Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Updates in Your Groups, November 2, 2010

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bhupalanbamcef commented on a photo in the Buddha Dhamma Conference at Alapalli Dist Gadchiroli (India) on October 30-31, 2010. album
 

[ZESTCaste] Mayawati launches financial aid scheme for 3.1 million BPL families

http://sify.com/finance/mayawati-launches-financial-aid-scheme-for-3-1-million-bpl-families-news-news-klcbkHehjfc.html

Mayawati launches financial aid scheme for 3.1 million BPL families

Virendra Singh Rawat | 2010-11-02 01:10:00

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati today launched a financial aid
scheme for 3.1 million below poverty line (BPL) families in the state.

The scheme titled ‘Uttar Pradesh Mukhyamantri Mahamaya Garib Arthik
Madad Yojna’ would provide Rs 300 per month to the identified BPL
families.

The financial aid would be credited to the bank account of the female
head of the BPL families every six months. This way, the scheme would
entail an additional annual burden of Rs 1,116 crore to the exchequer
in the first phase.

To mark the beginning of the scheme, Mayawati handed over bank pass
books and certificates to 10 beneficiaries at a function here. Fifty
per cent of the beneficiaries under the scheme belong to the SC/ST
categories.

She said the scheme included those BPL units, which had not been
covered under other pro-poor schemes. It would cover 15 million people
belonging to 3.1 million BPL families.

In the next phase, the remaining BPL families would be covered under
the scheme, which was announced on January 15 this year during
Mayawati’s birthday celebrations.

She said the Centre had identified only 10.07 million BPL families in
UP for the purpose of providing food grain at cheaper prices, however,
the number of BPL families was greater.


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[ZESTCaste] Reservation in promotion: Contempt notice to Rajasthan chief secretary

 

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Reservation-in-promotion-Contempt-notice-to-Rajasthan-chief-secretary/articleshow/6853454.cms

Reservation in promotion: Contempt notice to Rajasthan chief secretary
Abhinav Sharma, TNN, Nov 1, 2010, 07.16pm IST

JAIPUR: Rajasthan High Court on Monday issued show cause notices to
chief secretary and secretary, department of personal, for allegedly
advancing consequential seniority to SC and ST candidates in as many
as 110 services of the state including RAS despite the pendency of
litigation in the court.

The order came on a contempt petition filed by All India Equity Forum.
"It was alleged by the petitioner that a division bench of high court
has quashed two notifications by which the various service rules
including those of RAS were modified to adjust the candidates of SC
and ST in promotions over and above the available seniors candidates
from general category. In an appeal by the state government, the
Supreme court has heard the matter and reserved the final judgment on
August 4, this year but still the government has issued promotion
lists in various departments without waiting for the outcome of the
orders of court, which amounts to contempt of the court," said Shobit
Tiwari, counsel for the petitioner.

It was contented by the petitioner forum that since the order of the
high court is still operational and there is no authority with the
government to have issued promotion lists in various departments till
the issue has been finally settled by the apex court, the lists so
issued are devoid of legal sanctity and undermine the authority of
justice. It is noteworthy that the high court in February this year
while dealing with as many as 18 writ petitions has held that, "the
state government could not have amended the various service rules on
the basis of 85th constitutional amendment to provide consequential
seniority to SC and ST RAS officers as the same was enabling provision
particularly without conducting any survey to ascertain backwardness
of the candidates, inadequate representation of his cast in service,
and that such promotion of his would not cause any effect on the
overall efficiency of the general administration."

Taking congnizance of the fact that the special leave petition filed
by the state itself is pending for final orders by the Supreme Court,
and no survey as held by high court previously has still been
conducted by the state government, the court issued notices to chief
secretary and secretary, DOP to respond to the contempt petition
within a period of ten days.

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[ZESTCaste] Jats adamant on quota, to assemble in Delhi Nov 25

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/politics/jats-adamant-on-quota-to-assemble-in-delhi-nov-25_100453715.html

Jats adamant on quota, to assemble in Delhi Nov 25


Tuesday, November 02, 2010 3:27:01 PM by IANS ( Leave a comment )
Chandigarh, Nov 2 (IANS) Haryana's Jat leaders Tuesday said that they
will gather in the capital Nov 25 to give the central government the
ultimatum on their demand for other backward class (OBC) status and
job quota for the community.

Members of the Jat community are seeking reservation in government
jobs and educational institutions, as given to OBC sections.

"Both the central and state governments are delaying the issue of our
demands and they are not at all serious about them. They are only
buying time by making false promises. We have decided to converge in
New Delhi on Nov 25 to give final ultimatum to the central
government," said Yash Pal Malik, president of the All India Jat
Aarakshan Sangarsh Samiti, while addressing reporters here Tuesday.

"Thereafter, we would intensify our campaign and there is a
possibility that we would also show a small trailer to the government
on Nov 25," he added.

Earlier, Jat community members had threatened to seal the Delhi
borders Oct 3, before the start of the Commonwealth Games. They later
changed their decision.

"We had got a request from the Congress government not to interrupt
the Games. They had promised us that immediately after the Games, they
would take up our issue, but it did not happen," said Malik.

"Some members of a political party had also attacked and threatened
me. But we are not going to step back and would continue fighting till
all our demands are met," he said.

Earlier Sep 13 and 14, Hisar district of Haryana saw a widespread
violence by Jat community members on this issue. A mob went on the
rampage, targeting government and private property.

One youth was killed in police firing, and several people were injured
in clashes. Following the violence, Hisar superintendent of police
Subhash Yadav was booked and transferred from his post.


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[ZESTCaste] No SC contestant for 5 yrs, village gets Thakur as head

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/No-SC-contestant-for-5-yrs--village-gets-Thakur-as-head/704669

No SC contestant for 5 yrs, village gets Thakur as head

Kautilya Singh Posted online: Sat Oct 30 2010, 01:08 hrs
Kanpur : After five years, Malasa, a Thakur-dominated village in UP's
Ramabai Nagar district, has finally got a gram pradhan — a Thakur.
Since August 2005, when the state reserved the pradhan's post for
Scheduled Caste — the village had been without a panchayat or a
pradhan. No one contested the election in 2005 and the subsequent
by-elections that were rescheduled eight times.

This time, the pradhan's seat was dereserved and as many as eight
candidates, all Thakurs, filed nominations.

In the results declared on Thursday, Ashish Singh defeated Raghuveer
Singh by a margin of 510 votes.

Ashish Singh said: "If no Dalit contested in the last five years, it
was no fault of other villagers. On several occasions, senior Thakur
residents had asked Dalits to file nomination, but they could not
muster the courage."


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[ZESTCaste] ‘English devi’ temple stalled

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/109098/english-devi-temple-stalled.html

Matter of faith

'English devi' temple stalled
Lucknow, October 30, DHNS:

The administration in Uttar Pradesh's Lakhimpur-Kheri district, about
150 km from here, has stopped the construction of a temple being built
for 'English devi' (goddess of English).


The officials said no prior permission was taken for the construction
of such a temple and hence its construction had been stopped. The
temple was being constructed at a college in the Dalit-dominated Banka
village in the district.

The 'English devi' temple was slated to be inaugurated on October 25
last, the birth anniversary of Lord Macaulay (who was instrumental in
intoducing English education in India) but it was delayed, as the
construction work was not over due to incessant rains.

While the manager of the college, Amar Chandra Johar, criticised the
authorities for not allowing the construction, he later said no prior
permission was taken by the college management. "Such a temple could
trigger caste-related tension not only in the area but throughout the
state," sources quoting district officials said.

Johar said the idea behind constructing a temple after 'English devi'
was to popularise English among the Dalits. The idol of 'English
devi' had been brought from Delhi. It holds a computer in one hand and
a pen in the other. The temple too is designed like a computer, with
stairs designed like keyboard leading to it.

The directive of the authorities however has not deterred the
villagers. They have installed the statue of the 'English devi'
outside the college premises and were singing songs praising her.


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[ZESTCaste] What drives the Dalits to Christianity?

http://www.hindu.com/br/2010/11/02/stories/2010110253351700.htm

What drives the Dalits to Christianity?

BHUPENDRA YADAV

DALIT THEOLOGY IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY — Discordant Voices,
Discerning Pathways: Edited by Sathianathan Clarke, Deenbandhu
Manchala, Philip Vinod Peacock; Oxford University Press, YMCA Library
Building, Jai Singh Road, New Delhi-110001. Rs. 745.

Although Christian missionaries of various denominations have been
active in India for several centuries, the 1941 Census placed the
number of Christians in colonial India at just 1.6 per cent of the
population. This clearly indicates that the main objective of the
British rulers was colonial domination and economic exploitation, not
religious conversion.

According to the 2001 Census, Christians constituted 2.3 per cent of
India's population. This rise of 0.7 percentage point in their numbers
over six decades has been a matter of debate. Starting with the Niyogi
Commission (1956) down to a Supreme Court's 1977 ruling, conversion
has been a highly contentious issue, sometimes inviting frowns from
officialdom and the judiciary. Hence the interest in the question
whether the Dalit converts to Christianity have indeed been seduced by
proselytising missionaries to "change Gods."

Urban artisans and people in the lower middle class have generally
turned against their established faiths throughout history.
Urbanisation gave these people a "greater access to religious
preachers, to literacy, to education and books, to a great variety of
personal relations, and to greater riches of urban culture," says
David Lorenzen in his introduction to Bhakti Religion in North India:
Community Identity and Political Action (1995). A distinct feature of
the Dalits who embraced Christianity is that a vast majority of them
are from the poorest sections in villages, not urbanites.

According to John Webster ( Religion and Dalit Liberation:1999),
changing the religion is one of the 'strategies' the Dalit communities
adopted in their struggle to secure social justice and equality. The
other four were: acquiring political power; securing as much
independence as possible from the dominant castes; initiating
reformist measures to reduce prejudices among themselves; and
deploying cultural modes of communication, like literature and
theatre, for conscientisation. Dalit theology has grown out of this
practice of changing religion. We have Christological reflections in
M.E. Prabhakar-edited Toward a Dalit Theology (1989), and
methodological formulations in Arvind Nirmal's Reader in Dalit
Theology (1992), and biblical reinterpretations in V. Devashyam's
Frontiers of Dalit Theology (1997).

This book presents, in three parts, 16 well-researched essays on
different themes by theologians and teachers and is a mine of profound
concepts and serious ideas on ecumenical social thought, myths of
Dalit origins, and so on. Does the 'Dalit Theology' have anything to
do with 'Liberation Theology'? Sadly, the points of
convergence/divergence between the Dalit Theology and the South
American Liberation Theology are not discussed in this book. One of
the reasons could be that Sathianathan Clarke, an editor of this
volume, has already authored a tome on the subject titled Dalits and
Christianity: Subaltern Religion and Liberation Theology in India
(1998). Yet, the omission is a real shortcoming.

From Punjab to Tamil Nadu, there have been a lot of conversions for
well over a century. What leads the Dalits to Christianity? Does
anything change for the better after conversion? It emerges that,
despite conversion, the Dalit Christians continue to be denied "land,
water and dignity." And the women among them have to bear the double
cross of 'lowest caste' and 'womanhood.' Sujatha, a woman tricked into
unwed motherhood, is told: "The palm leaf is torn, whether it falls on
a thorn or a thorn falls on it."

The relevance of the book stands enhanced in the context of the spate
of violent attacks by the Hindutva forces as a backlash to religious
conversions in recent years. The worst of these were witnessed in 2007
and 2008 in Kandhamal (Orissa), the target being the meek Dalit
Christians from the Pana caste. Dalit conversions are not a calamity
but they throw up situations of "slippery identities and shrewd
identifications," say Clarke and Peacock epigrammatically.


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[ZESTCaste] Geetha Uses Dalit Card To Counter-attack TRS

http://www.greatandhra.com/viewnews.php?id=24600&cat=15&scat=16

Geetha Uses Dalit Card To Counter-attack TRS

Published Date : 01-Nov-2010 08:05:54 GMT

The attempted attack by the Telangana Rashtra Samithi activists led by
Siddipet MLA T Harish Rao on the residence of Information Minister J
Geetha Reddy led to a tense situation in Hyderabad.

Early in the morning, Harish Rao led hundreds of party workers and
stormed Geetha's residence at Marredpally. They blocked the entrance
of the house and ransacked the premises. They raised slogans like
"Geetha Reddy Telangana Drohi," and "Down Down Geetha Reddy." But
before she was gheraoed, she went out through the rear gate and rushed
to Sangareddy to participate in the AP Formation Day celebrations.

Later, Geetha Reddy tried to turn tables on the TRS activists. She
alleged that the TRS leaders had attacked her house and hospital only
because she was a Dalit woman. "They had no concern for Dalits and
women. It clearly shows their contempt towards me," she alleged.


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[ZESTCaste] Former manual scavengers demand apology from government

http://www.hindu.com/2010/11/02/stories/2010110252320900.htm

Front Page

Former manual scavengers demand apology from government

Vidya Subrahmaniam

They narrate their accounts of pain and humiliation

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"We will never again go back to that life of shame and indignity"

Provide quota for community in higher education: Aruna Roy
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

New Delhi: The capital's Constitution Club resounded on Monday to
cries of "Jai Bhim" as a huge gathering of former manual scavengers
rose as one to demand an apology from the government for the wrongs
done to the community. "Apologise now for the violation of our
dignity," they said.

The choice of venue, with portraits of Babasaheb Ambedkar forming the
backdrop, was perhaps intendedly ironic. It was to remind the country
of its failure to redeem its pledge towards the most wretched of its
citizens — the Scheduled Castes, and among them, those condemned to
the obnoxious practice of manual scavenging. Sixty years after the
Constitution abolished untouchability and decreed all citizens to be
equal and free, one section continued to be subjected to the most
abhorrent of all human rights violations.

Expectedly the audience roared in approval, each time a liberated
"safai karamchari" narrated her personal story of sufferings and vowed
never again to go back to "that life of shame and indignity." The
speeches were punctuated by shouts of sukhi roti khayenge, maila nahi
uthayenge (it does not matter if we have nothing to eat, we will not
do manual scavenging) and "apologise, apologise." Each speaker spoke
in her native tongue but the accounts of pain and humiliation were
similar.

Anita, a former manual scavenger from Uttar Pradesh, said she and her
mother worked long hours, often without water, because they were
outcasts who could not touch any utensils. Anita wanted to know if
India had really gained Independence. "I will celebrate Independence
Day when we are treated as equals." Saroj from Haryana spoke of people
covering their noses and waving her away in disgust. Anita from Punjab
said she once slipped and fell while in an advanced stage of
pregnancy. As no one gave her a hand, she lay covered in excreta.

The star of the day was the spit-fire Umayal from Tamil Nadu.
Recalling her school days, she said she used to be made to stand in a
corner and was ordered to bring her own plate because her mother
cleaned human excreta. "This is happening even today. I want to ask
the government: You spend so much money on advertising on TV. Why
can't you use some of it to spread awareness about us? Why can't my
children study? Why can't they become Collectors? Why not? Why not?"
The tearful Umayal was led away to screams of "apologise, apologise"
from the audience.

Social activist Aruna Roy asked for reservation for the community, not
in sweeper categories, but in higher education and in the higher
bureaucracy.

Communist Party of India general secretary D. Raja said the clean-up
should begin from the Railways which was the largest employer of
manual scavengers. "If this is not a national shame, what is," he
asked, wondering at the paradox of a government willing to spend
Rs.70,000 crore on the Commonwealth Games but not mustering the will
to uplift the manual scavenging community.

The Safai Karmachari Andolan has demanded a comprehensive
rehabilitation package, including stringent punishment to those found
to be employing manual scavengers in violation of the Manual
Scavengers and Dry Latrine Construction (Prohibition) Act, 1993.


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[ZESTCaste] Former manual scavengers demand apology from government

 

Former manual scavengers demand apology from government

Vidya Subrahmaniam

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article863436.ece

The capital's Constitution Club resounded on Monday to cries of “Jai Bhim” as a huge gathering of former manual scavengers rose as one to demand an apology from the government for the wrongs done to the community. “Apologise now for the violation of our dignity,” they said.

The choice of venue, with portraits of Babasaheb Ambedkar forming the backdrop, was perhaps intendedly ironic. It was to remind the country of its failure to redeem its pledge towards the most wretched of its citizens â€" the Scheduled Castes, and among them, those condemned to the obnoxious practice of manual scavenging. Sixty years after the Constitution abolished untouchability and decreed all citizens to be equal and free, one section continued to be subjected to the most abhorrent of all human rights violations.

Expectedly the audience roared in approval, each time a liberated “safai karamchari” narrated her personal story of sufferings and vowed never again to go back to “that life of shame and indignity.” The speeches were punctuated by shouts of sukhi roti khayenge, maila nahi uthayenge (it does not matter if we have nothing to eat, we will not do manual scavenging) and “apologise, apologise.” Each speaker spoke in her native tongue but the accounts of pain and humiliation were similar.

Anita, a former manual scavenger from Uttar Pradesh, said she and her mother worked long hours, often without water, because they were outcasts who could not touch any utensils. Anita wanted to know if India had really gained Independence. “I will celebrate Independence Day when we are treated as equals.” Saroj from Haryana spoke of people covering their noses and waving her away in disgust. Anita from Punjab said she once slipped and fell while in an advanced stage of pregnancy. As no one gave her a hand, she lay covered in excreta.

The star of the day was the spit-fire Umayal from Tamil Nadu. Recalling her school days, she said she used to be made to stand in a corner and was ordered to bring her own plate because her mother cleaned human excreta. “This is happening even today. I want to ask the government: You spend so much money on advertising on TV. Why can't you use some of it to spread awareness about us? Why can't my children study? Why can't they become Collectors? Why not? Why not?” The tearful Umayal was led away to screams of “apologise, apologise” from the audience.

Social activist Aruna Roy asked for reservation for the community, not in sweeper categories, but in higher education and in the higher bureaucracy.

Communist Party of India general secretary D. Raja said the clean-up should begin from the Railways which was the largest employer of manual scavengers. “If this is not a national shame, what is,” he asked, wondering at the paradox of a government willing to spend Rs.70,000 crore on the Commonwealth Games but not mustering the will to uplift the manual scavenging community.

The Safai Karmachari Andolan has demanded a comprehensive rehabilitation package, including stringent punishment to those found to be employing manual scavengers in violation of the Manual Scavengers and Dry Latrine Construction (Prohibition) Act, 1993.

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[ZESTCaste] Throwing off the yoke of manual scavenging

 

Throwing off the yoke of manual scavenging

-Vidya Subrahmaniam

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/article850934.ece


The obnoxious practice will continue in one form or the other, as long as the government and society treat certain so-called menial jobs as the preserve of one community.

On November 1, a unique journey will come to a ceremonious end in Delhi. Earlier this month, five bus loads of men and women headed out from different corners of the country with one slogan on their lips: honour and liberation for those still trapped in the horror of manual scavenging.

When the protesters (most of them former manual scavengers) set out on their mission, they knew that the Samajjik Parivartan Yatra (national rally for social transformation) would have to be more than a petition to the government. A comprehensive rehabilitation package was undoubtedly at the core of the yatra's demands. But there was equally another objective: To motivate the remaining members of the scavenging community to throw off the yoke â€" on their own, without waiting for a package. Bezwada Wilson, convenor of the Safai Karamacharis Andolan (SKA) and the brain behind the rally, explains the concept of self-liberation: “Manual scavenging is a blot on humanity, and if you engage in it, it is a crime you commit on yourself. So, don't wait for the government, break free.”

Given the depth of emotion in this message, it will be a double crime if the government does not do everything in its power to hasten the process of liberation. Perhaps that is why, on October 25, the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council proposed a far-reaching package of reforms to end the practice. Nonetheless, the irony is inescapable. Sixty-three years after Independence, India is still debating the best way to lift manual scavengers out of their collective misery.

Mr. Wilson was a young boy when his family in Karnataka sent him away to study in a school across the border in Andhra Pradesh. He came home for holidays but felt out of place in a community whose defining feature was the uncontrolled violence of its menfolk. It was the early 1970s and they lived in a large, grimy neighbourhood around the edges of the Kolar Gold township. The evenings were always the same. The men would get into a drunken rage and assault the women senseless. The pattern of male aggression and female submission was common to most feudal, patriarchal societies, but even by this yardstick, the violence was excessive.

The teenager knew he had been born to a family of sweepers. The local school he went to as a child was segregated and was known by a swear word. But that still did not explain the anger that erupted around him. His father, a retired government employee, and his brother, mysteriously employed in an unnamed place, stonewalled his questions. Determined, the boy followed his brother to his workplace, where the horror of manual scavenging hit him like a million lashes.

Mr. Wilson learnt that he and his family were part of a huge community of manual scavengers that serviced the Kolar Gold township. They physically lifted and carried human excreta from the township's network of dry latrines. He could now see where the violence came from. But he could also see the unfairness of it all on the women who formed 85 per cent of the manual scavenging workforce. The women of his community were victims thrice over: they were outcasts even among Dalits; they were despised and shunned for the work they did, and they were physically abused by the men who saw the beatings as an outlet for their frustrations.

The employment of humans to clean human faeces was unarguably the worst violation of human rights anywhere in the world. The degrading act stripped the individual of her dignity while the constant handling of excreta brought in its wake crippling illnesses and infections that went untreated because the community bore the cross of untouchability. Over the next decade-and-a-half, Mr. Wilson worked at educating the elders and spreading awareness about the dehumanising aspect of their occupation. But it was difficult to organise a community that was simply unprepared to give up its job.

This was a baffling paradox. On the one hand, there was the daily ritual of the men drinking and getting violent to forget the pain and humiliation of manual scavenging. At the same time, there was a sense of ownership about the job. “It is our job,” they told Mr. Wilson, vastly complicating his effort simultaneously to organise them, fight the company management that employed them, and push the government towards banning the occupation and rehabilitating the workers.

Mr. Wilson told The Hindu, “Our people had internalised their oppression. They saw themselves as a condemned lot, it was their fate, they had to do this work.” If the manual scavenging community, now included among the safai karamcharis (sweepers) to diminish the ugliness of the act, owned up its work due to an acute lack of self-worth, those higher in the caste hierarchy compounded the injury by perpetuating the myth that toilet cleaning and allied activities, like sweeping and picking up garbage, could only be done by the valmiki Dalits, also known as dom, hela, hadi, arundatiyar, madiga, relli, pakhis, chekilliyars, etc.

Incredibly, the ridiculous notion prevailed even at the level of governments â€" and it continues to prevail â€" with job reservation for the Scheduled Castes translating as the Dalit castes forming the majority of workforce in Class IV and lower categories. Whatever the official explanation for this, this was nothing if not the Varna system by diktat.

The insensitivity of officialdom to manual scavenging can be seen from the length of time it took India to formally ban the practice. The Constitution abolished untouchability once and for all in 1950. The Protection of Civil Rights Act, which prescribed punishments for untouchability, followed in 1955, and The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act came in 1989. But manual scavenging, which is untouchability at its most violent, was prohibited by legislation only in 1993. The Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act came into force 46 years after Independence.

Far worse, manual scavenging continues to this day, with many Central and State government departments themselves employing manual scavengers in violation of the 1993 Act. The worst offender in this respect has been the Union Ministry of Railways: the open discharge system of toilets in train carriages results in excreta having to be manually lifted off the tracks. Many municipalities too continue to use dry latrines.

In 2003, the Supreme Court directed all the State governments to file affidavits on manual scavenging, taking a serious view of a PIL petition filed by the SKA and 18 other social action groups. The Uttar Pradesh government admitted to the practice as did the Railway Ministry. But most other State governments brazenly lied that their States were “free from manual scavenging.” The SKA, which has an entire library devoted to the documentation of the practice, has clinching photographs and data that establish the lie. The Andolan estimates that there are currently over 3 lakh manual scavengers, down from 13 lakh a decade ago. However, it attributes the declining numbers as much to voluntary liberation as to official intervention.

So far, manual scavenging has been tackled at two levels: The conversion of dry latrines into pour-flush toilets and the rehabilitation of those engaged in the practice. The rehabilitation itself has been terribly half-hearted; a shocking report in The Hindu shows that the district administration in Ambala fired manual scavengers it had re-employed as sweepers. The crucial issue, therefore, is a vital third element: the de-stigmatisation of the so-called menial jobs via changes in recruitment patterns and policies. Without this overhaul, manual scavenging will continue in one form or another.

It is also necessary to expand the definition of manual scavenging to include other kinds of unhygienic toilet cleaning. The Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation has been overseeing the elimination of dry latrines since 2004. According to the Ministry, the numbers of dry latrines have declined from a total of 6 lakh in six States to about 2.4 lakh in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Uttarakhand.

But significantly the Ministry makes the point that while dry latrines may be on their way out, this does not necessarily mean the end of manual cleaning of excreta. A recent paper prepared by HUPA says that in the poorer areas in many towns and cities, the dry latrines have given way to “bahao” latrines. These are not connected to septic tanks or underground pits but flow out directly into open drainage, resulting in the “sludge and excreta” having to be manually removed. Says the paper: “These unsanitary latrines require continuous cleaning, which is done by municipal staff and almost always manually, with the most rudimentary appliances.”

And no prizes for guessing which castes form the municipal staff. As Union Minister for HUPA Kumari Selja says: “It is ultimately about attitudes. As long as society treats toilet cleaning and sweeping as menial jobs to be done only by certain members of the caste system, it will be difficult to end the obnoxious practice. The scavenging and sweeping community will be truly liberated when cleaning jobs become respectable with the workforce drawn from all communities.”

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