About this Event
Thursday, 16 May, 6pm BST / 10:30pm IST
In the winter of 2023, the Silkiyara tunnel project in the eco-sensitive mountainous area of the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand collapsed, with 41 workers trapped inside the tunnel for over two weeks. The Indian government’s own efforts and the efforts of Dutch experts proved fruitless, finally it was the labour and work of rat-hole miners that saved the lives of the trapped workers. Rat-hole mining is banned but continues to be practised in India.
The ’Rat Trap’ documents the huge human and environmental costs of rat-hole mining in the state of Jharkhand, one of the most coal and mineral rich regions in India. It is a film about the rat-hole coal miners who risk their lives to earn a livelihood. While doing this activity, many mishaps go unreported, which we cannot see from the outside. The lives of the miners are devastating enough that they are called thieves in their own house, and during a case of mine collapse, they cannot even shed a tear or claim their loved ones’ body. This film narrates their daily life.
Many of these workers are from India’s indigenous Adivasi tribal communities, who continue to be systematically displaced from their ancestral lands and dispossessed of their sustainable lives and livelihoods under the country’s elitist and exclusive industrial development policies. The loss of their knowledgeable stewardship of their lands and forests is also having massive environmental implications in the region and beyond.
The project of extractivism in Adivasi regions began ever since the British East India Company set its foot in India. It was continued by the British government and after 1947 by the Indian government. Since the 1990s, it has increasingly become a state–corporate project. During all this time, the Adivasi communities have stiffly resisted the forcible acquisition of their lands and forests and the minerals that lie beneath them.
Following the screening, we will hear from Rupesh K Sahu, the film director and three commentators on the broader context of mining, Adivasi land rights and dispossession and their long resistance to their exploitation and oppression. Following the presentations, our speakers will take questions from the audience.
SPEAKERS
Rupesh Kumar Sahu, Director of Rat Trap, Akhra Films, Ranchi, India
Kumar Preetam Puri, Maki-Munda Indigenous Studies Society, SOAS, London
Sanjay Paul Kujur, Adivasi Scholar
Shruti Iyer, Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, Oxford, and Member, London Mining Network
ATTENDING THE EVENT
This event is free to attend.
We encourage people to attend the event in person at:
Room 642, Institute of Education, UCL 20 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AL
However, if you are not able to do so, you can also join online. Please let us know when you register if you would like to attend online and we will send you the link.
CO-HOSTS
India Labour Solidarity (UK)
Maki-Munda Indigenous Studies Society, SOAS, London
London Mining Network, London
International Solidarity for Academic Freedom in India (InSAF India)
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
IOE, UCL's Faculty of Education and Society, 20 Bedford Way, London, United Kingdom
GBP 0.00