176 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
saw drilling and boring operations conducted through pneumatic drills worked by lend-lease compressors which had been placed at the disposal of the industry by Government to stimulate mica production. Returning to the surface, the Labour Member visited the Labourers’ hutted colony. In the middle were two saffron-coloured triangular stones placed against a tree. The Labour Member was informed that the labourers worshipped these stones as “Goddess of Mica”
In the factory at Kodarma, thousands of workers—men and women—squatted in huge dormitories, working on blocks of mica. Here the party saw various processes of mica manufacture, e.g. slating of mica, kinfe-drcssing, sick-dressing and splittingperformed with unerring judgment and skill, by hand. In one section of the factory, workers were splitting mica into thin sheets of uniform sizes, to be used ultimately as condenser films in spark plugs for aeroplanes. In another section, the Labour Member saw blocks of mica being cut into small sheets for being manufactured into micanite.
Science Has Increased The Importance Of Mica
India is the world’s leading producer of sheet mica, which is mined mainly in the Hazaribagh and Gaya districts in Bihar, and Nellore in Madras, and to a minor extent in other districts in Madras and in Tonk State and Ajmer-Merwara in Rajputana, about 80 per cent coming from Bihar and most of the remainder from Nellore. This pre-eminence in the world’s markets, is due largely to the excellent quality of the so-called “ Bengal ruby “ mica of Bihar, but also to the great manual dexterity of the aboriginals, mainly women, who trim and split the mica with crude soft-iron sickles (or shears in Nellore). So much is this the case that in pre-war years there was an appreciable import of block mica into India, to be re exported in the form of splittings. Mica has been used in India for centuries for decorative and medicinal purposes.
The mica occurs as “books”, giant crystals which have been found, exceptionally, as large as 10 feet in diameter, in great veins of pegmatite traversing mica schists. The mica, which is muscovite, occurs with felspar and quartz and other minerals such as beryl, which from Ajmer is exported as an ore of beryllium.
Most of the mica exported from India goes to the United Kingdom and the United States.