No help from Govt, manual scavengers left in the lurch

DIGNITY DOOM: Laws have been passed yet thousands of people are still doing this job.

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• Scavenging deeply rooted in caste system
• Manual scavengers, victims of caste pyramid

Keywords: Caste, Manual Scanvengers

New Delhi: What stops us from eliminating the practice of manual scavenging? For one, the lack of political will. Some states deny the existence of manual scavengers and yet receive funds for their rehabilitation.

Laws have been passed, commissions set up and crores of rupees sanctioned - yet thousands of people are still doing this job.

Six decades of independence - a growth rate of over nine per cent and yet India continues to tolerate human right violations of the worst kind - the country's 13 lakh manual scavengers are still denied the right to live with dignity.

Navsarjan Trust director Martin Macwan says that the only rehabilitation scheme for scavengers is complete eyewash.

“Government has enacted a scheme, which is a bankable scheme, so what is the responsibility of the state, they have thrown it on the bank. The bank says look we are not government so we will only invest money where we are sure of returns. So the banks are not interested in giving loans. Number two the loans offered are very little. They are offered Rs 20,000 in most of the cases,” Macwan adds.

Hansaben from Paliyad in Gujarat received a cheque of Rs 18,000 from the state government for rehabilitation. But she spent the money clearing her debts and is now back to scavenging. In fact the local gram panchayat that employed her as a scavenger has not even paying her for the last two months.

Hansaben says, “The money that we got we paid off loans and used the money to eat because we have not been getting salaries too. Rs 20,000 is nothing give us about five or ten lakhs."

Activists say lawmakers are in fact the biggest lawbreakers.

Macwan says, “All the scavengers that we have in the country today which is approximately according to government figures, more than three and a half thousand families, are people who are employed by the government and paid from the public funds."

Under one government scheme, children from scavenger families are being offered scholarships. But as soon as the scavenger quits the job, the scholarship ends forcing people to stay on in this occupation.

MP Co-ordinator, Garima Abhiyan Asif says, “The problem is that to avail this scholarship, they need to have an affidavit saying they are scavenging for 100 days in a year. The local government officials need to sign it. But no government official wants to admit this work is on in his district. As a result many children don't get scholarships.”

Many feel if the government had been serious about uprooting manual scavenging, perhaps it would have had a definite timeline.

Safai Karamchari Andolan Convenor Bezwada Wilson says, “First they said, by 2000 they want to eradicate, now they said 2005, then they are now saying that 2010. And planning commission is saying that 2011 or 12. So they don't have any systematic timelines to eradicate this."

Funds have regularly been allocated by the Government but have obviously not been put to good use.

"The thing is the government has given the statement, they have allotted Rs 905 crore last five year plan, Rs 800 crore for the rehabilitation and Rs 105 crore for the conversion of the dry latrines. And the reports are saying very clearly that they have spent only Rs 430 crore or something. Even that, that money where it has gone nobody knows,” Wilson adds.

Many states have not even adopted the 1993 Act for prohibition of manual scavenging. According to an NHRC report, even the national capital is buying time. It has asked for 6 months to review the situation before adopting the Act. The Act itself is full of loopholes.

The National Human Rights Commission says the only solution is to bring about a social change.

NHRC Chairman Justice Rajendra Babu says, "The main thing we have to do is engage ourselves to sensitize people that allowing people to carry the excreta of another human being itself is degrading. Therefore it should not be done, educate people more about it."

Caste discrimination, untouchability, lack of infrastructure coupled with a lack of political will. The result - lakh of people losing their dignity everyday and eventually giving up on trying to regain it.

For years manual scavengers have not been treated as equal citizens by civil society or the state. After 60 years of independence, it is time for them to get their right to dignity, time to end a shameful tradition of lifting another person's filth.