A death in the kiln
- Rohit Chauhan
- Jun 5
- 8 min read
On the dusty outskirts of Mahemdavad, Gujarat, a three-year-old's death in a brick kiln peeled back the multiple layers of bonded labour, caste exploitation and official indifference that surrounded the tragedy. What followed was resistance, fear and a fight for workers’ dignity.
Rohit Chauhan
File picture of a brick kiln in Mughalsarai, Uttar Pradesh. Tanmoy Bhaduri/The Migration Story
MAHEMDAVAD, Gujarat: In the first week of May, a powerful storm struck Gujarat’s Kheda district. Winds tore down electric lines, villages were plunged into darkness, and heavy rain pounded the ground through the night. In a village within Mahemdavad tehsil, a toddler lost his life the following morning.
“It rained all night,” said Ashok Kashyap, the three-year-old child’s uncle and a bonded labourer from the Nishad community. “Rainwater was gushing into our hut, so we dug a pit nearby to divert it. The next morning, while the women cooked and we prepared for work, my nephew was playing near that pit. The water was muddy. We failed to see him in time.”
The family, originally from Uttar Pradesh’s Badaun district, had migrated to Gujarat for seasonal brick work. Along with three other families, they were recruited by a labour contractor from their village who promised an advance of ₹30,000 and full wages at the end of the season. But once the season ended, the kiln owner and contractor claimed there was an unpaid toot—a leftover debt from the previous year—and told the families they would have to return to settle it.
The families found themselves trapped. Their wages were withheld, their movement was restricted, and the threat to repay the perceived debt loomed large over them.
No Accountability, Immense Pressure
The child’s death, though unable to be directly blamed on the kiln owner, was an avoidable tragedy. The brick kiln, like many other such workplaces across several Indian states, had no safe shelters, no drainage and no basic infrastructure. But for the workers, such accidents were seen as part of the risk they had to live with, and they did not think of questioning who was responsible.
“Accidents like this happen every year in kilns. But they are not seen as the owner’s fault though he is responsible for providing a safe living space,” said Ramesh Shrivastava of the Int Bhatta Mazdoor Union (IBMU).
The family did not demand compensation. In fact, the kiln owner urged them not to conduct a post-mortem, saying the child’s body would be dismembered and it would bring misfortune. Fearful and desperate to return home, they buried the child quietly. “We just wanted to leave with what we were owed,” said Kashyap. “But the malik said, ‘You’ve taken my money. You have to work to repay it.’”
Despite their grief, they were forced back to work.
Pattern of Exploitation
This case illustrates more than a tragic death or a denied wage; it uncovers a pattern. Migrant families from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar or Chhattisgarh come to Gujarat every season. They work under informal contracts, live on site in makeshift shelters and endure bonded debt traps that are enforced through a hierarchy shaped by caste.
There are no written agreements, no legal protection in practice, little monitoring by government authorities such as labour inspectors and district officials or any formal mechanism responsible for checking and regulating conditions at kilns.
A 2024 study by non-profit Centre for Labour Research and Action (CLRA) found that 84% of brick kiln workers in Gujarat lacked written contracts, 90% faced wage delays or deductions, and over 60% lived in unsafe housing without access to healthcare.
The study also documented several cases of child deaths and injuries caused by unsafe living conditions, all going unreported, dismissed as unfortunate accidents or quietly settled by the kiln owners. IBMU has had only two cases reported to it in recent years where children were either injured or died at brick kilns. However, these cases were not officially recorded and did not reach the mainstream press.
Overall, the picture is bleak—there is no institutional childcare, almost no state presence, and only a few scattered NGO efforts in isolated kilns. Given this, the vulnerability of children in these spaces remains extremely high.
Mina Jadav of IBMU decried the “total lack of responsibility” of both the Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh governments with regard to migrants working in the kilns. “They keep shifting the blame to each other and no one is held accountable,” she said. “By denying these children access to education, the state is forcing them into a life of informal labour. We’ve seen entire generations repeat the same cycle—from childhood to adulthood—as brick kiln workers. Nothing changes for them.”
Resistance and Retaliation
File picture of a brick kiln in Mathura, India. Anumeha Yadav/The Migration Story
A day after the child’s burial, Kashyap, along with the three other workers—Shyam, Raju, and Sujan—decided to seek help. All were from the same village and caste group, bonded by family ties. They reached out to IBMU and explained that they were being denied wages ranging from ₹5,000 to ₹10,000 each and prevented from leaving the kiln. The kiln owner cited the earlier toot to justify the withholding of wages.
IBMU filed a formal complaint with the Kheda collector under the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act. But instead of immediate relief, the workers were advised to return to the kiln while the administration reviewed the case.
Retaliation followed swiftly. Two of the four workers, Kashyap and Raju, were summoned by the kiln owner and forcibly taken to the local police station. Their phones were confiscated and they were threatened with false charges. Fearing arrest, the other two workers fled and hid in the nearby forest.
News of the situation reached IBMU through Amarjeet, a social worker from Punjab who had been in contact with the workers’ relatives in Uttar Pradesh. Amarjeet passed on audio clips to the union that suggested police intimidation and a plan to falsely implicate the workers in a drug case.
IBMU escalated the matter and shared the recordings with the Kheda collector. Political intervention followed. Vadgam MLA Jignesh Mevani called district officials, pushing them to act.
Under pressure, the tehsildar and police inspector finally visited the kiln.
Official Denial and Forced Smiles
File picture of a brick kiln in Mughalsarai, Uttar Pradesh. Tanmoy Bhaduri/The Migration Story
The initial official reaction was denial, workers and campaigners present at the police station said.
The tehsildar, local police, and labour department said that no such incident had taken place. A video later surfaced, showing some of the remaining workers smiling on camera and claiming they were treated well. Kashyap said the workers were speaking under pressure. “They’re scared,” he said. “They’ve seen what happens when we speak up.”
Meanwhile, the two detained workers were released by the police at night and told to return to the kiln. Instead, they fled and contacted the union the next morning. The union team reached the area and met all four workers. Together, they went to the Mahemdavad police station and gave their statements, insisting that they would not return to the kiln.
In the afternoon, the kiln owner arrived at the police station with about 15 men, including some workers who had earlier appeared in videos defending him. Tensions rose as voices clashed. One man, claiming to be a worker’s father, declared that his son would continue working at the kiln. The police did not intervene. When the union members refused to sign a document that would portray the union as obstructing the process, the matter stalled.
A closed-door meeting followed. Meanwhile, unfamiliar men inside the police station began questioning union members. By 8 pm, there was still no resolution.
Finally, at around 11 pm, the police, accompanied by the kiln owner, went to the kiln and brought the rest of the workers—spouses, children, and relatives—in a tractor to the police station. The four who had first approached the union were already present. All 30 were finally reunited at the station.
The police gave them small travel allowances and arranged transport. By the next morning, all the families had returned to their homes in Uttar Pradesh.
“As per our report, the death appears to be accidental. No external injuries or malicious intent were found, and the family did not insist on a post-mortem,” said Bharat Dabhi, assistant sub-inspector at the Mahemdavad Police Station.
“We are trying to help these workers, but we don’t know the proper course of action in such cases. The owner has written agreements and claims the workers owe him a huge amount,” Dabhi said.
No compensation was given for the child’s death. No pending wages were paid, workers said. The kiln continued its operations.
A Glimmer of Resistance
With support from IBMU, the four families are now preparing to file a collective complaint. The union has petitioned for long-term rehabilitation, compensation for the child’s death and criminal prosecution of those responsible. They are also demanding stricter enforcement of the Bonded Labour Act and regular inspection of kilns.
“He was just a child,” said Kashyap, showing a photo of his nephew on his phone. “If we had a house, a job, a little land, we would never have come here. We were hungry. That hunger took our child from us.”
Accidents like this are not rare in India’s kilns. What is rare is the decision to speak out. In the silence that often surrounds bonded labour, these voices broke through—and that itself is a beginning.
THE BLURRED LINE BETWEEN CHILD LABOUR AND FAMILY WORK |
The children of brick kiln workers are by and large bereft of support. Apart from a lack of organisational protection, there is also the broader issue of them working at kilns alongside their parents. Many of the children come from tribal families, especially from southern Rajasthan and eastern Gujarat. The families often migrate together, and due to a lack of access to education, the children begin assisting in moulding or carrying bricks from a very young age. This blurs the line between child labour and “family work”.
Anganwadis are virtually non-existent at brick kiln sites. While the government does technically extend the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) to migrant children, in practice, there are no functioning anganwadis within kiln premises. One of the main reasons is that most kilns are considered temporary and informal settlements and thus fall outside the purview of the regular ICDS coverage.
There are some Special Training Programme classes meant for migrant children under the central government’s Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan but these too face serious challenges. Most are operational only on paper. The teachers receive low and irregular salaries, and the children often face language barriers—especially those migrating from Hindi-speaking states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Chhattisgarh to Gujarati-speaking regions.
There are a few NGO efforts around. The Centre for Labour Research and Action runs seasonal children’s centres in brick kiln clusters in Rajasthan, particularly in Bhilwara and Ajmer districts, where basic education and midday meals are provided. “In Gujarat, we know of only one functioning children’s class at a brick kiln in Adalaj, Gandhinagar, being run at HM Bricks with external support,” said an IBMU representative. “We have not seen many other examples of NGO-run creches or childcare at kiln sites.” |
Links to CLRA’ studies
Edited by Radha Rajadhyaksha
Rohit Chauhan is a team leader in Rajkot with the Centre for Labour Research and Action, a grassroots organization committed to advancing the rights of migrant workers in India’s informal sector.
Comments