Editor’s Note: In the following discussion, Maidaanam Managing Editor Chris Chekuri interviews Basav Biradar about his short film, In Search of Gold (2022). A link to the film is shared at the beginning of the interview.
Christopher Chekuri is Associate Professor of History at San Francisco State University. Basav Biradar is a writer, researcher, and non-fiction filmmaker based in Bengaluru, India.
The Kolar Gold Fields (KGF) are located in eastern Karnataka, near the state borders with Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. References to gold mining in the region go back thousands of years. However, it was in 1880, when the British firm John Taylor & Sons set up a modern mining operation, that KGF became known as one of the deepest and most productive gold mines in the world. It’s urban center, Robertsonpet, served as the first planned industrial township in India.
Mining was extremely dangerous and exploitative work. The company depended heavily on migrant laborers recruited from Tamil Dalit communities for its operations. This gave KGF a unique culture of its own. KGF workers played crucial roles in the development of Indian labor movements, unionization efforts, and anticaste struggles. In 1956, the mines were nationalized by the Indian state and operated for another 45 years. When they were finally closed in 2001, due to falling gold prices and environmental concerns, many of their workers relocated to Bangalore.
Today, KGF is characterized by its desolate post-industral landscape as well as lingering traces of its miners. Memories of wealth and violence in KGF have inspired a number of recent films. Some, like the blockbuster Kannada action film series KGF (2018, 2022), have broken global box office records. Others, like the Tamil-language period drama Thangalaan (2024), have received critical interest. While these films are set in KGF, they offer imaginative – and at times highly sensational – accounts of the area.
Basav Biradar’s In Search of Gold (2022) is a short documentary that stands apart from these trends. The film captures the nostalgia, memories, and sober realities facing the inhabitants of KGF today.
Chris: Your work on this documentary seems to be part of a larger interest in the history of the Deccan. What about the Deccan intrigues you?
Basav: I was born and brought up in Bijapur. Unfortunately, we were never taught about the history of our region in all our schooling life. So, when I started discovering the Deccan in my adult life, I was smitten by a desire to learn more about it. I think the Deccan’s history has more complicated multiplicities than elsewhere and I believe more exposure to Deccan’s history – whether its literary, economic, cultural or political – can open us up to more progressive possibilities as a society.
Chris: Can you tell Maidaanam a little bit about the Kolar mines? What were you trying to capture in the film?
Source: Author
Basav: I think KGF is a severe example of the extractive colonialism instituted by the British. The mines served as a testing ground for their future colonial capitalist projects across Asia and Africa.
In the initial decades of the 20th century, before the South African mining industry took over, Kolar Gold Field (KGF) mines were the deepest in the world. The Gifford shaft went up to 11,000 feet. Even today there exists a network of 1400 kms of underground tunnels in KGF.
The scary depths of the mines inspired the Tamil phrase “keelay ponal ponam, melay vandal panam” (Going down, death threatens, coming up money beckons) used by the underground workers. There are also several songs about the working conditions which were sung by the miners.
KGF was technically under the jurisdiction of the Mysore princely state but almost no Kannada-speaking people from the Mysore region worked in the mines. This triggered my early research questions. I investigated the unique ways in which the British navigated the presence of the Mysore princely state in KGF.
A study of the mining industry in KGF also reveals the British practice of exploiting the occupational caste hierarchy. They did this to establish their workforce and create new industrial townships.
Chris: The documentary is a story of the use and disuse of what was clearly a massive mine that lasted from 1890s to 1960s. Why was it important for you to recover this story of use and disuse in this moment?
Basav: As a student of history, I found it surprising that this KGF is not often foregrounded in popular narratives of Mysore and the surrounding areas. This surprise was compounded by the ignorance of local history in the recent Kannada superhit film, KGF (2018). It used the name of the place but did not bother to tell the story of the people who toiled in the mines to serve the interests of the British at first, and then subsequently the Indian nation-state.
Although these were the initial triggers for my research, it soon became evident to me that there were multiple threads and complicated intersections to the KGF story. For instance, I had not thought of the aspect of religion, of the nuances of diversity in the homogenous society of an Industrial township, and most importantly, the various political and cultural movements that thrived in the area.
Source: Author
Chris: I was struck by the ‘post-industrial’ or ‘industrial wasteland’ quality of the documentary in Kolar gold fields, something one doesn’t usually associate with India. There were dilapidated cranes, lifts, and other industrial remnants rusting away in disrepair. I suppose one might say that it evokes a sense of nostalgia for a lost era. Can you tell us about the visuals and the visual narrative you put together?
Basav: Yes, when I first visited KGF, I drove around the erstwhile mining areas. I was stunned by the visual landscape created by the massive rusting equipment. Although only about 80 kms from Bangalore, KGF suddenly seemed like a place stuck in a time warp.
I wanted to try and translate this experience to the audience of my film. I remember at the time I had perused David Lynch’s photography of post-industrial towns for inspiration. My approach to the project was ethnographic in nature and hence, I employed the methods of visual anthropology.
In screenings, I have found that people who have lived through the prime of KGF are affected by nostalgia whereas people learning about it for the first time tend to bring in fresh perspectives of viewing. So, I wouldn’t say nostalgia is the dominant evocation of the visual narrative of the film.
I think the film raises questions around the failure of the post-colonial state, failure of resistance movements, and the continued indifference of governments towards such sites.
Chris: Within this narrative and nostalgia of deindustrialization, you also capture the iconography of labor politics on the buildings—Marx, Engels, and Ambedkar and so on. What more can you tell us about your research into the politics of the place?
Source: Author
Basav: If you think of it, KGF was the ideal place for both Communist politics and anti-caste politics. The majority of the population who worked in the mines were people from oppressed castes.
People like R. Venkataraman, who went to become the president of India, and K.C. Reddy, who became the first chief Minister of the post-colonial Mysore state, started their careers in the trade union politics of KGF. The remains of worker movements chaperoned by trade unions of different political hues can be seen all over KGF.
One of the most fascinating facts about KGF is that the conversion of lower caste people to Buddhism started here in 1905, much earlier to Dr Ambedkar’s clarion call for Dalits to convert to Buddhism. In fact, Dr Ambedkar visited KGF in 1954 and was honoured by the people.
Source: Author
KGF was the first constituency in Mysore state to elect a leader from the SCF (Schedule Caste Federation). CPI (M), SCF/RPI, DMK, AIADMK, and INC, have been the main political parties in KGF until recent years.
Once the mines closed in 2001, trade union politics died down and became restricted to unionizing in the neighboring BEML (formerly, Bharat Earth Movers Limited). Unlike the Communist narratives we are familiar with, unionizing in KGF had overlaps and intersections with the self-respect movement of Periyar, the Ambedkarite movement, and Tamil language movements. Hence, the visual landscape of KGF, especially because there has not been a proliferation of modern development in the town, is dotted with iconography of Ambedkarite movements, Communism, and Buddhism.
My pending KGF project is to research the trade union history in KGF and to investigate the reasons for its eventual failure.
Chris: One of your experts in the film called the Kolar mine operation a “Company State.” What does that mean? And did the subsequent takeover of the site by the Indian state change the character of this “Company State?”
Basav: That expert is the historian Janaki Nair. Her book, “Miners and Millhands – Work, Culture and Politics in Princely Mysore” was a study of the working conditions of miners in KGF and millworkers in the textile mills of Bangalore. By coining the phrase, “Company State,” she alluded to the fact that despite being in territory governed by the princely state of Mysore, the laws in KGF were different. They were dictated by the British mining company.
Representatives of the company were part of the Mysore State’s representative assembly. They influenced the laws that were implemented in KGF. For instance, in KGF, the burden of proof of theft was on the person in possession of gold. So, anyone in possession of gold could be arrested and the burden was on that person to prove that the gold they owned was not stolen from the mining company.
In the film, Janaki mentions the “mining out” laws that existed in KGF. These laws were used to ban people caught committing misdemeanors from entering the town.
Source: Author
Chris: Tamil Christianity of various forms is a big backdrop to the story you tell. What role do you think the church community played in the spiritual and political lives of the mine workers?
Basav: Yes, Christianity existed in all its hues in KGF. The Dalit Christians had their own “Tamil” churches whereas the British and the Anglo-Indian communities had their own. Interestingly, one deity which was revered by all was the “Mother of Mines”.
I interviewed an old man whose father was the first Indian chairman of the Mysore mining company. His father was shocked – because they are Brahmins – to find the Mother of Mines idol along with the Hindu gods in their temple at home.
Source: Author
I discovered that the colonial township resulted in a unique and unusual secular society which did not exist in the rest of India.
In one sequence of the film, in the worker Samipillai’s house, the camera pans to all the gods on the wall – there is Mother Theresa, Jesus Christ, Ganesha, Lakshmi etc.
Another aspect of KGF life is the celebration of “All Souls Day” which is like a carnival. It happens at a cemetery which is known as mining cemetery where people of different faiths are buried together.
With regards to the role of religion in political lives, I must say I did not research this aspect. Thank you for pointing this out. But definitely the Hindutva juggernaut has started gaining traction in KGF in recent years. BJP has been trying very hard to make inroads in the town’s political scene.
Chris: I know that in making a film such as this you must have conducted a lot of research into the past and come away with many hours of interviews. What else do you wish you had included in the documentary?
Basav: Unfortunately, the fellowship that I had received for the film required that the length of the film be no more than 35 minutes. So, I had to leave out hours and hours of footage.
I would have liked to include the story of the Tamil Sangam and their contribution to KGF’s culture. They struggled against the Karnataka government to claim their right to study Tamil as a first language in schools.
Likewise, I would have also liked to include a lot more about the religious aspects of KGF – especially the history of Buddhism in town and the various hues of Christianity.
There was also the intent to record people’s memories, for which I had interviewed several people who had grown up in KGF. Eventually, I decided to foreground worker’s lived experiences and the unusual nostalgia I found among people of KGF for British rule.
