Karanpura Must Live

The story of a campaign to save a landscape

- Bulu Imam

Bulu Imam knew, well before it was accepted by the world, that coal mining in biodiversity hotspots was not just unsustainable, but downright dangerous. He spoke of water shortages and climate effects long before scientists raised their global alarms. After a lifetime of battling the dismal ones, principally led by the World Bank and its camp followers, he has now dedicated his life to documenting the truth behind the subterfuge that allowed, indeed encouraged, profiteers to pillage India’s life-support infrastructures… lakes, aquifers, wetlands, rivers, grasslands and forests.

As I recall it was no less dramatic when I walked across the Bachhra opencast coal mine between the quaint Anglo-Indian town of McCluskiegunj and Hendegir on the Damodar river in the shadow of the North Karanpura ranges with the elephant Tara and British travel writer, Mark Shand, at the end of the rainy season of 1987. Little did I know then that the North Karanpura Opencast Coalfields Project was going to be responsible for similar mines like this across my beloved valley of the Damodar river, where I had roamed since my boyhood days and later chased notorious rogue elephants.

One day as I was sitting in my office at my desk, my maternal uncle, Bishop George Saupin S. J., who was then Bishop of Hazaribagh and Daltongunj, tapped on my shoulder and said, “Laddie, have you heard about the North Karanpura opencast coal mines project?” I had just started the INTACH Chapter in Hazaribagh that year (1987). I soon learnt how relatives of a Jesuit priest in Hazaribagh had obtained information regarding coal in the Damodar river valley and through intermediaries, had engineered a deal between an Australian mining company and the government of India.