I genuinely don’t get the controversy around singing Vande Mataram. It’s a patriotic song about India, not an endorsement of a political party or government.

You can dislike the government, disagree with policies and criticise politicians. That’s completely different from having basic respect for the country itself.

I just find it strange how even something as simple as Vande Mataram becomes controversial.

Love the country you live in, or live in the country you love.

Personal Background

Comrades, I am an Indian Muslim coming from a family of doctors. My father grew up in crushing poverty, but he broke his back to pull his siblings out of the mud, ensuring they all received medical educations. Today, my uncle is one of the top oncologists in Delhi-NCR, and my father serves our community as a general physician.

​Because of my father’s practice, I live closely near Azad Market, right next to Sadar Bazaar. For those who don't know, this area is the jugular vein of Delhi's supply chain. It is the historic, beating heart of wholesale goods and food that keeps this massive city running. But behind the bustling economy and the immense wealth generated here lies a dystopian reality.

​The patients who come to my father’s clinic are mostly the labor workforce of these markets. Sitting in the clinic, I hear and see heart-wrenching stories every single day. I want to share what the systematic destruction of the unorganized working class looks like from a medical and human perspective.

The Stolen Childhoods and the Excluded Women

​The general condition of the workers here is beyond awful. It is overwhelmingly a male workforce, and the reason for that is grim: for female workers, this environment is an absolute nightmare.

The lack of basic safety makes women highly susceptible to sexual assault and harassment, effectively pushing them out of even this desperate avenue of survival.

​For the boys, the exploitation begins as young as 10. You see children roaming the streets doing "light work" acting as street hawkers, running errands, or simply begging. By the time these kids reach adolescence, they are already physically ruined. We see 14-year-olds with stunted growth, mental and physical impairment, chronic malnourishment, and severe dehydration.

They work 14 hours a day on their feet. When they take off their cheap sandals in the clinic, you see the feet of an 80-year-old or a battle-hardened military veteran covered in thick, bleeding blisters, callouses, and scars.

​The Grueling Machinery of the Night

​For the adult men, the problems compound exponentially. These men are treated worse than the machines they load and unload.

Some employers are so sadistically authoritarian that they refuse to let the workers sit down, forcing them to stand in the blistering Delhi heat even when there is no work to be done.

​There is a chronic, maddening lack of sleep among this demographic.

​10:00 PM to 5:00 AM: Heavy trucks full of goods arrive under the cover of night to bypass city traffic laws. The laborers spend all night unloading tons of material by hand.

​5:00 AM to 10:00 AM: Before the normal market timings even commence, these exhausted men must physically distribute the goods across the endless maze of the bazaar.

​A Medical Tragedy: Broken Bodies and Drained Wages

​The heavy lifting destroys their bodies in ways that are difficult to witness. Historically, the unorganized sector in India has always relied on the expendability of human life, and here you see it in real-time.

​They repeatedly suffer from severe joint dislocations, slipped discs, and immense muscle sprains or complete tears. By the time these men reach their old age if they survive that long their spines are so bent and deformed that they cannot even rest on the most comfortable mattress without agonizing pain.

​The cruelest irony of their existence is that the meager wages they sacrifice their youth for are ultimately flushed down the drain. Every rupee they save goes directly into medical treatments to momentarily soothe the bodily destruction caused by earning those very rupees.

​The Slums: Surviving Without Air

​When their shift ends, there is no sanctuary. They live in nearby slum quarters, paying ₹1,000 per person to share a single, cramped room with up to 20 other men. Calling it "overcrowded" is a polite fiction.

​There is zero ventilation. Forget a cooler or an AC; there isn't even moving air. Because they lack a safe, private place to wash the sweat and grime off their bodies, fungal infections run rampant.

They come to the clinic with massive, bleeding skin rashes covering their torsos and groins. For their daily necessities, they rely on the public MCD toilets to excrete and bath.

The stench of these toilets is so putrid and violently overwhelming that no person who has known a day of dignity could tolerate standing near them for a minute, let alone bathing in them.

​The Death of Protest

​Historically, the working class has utilized strikes and protests to demand better conditions. But these men? They don't even have the privilege to protest.

​They have resigned themselves entirely to this fate.

There is no structural safety net, no union to back them, and no alternative. They are the absolute sole source of income for their families back in their home villages. If they miss a day, their children starve.

​When you look into their eyes, you don't see dreams of wealth or upward mobility. Their hopes and dreams have been battered down to a single, humble plea: to be given their basic human dignity.

"There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success."

— John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath