It is inhuman labour that has gone on for generations. The workers dive underwater and first cut the soil with a spade, then carry the clods of earth on their heads from under the water onto a floating boat. Everything revolves around water, and the labour is not only in the diving.

Cutting soil with a spade underwater is hard, but it is even harder to dive again, lift the soil onto one's head and put it in the boat. I saw this in Manoharganj upazila of Cumilla.

One day in 2008 I went to Manoharganj to work on the waterlogging there. I saw a terrible scene. People were diving. Half-submerged or fully under, they were cutting the soil with spades and first placing the clods under the water. Then they dived again, lifted the clods onto their heads and loaded them onto small dinghies floating on the surface. I have no words for the hardship of that labour. I only saw with my own eyes how cruel the work was.

This soil is used to build new houses and roads, among other things. One soil-cutting worker told me that, going into the water from eight in the morning, he had to dive 700 times to bring up the soil. I was dumbstruck to hear it. Yet in their own words, they have no choice but to do this work. It is by cutting soil that these helpless people keep themselves alive.

Source: Shykh Seraj. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.