Paper short abstract:

This paper diverts from the common perspective that local politics is a subset of national or regional politics, by examining how people at the coal face engage with this mineral at the micropolitical level in eastern India.

Paper long abstract:

Coal in India carries different values and meanings for different actors. Consequently, the politics of coal is manifested in multiple forms at multiple levels. Whereas the extraction of coal is accomplished both by larger resource politics involving a narrative of energy crisis and a need for ensuring resource security, people at the grassroots level - workers, security forces, the displaced, administrators, revolutionaries and a wide range of other actors - engage with the micropolitics of coal. Diverting from the perspective that local politics is a subset of national or regional politics, this paper examines the everyday micropolitics of coal in eastern India. In particular, it analyses three cases: the ways in which mining companies bypass due process to get access to the coal; the moral claims over the resource made by the indigenous and the poor; and the ways local politicians, gangsters, Maoists and businessmen exert control over coal trade and transport for monetary benefits. Methodologically we draw on ethnographic engagements across coalfields in eastern India to untangle everyday and long-term trajectories of coal politics. The paper shows the fluid and often interchangeable roles at the coalface of actors often considered each other's opposites; the revolutionary groups strive to become mining contractors, the contractors function as politicians to mediate claims, and the politicians don the role of revolutionaries. In this fluid setting, the actors of the micropolitics of coal are influenced by outside forces to different degrees, and are yet able to reimagine resource politics to their own advantage.