Silicosis is a strange disease that may take from a few months to a few years to manifest itself. In Madhya Pradesh, it has assumed a class character: that of a disease almost exclusively affecting migrant labourers. Photo shows free crystalline silica as it is produced after crushing quartz stone. Labourers have to fill up gunny sacks with this dust. Photo: Special Arrangement
Photo shows Diwan Singh, 18, from Madhya Pradesh’s Jhabua district, in a quartz-crushing factory in Godhra district of Gujarat. Diwan does not know anything about Silicosis. Neither does he know that working in this factory with a mask made of cheap cloth, can prove fatal. All he kows is that he has not been provided with health insurance cover by the factory owner. Photo: Mahim P. Singh
Sano, 20, of Undli village has been reduced to a skeleton in barely a year. She contracted silicosis working in a quartz crushing factory in Balasinore, Gujarat. Photo: Mahim P. Singh
Silicosis is a disease that kills not just individuals, but entire families. Buddha, of Undli village, with his 16-year-old daughter Ghamma. They both suffer from silicosis. Buddha lost his 18-year-old-son Mohan to acute silicosis a year ago. Photo: Mahim P. Singh
Workers outside a quartz crushing factory in Balasinore, a town in Gujarat’s Kheda district. These workers are oustees of the Sardar Sarovar dam project. They weredisplaced from their native village Kakrana in Madhya Pradesh and “rehabilitated” in Gujarat’s Khadgodhra village. They are forced to work in quartz factories during the agricultural lean season. Photo: Mahim P. Singh