Stun grenades are used only in war situations and for militarised policing, never to quell student protests. The police lead a protestor away at Aligarh Muslim University on December 15. | PTI A young doctoral scholar lay calmly on his hospital bed in Aligarh. I could not have mustered his courage and equanimity. Just two…
The philosophy of caste validates the casual subjection of sanitation workers to the hazardous, humiliating task of cleaning sewers and septic tanks.
Rumours had swirled about a Durga idol being damaged by a stone hurled from a mosque. Zainul Ansari paid the price. Zainul Ansari and his grandson at Delhi’s Red Fort. There is no other part of the world that Zainul Ansari had known and loved in the eight decades of his life. This noisy, crowded,…
Rumours had swirled about a Durga idol being damaged by a stone hurled from a mosque. Zainul Ansari paid the price.
The man who had hired Sukhlal didn’t even visit the dead man’s home to inquire about his family. But he wanted them to withdraw their police complaint. Illustration: Krishna Balakrishnan. This article is part of India’s Dirty Secret, a series on manual scavenging and sewage worker deaths. Based on a study of the International Labour Organisation, Delhi, it…
‘I could not forget the faces of Rudhi Devi and her children, the faces which Gandhiji had advised us to recall in times of uncertainty and confusion.’ Children in Misherpura village near Patna. | Karwan e Mohabbat “Just months before he was assassinated, Mahatma Gandhi left behind for his countrywomen and men a talisman. “Whenever…
Baby Valmiki recounts the death of her husband Raju and his two companions in 2012. Illustration: Krishna Balakrishnan This article is part of India’s Dirty Secret, a series on manual scavenging and sewage worker deaths. Based on a study of the International Labour Organisation, Delhi, it brings together stories of families whose members died during sewage cleaning, and…
Zahid Khan worked in the North Eastern state for 20 years, hoping to give his children a better life. A mob claiming he was a kidnapper changed it all abruptly. Zahid Khan loved to dress up. Zahid Khan was just 18 when he was married to Shama Parveen, who was even younger than him. The…
Chinta Bai lost her son to a snakebite and her husband to the inexorable practice of manual scavenging. Chinta outside her one-room house This article is part of India’s Dirty Secret, a series on manual scavenging and sewage worker deaths. Based on a study of the International Labour Organisation, Delhi, it brings together stories of families whose members…
Prakash Lakra and three friends were waiting to skin a bull that had died a natural death. An upper-caste mob claimed they’d killed the animal. Jeremina Lakra, whose husband Prakash was lynched by a mob, speaks to the Karwan e Mohabbat team. | Abdullah Zakaria It was the peak of the 2019 election campaign. In a…