A deadly malady is stalking India’s workers | Coming Soon | The Caravan

Silicosis, often called the “grinder’s asthma” or “miner’s phthisis,” the disease is caused by continuous inhalation of active silica dust particles, which are smaller than five microns and invisible to the naked eye. It is most common among workers in industries that involve direct exposure to silica dust—one of the most commonly occurring minerals in the earth’s crust—such as mining; quarrying, cutting, grinding, carving and polishing of stones; manufacturing of construction materials; foundry; glass; and ceramics. Indian industries where silicosis is common include slate-making, agate stone and imitation jewellery, and temple stone-carving.

Silica dust causes the formation of fibrous nodules and scarring inside the patient’s lungs that make it progressively harder for oxygen to enter, slowly choking them to death. Geeta, a widow in the Lalkuan region in the national capital, said that at the time of her husband’s death, silicosis had made his lungs “solid as a stone.” Residents of villages in Madhya Pradesh described how, owing to the fibrous growth, victims’ lungs would not burn easily even in cremation fires.

A report by the ICMR in 1999 estimated that, apart from 5.4 million construction workers, three million workers in other industries were at high risk of silica exposure. These figures are already over two decades old, but exact current estimates are near impossible to come by—there have been no national efforts to study the disease, and the onus of documenting it has fallen on activists, medical researchers or victims themselves. But estimates by researchers suggest that the number of Indian workers exposed to silica dust and, therefore, at great risk of contracting silicosis, will touch 52 million by 2025.

By all counts, it is one of India’s most urgent public-health emergencies.

Video report coming soon.

Producer and Editor: Sibtain Hyder
Reporter: Akhilesh Pandey
Camera: Ayan Das, Akhilesh Pandey, Sibtain Hyder, and Parthsarthi Mishra
Copy Editor: Surabhi Kanga
Translator: Rishab Gaur

Read Akhilesh Pandey's report on how Silica dust from India’s industries is killing its workers: https://caravanmagazine.in/health/sil...

The reporting for this piece was supported by a grant from the Pulitzer Centre.

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