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Suit is my first graphic novel. It was published by Yodapress in January, 2022.
The story is set in a Mumbai of the near future, when Safai Karamcharis have been provided with safety equipment, including a full-body safety suit which gives them the moniker of Suitwalas. The story explores stigma, social change and mobility through the eyes of Vikas, a young “Suitwala”, as we follow him through a day in his life, flitting between incidents at work, moments he catches with his family and memories of his father. The suit is hailed as a great leap in the right direction for the safety and dignity of Safai Karamcharis; however, has anything changed in reality or is the suit just a cover? The book speculates what change could look like in a profession so steeped in exploitation and exclusion, where the persistent stigma infuses every step towards betterment with a bitter aftertaste.
Suit is a work of speculative fiction. It emerged out of an an urge to address the various faces of oppression in the Indian social landscape. Occupations like sanitation work and solid waste management are confluence points of caste, class and stigma, where in Dalits working as Safai Karamcharis and their families are caught in an exploitative web. I was keen to delve into the realities of their lives, understand the complexities of having to confront caste and stigma on a daily basis. To approach the story as a work of speculative fiction provided the space to question critically, and to imagine how the nature of caste and caste based occupations might mutate in the future. Suit borrows it’s vision from the thoughts and works of other activists and authors like Babasaheb Ambedkar, Daya Pawar, Baburao Bagul, Gogu Shyamala and Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd.
“I read this book in one go, and every page shattered my heart into a million pieces. Manual scavenging is India’s national shame. This book offers a glimpse into the casteist and exploitative horror inflicted upon the lives of safai karamcharis, and Samarth’s stark black-and-white lines chronicle the endless iteration of trauma, humiliation and tragedy in the life of a sanitation worker. His art, filled with empathy and rage, holds up a mirror to our toxic society which needs urgent cleaning.”
Meena Kandasamy | Author and Activist
“Suit by Samarth poses an important question: What happens to Dalits when they earn the rights and privileges that are due to all humans? Do they stop being Dalits anymore? Suit is a study into how this society is conditioned to not accept a Dalit who has rights, however basic those rights may be.”
Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar | Author
“Tears rolled in my eyes as I read the text. It reminded the historic struggles of Tupakula Simhachalam who had organized the sanitation workers strike in Vijayawada on the eve of the quit India movement…Suit illuminates the hidden struggles of the oppressed and dehumanized sanitation workers. It demands dignity and accountability from a society that refuses to acknowledge deaths under its feet.”
Chinnaiah Jangam | Professor at Carleton University
“Bold, edgy, and superbly drawn, Suit forces us to reconsider our own assumptions, biases, and condescensions.”
Sudhanva Deshpande | Author, Theatre Director and Actor
