In an extremely tragic accident on October 5 in Faridabad (Haryana) four workers who had gone for cleaning sewer of a hospital died due to inhaling poisonous gas. Two of them were real brothers, young sons of a widow. The hospital used their services through a contract agency. So soon after the deaths allegation were being traded between them regarding[Read More…]
The basic need of people accommodate food, clothing and shelter. These three are important for the existence and survival of human beings, but presently, survival is not the only segment which the human beings look at. The aspects like dignity, self respect, freedom, justice also plays a very crucial role in leading a respectful and meaningful life. By this analyses,[Read More…]
If the poorest of the poor people must get the topmost priority in terms of welfare programs, then surely those households who have been employed in manual scavenging (MS) work in India should get the highest priority. The scheme for self-employment based rehabilitation of those employed in MS has therefore been considered a high priority scheme. Despite this, it is[Read More…]
While the dalit community has been always known for higher levels of poverty as well as social discrimination, even within the dalits there is a sub-section known for even worse levels of poverty as well as social discrimination. This is the section which was traditionally involved in manual scavenging. The shocking injustice they have suffered from over the years has[Read More…]
Q-Who are the workers who perform the most essential tasks, also earn the highest appreciation but get the least justice? Ans. -Sanitation workers. Since historical times, sanitation workers have suffered the most injustice in India. Perhaps oppressor sections thought that the most effective, even though highly unjust , means to ensure the ready availability of this essential service at a[Read More…]
Some of the saddest news in India which appears with tragic regularity relates to the deaths of sewer workers caused by occupational hazards. The demand for fixing responsibility and taking strong action against those guilty of negligence has been gaining ground, as also the demand for the prompt compensatory payment as fixed by the Supreme Court. This is of course[Read More…]
Although securing freedom for workers engaged in manual scavenging and providing rehabilitation for them is supposed to be an important priority for the government, in reality progress has been very inadequate, slow and sporadic. The reasons for this are several, starting with problems relating to the proper definition and identity of workers engaged in manual scavenging. If to start with[Read More…]
Written by Sabha Zaidi and Neha Kumar Interview with Pragya Akhilesh in Ahmedabad, Gujarat while she is on a country Union Tour to assess the toilets in semi-urban and rural areas in India. In 2018, Trade Unionist, Pragya Akhilesh, Toilet woman of India recorded more than 10 thousand abandoned toilets in the rural areas of India where women have been[Read More…]
Manual scavenging is the age-old unfortunate practice of cleaning, carrying, and disposing human excreta from dry latrines or sewers into the disposal sites. Despite prohibitive legislations in place, a government survey from 2019, carried out across 170 districts, found that over 54000 people actively engage in the practice. In 2019 alone, 110 people died while cleaning septic tanks and sewers.[Read More…]
No person in the world would tout the practice of manual scavenging to be beneficial to society or a desirable outcome to be pursued. Many people would feel nauseated just by thinking about the activity. With an exceedingly low approval amongst the masses, one would think that manual scavenging would have been eradicated from the nation by now. The reality[Read More…]
If you cannot modify something you have to destroy it completely and rebuild. We need to destroy the whole caste system – Mr. Bezwada Manual Scavenging: a heinous practice While scrolling through YouTube, a documentary made by Samdish Bhatia on Manual scavengers in Mumbai stunned me. Immediately, multiple questions were in front of me. What is manual scavenging & why[Read More…]
One of modern India’s great shames is the official failure to eradicate manual scavenging, the most degrading surviving practice of untouchability in the country. – Harsh Mandar, Human Rights Activist Consistent with caste-based custom and centuries-old feudal practices in the country, ‘manual scavengers’ coddle in the practice of manually cleaning excrement from public and private toilets and drains on a[Read More…]
In no country, people are sent to gas chambers to die –Hon’ble Supreme Court of India on manual scavenging The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation (Amendment) Bill, 2020 aims to bring stricter provisions for the safeguard of the manual scavengers in terms of compensation for sewer deaths, rehabilitation plans and provision of safety equipment at work.[Read More…]
Dr Hemangi Kadlak in Conversation with Vidya Bhushan Rawat Dr. Hemangi Kadlak is a native of Maharashtra, India. She did her Ph.D. from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. The Ph.D. topic was “Interface of Caste and Occupation: Case Studies of Children of Safai Karmacharis in Higher Education in Mumbai.” She also holds an MPhil degree in Social Work from[Read More…]
Co-Written by Aseem Hasnain, Abhilasha Srivastava and Avinav Kumar Sudharak Olwe’s photographs of conservancy workers in Mumbai are heartbreaking. They depict the lives and work of sanitation workers, as much as they reflect the fundamental nature of our society. In this haunting image a young adult is standing neck deep in an open bubbling drain, underground, both literally and metaphorically.[Read More…]
Growth has remained the buzzword in Indian polity for decades now. It started after the unprecedented economic crisis that the country faced in early 1990s and never really went away after that. It, rather, almost consumed the other big word- development, which now returns to election rallies and then disappears again until the next elections. Ironically, overuse of the concept[Read More…]
Co-Written by V. Ramaswamy & V. Srinivasan “Few object to liberty in the sense of a right to free movement, in the sense of a right to life and limb. There is no objection to liberty in the sense of a right to property, tools, and materials, as being necessary for earning a living, to keep the body in a[Read More…]
A report on the murder of of Dalit Youth Prithviraj by making him go down to clean a Sewage Tank at the housing complex (Jatti Dwarakamayi Villa) owned by family of India’s former Vice-President Shri B. D. Jatti On the basis of the media reports that appeared on 01/06/2017 in Vijay Karnataka newspaper and Public TV titled “Death of a[Read More…]
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My Amma (Malayalam word for Mother) passed away on August 22, 2023 at 3.10 AM. It is always difficult to deal with the passing of a parent, that too one’s mother. I thought the grief would go away. No it didn’t. All those bitter sweet memories won’t go away. At night I lie awake for hours. My friend, guide and[Read More…]
