2024-03-28 11:46:35
Join the Movement to fight manual scavengers / DALIT LIVES MATTAR - Democratic Voice USA
Join the Movement to fight manual scavengers / DALIT LIVES MATTAR

MANUAL SCAVENGING HORROR CONTINUES/ SAVE LIFE OF DALIT/DALIT LIVES MATTER

Dalits in India also continue to live in extreme poverty, without land or opportunities for better employment or education. With the exception of a minority who have benefited from India’s policy of quotas in education and government jobs, Dalits are relegated to the most menial of tasks as removers of human waste and dead animals, leather workers, street sweepers, and cobblers. Dalit children make up the majority of children sold into bondage to pay off debts to upper-caste creditors.

According to government statistics, an estimated one million Dalits in India are “manual scavengers” (a majority of them women) who clear feces from public and private latrines and dispose of dead animals; unofficial estimates are much higher. Handling of human waste is a caste-based occupation, deemed too “polluting and filthy” for anyone but Dalits. Manual scavengers exist under different caste names throughout the country, such as the Bhangis in Gujarat, the Pakhis in Andhra Pradesh, and the Sikkaliars in Tamil Nadu. Members of these communities are invariably placed at the very bottom of the caste hierarchy, and even the hierarchy of Dalit sub-castes. Using little more than a broom, a tin plate, and a basket, they are made to clear feces from public and private latrines and carry waste to dumping grounds and disposal sites. Though long outlawed, the practice of manual scavenging continues in most states.

In November 1999, after a cyclone slammed into India‘s eastern state of Orissa, killing thousands and rendering millions homeless, the government brought in two hundred Dalit manual scavengers from New Delhi, and planned to bring five hundred more from other parts of Orissa, to load animal carcasses onto hand-drawn carts and take them away to be burned. Government officials had reportedly offered local upper-caste residents more than the daily minimum wage for each animal burned but they refused, citing the decayed conditions of the carcasses and the fact that the task was beneath them: they had “some self-respect left. As witnessed with the earthquake in Gujarat, even in times of natural disaster, the laws of “purity and pollution” prevail and the government’s actions often reinforce the prejudice.

The government has been inconsistent on the number of reported deaths due to scavenging. In July 2021, in response to a question by Congress MPs Mallikarjun Kharge and L. Hanumanthaiah in Parliament, asking for the number of deaths from manual scavenging, Ramdas Athawale had stated that no one had died. Lat er in December the same year, responding to a question by BSP’s Girish Chandra, the MoS had said, “No deaths have been reported due to engaging in manual scavenging. However, 321 people have died due to accidents while undertaking hazardous cleaning of sewers and septic tanks during the last five years.”

Commenting on the number of deaths due to scavenging,  472 people have died during five years till 2020, adding that the count would inflate further if the 2021 figures are add­ed. Centre government “manipulating the definition” of manual scavenging, pointing out that it should not apply only to those who clean dry latrines, but also to those who clean septic tanks without protective gear. Both are forbidden under the 2013 statute prohi­biting manual scavenging.

 

For Women Safai Karamcharis, 'Liberation' is Manual Scavenging with a  Makeover

MANUAL SCAVENGING HORROR CONTINUES/ SAVE LIFE OF DALIT/DALIT LIVES MATTER

 

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