India Continues to Ignore Indigenous Rights as Uranium Mining Expands

Anubhuti Raje

When the Uranium Corporation of India Limited (UCIL) began mining in 1967, uranium was framed as a national security necessity. Environmental and health safeguards were absent; baseline studies were never conducted. For the Adivasi (indigenous people) in Jharkhand who lost their land to open-pit mines, radiation was invisible and compensation inadequate. For decades, they have lived beside tailing ponds, inhaled radioactive dust, and drunk from contaminated wells.

Despite India’s extensive environmental framework, including the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981, the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974, and the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification, 2006, uranium mining has remained functionally insulated from these protections. Under these statutes, industries are required to assess environmental risks, disclose emissions, and hold public consultations before initiating major projects. However, the Atomic Energy Act, 1962, particularly Sections 18, 19, and 30, centralizes all authority over radioactive substances within the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and empowers the government to withhold information “in the interests of the State.” This statutory override has allowed uranium mining to operate beyond the scope of independent environmental and health regulation, creating a legal paradox where laws meant to ensure transparency have institutionalized opacity.

For instance, in September 2025, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change issued an Office Memorandum exempting the mining of “critical, strategic, and atomic minerals” from public consultation under Clause 7(III)(i)(f) of the EIA Notification, 2006. Acting on requests from the Ministry of Defence and the DAE, the exemption was justified on grounds of national security and strategic necessity. In effect, the only procedural channel for affected communities to voice health or environmental concerns was removed. The result is a system where the law continues to exist on paper, yet its protective purpose is eclipsed by the language of secrecy and national interest.

A study by the Indian Doctors for Peace and Development  published in 2007 found congenital deformities, stillbirths, and infertility rates in Jaduguda nearly ten times higher than in unaffected villages. A BBC Hindi  ground report in 2006 revealed families describing “slow poisoning” from tailing pond leaks. During periods of heavy rainfall, breaches in containment walls in East Singhbhum once again left villagers reporting destroyed crops and contaminated wells. The Jharkhandi Organisation Against Radiation (JOAR) demanded medical screenings and relocation for the most affected hamlets, but as of October 2025, no survey results have been released.

Under the National Critical Minerals Mission, 2025, India has announced plans to expand extraction of strategic resources, including uranium, to reduce import dependence and bolster the nuclear energy sector. Yet, independent studies have measured elevated radiation levels around Jaduguda, with estimated public doses averaging 2–3 mSv annually, largely from radon exposure. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends keeping radon-related exposure below 1 mSv per year, with 3 mSv being the upper safety threshold. However, there has been no continuous, publicly accessible radiation monitoring, and health surveys by the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre remain unpublished. Researchers and journalists have repeatedly faced data denials under Section 8(1)(d) of the Right to Information Act, 2005 on grounds of “national security” leaving affected communities without reliable health information and perpetuating a climate of secrecy.

Internationally, India is bound by article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which obliges states to ensure the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. The UN Committee’s General Comments No. 14, 15, and 24 clarify that this includes environmental determinants such as clean air, safe water, and a healthy workplace. Yet in Jaduguda, these determinants are absent by design. WHO has repeatedly emphasized that chronic radiation exposure can lead to long-term psychosocial distress and multi-generational genetic harm.

Indian constitutional jurisprudence has long recognized the right to health under article 21, which guarantees the right to life. In Consumer Education and Research Centre v. Union of India, the Supreme Court declared that health and safety are integral to human dignity. In Vellore Citizens Welfare Forum v. Union of India, it affirmed the precautionary principle as binding law. And in M.C. Mehta v. Union of India, it reaffirmed that the polluter must pay for the harm caused. Yet none of these principles has reached Jaduguda.

Part of the reason lies in structural insulation. UCIL operates directly under the Department of Atomic Energy, outside the jurisdiction of the National Green Tribunal, India’s environmental court which allows radiation exposure to persist without oversight. Even when the Jharkhand High Court took suo moto cognisance of the situation in 2015 and 2016 and sought reports on contamination, the submissions relied entirely on UCIL’s internal assessments. The precautionary principle, meant to protect against scientific uncertainty, had been inverted: uncertainty has become a shield for inaction.

The Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 particularly Section 4(e) and 4(i)  empowers indigenous village assemblies to safeguard community resources and mandates that they are consulted before any land acquisition or rehabilitation in Scheduled Areas. Yet no such consultation was held before UCIL’s 2025 expansion. The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 2007 similarly enshrines the principle of free, prior, and informed consent, a commitment India has endorsed but not implemented. Indigenous communities remain not partners in progress, but its collateral.

The story of uranium in Jharkhand is not a single disaster but a continuum, a slow violence sustained by neglect, secrecy, and the failure of successive governments to protect Indigenous people’s rights and health.

Anubhuti Raje is a final year law student at Gujarat National Law University, Gandhinagar, India