In photos: A pesticide tragedy that haunts an Indian state

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Cherylann Mollan

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Madhuraj/Kochi Biennale Foundation

A 2010 photo of seven-year-old Sharanya. She had hydrocephalus and couldn’t sit upright for long. Sharanya died five years after this photo was taken.

Warning: This story contains images that some readers may find distressing.

Haunting photographs of children with deformed limbs and swollen heads make up one of the exhibits at the ongoing Kochi-Muziris Biennale, an exhibition of contemporary art held annually in the southern Indian state of Kerala.

The photographs, by photojournalist Madhuraj (who uses only one name), chronicle the health impacts believed to be caused by endosulfan - a cheap but highly toxic pesticide - on hundreds of children in Kerala’s Kasargod district in the 1990s and 2000s.

For more than 20 years, beginning in the 1970s, the Plantation Corporation of Kerala sprayed endosulfan on cashew plantations in Kasargod two-to-three times a year. Later, the pesticide was also used on crops like tea, paddy and mango.

In the 1990s, residents reported birth defects in animals and children, including physical and neurological conditions like cerebral palsy, epilepsy and hydrocephalus (fluid build-up in the brain).

Locals also reported rashes, hormonal issues, asthma and cancer - diseases that some environmental organisations and the Kerala government later attributed to endosulfan poisoning.

Some scientists in India have challenged the linking of endosulfan to these diseases, saying that there is insufficient evidence. But in 2004, Kerala’s Pollution Control Board stopped using the pesticide.

In 2011, the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants implemented a worldwide ban on its production and use. The same year, India’s Supreme Court passed an order banning the use, sale, production and export of endosulfan across the country.

In 2017, the Supreme Court ordered the Kerala government to pay 500,000 rupees ($5,400; £4,000) as compensation to each of the 5,000 victims, but Madhuraj says some of them told him they are yet to receive this amount.

The BBC has reached out to the state’s health department for a response.

Many of the victims were poor labourers and their families belonged to disadvantaged castes and tribal groups with little access to proper nutrition and healthcare.

Madhuraj documented the endosulfan issue in Kasargod for over two decades, visiting the homes of people believed to be impacted by the pesticide several times to understand its effect on their lives.

“I have witnessed first-hand the debilitating impact on victims and how this pesticide has destroyed entire families,” Madhuraj told the BBC.

“In many homes, parents have multiple children with physical and mental disabilities, making it extremely difficult to care for them. I have also seen elderly people struggle to care for their spouses who have developed ailments because of prolonged exposure to the pesticide,” he adds.

Here are some of Madhuraj’s photographs, taken over the past two-and-a-half decades.

Warning: The photos contain graphic imagery, which some readers may find distressing.

Madhuraj/Kochi Biennale Foundation

Jameela holds a photo of her daughter Zainaba who had hydrocephalus and died in 2001 before she turned a year old. When Madhuraj visited Jameela in 2010, she took out this photo of her daughter, which she had kept safely in an envelope.

Madhuraj/Kochi Biennale Foundation

Kavitha lived in a house close to a cashew plantation and would get excited when she saw helicopters flying above, spraying endosulfan on the crops. Gradually, she developed immunological issues and her tongue began to swell, making it difficult for her to close her mouth. This photo of Kavitha was taken in 2006, four years before she died.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, civil society groups, environment organisations and local people held massive protests demanding a ban on endosulfan. For years, parents who believed their children were impacted by the pesticide turned up to protests with their sick children in tow, demanding medical help and compensation from the government.

Madhuraj says these parents have spent years fighting private and public battles - the hardest being trying to keep their children alive.

“Every journey I have taken through the affected areas has convinced me that Kerala, which has made great strides in the health sector, has not done justice to the victims of the endosulfan tragedy,” Madhuraj says.

Madhuraj/Kochi Biennale Foundation

In 2012, mothers marched to the collector’s office in Kasargod with their sick children in their arms. They demanded better medical facilities for their children and compensation for victims.

Madhuraj/Kochi Biennale Foundation

A 2019 photo shows women travelling with their sick children on a night train to state capital Thiruvananthapuram to participate in a protest seeking compensation for victims of the endosulfan tragedy.

Madhuraj/Kochi Biennale Foundation

A father waits with his son at a government medical camp in Kasargod in 2017. The camp was held to identify victims of the tragedy so that they could be offered medical treatment and compensation.

Madhuraj/Kochi Biennale Foundation

Sarojini breaks down looking at the belongings of her daughter, Saranya, who died in 2014 at the age of 14. Saranya was born blind and suffered from heart and lung diseases. Sarojini’s husband died of a lung disease in 2006. The family lived near a cashew plantation in Kasargod.

Madhuraj/Kochi Biennale Foundation

The bed on which police say Vimala allegedly strangled her daughter to death before taking her own life. This photo was taken in 2022 after news of the alleged murder-suicide made headlines and shocked the state.

The tragic story of Vimala and her daughter, Reshma, who was 28 years old at the time of her death, underscores the heart-wrenching nature of the endosulfan tragedy.

According to reports in the media, Reshma, who was born with intellectual disabilities, was looked after by her grandmother while her mother went to work. Her father died when she was a child. In 2014, her grandmother died.

In 2019, during the Covid-19 pandemic, a special school that Reshma went to closed down.

In 2022, police said, Vimala allegedly killed her daughter before taking her own life. They told the media that Vimala struggled to care for her daughter alone.

Madhuraj said he decided to showcase his photos on the endosulfan tragedy at the Kochi Biennale because he wanted it to get more attention.

“Such disasters, and their human cost, should not be forgotten,” he added.

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