Brent Lewin Photography

Rat Hole Mining

It’s estimated that half of India’s coal is mined in the Jaintia Hills of the economically depressed state of Meghalaya. To protect environmental degradation the Supreme Court banned commercial logging in Meghalaya in 1981. With this new law in place locals soon turned to digging on their property for coal. Nearly 20 years after coal was first discovered the Jaintia Hills – an area once touted as ‘the Scotland of the East’ – the landscape is now scarred with mining pits and the roads clogged with endless lines of trucks transporting coal to neighbouring Bangladesh. With such a large industry, coal extraction in Meghalaya remains completely unregulated and mining is practiced in an unscientific manner that has been coined ‘rat hole’ mining. The absence of state regulation and the lack of strict enforcement of labor laws has also encouraged local entrepreneurs to exploit the cheapest sources of labor: children. An estimated 70,000 children under the age of 16 are believed to be working in the Jaintia Hills.

A labourer dumps a load of coal in the Jaintia Hills.
   
Mountains of coal are pictured at a depot in the Jaintia Hills.
   
A miner prepares to carry a load of coal to the surface in the Jaintia Hills.
     
  
A view from the bottom of a mine is seen in the Jaintia Hills.
   
A boy emerges from a rat hole in the Jaintia Hills.
   
Tattered shoes of a labourer are pictured at a mining site in the Jaintia Hills.
     
  
Coal India signage is pictured in Kolkata.
  
A young miner poses for a photo before heading off into a rathole in the Jaintia Hills.
  
A miner is reflected in contaminated water at a mining site in the Jaintia Hills. Due to its high sulphur content, the coal from the Jaintia Hills is a major pollutant. Coal is commonly dumped on roadways and near bodies of water which has contaminated the water that miners depend on for their sustenance.
     
  
Coal trucks wait in line near the Bangladeshi border in the Jaintia Hills. Many of these vehicles return to India carrying children. In most cases brokers persuade the children's families with the promise of good wages and then sold to the mining mafia in Meghalaya. The price for a child ranges from $50 to $75. The children must then work for free, with their labour considered as repayment for the debt they owe.
   
Coal miners take a break after emerging from a rat hole in the Jaintia Hills.
  
Coal miners pose for a portrait at their camp in the Jaintia HIlls.
     
  
A machine operator oversees a load of coal being lifted to the surface in the Jaintia Hills.
   
A labourer carries a load of coal out from a mine in the Jaintia Hills.
  
A young labourer is pictured at a mining site in the Jaintia Hills.
     
  
   
Sumitra Rai poses with a photo of her son Sundar at her home in Dharan, Nepal. Sundar left for the coal mines of Meghalaya when he was 13 years old.
  
Nepali coal miners pose for a photo in the Jaintia HIlls.
     
  
School teacher Vivek Sharma poses for a photo at the Marigold school in the Jaintia HIlls. Marigold is a makeshift school providing basic education for almost 80 kids in the mining community in the Jaintia Hills. It is the only school of its kind in an area with hundreds of thousands of labourers.
  
Coal miners hang out at a cafe in Ladrymbai, the main town of the Jaintia Hills.
   
Coal trucks wait in line near the Bangladeshi border in the Jaintia Hills. Many of these vehicles return to India carrying children. In most cases brokers persuade the children's families with the promise of good wages and then sold to the mining mafia in Meghalaya. The price for a child ranges from $50 to $75. The children must then work for free, with their labour considered as repayment for the debt they owe.
     
  
A young miner crawls through a rathole in the Jaintia Hills. Tunnels two feet in height are made into the seam sideways to extract coal. The miners crouch into these tunnels, equipped with only a flash light and a pick-axe to chip away at coal.
  
A young labourer carries coal on his head in the Jaintia Hills.
   
Coal miners huddle around a fire to keep warm in the Jaintia HIlls.
     
  
A miner takes a break inside a pit in the Jaintia Hills.