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Arindam Mukherjee
India is the third-largest coal-producing nation, and Coal India Limited (CIL) is the biggest company in the world in terms of coal production. With 510,000 employees, CIL contributes 87% of the total coal production of the country. In the post-independence era, coal has been the most important fossil fuel in building the Indian economy. Far from cities, coalfields are typified by small villages on hilly landscapes with greyish black roads. An atmosphere of class difference, socio-economical oppression, and a high degree of pollution makes the miners go through a harrowing experience day in and day out. In addition to these problems, the brisk illegal mining is eating up the market of the legal business, causing further sufferings to all the stakeholders. The government mostly chooses to alienate itself from this situation, paving the way for the political parties and their respective labor unions to fish in the shallow waters. The miseries are too many and have become a part of the social reality in here. The miners have accepted this condition as their struggle for existence and, maybe, as their fate. It is a shameful paradox that these key men for modernization should have to face such crippling circumstances. Fire and poisonous smoke surround the small dusty coal town of Jharia, India. The town is steadily turning into a living inferno as mine fires creep through the underground coal seams, regularly bursting open on the surface. The days are hot and smelly here, bringing with them drafts of heavy, humid nauseating air blowing past the burning orange hollows. Most trees have burnt down, their dry stubs adding texture to the grey, dry soil. Grasslands have become scarce. With so much pollution in the air, 60% of Jharia's population experiences respiratory diseases like asthma, breathlessness, and allergy. Every year, houses collapse, and the roads sink. In the last five years, at least one person has died every year in the fire-induced landslides. It is only a matter of time before the burning annihilates the whole town, consigning its citizens to metaphorically living in Hell. Life in Jharia goes on, underground as well as above, while the coal miners gradually fade from the consciousness of common men.
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