The frequent deaths of India’s sewer workers isn’t a governance failure – they are rooted in caste

The philosophy of caste validates the casual subjection of sanitation workers to the hazardous, humiliating task of cleaning sewers and septic tanks.

Harsh Mander

, 

Sonal Sharma

 & 

Vidit Verma

· Nov 17, 2019 · 06:30 am

One morning, returning from visiting his sister, an 80-year-old Muslim man was lynched in Sitamarhi

Rumours had swirled about a Durga idol being damaged by a stone hurled from a mosque. Zainul Ansari paid the price.

Harsh Mander

· Nov 05, 2019 · 06:30 am

A Dalit man agreed to clean a sewer hoping for a permanent job – and was killed by toxic fumes

The authorities in Mathura have failed to keep their promise to give Rakesh Valmiki’s family a pension, a home and free education for the children.

Harsh Mander

, 

Vidit Verma

 & 

Sonal Sharma

· Oct 27, 2019 · 06:30 am

Why a woman in Udaipur refused to strike a compromise after her husband died cleaning a septic tank

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.

Harsh Mander

, 

Vidit Verma

 & 

Sonal Sharma

· Oct 11, 2019 · 06:30 am

Gandhi’s talisman and a migrant worker’s lynching in Bihar

‘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.’

Harsh Mander

· Oct 07, 2019 · 06:30 am

As three Dalits lay dying from toxic fumes in an Agra sewer, no one would even give them water

Baby Valmiki recounts the death of her husband Raju and his two companions in 2012.

Harsh Mander

, 

Sonal Sharma

 & 

Vidit Verma

· Sep 27, 2019 · 06:30 am

How the dreams of a family man from Muzaffarnagar were lynched 2,500 km away in Tripura

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.

Harsh Mander

· Sep 21, 2019 · 06:30 am

A woman in MP recounts the trauma of watching her husband die in a tank full of faeces

Chinta Bai lost her son to a snakebite and her husband to the inexorable practice of manual scavenging.

Harsh Mander

, 

Sonal Sharma

 & 

Vidit Verma

· Sep 13, 2019 · 06:30 am

Four months after Oraon man is lynched in Jharkhand, bafflement at how neighbours could be so brutal

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.

Harsh Mander

· Sep 06, 2019 · 06:30 am

A decade after her husband died cleaning a septic tank, a woman in MP struggles to keep going

The sight of her three-year-old son and her infant daughter reminded Rekha Devi of the reason to live.

Harsh Mander

, 

Sonal Sharma

 & 

Vidit Verma

· Aug 23, 2019 · 07:30 am

‘Our life is worth less than a cow’: When the Gujarat police beat an Adivasi farmer to death

In 2017, Kodarbahi Gamar was thrashed in public by the police on allegations that he and three others had slaughtered a bull.

Harsh Mander

· Aug 21, 2019 · 12:30 pm

In Agra, fear of eviction stalls the fight for justice for a man who died after cleaning septic tank

Raju died even before his 21st birthday. His father is afraid that the family will lose their home if they file a complaint against those who hired him.

Harsh Mander

, 

Sonal Sharma

 & 

Vidit Verma

· Aug 13, 2019 · 07:30 am