Image by Tashi TobgyalIn 2017, The Indian Express journalists Shalini Nair and Tashi Tobgyal decided to follow the news of over a dozen deaths of manual scavengers in Delhi and the inhuman conditions they worked in. “It had become a critical national issue and there was a public outcry. International media had started following up on it too. There were protests by activists and NGOs,” says Tobgyal, who is the Deputy Chief Photographer. His photograph of a 21-year-old manual scavenger at work in Raj Nagar, near Delhi, won the “Photograph of the Year” award at the first edition of The Hindu Photojournalism Awards in Chennai on Saturday. The Indian Express Special Photographer Praveen Khanna won the second position in the “News” category for his photograph of patients at Delhi’s Vallabhbhai Patel Chest Institute, when severe pollution had hit the Capital.
Image by Praveen KhannaThey are among the 12 winners, who were were judged in a two-step process from 800 submissions to the competition. The first jury comprised Amirtharaj Stephen, Chirodeep Chaudhuri and Srinivas Kuruganti, and the final one had Ashima Narain, Prashant Panjiar and Tanvi Mishra from India, Dimitri Beck from France and Yumi Goto from Japan. The awards were a part of the first edition of the ongoing Chennai Photo Biennale.
Tashi TobgyalAbout his photograph, Tobgyal says he had contacted a worker in Ghaziabad’s Raj Nagar through a source. “Johny, 21, lives in a village nearby. He is married and has two children. His day starts at 4 am and his work is cleaning gutters. He has to finish work by 8 am so that, by the time people wake up, the work is done,” he says. With a helper holding a torch, Johny climbs down the gutter by rope. He lights a match to check if there are any inflammable gases before he starts cleaning. “My task was to document those four hours,” says Tobgyal.
Praveen KhannaKhanna’s photograph is also from 2017, when people in Delhi had started wearing masks to protect themselves from pollution. He took the photograph at the hospital after a colleague was refused access the day before. “Somehow, the head of the department allowed me to take the photograph. It was a Saturday, there was rush and a line of people were sitting there with nebulisers,” he says.
