"Grandmother and Children, Yadgiri Bandi (Rock Cutters)" [Village of Dalits, near Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India image #5028, 2008] - The woman in this picture has lived her entire life in the Yadgiri Bandi slum outside the city of Secunderabad, in the southern Indian State of Andhra Pradesh. In this village the only means of income, for both men and women, is the backbreaking task of cutting huge rock formations, using only primitive hand tools, into progressively smaller pieces. These rocks are then sold to a high caste middleman, to be sold again to another middleman for either export or to building trades within India. The Yadgiri Bandi do not have running water, sewage disposal, access to health care, and do not make enough money to shop in the markets except for rice. Because of the nature of their rock cutting methods, it is rare to see any worker past age 40 without physical deformation. Female rock cutters are usually paid half the wages of their male counterparts. The three children in this photograph, because of their birth as a “Dalit” (Untouchable) into caste system, will grow up and their only survival option will be to work in the quarry until they are to old or deformed to continue, until their children or grandchildren, hopefully, earn enough to help feed them.
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