Hundreds of thousands of Indians still make
their living as scavengers, emptying dry toilets by hand, or cleaning septic
tanks without protection
By Michael Safi
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A manual scavenger
cleaning a dry toilet in TK1 village near Agra, Uttar Pradesh.
Photograph: Shaikh Azizur Rahman
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Just before 7am one morning in Mumbai, three
men clearing a sewer pipe were overcome by deadly fumes and collapsed. Their
deaths sparked a cat-and-mouse pursuit across India.
Records show the bodies of the trio were
rushed to an embalmer, where a certificate was issued declaring them safe for
flying. Permissions were sought in their home state of Orissa. Within hours, a
plane had taken off from Mumbai, bearing their remains, bound for the east
Indian state.
In a small office in central Delhi, a group
of activists had been quietly tracking the bodies. One of their agents had
watched the coffins being loaded onto the plane. An urgent message was sent to
a member of their network in Orissa: get to the airport. Find those men.
Chasing the remains of sewer cleaners across
the country, and gathering post-mortem evidence to force their employers to pay
compensation, has become regular work for the volunteers of the Safai
Karmachari Andolan, or Sanitation Workers Movement.
‘Worse than slavery’
For the past three years, the organisation
has been recording every sewer death they can, stretching back three decades,
to build a database many Indian lawmakers would prefer not exist.
They are revealing the toll of what Indians
call “manual scavenging”, one of deadliest occupations in the world, and
starkest examples of the continuing blight of caste on millions of lives.
Hundreds of thousands of Indians are still
thought to make their living as scavengers, emptying dry toilets by hand, or
cleaning septic tanks and sewers without protection.
They belong overwhelmingly to a single
community: the Valmiki caste, regarded as the very bottom of the intricate
system that still governs who most Indians marry, what they eat – and who
unclogs their sewers.
This past year, more than 300 people are
estimated to have died doing the work, including seven in the first seven days
of 2018. “This is the most hazardous job,” says Bezwada Wilson, the leader of
Safai Karmachari Andolan, whose own parents were manual scavengers. “It is the
most undignified job, an inhuman, barbaric practice. It is worse than slavery.
The sun has barely risen in Fatehpur Sikri, a
small city south of Delhi, when the veiled women gather carrying battered
baskets and brooms. Manual scavenging in 2018 takes two forms, split along
gender lines. Men clean sewers; women go house-to-house clearing waste from
deep holes used as toilets.
Khushba approaches the first of the 40-odd
house she services with practised ease. “Get away, this is not clean,” she
cautions, mouth and nose covered tightly by her scarf, as she douses the hole
with fly ash and scoops its contents into her basket.
She first learned she would become a
scavenger six months after her marriage at age 17. “I felt sad in the
beginning,” she said. “But there was poverty and we had to fill the stomachs of
our family. So there was no other option for me – I covered my nose and started
doing it.”
Caste is governed by an obsession with
purity. Traditionally, food or water touched by Dalits is considered to be
spoiled; in extreme cases, even their shadows were regarded as polluting. This
apartheid persists, even in Indian cities, severely limiting the work available
to women such as Ladja, another manual scavenger.
“Suppose I have money and open a shop,” she
says, her face covered by a sheer veil. “Non-Valmiki people won’t buy from me.
Suppose I want to be a cook. Nobody will let me enter their kitchen.”
Five hours’ drive from Fatehpur Sikri are the
gleaming tower blocks of Gurgaon, a satellite city south of Delhi, home to
multinationals, breweries and other badges of modern India.
Deepak Valmiki moved to the city 10 years ago
looking for work. He knew that wherever he applied, there would be only one job
available. “I am a cleaner,” he says, leaning on his motorcycle. “I am born to
do this.”
As India has modernised, so too has caste
discrimination. Deepak owns a smartphone and wears aviator sunglasses. But at
least twice a month, he is forced to enter the septic tank at the automotive
factory where he works to clean it without protection.
In September, three of his colleagues died at
the bottom of a company tank. “It was a total chemical smell,” says Binesh, the
only survivor. He entered the tank first and collapsed in seconds. The other
three piled in after him, managing to secure a rope around his waist before
they too succumbed. He was the only one pulled out alive.
Incidents such as these spark calls for
compensation, but few Valmikis seriously question why they do this work, says
Wilson. Part of what makes caste so stubborn is its divine sanction in the
Hindu tradition. “It has been given legitimacy by the religion,” he says.
Deepak thinks hard when asked if he should
find another job. “I’m not very sure I could,” he finally says. “The people who
are supposed to do a job should do that job only. I take it as my
responsibility. I clean my country.”
Indian governments have passed several pieces
of legislation outlawing manual scavenging, the first in 1955. But the gap
between Indian law and what prevails on the ground is often vast. Nobody has
ever been convicted for using scavenger labour.
India’s rail ministry is thought to be the
country’s largest employer of manual scavengers, employing thousands of
Valmikis to clear excrement and rubbish flushed from trains. Most are informally
hired at arm’s length by contractors. “Recruiters, contractors, they know whom
to ask,” says Ashif Shaikh, a human rights activist. “They will go to where the
Valmikis stay and ask them to clean the tracks.”
Through their investigations, the team at the
Safai Karmachari Andolan have documented more than 1,500 scavenger deaths since
1993. “And that’s a low estimate,” Wilson adds. “We think each year it is not
less than 500.”
A flagship promise by the Narendra Modi
government to build toilets for every Indian offers hope for liberating some
scavengers. Robotic technology is also being trialled in Kerala state to
automate the work. But activists say a lasting solution will come in the form
of women such as Ladkunwar.
Four years ago, she too wielded a basket and
broom to clean latrines in Rasulpur, her village near Agra. Until one morning,
when she felt overcome by the truth of her work. “I was carrying someone else’s
faeces on my head,” she says.
“I sat down with many sisters and started
encouraging them that we had to leave this job.”
One-by-one, Valmiki women in Rasulpur began
to leave the profession. It took four years to eradicate it completely. Many
still struggle to make an alternative living. “There are lots of jobs we are
not allowed to do. There is still a taint,” Ladkunwar says.
But there is also something new in the eyes
of the other villagers. “Respect,” she says. “Now if someone forces me to clean
their toilet, I will lift up my slipper and hit them.”
Additional reporting by Shaikh Azizur Rahman