Burning at the Margins: Dalit Migrants, Heatwaves, and the Fight for Health Rights

The most devastating effects of climate change fall on the most structurally marginalized. Dalit migrant workers, employed in a hazardous, low-paying occupation like construction or sanitation, are acutely vulnerable to climate shocks. When a heatwave strikes, they are simultaneously the most exposed and the least able to access medical care for heat stroke or dehydration. Even when eligible for free public services, they are pushed to prefer a private provider to avoid the long waiting lines that would otherwise cost them a day's wage. This forced choice results in a cyclic effect of out-of-pocket expenses entrenching them into deeper poverty. This cyclic effect causes these groups to face limited access to public healthcare and ineffective labour regulations. This cyclic effect reveals the caste-based dimensions of differential climate vulnerability: where caste first ensures exposure to climate risks and then causes the inability to adapt to those risks. One such account of the inability to access public healthcare is given by a registered nurse who says, "His family tried to take him to the hospital but none of them were accepting 'his kind of patient.' Eventually, after being transported from city to city, he ended up dying."

In India, more than 200 people have died in recent months from extreme heat, with tens of thousands more falling ill. While often termed 'unusual', these extreme temperatures are increasingly the norm as global warming intensifies. The historically oppressed caste groups, particularly the Scheduled Caste (SC) and Other Backward Class (OBC) workers, are disproportionately employed in informal outdoor sectors, which exposes them to occupational heat stress. Within this vulnerable population, migrant workers in the informal sector become invisible. Lacking official records, they are cut off from the social safety nets that could mitigate heatwave risks.

Scheduled Castes constitute about 16% of intra-state migrants, matching their population shares, a proportion unchanged since 2001.. Despite comprising only a quarter of the population, these groups make up more than 40% of seasonal migrants. This statistical parity points to a systemic exclusion from economic opportunities in home regions, forcing migration as a means of survival. Hence, Dalit migrants are disproportionately represented in precarious and underpaid forms of labour, rendering them highly susceptible to the adverse effects of climate-induced disruptions. This exposure and vulnerability is not incidental; it reflects how caste, labour, and environment intersect to structure marginalization.

Despite their physical proximity to urban health facilities, migrant workers, particularly SC migrants, face entrenched exclusion from public healthcare. Most lack documentation or formal registration, rendering them invisible to social protection systems. Their temporary and precarious employment status further alienates them from welfare entitlements. Caste-based discrimination persists even in urban healthcare delivery. Numerous field studies document that SC migrants continue to face exclusionary practices, poor treatment, and structural neglect in hospitals. These dynamics illustrate how economic precarity and caste discrimination combine to deny meaningful access to health rights.

When heat waves strike, these inequities sharpen. SC migrant workers, employed in the most heat-exposed occupations, are simultaneously least able to access medical care for heat stroke or dehydration. The overlapping burdens of caste, informal work, and migration translate into disproportionate climate vulnerability. Despite growing recognition of India's climate risks, state interventions often ignore this intersectional reality. The current policy discourse around climate change and urban governance fails to account for the structural inequalities that leave Dalit workers exposed, exhausted, and excluded.

India's legal and policy frameworks, especially labour protections, continue to overlook the differentiated impacts of climate risks shaped by caste, occupation, and migration status. The need to address this legal blind spot is urgent.

India's Constitution offers a powerful legal framework for reimagining climate justice as a form of substantive equality. At its core lies Article 21, which guarantees the right to life and personal liberty. This provision has been expansively interpreted by the Supreme Court to include the Right to Health, the Right to Livelihood, and the Right to Dignity. In Francis Coralie Mullin v. Administrator, the Court held that the right to life includes "the right to live with human dignity," which in turn entails access to health care and safe conditions of work. Similarly, in Consumer Education and Research Centre v. Union of India, the Supreme Court unequivocally recognized health as an integral component of Article 21, especially for workers in hazardous employment.

The constitutional promise, however, remains unfulfilled for India's informal workforce, especially SC migrants, who remain unprotected. Existing policy responses, including the National Action Plan on Heat-Related Illnesses and several state-level Heat Action Plans (such as Delhi's Heat Action Plan 2024-25), have failed to acknowledge or address this specific vulnerability. These omissions not only expose a policy gap but also a constitutional failing. When the State neglects to safeguard the health of the most vulnerable workers against foreseeable climate hazards, it violates both the spirit and letter of the Constitution.

The Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 ("OSH Code") is India's most comprehensive labour reform. However, despite being enacted in a climate-critical decade, the OSH Code fails to recognize heatwaves, air pollution, or rising temperatures as occupational hazards. This failure has grave consequences. Dalit workers are concentrated in occupations such as construction, street vending, and sanitation, which are most vulnerable to heat. Yet, the Code's protective mechanisms are limited to establishments that meet minimum employee thresholds, thereby excluding the vast informal sector where caste-based occupational segregation is most pronounced.

Moreover, the Code is silent on key climate-resilient provisions such as rest breaks during high temperatures, shaded working areas, or mandatory access to drinking water. Its design thus perpetuates a two-tier system of labour protections: one for the formal economy, buffered from climate shocks, and another for the caste-oppressed informal workforce left to suffer in silence. Legacy legislation, such as the Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act, 1979, was drafted for an era when industrial hazards, rather than climate change, were the primary concern. These laws' rigid thresholds and documentation requirements systematically exclude those working at the intersection of caste and climate vulnerability.

Any serious climate justice agenda must confront the caste realities of climate vulnerability. Recognizing heat stress as a caste-differentiated occupational hazard is not merely an environmental imperative but a constitutional necessity.

A climate-just labour regime must recognize extreme heat, air pollution, and water scarcity as occupational hazards. To begin with, the OSH Code requires urgent amendment to classify these as occupational risks. This would legally entitle workers, regardless of enterprise size, to protective measures such as mandatory rest periods during extreme heat, provision of hydration stations and shaded working areas, and flexible work hours based on local temperature forecasts.

Further, governments must institutionalize Labour Climate Health Impact Assessments, gather caste-disaggregated data on heat-related health outcomes, and embed the Right to Climate-Resilient Work within the architecture of social and labour law.

Crucially, healthcare systems must ensure portability of entitlements across states for migrant workers, while embedding anti-discrimination safeguards to ensure that caste does not become a barrier to receiving treatment. Healthcare is not a public welfare scheme ; it is a constitutional right, especially when the failure to access it can result in death during climate emergencies.