Tremors in India's Mining Fields

Abstract

This is a set of thirteen very scholarly and critical essays about mining in India focused on three states -Chhattisgarh (4), Orissa ( 5 ) and Jharkhand(3). The book deals with displacement due to mining, mainly bauxite, iron ore, uranium and coal, in primarily Schedule V tribal areas causing displacement without Fully Informed Prior Consent (FIPC), specifically required by UN bodies when displacing Zndigenous or Tribal people. Laws in different countries vary: in the US, gold, uranium or diamonds found under a man's land belongs to him. In India due to British colonial laws, it belonged to the 'crown' (like the Kohinoor diamond). Rakesh Kalshian in his Preface uses the analogy of the Hollywood film Blood Diamond about poor ordinary people slaving in mines for diamonds used to fund a civil war in Sierra Leone. "Echoes of the Blood Diamond are now reverbating in the hollows of India's mineral-rich regions. Chasing its dreams of becoming an economic superstar, India has opened its rich mineral pits for exploitation by private capital. Auspiciously, . . .for the ambitions of the mineral-rich states.. . being left behind in the race for economic prosperity, they have rolled out the red carpet for private investors, domestic as well as foreign, in the hope of creating a modern, prosperous edifice on the foundations of their mineral endowments"(p 5).