MANUAL SCAVENGERS: ‘UNTOUCHABLES’ IN THE MODERN ERA

Abstract

The Hindu notions of purity and pollution, inextricably linked with the caste system and the practice of untouchability, underlie the unsanitary practices in Indian society. Manual scavenging is the degrading and illegal task of cleaning human excrement from India’s roads and dry latrines. Using little more than a broom, a tin plate, and a basket, scavengers are made to clear feces from public and private latrines as well as carry them to dumping grounds/ disposal sites. Manual scavengers are usually from caste groups customarily relegated to the bottom of the caste hierarchy and confined to livelihood tasks viewed as deplorable or deemed too menial by higher caste groups. There has been specific mention about scavengers in almost all writings on India’s caste system. In India largely two communities continue this inhuman practice – the ‘Valmikis’ (Hindus) and the ‘Haila’ (Muslims). While the Hailas come under the OBC category the Valmikis belong to the scheduled caste and the both are placed in the lowest rung of the Indian society, and therefore – untouchable within the untouchables.

This caste-designated occupation reinforces the social stigma that people enaged in scavening are unclean or “untouchable” and perpetuates widespread discrimination. Though the Census of India 2011 pegs the number of dry latrines at 7,94,390, there are over and above this another 1,314,652 toilets where the human excreta is flushed in open drains which are also cleaned up by human beings. The census also adds that there are 497,236 toilets in the country where the human excreta is cleaned up by animals through eating it.