The handlers of India’s human waste

From August 1-13, 2025, over 2,000 sanitation workers sat in protest against the privatisation of their jobs which will result in a drop in wages by almost 50 per cent. Most of the protestors were women, many among them widows

A photographer documents the deaths of manual scavengers, and the lives they leave behind

Toxic fumes killed three Adivasis and savaged two others while they were cleaning a sewer without any protective gear in Gujarat’s Bharuch district on April 4 this year

Despite Covid-19 symptoms, Ashok Taare, a sanitation worker in Mumbai, was forced to work without safety gear or leave. His family ran around for help, and months after his death on May 30, await compensation

Sanitation workers in Chennai are walking long distances to work during the lockdown, or journeying on garbage lorries. Taking leave for a day during this period invites penalties, even sacking

That’s the story of Mumbai’s safai karamcharis on the frontlines of the battle against Covid-19. Wages delayed, and with little protective gear, they’re still clearing garbage even in the toxic air of the Mahul area

In a slum colony in Madurai, a teacher juggles three jobs to still make time to run a tuition centre for the children of manual scavengers and others – exhorting them never to think of doing their parents’ job

Minimum protective gear, maximum risk, no holidays, no pay, and ever-lurking disease and death. That’s the fate of safai karmacharis in Pavagada in Karnataka’s Tumkur district

After a lifetime of dehumanising labour, caste oppression and family tragedy, 90-year-old Bhateri Devi – a Mumbaikar from Rohtak – is still not bitter, and remains independent and quite cheerful

When he was 10, Arjun Singh's father Rajeshwar died while cleaning a sewer in Delhi. At 14, the schoolboy sells snacks to support himself and his mother, and dreams of becoming a bank manager and a chef

Uttarakhand’s Gunji village is home to 194 families who still relieve themselves behind hedges in the biting cold of the mountains – and yet, the Swachh Bharat Mission claims the region is free of open defecation

Mani has spent nearly 30 years cleaning choked sewers, while enduring the stigma of his work and caste. And each time he dives bare-bodied into the sludge and human waste, he wonders if he will come out alive

K. Nagamma, the wife of a sanitation worker who died in a septic tank, and her daughters Shyla and Anandhi, recount their struggles against a system that confines them – quite literally – to the gutters

In November 2016, Chandan Daloi died while cleaning a septic tank at a Delhi mall. ‘Why is only our caste employed for cleaning the sewers, and why are people still dying inside them’, asks his wife, Putul