In India’s manufacturing heartland, despair has begun to claim the lives of cutters and polishers as sanctions choke supplies and lab-grown stones reshape markets. Our reporters share workers’ firsthand stories.
In the narrow lanes of Surat, the rhythmic whir of polishing wheels once sang of precision and prosperity. Today, they hum with unease. Inside dim workshops, men who once brought brilliance to rough stones now sit idle like the gems they can no longer afford to cut.
Among them was Nikunj Jyanti, 28, a polisher whose deft touch turned fragments of carbon into beauty. When the downturn hit and his job vanished, he told no one of the burden he carried.
“He smiled every day,” says his mother, Mukta, her voice soft with grief. “But inside, he was breaking, like a diamond under too much pressure.”
Here, in India’s diamond capital, which polishes nearly 90% of the world’s diamonds, a dark shadow has fallen over workers as a confluence of global forces, economic slowdowns, sanctions on Russian exports, and the rise of synthetic stones pushes the industry into crisis. Dozens of diamond workers have taken their own lives in the last couple of years, becoming victims not of illness or neglect, but of a global market in flux.
Jyanti was one such casualty. At a young age, he earned a reputation in Surat for his careful attention to detail. But after losing his job, he succumbed to mounting financial pressure and ended his life in August 2024.
“He never spoke to us about his problems,” says his mother, wrapped in a blue sari with red bangles. “He was always under stress, struggling to make ends meet. He kept everything to himself, and it wore away at him like termites eating away from within.”
Pushed to the breaking point
Jyanti’s death is part of a disturbing rise in suicides among India’s diamond workers. At least 100 diamond polishers have died by suicide in the last two years, overwhelmed by income loss and debt, according to Bhavesh Tank, vice president of the Diamond Workers Union Gujarat (DWUG). Tank points a finger at US diamond sanctions, which he says have helped cripple a local industry largely dependent on Russian rough.
Inside Surat’s last few workshops, the lively hum of activity has faded to something more somber.
At the Somnath Society neighborhood’s workshop on Varachha Road, polishers sit shoulder to shoulder, hunched over their circular polishing machines in the dim glow of LED lights. They grip each diamond carefully with tweezers and use dop sticks to press the stones gently against the cutting wheel. It’s slow, steady work, angling the stone just right to create the 56 tiny facets that catch the light and make the diamond sparkle. After every rub with the spinning wheel, they stop to check their progress, lifting the diamonds to their magnifying glasses to make sure everything lines up, that each facet is just as it should be.
“Earlier, workers would get a chance to work for 12 hours seven days a week. Now it is between four and five days [a week] for three hours each day,” says Harish Bai Rajput, a 38-year-old diamond polisher who migrated from the city of Rajkot in search of a stable future. “We used to polish around 50 diamonds daily and could earn INR 2,000 [around $23], but now we barely make half that, polishing only 20 to 25 diamonds for INR 900 [about $10].”
A multitude of factors
This steep drop in earnings reflects the challenges rippling through the global diamond supply chain. Sanctions on Russian diamonds — which make up 29% of the world’s natural-diamond supply — have halted raw-material imports to Surat. Moreover, the restrictions on Russian diamonds in the US have shrunk key markets.
“The industry relies on imported rough diamonds, predominantly from Russia, and with the primary market” — the US — “closed, the shortages have struck at the core of Indian operations,” explains Dinesh Navadiya, chairman of the Indian Diamond Institute.
But sanctions are only one part of the problem. The global demand for natural diamonds has dropped sharply as lab-grown diamonds, which offer near-identical brilliance at a fraction of the price, flood the market. In the US and Europe, consumers are increasingly choosing synthetics, which has pushed down prices for natural stones and squeezed profit margins for Surat cutters.
“Earlier, we had endless orders from US buyers,” says a factory owner. “Now they want cheaper lab-growns that we can’t even produce here at that scale.”
India’s polished-diamond exports have fallen steeply, plummeting from around $23 billion in 2022 to about $16 billion in 2023, and they’re expected to keep declining to roughly $12 billion by the beginning of next year.
This follows record overall gem and jewelry exports of around $39 billion in 2021 to ’22, including $24 billion worth of cut and polished diamonds, making the current downturn all the more painful.
“We import 100% of our raw material and export 95%, with only 5% consumed locally,” says Navadiya. His own factory, Tiku Gems — once vibrant with nearly 150 skilled workers — is now shut. Like many in the industry, he has shifted from manufacturing to trading, only purchasing and selling finished products based on demand.
“I used to import raw material worth $300,000 to $400,000 every month. Now, I’m down to just $100,000,” he says. The industry, he believes, is on a knife-edge: “If the US sanctions continue, the Indian diamond industry will completely shut in a few years.”
Beyond sanctions and synthetics, the slowdown in global luxury spending, especially in the US and China, has further deepened the crisis. Dealers say retailers are delaying restocking, waiting for prices to stabilize. This has left Surat’s factories starved of both raw material and demand, a rare double blow that’s eroding confidence throughout the trade.
Decline of a profession
Gujarat’s diamond industry, once attracting a fresh workforce each year, is now seeing fewer new entrants, with the prospects for experienced workers dimming further by the day.
“We are losing skilled workers now,” says Tank. “Annually only 3,000 skilled workers are added to the workforce. Before 2008, at least 40,000 workers would enter the industry every year.”
The decline in income is palpable. Once able to support families on steady diamond earnings, workers are now struggling.
Ashok Arjunbai Tumar recalls the industry’s heyday with fondness. “We used to bring in 150 diamonds a day for polishing and earned around INR 50,000 [about $600] each month, with chances for overtime and Sunday shifts,” recalls the 44-year-old polisher. “Now our workload has fallen by 60%, and many don’t know how much longer they can last.”
Indian workers have exceptional skill in diamond polishing, especially in crafting diamonds with 56 precise facets. These artisans have mastered polishing each stone’s top, bottom and edge, a tradition they’ve honed for generations. But when America — and later the European Union and other Group of Seven (G7) countries — banned the import of Russian-origin polished diamonds, the impact on India was inevitable. The ripple effect of this collapse has brought financial insecurity to entire families.
For 43-year-old diamond polisher Girish Bai Laxman Bai Savaliya, who has worked at Sadhguru Gems in Somnath Society for over two decades, the decline has been both economic and personal.
“The sanctions need to be lifted,” Savaliya says with urgency. “Without a market, this industry will collapse, and more lives will be lost.”
A personal toll
The human cost of this economic disaster is starkly apparent. In Jyanti’s family, his death has left a gaping void. His father, a retired mason, speaks of his son’s silent struggle: “He didn’t want to trouble us, knowing my health was weak. But the strain was too much for him to bear.”
Jyanti left behind a wife and a 14-month-old daughter, who now face an uncertain future. “Our expenses were INR 25,000 to INR 30,000 [about $300 to $340] each month,” says his widow, Janak. “We relied on him, and now we have nothing.”
In the aftermath of his death, the family struggled even to afford his cremation, relying on help from neighbors and relatives.
The crisis has also exacted a devastating toll on workers’ mental health. “Workers are under enormous stress due to the lack of income,” Navadiya explains. He affirms that reduced working hours and persistent financial hardship have led to increased cases of depression and suicide. “We have written to the government [about] these suicides, but there’s been no response. This is unprecedented; the recession has lasted longer than any we’ve faced before.”
In an effort to prevent further suicides, Tank’s association has created a helpline that provides counseling for workers. “We have received over 2,000 calls from workers this year,” he reports. “We receive five to seven calls every day. We have rescued dozens of workers and helped them to save their lives. We listen to their problems, encourage them to come out of stress.”
‘This is all I know’
For longtime diamond polisher Parmar Vinubhai Parshotambai, the industry’s collapse represents not just the loss of a job, but the erasure of a lifetime’s work and expertise.
“This is all I know,” says the 52-year-old industry veteran, his voice heavy with resignation. “I have spent my life bringing out the brilliance in diamonds, but in the process, my own life has faded into darkness.”
After working for three years at JD Lakshya Diamonds, turning rough stones into small polished gems, he got laid off when his employer faced a supply crunch linked to the Russian-diamond sanctions.
“My boss gave me two months’ salary, INR 32,000 [about $360], and said they would call if they needed me again,” he recounts. That call never came, nor did any other opportunity. His family’s financial woes deepened as his wife’s medical expenses drained their savings. The family’s two teenage sons, Shivam and Dhruv, have watched their education, once a priority, come under threat from financial instability.
As he considers leaving Surat — his home for four decades — Parshotambai’s sense of betrayal is palpable.
“We depended on this industry for everything,” he says. “And now it feels as though we’ve been abandoned.”
Main image: Illustration by David Polak.
© Article written by Sajad Hameed and Rehad Qayoom
Source : Rapaport