For 25 years, India’s most progressive and fully literate state, Kerala, has silently witnessed how individual lives were curtailed by a deadly insecticide- Endosulfan. While the world took firm decisions on banning it, politicians in India are still debating. Just recently one state actually had an advocate in using Endosulfan that has left mangled limbs and the “living dead” in Kasargod in Kerala. The country’s Federal government is thinking of doing another study despite having done ten studies earlier. Several hundreds have been badly affected by the Endosulfan sprayings that a whole generation has been destroyed.

As the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Pollutants meets this week, I am praying that the world will ban Endosulfan. Sixty countries have already banned it- India needs more proof?

If we as human beings have a collective conscience to correct a big mistake, this will be it. The poor and marginalised need a voice- since 1976, the roars of choppers flying over their agricultural land has only yielded mangled limbs and other deformities. To know more, view these photographs from Prashanth Vishwanathan.