How a tragic photograph illuminated India’s better future

The death of a sewer worker in India’s capital, New Delhi, would normally seem like news of relative insignificance. But one tragic photo has proved why that’s slowly changing.

Hindustan Times reporter Shiv Sunny’s photograph of an 11 year-old boy grieving over his father’s body has led to a massive outreach by Indian civil society. The boy’s father, Anil, was a sewer worker who died when his safety rope snapped as he cleaned sewers in India’s capital, New Delhi. As the BBC notes, the boy often accompanied his father to his work sites in order to protect his clothes and shoes from being stolen. This is the nature of poverty.