When the sun sets early in Meghalaya’s Jaintia hills, the scenic beauty resembles a Monet painting. In this picturesque surreal beauty lay the dark, ugly truth of minor coal miners and the harsh reality of human trafficking. The sordid tales of bonded slavery and exploitation remain the unheard voices of the neglected Eastern part of India.
In the biting cold of Meghalaya where the hilly roads are covered in rain, most part of the year, one can find the innumerable coal-blackened faces of children who are employed to do the coal mining in those areas. The children are preferably employed in this business as mining in these areas requires manual recovery of coal.
The coal can only be obscured from the deepest recesses of the Earth, through tunnel-like passages. These are dangerously narrow and can be traversed by children only. Since this process of coal mining resembles the scurrying of rats, it is also known as rat-hole mining.
Since the 1980s, rat-hole mining has been the practised mining technique in Meghalaya. In this process of mining, deep vertical shafts of narrow horizontal tunnels of 3 to 4 feet in diameter are dug, and the miners are sent down to extract coal 100 to 150-metre depth down below. In some cases, it is even deeper.
Children, because of their small bodies, can access these spaces easier than an adult. Since the coal seams are very thin in Meghalaya, rat-hole mining is considered to be an economically better method of coal extraction rather than the removal of rocks from the hilly terrains of the area.
Most of these children who are employed for the rat hole mining are those who have found themselves in Meghalaya through the borders and have been smuggled or bought into the place via an agent. Many of the trafficked children are from poor families and from the neighbouring states of Bihar, Tripura, Nagaland and countries like Nepal and Bangladesh.
Rat-hole mining has been banned for the last eight years. But the practice, which has been termed unsafe and unscientific, is still rampant in Meghalaya owing to a dystopian nexus between the local politicians, bureaucrats and the deadly coal barons.
One must note that it has been difficult to ban this process as the revenue generated from it amounts to crores of rupees. The moneyed coal barons own land and properties across Meghalaya and, in turn, work hand in hand with the authorities.
This dangerous form of mining has so far trapped and killed many miners. The deadly incidents remain a horrific reminder of the loss of humanity. It also proves how the government has not been successful in eradicating this practice to date.
Suleman, who found his way into Bangalore after escaping from the clutches of the mining employer said, “I decided to flee the day my friend, with whom I had joined the mining group, fell and broke his leg. Another friend’s head cracked into two inside the small tunnel. I didn’t want the same fate of becoming invalid as I don’t have the resources to even get proper treatment. Now, I work for a grocery store and earn well. It is better and god has saved me.”
On 13 December 2018, in Meghalaya, 15 miners died when an illegal rat hole’s narrow tunnels were dug into the ground, as it got flooded by water from the Lytein river nearby. In the wake of the accident, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) fined the state government Rs 100 crore for illegal coal mining.
But till date, trafficked children are sent regularly into the mines for more coal and more money. The rat-hole-mined coal, that is sold, is often smeared with dark leftover traces of the blood and sweat of children who don’t know the way back home.
Mohua Chinappa is an author and a podcaster of a show called The Mohua Show. Views expressed are personal.
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