Reason and Risk: Challenging the Expert-Public Divide in the Risk Debates on Uranium Mining in India

For the last two decades, since the nuclear weapon tests in May 1998, India’s oldest uranium mines have been mired in controversy. Located on Adivasi (indigenous) land, these mines are suspected of causing adverse health effects on mine workers and nearby villagers. The controversy involves conflicting claims about the health impacts, their causes, and potential links to radiation. Various actors—including local anti-nuclear activists, NGOs, physicians, physicists, and officials from the state-owned Uranium Corporation of India Limited (UCIL)—have used different methodologies to analyze and attribute these health issues.

Perception of radiation risks is central to this debate. Mine workers and activists believe radiation from the mines and tailing ponds is responsible for the health problems observed over generations. However, UCIL and government officials dismiss these claims as “myths,” positioning themselves as the scientific authority on the matter.

This paper deconstructs these competing claims by applying cultural and sociological studies on risk, along with discourse analysis to examine the language and narratives used by each group to legitimize their positions. Mainstream discourse and many scholars of risk (particularly psychometric studies) often distinguish between objective assessments by experts and subjective, emotion-based perceptions by the public. This paper contributes to the literature challenging this objective-subjective binary by presenting three arguments: First, expert definitions and assessments of risk are not as unanimous as often perceived—experts argue and dispute each other’s conclusions. Second, public perceptions of risk are not merely emotional but grounded in cognitive assessments shaped by their social experiences with institutions that manage risks. Third, technical experts do not operate in apolitical contexts and are not immune to the politicization of risk controversies.