A double edged sword

It is a small village in Shahapur taluk of Yadagir district of north Karnataka. Till an year ago, this village was known for housing the tombs of three Adil Shah Emperors of Bijapur, including the founder of the dynasty.

The Adil Shahi tombs are located in the premises of a great Sufi saint, Chandah Husaini Gogi. The village of Gogi is 12 kms away from Shahapur.

Apart from the tombs, the village had little else to boast off  but all this changed when the Government of India stumbled upon uranium in the area.

The discovery of high-grade uranium deposits has put the village on the national mining map. The Uranium Corporation of India Limited (UCIL) is all set to mine it. This approval to mine the radioactive mineral comes after four years of exploration and research.

Till the discovery of uranium in 2007 and the UCIL exploration, the village of Gogi was known among historians and research scholars for the presence of the Adil Shahi tombs. The religious inclined knew about the dargah of the Sufi saint,

However, since Gogi is far away from the tourist circuit of Bijapur, very few cared to visit the village which boats of having the tombs of  the first Emperor of the Adil Shah dynasty, Yusuf Adil Shah (1490-1510), Ismail Adil Shah (1510-1534) and Ibrahim Adil Shah (1534-1558).

Gogi shot into limelight when the UCIL secured environmental clearance for the development of  uranium reserves. The corporation has decided to adopt mobile mining technology for the project.

Though Gogi has a very small deposit, it is of very high-grade. Therefore, the corporation has decided to mine the uranium by using mobile retractable mining technology for extraction.

This technology would incorporate feeding, screening, crushing and a processing plant on a single mobile platform.

The uranium mine will have a life of 15 years during which it will supply fuel to nuclear power plants in southern India. The total deposits is put at 4,250 tonnes. It is classified as high grade with 0.1 per cent uranium content. This grade is as good as the uranium deposit in Meghalaya. The Gogi uranium is reckoned to be better than the uranium discovered at Jadugoda in Jharkhand which is considered  is inferior with only 0.05-0.06 per cent uranium content.

However, villagers of Gogi are now fearful of  the exposure to uranium. The mine and mills, which would be spread over 40 hectares, had now met with vehement opposition by villagers, NGOs and elected representatives.

The UCIL will process the ore at its plant to be set up at Diggi, six km from the mining area of Gogi.
Gogi lies in the Bhima river basin and the area is primarily dependent on agriculture. It is irrigated by the Shahapur branch canal.

Once the ore is extracted, it would be milled and further processed using the alkali leaching method. This method has been found to be most suitable for uranium extraction. The resultant sodium diuranate, which is also called yellow cake, would be transported 250 kiometres to Nuclear Fuel Complex in Hyderabad for further processing.

The UCIL has estimated that it needs at least 238 acres, including the water bodies and Umaroddi and Muhadapur reserve forests, to set up the plant apart from supply of one million litres of water per day and 8100 KVA of power from Gulbarga electricity supply company (GESCOM). The plant will employ about 361 people directly. The cost of the project: about Rs. 550 crores.

However, in all likelihood, we may end up hearing about Gogi all the more in the coming days as uranium mining is classified as highly hazardous. Moreover, a vast amount of rock has to be mined if uranium is to be extracted. As uranium is highly radio active, even the remnants called tailings will have the character of emitting radio active waves and they can retain upto 80 per cent of the radio activity of uranium.

Moreover, disposal of tailings is bound to be a major headache. Besides, uranium ore occurs with pyrites which, when exposed to air and water, transforms into sulphuric acid The acid has the propensity to penetrate into the acquifers (water sources) and it is highly toxic and can contaminate water.

Though a public hearing on the project was held under the auspices of the District Commissioner of Yadagir district in November 2010, many safety and health issues still remain, claims the villagers. The Environmental Impact Assessment report (EIA) report too appears to have raised more questions than providing answers. 

By the way, waste from uranium exploratory mining has already and is still being released into Kelaginakere lake. Though the waters of the lake are not used for drinking, it is utilised by industries, shops and hotels. Besides, people use it for washing clothes and even bathing, agriculture and for cattle. Villagers claims that the water is already contaminated and that it is causing skin diseases and allergy.

Gogi has also reported many complaints of fluorosis. However, health officials claim that this has nothing to do with uranium exploration. They say that 60 percent of the land in Yadagir district has rich content of fluoride and this is the major cause of fluorosis.

In an interesting development, the Ministry of Environment and  Forests, Government of India, has “closed” the project file relating to mining plant at Gogi. It has also delisted it from the pending list of projects.

A letter by Director of Ministry of Environment and Forests, Dr. Saroj. to the Uranium Corporation of India Ltd on December 28, 2012,  states that the Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) has pointed out that the committee on public hearing looking into the issue of setting up the plant is headed by the Assistant Commissioner of Yadagir though he is not the competent authority to do so.

As per the law and as per the  provisions of the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification of 2006, the Deputy Commissioner should preside over the public hearing committee and not any other officer. Hence, the hearing is deemed not valid and it has to be conducted afresh according to the law laid down.

The letter says as the public hearing on the project was postponed without following the mandated procedures, the Ministry has decided to close the project file.

A fusion or art, poetry and music

What do you say to a work of art that is a superb fusion of art,  poetry and classical music. Such a work of art  took off in the Deccan and it was the product of a royal love for literature, painting and music.

Though the royals were Muslims, they loved classical music and commissioned works on music. One of the Emperors belonging to the Muslim Kingdom was himself a notable poet, musician and painter. He also wrote a book on music and also had a hand in illustrating it.

This art form, today forms a classic of the bygone era, a period when art, architecture and literature flourished and it gave birth to several fine arts.

Though the art form declined after the Kingdom was annexed by the Mughals, it still continues to inspire awe and amazement, so much so tat interest in this art today has reached a high not only in India but also in the West.

This is the Ragamaala or Ragamala paintings and this style of painting originated in the Adil Shahi Kingdom of Bijapur in the 16^th century. It then spread to the other Muslim Kingdoms of the Deccan-Golconda, Berar, Ahmednagar and Bidar.

Apart from Bijapur and the Deccan, the Raagamala type of paintings were extensively resorted to by the Rajputs and other royal dynasties of Rajasthan and to some extent Gujarat.

However, the earliest Ragamaala painting belong to the Adi Shahi dynasty when Ibrahim Adil Shah, the second, was the Emperor.

The Ragamaala is one of the most unique styles of paintings. It combines Raga-which means melody and Maala, a garland-into a painting.

There are mainly six ragas that are used in such type of paintings. These six ragas which are sung during the seasons of the year are  Bhairava, Dipika, Sri, Malkaunsa, Megha and Hindola. They represent summer, monsoon, autumn, early winter, winter and spring.

The ragas are also related to different parts of the day like the dawn, morning, afternoon, evening, night and midnight. The Ragamala painting usually describes the story of a man and his beloved (known as nayaka and nayaki, hero or heroine) along with the time of the day and the season. Along with the ragas, the  paintings also depict the wives of ragas who are called raginis,  their sons ragaputra and daughters ragaputris.

Thus each painting has a story to tell and the story is narrated with through art, poetry and classical music. The Ragamala paintings come across as a series of illustrative paintings based on Ragamaala or the Garland of Ragas, depicting various Indian ragas.

These paintings today represent a classical example of the amalgamation of art, poetry and classical music in medieval India.

Ragamala paintings are today named as Pahari Ragamala, Rajasthan or Rajput Ragamala, Deccan Ragamala, and Mughal Ragamala depending on the province in which they are painted.

In these paintings, each raga is personified by a colour, mood, a verse describing a story of a hero and heroine. It also paints the season and the time of day and night in which a particular raga is to be sung, More astonishingly, a majority of the paintings are addressed to specific Hindu deities attached with ragas, like Bhairava or Bhairavi to Shiva, Sri to Devi.

The classification of the ragas in such paintings is based on

Sangeeta Ratnakara, an important 12th century AD text on music. This mentions for the first time ever the presiding deity of each raga.

The Ragamala paintings owe a lot to Kshemakarna, a priest of Rewa in Central India who in 1570  compiled a poetic text on the Ragamala in Sanskrit. It was in this text that he first described six principal ragas—Bhairava, Malakoshika, Hindola, Dipaka, Sri, and megha-each having five Raginis and eight Ragaputras, except Raga Sri, which has six Raginis and nine Ragaputras, thus making Ragamala a closeted family of 86 members

Most of the Ragamala paintings tend to stick to the principles enunciated by Kshemakarna. The first such painting was by the Adil Shahi emperor, Ibrahim Adil Shah, the second. Apart from being an excellent painter and illustrator, he was also a renowned musician and composer. He personally illustrated his Ragamaala paintings and also built Nauraspur-a city which he wanted to base on the nine rasas of music (This city, which was never completed, is in ruins adjacent to Bijapur and near Torvi).

To this Emperor goes the credit of  making Ragamaala a miniature painting. Each painting is accompanied by a brief caption or poem that describes the mood of the raga, most frequently devotion and love – in its various aspects.

Ragamala painting flourished throughout the royal courts of India but it went into a rapid decline after the advent of the British in India.

The earliest Ragamaala paintings are from the city of Bijapur in Karnataka. They were painted for Ibrahim Adil Shah II of Bijapur.

One of the best books on Ragamaala is Nujum-al-Ulum or the Stars of Sciences which is a  superbly illustrated encyclopedia dated 1570 was painted in Bijapur. It is presently in Chester Beatly Library in Dublin, Ireland.  

The book contains a total of 876 miniature paintings. Ibrahim owned the book and it later went out of the Adil Shahi collection and today it is in England. Both Ibrahim (1580-1627) and his predecessor, Ali Adil Shah, the first (1558-1580) were patrons of art and literature. Ibrahim commissioned the Nujum sometime in 1590.

The book has illustrations on astronomy and this is traced to a Turkish manuscript by Fuzuli (1483-1556) the Ottoman poet, writer and thinker whose real name is Muhammad bin Suleyman.

Apart from Bijapur, the other prominent Deccani centres of Ragamaala were Ahmadnagar, Golkonda and Hyderabad.

Blue, red and pink were the favourite colours of Deccan painters and illustrators and the designing patterns have a geometric thrust and tend to be highly symmetrical.