India has been grappling with intense heat waves in recent years and is witnessing a burgeoning literature dealing with heat stress. Out of 28 states in India, 23 have made their Heat Action Plans to manage heat stress in their respective jurisdiction. From media reports to academic studies, one aspect that is always at the centre is the vulnerable groups who are at risk of heat waves and are divided mainly based on two conditions- gender and poverty. These are the two overriding categories under which the identity of caste is subsumed in the discourse of heat stress vulnerability.
I find the ongoing discourse to be caste blind: on one side, there is a reluctant acknowledgement in some places that people from the marginalised castes are at risk, while on the other side, questions such as who these marginalised caste people are, what are their experiences of suffering, and how their vulnerability is exacerbated by heat stress and climate change remain largely unexplored.
“When has there been no heat? When have there not been high temperatures? High temperatures have always been there. There might be a difference of a degree or two. This year the high temperature is 46, last time it might have been 45. High temperature is a fact every year and bring immense pain every time. Only someone who has worked at the brick kilns or is currently working can really understand what this pain feels like.”
This is how Ram Kumar, a Dalit brick kiln worker from Rajasthan, described his plight of facing the brunt of extreme heat stress. In the Hindu caste order, Dalits have historically been relegated to ritually polluted occupations, which not only are considered polluted by others but are also insidious to the well-being and health of Dalits. One such example is that of the Brick kiln industry, which employs more than 10 million migrant labourers who are predominantly from Dalit and Adivasi communities. Various estimates suggest that more than 50% of labourers at Brick Kilns come from Dalit communities.
Working at Brick Kiln requires working under the heat stress at every stage of the work, from the procurement of the clay, its tempering and moulding, drying of the constructed bricks, firing (which exposes the worker to even more heat), to loading and unloading of the bricks. Under these circumstances, what Ram said about heat becomes more relevant to reflect on. The Dalit labourers at Brick Kilns have always suffered the afflictions of heat waves and are the worst affected by them; however, a discussion on occupational heat exposure of informal labourers has only started recently under the name of climate change.
In another conversation, a Dalit migrant worker from Bihar shared, “We have no option but to suffer; the dwelling stays very hot inside throughout the day and night- we are forced to sleep outside.” This quote highlights the poor infrastructure of his dwelling and the lack of adequate cooling mechanisms. For people like him, the shade of a tree is the only respite during heat waves. During frequent visits to brick kilns in western Uttar Pradesh, I always encounter labourers taking shelter under the trees during the afternoon, while their small children play around them in the nearby fields.
Generally, moulders at the brick kilns are provided with solar panels to meet their electricity consumption; however, these panels can only help them to charge their phones and light one bulb at night to work. From March to June, when there are frequent heat waves, moulders shift their timings to early morning and late night and live in a continuous sleep deficit. Shifting work timing is one of the few aspects under their control, as the production of bricks is based on the piece rate wage system, which, despite being exploitative, offers them some freedom to choose the timing of work. However, the substandard living conditions of kiln workers, marked by a lack of sufficient potable water, basic sanitation, and adequate shelter, remain entirely beyond their control. For instance, the roof of their 5-feet-high dwelling is made up of tin, which is considered a heat-trapping material, and therefore, in times of heat waves, the tin roof leads to an increased temperature inside the hut day and night, forcing them to take shelter under the open sky.
Many other factors, including child labour, characterise the brick kiln industry. On my routine visits to brick kilns, I also encounter numerous small children, aged between 5 and 14, playing with mud bricks. They do a variety of labour owing to the piece wage rate system, which incentivises child labour, ranging from moulding to loading and unloading bricks. Except for very rare kids, most children’s fate at the brick kilns is the same. With their birth, their fate is predestined to work at the kilns- inheriting a life of toil not by choice, but by caste.
All the children I interviewed had been helping their parents with moulding since their early years. Many of them bore visible injuries and rashes — mosquito bites from sleeping outside their hutments. As Ramesh explained, “the dwelling releases hot gas at night, making it difficult to sleep indoors.” In addition to this, several children had sustained injuries from heavy bricks falling on their hands and feet while working. Most of the time, Kilns are situated at rural-urban peripheries, which are far from the local schools, and because of the absence of transport and money, the children assist their parents to finish their targets. Because of their Dalit identity, many times they are subjected to caste slurs that are normalised in the guise of jokes by the local employees.
French sociologist Edgar Morin brought the concept of polycrisis, which refers to a set of interwoven and overlapping crises involving complex inter-solidarity of problems, antagonisms, crises, uncontrollable processes, and the general crisis of the planet. The life of Brick Kiln workers is an example of this polycrisis, which is exacerbated by anthropogenic climate change and where debt bondage, piece rate wage system, advance payments, substandard living conditions, and caste discrimination are already mechanisms of oppression.
Sadly, more often than not, climate change has turned into a buzzword used to attract generous funding for NGOs, think tanks and to appeal to Western audiences. But the real question is—how much will grand conversations and high meetings in air-conditioned halls actually change the lived realities of those who suffer under the heat generated by the exhaust fans of those very air conditioners?
In the evolving discussion of heat vulnerability, it becomes more than relevant to bring to the centre stage a caste-sensitive lens, from data collection to policy design to heat adaptation measures. Without this, we jeopardise building a climate-resilient future that once again leaves behind the issues of outdoor workers, such as the Dalit brick kiln labourers, who live in a state of indefinite energy poverty and comfort scarcity. Heat is a silent killer, and people who toil under the sun are forced to suffer a slow onset of death.
Mohit Singh is a Dalit researcher and a recent graduate from IIM Bangalore’s pre-doctoral fellowship, with longstanding interests at the intersection of caste, climate vulnerability, and informal labour.
