Who will clean up the lives of manual scavengers?
Nandita Sengupta, TNN, Jun 5, 2011, 04.21am IST
It's six months since India missed its last deadline to abolish manual
scavenging since the practice was outlawed in 1993. For many, it may
be difficult to believe that manual scavenging continues to this day,
but even in Delhi, say activists, you only have to travel to a
far-flung area such as Maujpur or Nandnagri to find the practice
continuing.
It's not that there has been no attempt at change. In Haridwar, women
who make up 80% of the manual scavenger population, burnt their
baskets — symbolic of the headload of human excreta they lug. In other
regions, they loudly demonstrated in front of the district
magistrate's office, took out protest marches, organized meetings
among communities. In a spectacle that should make the nation squirm,
a group smeared their bodies with human excreta in public in front of
the municipal office in Karnataka's Savanur town last July.
Yet, officials have routinely turned a deaf ear and blind eye to the
protests, says Safai Karamchari Andolan's Bezwada Wilson. The most
marginalized of Dalit groupings such as Doms, Balmikis and Bhangis
have been tasked with manual scavenging and sewer-line cleaning for
many long years, down generations. Those who work in manual
scavenging, and by extension, safai karamcharis (or sanitation
workers) belong to a motley group of Dalits, different clusters in
different states — but in each state condemned by their name and
nature of work that invariably falls in their lap by virtue of their
caste identity. For instance, bhangi, that roughly means 'broken
spirit' make up the dominant 'most-disadvantaged' Dalit group in
Delhi. Mostly safai karamcharis, even after 'rehabilitation', their
identity is stamped such that they are usually handed sewer or railway
track cleaning work.
The dehumanizing practice of cleaning human excreta with bare hands,
armed with a basket and tin plate exists to this day across the
country — from Jammu & Kashmir to Tamil Nadu, from West Bengal to
Rajasthan. As per Delhi government's Samajik Suvidha Sangam, more than
37% total human excreta generated in urban India is 'unsafely
disposed' and 12.5 million households do not have access to any
drainage network. Dalit activist Rajni Tilak points out that "in
Delhi's outer areas, they have toilet bowls but no drainage system. So
the excreta is simply pushed out into an open drain right outside the
house. "
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