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 Doing the Dirty Work
Will India eradicate manual scavenging by 2010?
Every day, lakhs of men and women manually clean and remove human faeces from dry latrines across India. Manual scavengers, also referred to as "night soil workers", these people are at the bottom of Indias caste and class hierarchies - poverty - stricken dalits - and their lives are, quite literally, full of shit. Using brooms and tin plates, they carry their cargo of human excreta from public and private latrines to dumping grounds. Usually on their heads.
Manual scavenging is an inhuman practice that still persists in many parts of India and is conveniently overlooked by both the State and the average person whose life is far removed from the danger of such vileness. Being a caste-based occupation, this loathsome burden is passed down from generation to generation and dalits are often forced to enter this profession scavenging by upper castes who need their filth cleaned.
According to official figures, there are around 3.43 lakh scavengers working in villages and small towns but other studies claim that the figure could be as high as 13 lakh. A 2002 report prepared by the International Dalit Solidarity Network, including Human Rights Watch (United States), Navsarjan, (Ahmedabad, Gujarat), and the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR), gave estimates of one million dalit manual scavengers in India. Scavenging communities are known as bhangis in Gujarat, pakhis in Andhra Pradesh, and sikkaliars in Tamil Nadu.
The staggering numbers belie the fact that the practice is illegal. The Indian government banned manual scavenging in 1993 with the Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrine (prohibition) Act. The Act stipulates imprisonment up to a year and fines up to Rs. 2000 or both. it´s a different matter that the law is rarely implemented. Most States have either not adopted it fully, or vehemently deny that manual scavengers exist at all. The reason behind this denial is a primal attempt at preserving an existing order that works to the advantage of some. Given the abysmal lack of basic sanitation facilities, without manual scavengers, many people would not know what to do with their waste. Around 700 million people in India do not have access to safe, hygienic (flush-enabled) latrines. ActionAid India´s random survey in 2002 of six states, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Bihar, claimed that manual scavengers were found in at least 30,000 dry toilets. The real numbers are likely to be far higher.
India´s extensive railway network also contributes to the problem because most passenger coaches have open-discharge toilets. The waste is spewed onto the tracks from where it has to be gathered manually. Most stations are not equipped with concretised platforms that would allow waste to be washed away with jets of water. The railways claim lack of money, and while they have professed intention for a while, there is no indication that anything will change in the near future.
Apart from the inherently abhorrent nature of the job, manual scavenging also adversely affects health. Workers are vulnerable to dangerous viral and bacterial infections that can severely harm their skin, eyes, limbs and gastrointestinal systems. The stench causes many to hold their breaths for extended period of time, leading to respiratory problems. Economically, the benefits are poor. They earn anywhere between Rs 20 to Rs 160 a month and exist at the bottom of India´s harshly controlled food chain. They also face severe discrimination from others in the village, even from other Dalits, because of the nature of their work. They are prevented from using the same spaces as other people or eating from common utensils at restaurants.
Those who do this work are often unaware that there is a law against it, and hence unable to even recognize that things could be different. Women often slide into this line of work due to marriage and with little economic or personal freedom, there is no question of refusing to do it. Plus the law itself is flawed: it does not give the right of protest to individuals, only to official bodies. The government itself is the biggest violator.
The Safai Karamchari Andolan (SKA), a movement that aims to eradicate manual scavenging, have set a target of three years to completely end scavenging. As many have pointed out, the problem is not one that can merely be solved by legislation. It is entrenched in multiple issues lack of basic facilities, a history of discrimination and social systems that endorse birth - based occupation (the caste system). As long as there is a need for manual scavengers, people and systems will conspire to keep a certain group of people - the poorest, the weakest - in this line of work, and as long as people do not have access to basic hygiene facilities, this need will continue to exist. Apart from strict legislation (and the implementation of this), there is also an urgent need to strike at the root of the issue: health and sanitation. There needs to be greater emphasis on equipping people with ways to keep their houses clean, so that they won´t need an entire class of people to do the dirty work.
At the same time, there is a need to look at providing alternatives to those who currently engage in scavenging. In March 2006, the Supreme Court ordered that the Ministry of Urban Employment and Poverty Alleviation establish schemes for the economic rehabilitation of safai karamcharis, and announce the funds allocated. So far this has not been done. As India continues to make strides in a number of other areas, it is shameful that it cannot solve this problem. Instead of paying lip service to the cause, intention will have to be backed by practical measures, technology will have to be harnessed and adequate monies spent to ensure that the goal is reached. The question is: will India do all this by 2010?
Reference:
India´s shame, Frontline, Volume 23, Issue 18, Dated 22 Sep 2006, http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl2318/stories/20060922005900400.htm
No end to a shameful practice, India Together, 12 Dec 2006
http://www.indiatogether.org/2006/dec/hrt-scavenge.htm
From clearing excrement to New York modeling, BBC News, 4 July 2008, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7489296.stm
2010: District By District, Tehelka, Vol 4, Issue 49, Dated 22 Dec 2007
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main36.asp?filename=cr221207District.asp
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