The Centre’s decision to mine uranium at any cost from Meghalaya, after deliberations with local leaders proved futile, is a troubling benchmark in India’s history of resource extraction. Khasi groups have opposed the exploration and extraction of large deposits in Domiasiat and Wahkaji since the 1980s. Recently, the Union Environment Ministry issued an office memorandum (OM) exempting the extraction of atomic, critical, and strategic minerals from public consultation. Local groups have already condemned the OM-based route; one associated with the ruling party has called on the Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council to use its Sixth Schedule powers to protect tribal rights. OMs are executive instruments that erode procedural safeguards and are issued without independent scrutiny. In this case, the OM reduces stewarding communities to bystanders in decisions with profound consequences for them. This is not the first time that the government has moved with force on the matter of uranium. The Uranium Corporation of India Limited has conducted operations in Jharkhand’s Singhbhum district for decades. While hearings for expansion or new mines were met with protests over radiation exposure and loss of livelihoods, villagers have also alleged that the Corporation issued notices in unfamiliar languages and disregarded objections. For tribal communities, the experience has reinforced the perception that their land remains a ‘resource frontier’ for the ‘Rest of India’.
In its conversations with the local leaders, the state should have respected their refusal, but has instead signalled that ‘no’ is no longer an acceptable answer. Uranium mining is highly polluting and can irreversibly alter the landscape. This is why free, prior, and informed consent, as under global norms, is essential. If such consent is unavailable, it behoves the same state that instituted the democratic protections to stop treating uranium as the only route to national security or development and to weigh other deposits, substitutes or even power-generating strategies. Now, the communities might consider challenging the OM’s validity in courts, banking on precedents such as Niyamgiri (2013), and invoking protections under the Fifth and Sixth Schedules. Second, the Ministry must withdraw its OM: by exempting the mining of several minerals from public consultation, it sets a precedent that can reshape mining governance across India. Finally, if local protests intensify, the Centre should once more respond with dialogue: coercion, while achieving its goal in the short-term, will only breed resentment later. It is obligated not only to maintain order but also to ensure that constitutional protections are realised in practice.