing with cases of mass
displacement. Law concerns with the rights of individuals whose lands
are to be acquired. Breakdown of communities and mass displacement are
not within this recognition. Consequently, law on compensation is also
not sensitive to the displacement of communities, or large numbers of
people. This results in denial justice to those who are displaced by developmental
projects in communities and large numbers. Usually, Tribals and Dalits
are the victims of this mis-carriage of justice.
While categorising development projects into three, Parasuraman
points out that in industrial, power, mining and port projects, displacement
continues even after the completion of the project, even though in the
initial stages, the displacement would not be large. An industrial or
mining city attracts more people over a period of time because new economic
activities may pick up around the main project. For residential purposes,
Government may acquire surrounding agricultural land at a later stage.
He illustrates the argument with the case of The Bolani Iron Ore
Mines, owned by the SAIL, located in the Keonjhar district of Orissa,
bordering on Bihar. The Bolani mines were explored in the 1930s, and full-scale
operation commenced in the early 1960s. Like all other mines in Orissa,
Bihar and West Bengal, they displaced primarily the Tribal population.
Pp54 Let me quote extensively from the text:
“Prior to 1950, Bolani was a small
village which, together with the adjoining villages Balagoda and Champua,
had 800 inhabitants, according to the 1951 census. In 1961 the population
of these villages had more than doubled, to 1780 and by 1971 the population
had increased to 7277. In 1981, when Bolani and Balagoda merged with the
new SAIL township, the population was 9575. Subsequeltnly, when a hamlet
of Bolani and the Camp of Bolani - which had originally been excluded
- were add to the new town,
the total population of the three villages rose to 11591.
... In 1990, the population of Bolani included four
groups of people: descendants of the original inhabitants (1308), migrants
belonging to Tribal groups similar to those in the original villages (2646),
Tribal and non-Tribal migrants from UP, Bihar and other parts of Orissa,
who settled in autonomous colonies throughout Bolani (9885) and SAIL employees
(5705) in the SAIL housing colony. Pp133
... Mining has been beneficial to the country at
large, but it has adversely affected the Tribal people living in the Bolani
area, and has caused damage to the forest and to the river. The Tribal
people have been deprived of many of their resources: the land, the forest
and the river. In the long run, this will threaten the resources of the
country as a whole. If the current deforestation continues, the scattered
pockets of bare patches in the midst of densely forested areas will become
widespread throughout the forest belt of Orissa and Bihar.
The indigenous Tribal people have not benefited from
the transition from subsistence agriculture to mine-related employment.
These people were least prepared to shift from subsistence cultivation,
which demanded hard labour throughout the year. The Tribal people required
training and mental preparation to adapt to the new work environment,
but the Bolani mines made no effort to improve the skills of the hand-miners.
Instead, the mine authorities effectively segregated the Tribal people
from the non-Tribal workers and eventually excluded them from mining employment.
Most Tribal workers employed as hand-miners are being forced to retire,
while it is impossible for their children to find employment in the mines,
as they are unskilled. Until recently, hand-miners were treated as contract
workers. Thus, they can never hope to live in the Company township. Schools
and health facilities are almost always located in or near the Company
township.
Mining activities have divided the Tribal people
into a number of different groups: permanent, piece-wage and contract
workers in mines, casual wage labourers in mine related activities, cultivators,
families dependent on the sale of wood, and so on. By displacing people
from land and aggravating land alienation, the mines have helped to create
an army of unskilled, cheap labour. The immigration from Orissa and Bihar,
of Tribal and lower caste peasants has further increased the availability
of unskilled labour.
Women in general did not benefit from the mining
activities. Employment in the State-owned mining sector could not provide
employment for women. Women seeking employment can find work as hand-miners
in private firms, but they to face competition in the labour market and
are paid low wages.”
Displacement means impoverishment; benefits of development hardly
reaches the displaced. Even when symbolic absorption takes pace in the
industrial activity, it more as a tactics for containment of resistance
or forced segmentation of labour.
Industry
vs. Worker
This
takes us to the third set of opposites, Industry vs worker, concealed
under the doctrine of the Greater Common Good. Where does we posits mine
workers? Consider the fact that Coal sector alone employs 8,54,068 workers.
Much more should be employed by private companies engaged in the mining
of minor minerals. Who are these workers? Are their rights protected?
Do the mining companies show any responsibility to them beyond the excavation
period?
Mines are among the earliest Industrial occupations in India.
Dilip Simeon makes an interesting articulation of this coming into being
of the early industries and the working class. “The emergence of modern
society has been a process of gigantic social disruption, without which
the construction of industrial capitalism would have been unthinkable.
Emplacement follows upon displacement, ordering is really a disordering.
Modern workplaces, such as steel cities and coal mines, are founded upon
the existence of uprooted people. The places whence the workers came were
rich in symbolic ordinates, but the chief characteristic of the new place
they occupied was subordination - a condition requiring the acceptance
of drudgery and humiliation.”[26]
The above articulation flows from our earlier discussion of displacement.
But adds that the new occupants of the spaces forcefully created by an
industrial establishment are occupying the space in subordination, drudgery
and humiliation. Another set of opposites emerge, that of capital and
labour.
Dilip Simeon tells us the story of the Tata Iron and Steel Company
(TISCO) at Jamshedpur. Its construction
began in 1907, and the first pir-iron was rolled in 1911. In twenty
years, TISCO acquired 20 square miles of land in the east of Singhbhum
district under zamindary right and increased steel production from 3000
tons in 1911 to 4,29,000 tonnes in 1928, and 800,000 tonnes in 1939. TISCO’s
workforce increased from 4,000 in 1907 to 30,135 in 1923-24 after which
the management was seized of the problem of reduction. (pp13)
The population of Jamshedpur, 5672 in 1911, grew to 57,000 in
1921, 84,000 in 1931 and over 200,000 in 1951.... For a long time the
city had no municipal governance. TISCO’s de facto administration was
legalised in 1923 through the constitution
of a Notified Area Committee. Both before and after 1923 municipal services
in the town were undertaken by TISCO and the allied companies. Tatas had
constructed 5483 quarters by 1931, by which time there were also 8150
dwellings built by their employees. These figures had risen to 6284 and
c. 11000 quarters and dwellings in 1938, which, according to management,
accommodated c. 70% of its workforce.” (pp14-15).
In 1929 the steel plant employed about 5000 unskilled and 17,500
skilled and semi-skilled workers. Skilled workers operated cranes, machine
tools, sheet and rolling mills etc., and were employed in tasks such as
fitting, turning, electrical maintenance, smelting, and engine driving.
Semi-skilled workers included boilermen, khalasis (apprentices), hammermen,
firmen, bricklayers, packers, furnacemen, straignteners etc. The unskilled
workers performed the worst paid hard labour. The usual parlance for them
was ‘coolies and rezas’ (female coolies). (pp21)
In 1921, over half the skilled workers in Jamshedpur were immigrants
from outside the province; and many of the semi-skilled workers came from
Orissa and Madras. Nearly half the unskilled workers were natives of Singhbhum.
Rezas formed 35.6% of their number, and were the only women in industrial
employment... Skilled labour was dominated by Muslims, Rajputs, Brahmins,
and Kayasths. Muslims accounted for 21% of their number. Artisan castes
such as Kamars, Lohars, Barhis and Kumhars comprised over 6%, and agricultural
and ‘service’ castes made up the rest. Among the unskilled workers, ‘aboriginals’
and ‘semi-aboriginals’ were the most numerous, with Mundas, Bhuiyans,
Buaris, Hos, Santhals and Oraons making up 22% of the total. Muslims were
9% and other ‘service’ and artisan castes 6%. (pp22)
In Jharia coal fields in 1929. “Ninety-four per cent of the miners,
themselves a quarter of the workforce, belonged to the aboriginal, semi-aboriginal
and low castes. Less than 2% of the miners belonged to the upper castes.
20% of them were women, as were nearly half of the coolies, loading and
carrying coal above and below ground. The number of upper caste coolies
were negligible. Among other skilled occupations the pattern changed only
slightly. 71% of the winding and hauling engine men and firemen belonged
to the first two groups; ie, aboriginal, semi-aboriginals and Depressed
Classes. Supervisory grades were dominated by the upper castes...” (pp25)
Recruitment
in mining
Under
the raising contractor system, the entire production process ranging from
recruitment to the cutting and loading of the coal on to rail wagons was
leased for a contracted rate on the tonnage. Only the mine and the machinery
were provided by the company. The contractors imported labour, paying
train fares plus dadans, or advances. Workers were bound to them until
these were recovered. Some of them were zamindars, which gave them extra-economic
leverage in labour recruitment. (pp26)
Actual recruitment was done by gang-sardars in the villages, who
were linked to the contractors or to companies through a nexus which included
village headmen of pradhans.
There also existed nokrani or service tenancies leased to miners
in some older collieries, which had acquired tracts of non coal-bearing
lands. This phenomenon was marked in Raniganj and Giridh. (pp26)
Dagmar Engels points out that the coal-mining industry (Raniganj)
relied on both seasonal migrants and settled workers.[27] While the majority of workers were recruited locally
from the districts surrounding the mines, many were not full-time mine
workers. They were labour tenants on Company controlled land, and divided
their time between mine and agricultural work. The remainder lived in
colliery lines without independent access to the land.
These lengthy descriptions of labour recruitment and working class
formation in the early coal mine and steel industry clearly establish
the extra-economic measures industrialists used to control workers and
how the caste and ethnic segmentation was effectively utilised to create
a segmented workforce. These strategies are used by industrialists to
date. The system of contract work is practiced widely even now in big
mines as well as in private mines of minor minerals throughout the country.
Mine workers in India are covered under the Mines Act, 1952, which
intends to regulate the working conditions in mines by providing for measures
to be taken for the safety of the workers employed therein and certain
amenities for them. It was amended in 1983 to bring all personnel engaged
solely on work relating to mines within
the scope of the Mines Act. For similar reasons it intends to bring
within the scope of the Mines Act power stations which generate power
used wholly in connection with the mine concerned. The definition of the term “mine” has been broadened to include
quarries and open-cast working and also private railways, aerial rope-ways,
conveyors, etc.
It shows that till 1983, workers engaged in the over-ground activities
and related activities were not covered under the Mines Act, 1952. Strangely,
a clause of exception is incorporated in the amended act to the effect
that subject to certain conditions the Act (excepting a few provisions)
shall not apply to excavations made for prospecting purposes only and
to small quarries. Subject to certain provisions, specifically any mine
engaged in the extraction of kankar, murrum, laterite, boulder, gravel,
shingle, ordinary clay (excluding moulding sand, glass sand and other
mineral sands), ordinary clay (excluding kaolin, china clay, white clay
or fire clay), building stone, (Slate), road metal, earth, fuellers earth,
(marl chalk) and limestone have been removed from the purview of the Act.
This leaves out a very large segment of the workers employed in small
private mines from the benefits of the Act.
In spite of laudable provisions in the Mines Act, all mines are
virtual deathtraps for workers. This is irrespective of the status of
mines - public, private and minor minerals. They are killed and maimed
on a regular basis. Consider the case of one of the organised sector mines
- Coal. During 1998, in various mines under Coal India Ltd. 99 deaths
occurred in 86 fatal accidents. 407 serious injuries took place in 389
accidents. The way in which Public Sector coal industry dealt with the
compensation of victims of Gastliland tragedy, occurred on 26-27 September
1995, killing 64 workers, is illustrative of the value State attaches
to the life of workers. The total compensation given was Rs.4,55,7960,
which works out to be Rs.71,218.13 per person.
Besides, accidents, workers have to face the slow death from occupational
diseases like asbestosis, silicosis, Byssinosis, Pneumoconiosis and other
dust related diseases.
Interestingly, no one is seriously concerned about the fact that
the workers are not organised, that they do not have an organisation to
represent. Right to organise is a fundamental right of any employee. Today,
this is a right lakhs of workers in small mineral sector and most of the
export oriented processing sectors can even dream off. Consequently, mine
workers in the informal sector do not have a say in deciding matters concerning
their wage, working or living conditions. They are exploited to the core,
are treated cruelly and live a subhuman life.
It should also be kept in mind that the organised workers are
the first to be affected by the processes of rationalisation, closure
or privatisation of mines. The Board of Directors of Eastern Coalfileds
Limited (ECL) in its meeting held on 22 October 1998 resolved to close
64 mines of the company with the consequent retrenchment of about 72000
employees of these mines. There are many instances where organised workers
have successfully resisted the privatisation of mines. Government could
not go ahead the privatisation of Kudremukh and Bailadila iron mines because
of the stiff opposition by organised labour organisations in these mines.
The need
for overcoming misrepresentation of opposites
We
have touched upon the three sets of opposites which are raging beneath
the surface of mining for the greater common good. If the first set of
opposites, extraction vs sustainability is inherent in the mining process
itself, the other two sets of opposites, development vs displacement and
industry vs worker are more instrumental in character. The greater common
good is now achieved by effectively suppressing these opposites. The breaking
of the shell of greater common good and its re-articulation is possible
only when we work towards the genuine resolution of these opposites. Who
else can do this other than the social forces who needs the breaking up
of the shell? What is called for is a unity of these forces, namely the victims of development,
exploited workers and those who are concerned about the sovereign and
posterity-oriented use of natural resources.
Can we say that mm&P represents this historic necessity - the coming
together of these crucial social forces? However, the instrumental character
of the last two contradictions leaves room for its misrepresentation.
The onus is on each one of us to decide.
