Sanitised Republic: Cast(e) & Contracts

Synopsis

Sanitised Republic follows sanitation workers at Delhi’s Kalawati Saran Children’s Hospital and Lady Hardinge Medical College who risked their lives working through the COVID-19 pandemic, only to lose their jobs in June 2022. Through their struggle for secure employment and dignity, the film examines the realities of contractual labour and the enduring relationship between caste and sanitation work in contemporary India. Through the journeys of Kantilal, Sarfaraz, Sunita, and Sewak Ram, the film moves between individual lives and a collective workers’ struggle. Their testimonies reveal the economic uncertainty, exhaustion, and indignity produced by contractual employment, while also documenting their persistence and resistance. Moving between personal testimony and collective resistance, the film documents workers who refuse to remain invisible, continuing their fight in courts and on streets.