Hyderabad, April 30 -- For nearly two months after he walked out of jail, 26-year-old Kumeswar Naik had to travel 20 kilometres every morning to sweep and mop the Kashipur Police Station - the very station where he had once been detained.

Naik, a Dalit grocery store owner from Kantamal village in Odisha's Rayagada district, had spent five months in jail for protesting against a bauxite mining project by Vedanta Ltd in the Tijimali hills. When the Orissa High Court granted him bail in May 2025, it came with a condition that he was to clean the police station premises every morning between 6 am and 9 am.

"Walking to the police station knowing we would have to do this insulting job, I told my heart that the cause is bigger than this mere o...