Gangs of Wasseypur 3

By Manuwant Choudhary

The film Gangs of Wasseypur is no exaggeration. Its real.

Ofcourse, when you live in a dark corner of India you may think its all normal.

I watched the two part film by Anurag Kashyap and chose to watch in Bihar....to get the full audience ambience as well.

Gangs of Wasseypur in Delhi or anywhere else will not be the same.

I have been to Dhanbad, India's coal belt,  several times as a reporter.

The first time was to cover Jharia - an entire town whose belly is on fire.

I met an expert and he explained how the sand mafia were responsible for the fire...the sand tunnels had never been filled but the money pocketed !

The fire rages wild and homes collapse suddenly as the ground beneath cave in.

You can wear a white shirt in the morning and in an hour it will grey with coal soot.

I have also covered mining tragedies where several miners lose their lives being trapped in the mines.

But on my journeys I also noticed that in Jharkhand if you take any inner road you will come across a mine and you will also see people carrying coal from them on bicycles.

These are the thousands of open cast  illegal mines - abandoned by the Indian government after they nationalised the coal sector.

Coal India chose to mine only the profitable mines.

So essentially its the mafia and maoists who took charge of the illegal mines and use this as an economic base to wage wars against India.

Had India's mining sector not been nationalised even smaller mines would have private owners who would pay royalty to the government.

I liked Gangs of Wasseypur for its originality and also for showing the violence as it is.

The politician, the police and the courts.

The wars.

Someone asked me the other day if India had a future?

And I said  No.

They looked back at me sad.

Gangs of Wasseypur 3 is being played out in New Delhi.

The Coalgate scam.

Even after nationalisation how top industries can get a coal block allotted without an auction.

I am not an Anna team member and so don't carry oversized Indian flags on my shoulders but seeing all  the drama and the levels to which we as a people have gone down, I am only being honest.

India needs to be saved.