Scriptures indicate that gold has been mined in India since ancient times, and demand for it has been consistently high because it is considered auspicious, among other reasons. One of the regions where gold was mined in India was the Kolar district of Karnataka, founded by the Western Ganga dynasty in the 2nd century BC. Kolar was under Chola rule till the Hoysalas drove them out. Later, it came under the Vijayanagar empire, then the Marathas and finally Hyder Ali, Tipu Sultan’s father.
♎In 1791, Lord Cornwallis conquered Kolar, and returned it to the kingdom of Mysore in the Treaty of Seringapatam. Englishman John Taylor III acquired a number of mines in K.G.F. taluk in 1880, and his firm, John Taylor & Sons, operated them until 1956 under the name Mysore Gold Mining Company. In 1902, the mines were electrified with a cable run by General Electric from the hydroelectric power plant at Shivanasamudra Falls, making this the first modern plant/factory in India to have its own power supply. The government of Mysore took over the mines in 1956. In 1972, Bharat Gold Mining Limited (BGML), a government of India company, began to run the mines.Mining became unviable after 1995, and BGML formally closed its operations with effect from March 1, 2001.
KGF in Popular Culture Popular Kannada films KGF: Chapter I (2018) and KGF: Chapter 2 (2022) brought the Kolar mines back into the news. So popular was the first chapter that it was dubbed into all the major South Indian languages as well as Hindi. The film portrays a fictional dystopian world (created using CGI and cool graphics, comic book-style), inspired by the Auschwitz concentration camp. Here, workers are starved and beaten up, and guards lurk, ready to shoot workers at the first sign of dissent. The old and the infirm are clinically removed from the workforce, and select workers are fattened with rich foods before being sacrificed to a terrifying deity.Ganglord Suryavardhan and his citadel inside KGF are also scripted, as is the protagonist of the KGF movie, Rocky.
The “David and Goliath” story of Suryavardhan and Rocky suits the hyper-masculine tropes seen in many recent Kannada and Telugu films such as Bahubali (2015 & 2017), Pushpa (2021) and RRR (2022). Old newspaper reports do mention some rowdies who tried to infiltrate the KGF mines, but no big mafia don like Rocky or Suryavardhan. In 1970s India, gold smuggling ruled the popular imagination. Whether it was Dawar of Deewaar (1973), Shakaal of Yaadon ki Baraat (1973) or Robert of Amar Akbar Anthony🐭 (1977), many popular villains of Hindi films were shown smuggling gold on screen, probably mirroring the reality where this activity was common to circumvent import restrictions and satiate domestic demand for this precious metal.
KGF Chapter 1: The Plot in Brief In the late 1970s, Rocky (Yash) defeats Shetty and becomes the de facto mafia king of Mumbai. Shetty’s superior Andrews invites Rocky to Bengaluru to kill local mafia boss Garuda (son of Suryavardhan) at a politicians’ bash. Meanwhile Rocky wins over heroine Reena with one-liners like “If you think you are bad, then I am your Dad.” Rocky’s plan fails and he is arrested by the Bangalore police. While in lock-up, Rocky witnesses some shady goings on—trucks full of gold being moved under police custody on the outskirts of Bangalore. His boss sends Rocky to kill Garuda in his own empire in KGF/El Dorado✅, formally known as Narachi (goldsmith’s scales) Limestone Factory. Here, Rocky learns that Garuda’s men regularly kidnap villagers and take them to mine gold in KGF.
The miners work gruelling hours inside KGF, without proper ventilation. There are 400 men guarding 20,000 slaves. After witnessing the shooting of a young mother and son, the mercenary Rocky’s heart melts. His transformation is complete when his fellow workers put an orphaned baby girl in his arms. Also, he sees the guards lead an old man to his death because he is blind and unable to work. Moved by their plight, Rocky spearheads a revolt by turning the miners into an army, and seizes control of Narachi.With Garuda’s death in Chapter 1 of KGF,ജ other interested parties move in to grab Narachi.
Meanwhile Rocky has become much bigger than the Mumbai mafia and in Chapter 2, he consolidates his KGF empire, producing gold and exporting it to Khalil in Dubai. Chapter 3 of the film is under development.KGF’s plot is fictional. The mines were nationalised under BGML from 1972 onwards. However, it is a fact that in the early part of the 20th century, the British owners sent prisoners down to work inthe mines instead of hired labourers, as the temperature down there was about 60 degrees Celsius. This led to goondaism, which has inspired the makers of KGF the film. British Legacy ജSigns of British rule over Kolar have survived for over a century. Robertsonpet and Andersonpet townships are named after the sons of John Taylor, the founder of KGF. The British officers who ruled over India were exploitative, but the celluloid comparison of KGF with Nazi concentration camps is over the top.
🐬The progeny of the erstwhile mine workers of KGF do lament about the hardships they faced and some say Tipu Sultan’s reign was safer for miners in terms of working conditions compared to British rule. The British era was known for their enslavement of poor locals (mostly brought in from Tamil Nadu). Miners’ families talk about how the British enjoyed a luxurious lifestyle in beautiful bungalows in Robertson and Anderson, while the miners toiled in extreme heat below. These colonial vestiges stand testimony to our inglorious past, when our mines were stripped of precious minerals and metals. It is also a tale of greed and exploitation; except that the exploiters were not a private corporation like Narachi, but the then British government.
✤Gita Aravamudan, a former KGF accountant’s daughter, says that by the time the mines were nationalised in 1956, all the high-quality gold had gone. In 1901, about two decades after mining activity started in KGF, gold production was peaking, and by 1910, the grade quality of the ore averaged at nearly 30 GPT (grams per tonne). In the intervening 10 years, over 1,70,000 kg of gold was extracted, all of which went directly to England.
🍌By 1956, the grade quality of the ore had dropped to 10 GPT. After the government of India took over BGML, only the Champion Reef area was exploited for mining, being a safe sector. Digging was stopped the day BGML officials realised that the honeycomb structure could not be explored deeper without breaching the natural water table, and that doing so could have resulted in flooding of mines and endangering the lives of miners.
🔜The historic rock burst of June 1952 in the KGF area left a trail of devastation in its wake. It was a turning point. British officers leading a luxurious lifestyle in the township started moving out in the 1950s, leaving mining to Indian engineers and workers. In 1965, to mitigate the damage from rock bursts, Bharat Gold Mines Ltd developed Rock Burst Prediction Mechanism in the KGF area in partnership with BARC (Bhabha Atomic Research Centre). The National Institute of Rock Mechanics (NIRM) was created as a research wing of BGML in 1988. Today, the Institute deals with field and laboratory investigations, research, and solving complex problems in Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering.
Other Depictions of Gold Mining in Cinema KGF is an exaggerated account of the hardships faced by Indians employed in gold mines in Kolar. Nonetheless, the film is enjoyable overall because of the well-choreographed action, emotionally charged scenes and intelligent use of CGI and VFX to create a fascinating world of gold mining never seen on the silver screen before. Indian in flavour, the film can be enjoyed by viewers worldwide. Other films around the precious metal theme include Charlie Chaplin’s satire The Gold Rush (1925) and J. Lee Thompson’s Western Mackenna’s Gold (1969), which depicted the Gold Rush in America. These films share an underlying theme with KGF—they are stories of human greed for gold.
Yash Chopra’s Kaala Patthar (1977), based on the Chasnala mining disaster of 1975, sensitively depicts how corporations exploit miners. Thangalaan (Son of Gold), a 2023 Tamil language film, is a story of how the Dalit community from Tamil Nadu was exploited by colonial rulers for mining of gold in KGF. The Way Ahead in Kolar ✅There are 13 tailing dumps at KGF, which contain waste left over after extraction of gold. Some of these dumps are as tall as hillocks and make for an attractive landscape for film shoots. Perhaps in the future some metals and minerals of value can be extracted from these dumps. The historic, luxurious colonial bungalows of Kolar have the potential of being developed into resorts. According to experts, de-watering is possible up to two levels in the honeycomb structure underneath the top soil. If de-watering happens successfully, mine tourism may become feasible in the future. BGML may have stopped producing gold, but NIRM which was created out of BGML, continues to serve the nation.
🌳Today, NIRM works with authorities which are engaged in setting up critical mining infrastructure. It shares data and analysis of rock fractures and seismic activity with these agencies, which helps them plan their activities carefully, thereby minimising risk of disasters such as landslides. Human lives are more precious than gold after all.
(Views expressed are personal)
