Looking for gold

While jewellery shops across India’s towns and cities are abuzz with customers eager to buy shiny gold ornaments during this year’s festival season, a group of villagers in a remote hamlet of West Bengal toil for this precious metal.

Meet the gold panners of Ankro village in the district of Purulia.

While the word “gold” triggers thoughts of yellow glitter, wealth and riches, these gold panners live in utter poverty. Both men and women scour their local riverbed, desperate to find any bits of gold they can, in order to feed their hungry children.

They spend endless hours panning for gold dust from the alluvium of River Totko, a tributary of River Subarnarekha, the very name translating as ‘streak of gold’.

Located on forest fringes and amidst paddy fields, the villagers of Ankro – around 350 kilometres from state capital Kolkata – depend on the gold dust to run their families and educate their children. 

A daily routine of strenuous panning

Armed with a wooden conclave tray normally made with the bark of a tree, a shovel and a chisel, Lakhi Mahato starts her two-kilometre walk from the village. She goes to the river bank every morning, crisscrossing narrow paths and paddy field bunds that are often slushy and slippery. 

On reaching the river she fills three-fourth of the wooden tray with sand and mud from the river bed and then holds it under water while swirling the tray from side to side. The gold nuggets, if available, settle at the bottom of the tray. The particles are incredibly small and looking for them is a strain on the eyes.

“I don’t own an agricultural field. There are hardly any livelihood opportunities here,” said the 45-year-old, who has been panning for gold dust since she lost her husband a decade ago.

“People ask why I do this back-breaking work. What should I do? People from the city might look down upon us. But that doesn’t bother us. I’m educating both my daughters by doing this work. One of them is doing engineering,” she said with pride in her voice.

45-year-old Biswaranjan Mahato, who doubles up as a farm labourer, admitted that continuously working for of 8-10 hours under the scorching sun causes back pain and strains his eyes. 

Studies on to unravel the origin

“We first learnt about it in the 1980s when outsiders collected gold dust from the river bed. They left after a few days and we started,” said 60-year-old Phurki Mahato, who has been panning for over four decades.  

Field studies have shown that the minute gold nuggets and flakes found in river sediments are not economically viable for largescale exploration, according to geologists. 

“People believe gold particles were found in some locations of the river at ancient times. The volcanic rocks of Dalma Hills may have something to do with it as the river passes it,” said Susanta Chaudhuri, assistant professor, Department of Geological Sciences, Jadavpur University. 

“These are loose, very small nuggets generally called ‘placer deposits’ that have a significant correlation with river flow dynamics, gravitational force and bed sediment type,” he said.

“Some places in Purulia have gold particles along Subarnarekha, but they were small and not economically viable for mining. Still local poor people have been taking chances and pan the traditional way,” said Chaudhuri. “Geologists are still conducting research to locate the source rock and ways to recover gold particles.”

Panning despite meagre Income

As she swirled the tray, Lakhi Mahato got two tiny particles, as did the two women panning with her.

“We don’t sell them right away as they are too small. We sell them to local gold shops once a week when we manage to collect some more. We earn as high as Rs 1,200 a week or nothing at all,” said Ashtami Mahato.  

“In the 1980s, we earned even Rs 2,000 or Rs 3,000 in a single day, which was handsome money back then. But the collection has been falling mainly because of the construction of the check dam that blocks the alluvium,” she said. “Still we do it due to lack of livelihood opportunities and shortage of water for agriculture.” 

Villagers cultivate rain-fed paddy as the River Totko dries up during summers, making it impossible to grow other crops on a large scale. 

Biswaranjan Mahato said most of the men in their community migrate to other states and work as labourers, while women pan for gold. But some men like him stay behind.

“It’s frustrating when hours of search don’t yield anything. But we have no alternative. No government official has ever visited us to know about our plight,” he said.

A senior government official, who did not want to give his name, said that the state government has been trying to create alternative livelihoods for the impoverished people in remote villages. 

“We’ll definitely try to create a livelihood for them so that they don’t have to do this cumbersome panning,” said the official.

Gurvinder Singh is a journalist based in Kolkata.