Silicosis: The deadly malady stalking India's workers | Documentary | The Caravan

Workers in industries such as mining, quarrying, construction, glass are exposed to high quantities of active silica dust, and often contract a fatal and incurable lung disease called silicosis. It causes the formation of fibrous nodules in the lungs, slowly choking patients to death. The scale of silicosis in India is staggering—research estimates suggest that 52 million workers will be at risk of the disease by 2025.

But just as staggering is the absence of the disease from the public imagination, and the government’s indifference to it. Silicosis is often misdiagnosed as doctors lack awareness of the disease.

Over the course of one and a half years, Akhilesh Pandey visited silicosis victims in close to two hundred villages across 12 states in India. It became clear in his reporting that no one thing had damned the victims more than the accident of their birth—they were poor, forced to migrate for work, and undertook any job they could get. Most worked as undocumented daily-wagers, outside the basic protections of Indian labour laws and without access to any reliable healthcare.

This documentary sheds light on the deadly malady that is stalking India’s workers.

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

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

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

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This video has been re-uploaded to correct an error in the previous version. At 7 minutes 35 seconds, Kunal Datta, a physician from West Bengal, was mistakenly referred to as Kunal Gupta. The Caravan regrets this error.

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