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Silicosis is an incurable and fatal occupational lung disease that affects millions of Indian workers in mining, stone carving, building construction, and other industries. Workers who are exposed to silica dust develop lung damage, leading to breathing problems, and eventually die. Silicosis cases are skyrocketing as mining and construction industries have been booming in India in the last three decades.
Silicosis has largely disappeared in the developed world because it can be prevented by wearing protective gears like masks. Yet the British medical journal Lancet reports an estimated 11.5 million Indian workers are exposed to silica annually. Most are low-wage workers and rural migrants, especially Adivasis (Indigenous people).
India's fast-growing economy has driven up demand for stone cutting in construction with little state efforts to regulate the industry, enforce safety standards, or provide medical care. Once workers get sick, many disappear, returning to their villages hundreds of miles away, to die.
Akhilesh Pandey is a Delhi-based journalist focused on health and labor issues among marginalized groups. He has been working on a 15,000-word piece on silicosis, with photographs and videos, for The Caravan. Since early 2023, he has traveled across four Indian states, to villages in remote areas, where entire communities have been wiped out by silicosis.
He planned to report in around eight-10 states, visiting mining, stone-breaking and -carving centers, as well as the far-flung villages that send migrants to these dangerous places.
His long-form piece on silicosis victims will expose an invisible national crisis.
