It is a euphemism India could well do without – manual scavenging or “carrying the night soil” are terms used to delicately refer to the practice of removing human and animal excreta using brooms, small tin plates, and baskets from dry latrines and carrying it – on the head – to disposal grounds some distance away from the latrines. 

This “job” is for Dalits, mainly women and young girls. The “tools” used are brooms, small tin plates and baskets, and true to the perverted logic of caste, the manual scavenger, the person who does the cleaning and carrying of other people’s refuse, becomes the “polluter”, someone to be kept at bay, at the margins of society and unworthy of dignity and respect. 

The framers of the Indian Constitution abolished the practice of untouchability in the hope that it would serve to erase the caste bias inherent in Indian society. The practice of untouchability is a penal offence under law, punishable with a prison sentence and in some cases, forfeiture of property. More than 50 years on, however, even as the rest of India moves on, to cutting-edge technology and economic power status, the Bhangis in Gujarat, the Pakhis in Andhra Pradesh, and the Sikkaliars in Tamil Nadu continue to carry other people’s filth on their heads and are perceived as untouchable. These communities feature at the bottom of the caste hierarchy in India and also the hierarchy of Dalit sub castes. They live in segregated settlements in the outskirts of their villages, and are denied access to the local temple, religious community events, hotels, public water taps, and are excluded from interpersonal social relations. 

Manual scavengers are exposed to subhuman conditions of work, working amidst unbearable dirt and stench. They are required to clean public latrines, sometimes with as many as 400 seats on a daily basis and then carry the refuse to disposal grounds a long distance away. Needless to say, these working conditions pose serious health hazards. They are exposed to viral and bacterial infections that affect their skin, eyes, respiratory and gastrointestinal systems. The stench is so unbearable that many workers come to their place of work in a state of intoxication to be able to tolerate the stench. 

Not only is the nature of work degrading and the conditions of work, abysmal; the scavengers are employed at highly exploitative wages. Those working for urban municipalities earn Rs. 30-40 per day and those working privately are paid as less as three to five rupees per day. 

The practice of manual scavenging as an offensive, inhuman practice in civilized society has long been recognized. In 1917, Mahatma Gandhi had insisted that the inmates of Sabarmati Ashram – which he had set up and which was run like a commune – clean their toilets themselves. The Maharashtra Harijan Sevak Sangh, in 1948 protested against the practice of manual scavenging and called for its abolition. The 1949 Barve Committee made several recommendations to improve the working conditions of the sanitary workers. In 1957, the Scavenging Conditions Enquiry Committee recommended the abolition of the practice of carrying human excreta in headloads. In 1968, the National Commission on Labour set up a committee to study the working conditions of "sweepers and scavengers". All these Committees recommended the abolition of manual scavenging and rehabilitation of sanitary workers, or safai karmacharis, as they are also called, but none of the recommendations were implemented. 

While government estimates suggest that there are about one million manual scavengers in India, 95 percent of whom are women, unofficially the figures are much higher and all this, more than a decade since the Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, 1993. The Act prohibits the employment of manual scavengers or construction of dry latrines, not connected to proper drainage channels and violations of provisions of this Act can lead to imprisonment for upto one year and/or a fine of upto Indian Rupees (INR) 2000. However, as the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India, pointed out in a 2003 report, the law had only been adopted by 16 states as of 2003, and it had not been enforced in any state. 

In 1993, the National Commission for Safai Karmacharis was set up under the National Commission for Safai Karmacharis Act. The National Scheme of Liberation and Rehabilitation of Scavengers and their dependents was launched in March 1992 and the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment has been entrusted with the task of implementing. However, according to the CAG report, the scheme had failed to achieve its objectives despite an investment of more than INR 600 crore (60 billion). The preambular paragraph of the report is worth quoting at length: 

The Scheme was undoubtedly well-intentioned but ill conceived as it failed to harness its operational parameters to the complex structure of a highly stratified society resisting occupational reform. Nobility of purpose was not enough, as the scheme failed to deliver its social vision after ten years of continuous but regrettably half-hearted efforts. It failed in working out a coherent strategy for policy initiatives as it could not take advantage of an existing Law that prohibited employment of Scavengers. Divorcing liberation from rehabilitation was an error of judgement that weakened the foundation of the Scheme and led to uncoordinated efforts without focus. It failed in enhancing or re-orienting the skill-levels of the beneficiaries necessary for change of occupation. For the same reason, it failed in its mission of replacing the hereditary practice by skill-based choice… It is the lack of purpose in aligning the parameters of the Scheme and lack of will in implementing it that led to the Scheme floundering on its own assumptions.

According to the National Commission for Safai Karmacharis, the reasons for unsatisfactory progress of the Scheme appears to be inadequate attention paid to it by the State Governments and concerned agencies. State governments routinely deny the existence of manual scavengers. Part of the reason why such rehabilitation schemes fail is the state’s complicity in the whole process. Many government offices and buildings still have dry latrines and municipalities employ manual scavengers to clean these latrines. 

The CAG report faulted the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment for, among other things, delays in disbursing funds to the Scheduled Caste Development Financial Corporations – responsible for implementing income-generating rehabilitation schemes – and for having “hardly any workable monitoring machinery at the Ministry, State and District levels”. The Corporations and the banks, for their part failed to deliver as there was no clear definition of the path of occupational change. The loan rejection percentage, the CAG reported, was 47 percent in Maharashtra and 74 percent in Tamil Nadu. As the report perceptively pointed out, “to expect an illiterate and poor scavenger to comply with the rigours of project-financing by commercial banks, was to say the least, unimaginative”. 

The CAG concluded that most serious flaw in the scheme was “its failure to employ the law that prohibited the occupation.” The law, it said, could have been used to ensure that conditions and circumstances of “occupational entrapment” were not created. The State and Central schemes were expected to draw their strength from the law. However, the CAG stated, “the law was rarely used”. 

The National Human Rights Commission, has on its part called upon states to adopt and implement the Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, 1993 but it has noted that the response has been dismal, once again reflecting the complacency at the political level. Recently, it declared at a review meeting on eradication of manual scavenging with senior government officials that a survey was required to be conducted in states to understand the extent of the problem and tackle it in an efficient manner. 

The Indian Railways – a body that actually employs manual scavengers, according to a petition filed in the Supreme Court – in its recently announced Rs 24,0000 crore Integrated Railways Modernization Plan (IRMP) does not have the elimination of manual scavenging on its radar. The Tenth Five Year Plan, however, has mentioned the eradication of manual scavenging by 2007 as a goal. 

In January 2005, the Supreme Court, hearing a petition filed in 2003 by the Safai Karmachari Andolan and 13 other organizations and individuals, observed that the number of manual scavengers in India has increased and directed every Department/Ministry of the Union government and the State governments to file an affidavit through a senior officer who would take personal responsibility for verifying the facts stated in the affidavit, within six months. If manual scavenging is admitted to exist in a given department, a time bound programme for the liberation and rehabilitation of manual scavengers should be indicated.

 Human Rights Features