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In the film Court (2014, Chaitanya Tamhane), the Mumbai police opens an investigation into the death of a manual sanitation worker, Vasudev Pawar. Brought to the court, Pawar’s wife is called to the stand to testify, where she admits that her husband had become an alcoholic because that was the only way he could stand the stench in the manhole her husband stepped into every day. 

His death, a culmination of the inhumane conditions he faced everyday, was a suicide.

Urban India, made up of rapidly growing cities and their technological parks, has about 59,000 manual sanitation workers, who risk their lives by going inside the manholes, to unclog and clean them. In the last five years, 339 workers passed away due to contracted diseases and accidents.

In Suit (Yoda Press, 2021), artist Samarth imagines a time in the future when manual sanitation workers have been provided specialised suits that will protect them as they step into the manholes. On one hand, the rights of the workers have been recognised and their safety has been put at the forefront, yet, casteism associated with this profession hasn’t allowed mechanised sewage cleaners to take their place.

In the following extract from the book, the protagonist Vikas, who — like his father — is a manual sanitation worker, contemplates how the city of Mumbai exploits the labour of sanitation workers, disrupting even the legacies that they might leave behind for their children.

Excerpted from Suit by Samarth, with the permission of the publisher, Yoda Press. 

The Internationalist Archive