AMN / NEW DELHI
India is currently the hottest country on the planet. For many days now, almost all of the daily top 100 hottest cities in the World are in India, with outdoor conditions just unliveable. Extreme and rising Heat waves across the country have become dangerous and risk to life.
Extreme Temperatures across the Asia-Pacific region, due to El Niño conditions in Pacific, are pushing persons already working under inhuman conditions into dangerous risk to life situations. In India, alarming temperature levels across several states, are causing heat-related illnesses and deaths. Governments have issued warnings, closed schools, and reduced work in several sectors. Yet Safai Karmacharis continue to be forced to work under the harshest conditions without protection, dignity, or rights.
This is not merely a climate crisis. It is caste violence intensified by climate injustice.
Safai Karmacharis are made to clean human excreta, drains, sewers, septic tanks, railway tracks, and waste under direct sun exposure and inside toxic spaces filled with poisonous gases. During extreme heat conditions, these spaces become even more deadly. Workers are collapsing from dehydration, suffocation, exhaustion, and toxic exposure. Many suffer infections, respiratory illnesses and skin diseases. Sewer and septic tank deaths continue despite legal prohibitions because governments, municipalities, and contractors continue to sustain caste-based, underpaid and stigmatised sanitation labour through criminal neglect.
While heat protections are discussed for other sectors, sanitation workers remain invisible. The caste system continues to decide whose labour is protected and whose lives are treated as disposable. Women sanitation workers face even harsher conditions — long hours on roads without access to water, toilets, shade, or healthcare.
The climate crisis is exposing the brutal inequality at the heart of India’s sanitation system. Those forced into caste-based labour are being made to bear the heaviest burden of environmental collapse without safety, compensation, or recognition as workers with rights.
Safai Karmachari Andolan demands immediate action:
· Immediate stoppage of sanitation work under direct sunlight after 9:30 AM during heatwave periods.
· Complete prohibition of sewer and septic tank entry and urgent mechanization of sanitation work.
· Mandatory provision of drinking water, ORS, shaded rest areas, washing facilities, and compulsory hourly breaks.
· Heat-risk compensation allowance of at least 30% additional wages for all sanitation workers.
· Emergency healthcare camps, insurance coverage, and long-term health monitoring for sanitation workers and their families.
· Criminal accountability for contractors and officials forcing workers into inhuman heat wave conditions
The lives of Safai Karmacharis cannot continue to be sacrificed in the name of sanitation and cleanliness. Climate justice is impossible without caste justice