Politics, Money, and Violence. Ethnography of the Coal Mafia in the State of Jharkhand, India
Politics, Money, and Violence. Ethnography of the Coal Mafia in the State of Jharkhand, India
Referent
Thibault Lukacs (EHESS Paris)
Datum und Zeit
1. April 2026, 16:00 - 17:30
Ort
Rämistrasse 59, 8001 Zürich, Raum RAA-E-08
Inhalt
During this event, Thibault Lukacs will present a short documentary film depicting the everyday life of members of a mafia organization and the labour force they employ, operating in India’s largest coal-mining basin. There, since the 1970s, a mafia family has exercised control over large-scale coal trafficking, protection and racketeering, and the diversion of public funds. Through the coercive control of industrial labour via trade-union bodies, and subsequently through an entry into regional parliamentary politics, this organization has secured its politico-criminal hold by interpenetrating key institutions of the mining society: the state-owned mining company, private firms, and the police. The mafia has since prospered through, by, and within the environmental destruction it has helped to sustain, as the Jharia coalfield is also the site of the world’s largest and longest-running underground coal fire.
Organisation: Indologie