Women in India’s ‘Widow Village’ Are Dying of the Same Disease that Killed Their Husbands

Budhpura, India — One June morning in 2020, Reema’s* husband Umesh began to cough blood. He died soon after, leaving her to raise their two children alone. He was 40.

Umesh had worked for years mining one of the large stone quarries surrounding their village in Budhpura, in the northern Indian state of Rajasthan. He had been battling silicosis for the last four years before complications from the disease took his life. Villagers often work in the mines, one of the only employers in the village, and nearly all of them are eventually diagnosed with silicosis, according to Manish Kumari, 36, the sarpanch, or village head, of Budhpura.

Silicosis is a fatal and incurable lung disease caused by inhaling silica dust, which can be found in such building materials as rock, sand, and quartz, among others. The disease causes victims to feel feverish and out of breath. In more advanced stages of the disease, haemoptysis (or coughing up of blood from the lungs or bronchial tubes) occurs.

It’s considered locally as the “curse” of the region — and Budhpura, as the “village of widows.”

Reema, 36, along with other widows, told us that since 2019, the state government has been compensating affected miners with the equivalent of around US $2,400, and around $3,600 to their families when they pass away. But it’s not enough to live.

Nor is it enough to cover medical costs, said Pekham Basu, an assistant professor at Tata Institute of Social Sciences’ Center for Equity and Justice for Children and Families, School of Social Work, who has researched extensively on mining issues in Rajasthan. Basu said that many widows are forced into the workforce after their husbands’ passing because of medical debt and lack of employment opportunities.

Mines are owned by the state as well as by private proprietors, but only the state compensates workers who contract the disease.

According to Kumari, on the rare occasions when they are compensated, it often takes four to five months. “The village has hundreds of widows right now,” she said. “They all need to be compensated.”

With their husbands gone and no alternative income sources to support themselves and their children, widows like Reema join the same profession that killed their husbands.

“Before my husband’s death, I never did this work,” said Reema, who knew full well the origin of the disease before making her decision. But there are no other livelihood opportunities for her. “Should we beg on the streets for our survival?”

After two years years in the mines, Reema was diagnosed with silicosis, like many other widows — whether or not they work in the mines: silica dust hangs in the air in Budhpura, leaving villagers exposed to infection as well. “[It’s] killing us slowly,” she said.

India is the world’s largest exporter of sandstone, sending the majority of its products to the United Kingdom, the United States, and France.

And Rajasthan is the largest sandstone-producing state in India, with the most mining leases. The majority of these lease are in the unorganized, small-scale mining sector, meaning that they operate beyond the reach of government. With approximately 3 million employees, the mining and mineral processing sector is a significant employer in several districts in the state.

Mine workers perform physically taxing work without safety equipment under dangerous conditions, including freezing temperatures and unhealthy noise levels. Sources in the village say that most mines here run around the clock, and laborers put in long shifts. At the end of the workday, a miner can expect to make the equivalent of US $5 per day.

Rajasthan produces around 90 percent of India’s sandstone sector, according to the International Labor Organization, which may explain the alarming frequency of silicosis reported by villagers.

Arun Kumar Roy, a medical officer in Bundi, the district to which Budhpura belongs, told WMC Women Under Siege that doctors at the local hospital see around 70 to 80 patients per day, all of whom are battling respiratory ailments. “The silicosis cases are continuously going up, and victims are unable to [manage] the disease.” Most, he said, simply can’t afford to.

Most of these mines utilize dry drilling, which produces more of the fine silica dust that workers inhale underground and villagers ingest in the air. The Rajasthan State Human Rights Commission has stressed wet drilling to avoid producing dust — and, in turn, reduce the risk of silicosis — but workers say that the drilling machines typically employed in the mines do not have the capability for wet drilling.

In any case, “the owners don’t bother,” said Aklash, 45, a local mine worker. Ritak Jain, owner of Jain Stone Bundi mine, declined to comment.

Wet drilling machines are a bit expensive, as are other alternatives that help reduce the risks of silicosis, said Rana Sengupta, CEO of the Mine Labour Protection Campaign Trust (MLPC Trust), an advocacy group for the mine and quarry workers. Consequently, he said, mine owners aren’t inclined to invest in them — and even less so without pressure from state authorities.

“Mine owners in Rajasthan don’t face any penalty or stern action for violating the health standards of widows and mineworkers,” said Sengupta. He said that the government must intervene on behalf of workers to prevent further deaths, as no other initiatives have been offered to miners and their families beyond compensation. “You cannot violate human rights [to promote] trade.”

Environmental experts we spoke to believe that the challenge against silicosis is that it’s not treated as a criminal offense or an occupational disease under the Mines Act of 1952, but as a certified disease, which means that employers can skirt responsibility to these workers.

Said Sengupta, “The need of the hour is to generate additional incomes so that these widows can survive in the future.”

Despite the ongoing crisis, which has been documented for years now, both the state and central government have failed to properly address it, advocates say. They are demanding that the state hold mine owners accountable and to pressure them to implement safer methods. So far, the government has appeared to show little interest in either.

For its part, the MLPC Trust organizes legal camps for widows in order to claim financial assistance from the government for both their husbands and their families.

The absence of viable alternatives has compelled widows to follow into their late husband’s occupation, which claimed their lives. Without a fundamental shift in approach, the cycle of silicosis tragedies will continue to persist unabated, suffocating the broader community for generations to come.