On a rainy afternoon in East Delhi’s Seemapuri cremation ground, the air is thick with the smoke from the funeral pyres. Workers laboriously dig a tiny grave for a newborn baby. Even the torrential rains cannot drown out the wails of bereaved family members.
The workers buried the infant along with many others in a parking lot that they have turned into a makeshift graveyard. “We had to break the wall down and turn [part of] the parking lot into a cremation ground,” says Jitender Singh Shunty, founder and president of Shaheed Bhagat Singh Sewa Dal (SBS Foundation).
SBS Foundation has been cremating unclaimed bodies for 25 years. Shunty took charge of the Seemapuri cremation ground in 2002 when the Municipal Corporation of Delhi — a local government body — invited organizations like the foundation to provide efficient service to the public and combat corruption. These places were run by priests who were corrupt and often overcharged the families of the dead for the wood and cremation services.
These days, as COVID-19 deaths climb in India and the city of Delhi runs out of space to cremate its dead, Shunty and his team of 22 workers have been working around the clock to ensure dignity in death. They, like many crematorium workers all over the country, have been working in trying conditions even though they receive low pay and lack insurance and hygiene supplies.
There is no relief in sight for many of India’s overworked crematorium workers. More than 27 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 and more than 325,000 deaths in the country have been reported to the World Health Organization. Even though the number of cases has steadily declined, the worst is far from over.
As the COVID-19 rages across India, crematoria have run out of space.
Unfair wages
In early May, the All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU) visited 26 crematoria and burial grounds in Bengaluru, reports The Hindu. AICCTU found that the workers’ wages “are paid very arbitrarily, once in three months, once in six months and sometimes even up to a year.”
AICCTU also found that the monthly rates paid to crematorium workers range from 1,000 to 10,500 rupees (US$13 to US$144) — which are below the mandated minimum wage of 13,132.60 rupees (US$180). “The Minimum Wages Act is blatantly contravened,” says AICCTU. “The workers are mostly dependent on the largesse of families who perform the last rites of their loved ones. In complete violation of all labor laws, leave, Employee State Insurance, Provident Fund, bonus, gratuity … all of these have been denied.” AICCTU also found that workers were not paid overtime work.
This is also the case for the workers at the Ghazipur cremation ground in East Delhi. Sunil Kumar Sharma is the head priest and principal caretaker at the cremation ground. Priests often consider it their religious duty to carry out a person’s last rites and receive alms from the relatives of the deceased.
Sharma says that his workers have been working 18-hour days. Yet, he says, “There is no talk of overtime because they are performing their religious duties. When they are fatigued, I give them a day off to rest.”
However, Sharma says that the workers get paid 12,000 to 15,000 rupees (US$165 to US$207) per month. “We provide our workers everything, from room and board to food and medicines,” he adds.
Not a penny
In Delhi, Aarif Khan was an ambulance driver at SBS Foundation. He drove the bodies of over 200 COVID-19 patients from the hospitals to the crematorium, reports India Today. His monthly pay was 16,000 rupees (US$219); 9,000 rupees (US$124) went to the house rent.
Khan was the sole breadwinner of his family. He succumbed to COVID-19 in October 2020. “The Delhi government promised to pay compensation to COVID-19 warriors who died in the line of duty,” says Shunty. “[However,] the government didn’t pay a single penny to his family.”
This goes against the pronouncement of Sandeep Kumar, labor health officer at the labor welfare department. “All the workers — whether contractual, outsourced, or recruited — who have been deputed by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi at the cremation grounds are eligible for welfare schemes offered by the government in case of death due to COVID-19,” says Kumar. The schemes may include health and life insurance for the worker, compensation upon death from COVID-19, and vaccination priority as frontline workers.
“We maintain a report of casualties that is verified by our health department,” he adds. “If the death happens due to COVID-19, the government pays them 1 million rupees (US$13,772).”
Before the pandemic, the workers who ensure dignity for the dead worked for ten to 12 hours a day. During the COVID-19 crisis, their workdays stretched to 18 to 22 hours.
Lack of hygiene supplies
The workers work so close to the pyres “that they can’t even wear plastic face shields, PPE kits, or gloves, all of which may catch fire,” says Shunty. “So, they wear cloth masks and work with their bare hands.” He provides the workers with hand sanitizer and soap.
Sharma says that his workers are provided with masks, sanitizers, and gloves. However, the study by the AICCTU showed that crematorium and burial ground workers handling COVID-19 in Bengaluru were not provided “basic safety gear, sanitizers, and soaps.”
A rapid literature search by Juliette O’Keeffe published in February 2021 found no evidence of a confirmed case of transmission of COVID-19 from a deceased person to date.
Suo moto action
On April 30, the Supreme Court recognized the growing concern around the hazardous working conditions of the crematorium workers. It took suo moto action — meaning the court acted on its initiative — in the petition titled “In Ref: Distribution of Essential Supplies and Services During Pandemic.” The court asked the central government to declare crematorium workers frontline workers for priority COVID-19 vaccination.
On May 9, following the affidavit, the central government added crematorium workers to the list of frontline workers to prioritize them for welfare schemes and COVID-19 vaccination. On May 12, Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani said that the state government will consider crematorium employees “corona warriors” and provide them all the benefits mandated by law with effect from April 1, 2020. The state government will also provide assistance worth 25 million rupees (US$345,024) to the families of crematorium workers in case of the death of any such employee on duty.
Danish Aftab Chowdhury, a lawyer practicing in Delhi High Court, has concerns about the central government’s actions regarding the crematorium workers. “When the Supreme Court asked about the cremation workers that were so far excluded from the list of frontline workers by the central government, the Secretary of the Union of India clarified in the affidavit on May 9 that they have added all types of crematorium workers: registered, outsourced, and contractual,” he says. “But what steps are to be taken for their vaccination, the government does not clarify.”
A job nobody wants
Chowdhury says the government must install booths at crematoria or cemeteries to identify all workers and help expedite their vaccination. “The register will not give you the real numbers,” he says. “The government must set up a mobile tent to vaccinate and protect these workers.”
Recognition for India’s crematorium workers is long overdue. Most of them come from “marginalized communities and often inherit a job that nobody else much wants,” reports Reuters.
The report quotes M. Shankar, state convener of Ambedkar Dalit Sangharsha Samiti, a non-profit working for the country’s marginalized Dalit community in southern Bangalore city. Crematorium workers “have no job security or social security,” he says. “They are invisible to the world.”
Shankar concludes: “They have no recognition despite their work in the pandemic. I have not seen a single initiative for their welfare. If not for them, who will do this work?” ●
Crowdfunding help for weary workers
In May, a group of young professionals started a crowdfunding campaign to deliver food to crematorium workers who worked tirelessly, night and day, burying and burning the dead. “It was actually the idea of my friend and co-founder Nandini Ghosh,” says Kriya Bhansali.
The two saw for themselves the hardships of the workers. Their friends pitched in to buy food for the exhausted workers and distributed food packets at cremation grounds that the workers gratefully accepted. Thus, the Good Food Project in Delhi was born.
“That’s when we decided to set up a donation drive to raise about 20,000 rupees (US$275) to cover more crematoria,” says Bhansali. “The response was phenomenal, and we raised 1,545,000 rupees (US$21,317) in just 48 hours.”
During the food deliveries, the young professionals heard the workers’ complaints about the lack of drinking water and the unavailability of quality masks. In response, the young professionals gave them packets of oral rehydration solutions to keep them hydrated.
Bhansali and her friends plan to address the problems faced by the workers. “We want to give them the respect they deserve,” she says. “I am still not OK with the fact that it took the government one year to declare them as frontline workers.”
The group aims to use its resources to improve the workers’ plight. Their goal, says Bhansali, is that “By the time next wave comes, these workers should be fully equipped with safety equipment and training SOPs to deal with this better and safely.” She says they aim to expand the project to cover crematorium workers in other states.
