Vol. 10 No. 4 (2023)
Journal Space and Culture, India

Research

Indian Coal Mines in Hundred Years Old Fiction and Now: A Geographical Analysis

Published 2023-03-29

  • Payel Ghosh

Payel Ghosh
Department of Geography, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi-221005

Abstract

This study attempts to construe the first-ever coalmine-oriented Bengali fiction from a social, historical, and geographic perspective. Sailjananda Mukhopadhyay wrote Koylakuthi (the coal miners’ office) in 1922, representing Bengal’s coal mines. This study aims to reconstruct the miners’ society from the early 20th Century with narratives from this story and examine the societal challenges and changes a hundred years apart. A comparative study of the mining geo-cultural landscape of the 1920s Bengal and its contemporary counterpart is carried out. Changed geography, technology, and community are observed. And it reveals that areal expansion of the coalfields has increased production, and technological advancement has increased the safety and security of the miner class. However, the labour structure, class and caste hierarchy, and patriarchal mindset have hardly changed.

Keywords

Extractive Industry, Caste system, Bengali Literature, Colliery, India

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