Manual scavengers, victims of caste pyramid

BOTTOM LINE: It's a practice that deprives thousands of their fundamental right to live with dignity.

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Keywords: Caste, Manual Scanvengers

New Delhi: The focus on this week’s 30 Minutes is perhaps the most degrading practice of 21st century in India - a practice that deprives thousands of their fundamental right to live with dignity.

Meet Bhuri with her broom and a basket, every morning she makes her way to the upper caste houses in her village - Gohad in Madhya Pradesh.

Her job is to clean toilets, pick other people's excreta. Bhuri is a manual scavenger. She has been scavenging for last 10 years soon after she got married.

Bhuri says, “I used to hate the foul smell, I used to vomit after a while I got used to it. Now it's not a problem.”

Molded into submission Bhuri has responsibilities - the four children and a husband who barely makes enough money to keep the home fires burning.

“My husband gambles and drinks. I go to work and he just drinks. Sometimes I have to beg for food to feed my children, “ Bhuri adds.

The Valmikis of Madhya Pradesh, the Bhangis of Gujarat, Pakhis in Andhra and the Sikkaliars of Tamil Nadu are all manual scavengers.

Their daily job is to pick up other people's excreta from dry toilets using brooms and baskets. This is not something they choose to do but something they're born into - because they are at the very bottom of the caste pyramid.

More than 50 such women in Gohad go to work with brooms and baskets every morning. They're all from Dalit sub castes. They all got married into scavenging families. And the job came as a legacy - passed on from the mother-in-law to the daughter-in-law.

Ladkunwar, who was working as a scavenger says, “I had to do it because women in the family did it. My mother-in-law forced me into it.”

Cleaning dry toilets and manually removing human waste is a violation of human rights and dignity and a punishable offence. The Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act of 1993 says - offenders can face a jail term of up to one year or fined Rs 2000.

But 15 years on, the ground reality is that this law is far from being implemented.

Valmikis don't have too many options. If they wish to take up another occupation, it is not allowed. Born into a Valmiki family you can only become a sweeper or a scavenger.

Even a minute in this overpowering stench seems too long but thousands across the country have been doing this every morning for years now. These women go through the worse possible form of caste oppression. Even in the 21st century, caste hierarchy and untouchability prevent them from rising to any other job.

“There's no other work for Valmikis in this village because we're untouchable. Who will give us a respectable job?” Ladkunwar questions.

Shame comes with very little money these scavengers scrape a meager Rs 10 to Rs 20 per month from every house they clean. Come afternoon and they go back to the same houses this time scavenging for food.

Bismillah, a resident of Gohad, believes in God and in the caste-system. Picking up human waste is the domain of the downtrodden. Ironically, till some time back, Bismillah was herself discriminated against - for belonging to the minority community.

Bismillah says, “Who will clean? If the sweeper gets better work then who will do this work?”