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…]
The US baby formula crisis and capitalism’s indifference to the lives of children 
Why “Cancel” Russians? 
Bhagwati Charan Vohra – Revolutionary Who Sacrificed His All for Freedom Movement 
Climate Change Wows the Polls 
The Rise of NATO in Africa 
Paradigm for peace applied to Russia, Ukraine and the US: Proposal for a peaceful pathway forward 
School Education During Transition Times 
Onslaught of the Oily Authoritarians 
Memorials, Not Celebrations! 
Increasing Polarization is Harming India’s Economic Prospects 
Without Stopping War, Extreme Hunger Will Continue to Increase 
‘That’s not the devil. That’s America.’, a Washington Post headline 
IAS officer punished for throwing out athletes from stadium 
Imprudent for govt to divest its residual equity share of 29.5% in HZL 
Digitizing to Dystopia – Wanted: Enlightened leadership 
Geopolitical Update: U.S. to leverage Russia-Ukraine Bloc Against China, Says Blinken 
Survival of Homo Sapiens on Planet Earth 
Fatal Flaw and Fatal Folly 
The People’s Summit for Democracy Offers a Progressive Vision to Counter U.S. Dominance in the Region 
War Photos Exhibited to Promote Peace 
Biden in Asia: Further Steps Toward War with China 
African Union at 20: Challenges ahead 
People are the Fifth Pillar of Democracy 
“Embracing Solidarities through Sharing Stories of Struggles to Resist Empires” 
End political instability in Sri Lanka 
Hunger Strikes by Two Political Prisoners Draw Attention to Violation of Their Human Rights 
Enforced Disappearances in Sri Lanka 
Relevance of Nehru’s Legacy of Democracy, Secularism, Socialism, Peace and Non-Alignment Has Increased Further 
Dalit agricultural Community in Sangrur protests for land rights 
Supreme Court upholds fundamental rights of sex workers to be treated with dignity and respect 
Tracing Panchayati Raj’s role in deepening democracy and decolonising governance over 30 years 
Bahujan politics needs a new radical alternative 
Ukraine Update: Ukraine Must Give Russia Territory, Says Henry Kissinger Immediately resolve the hunger strike Demands of Dr. G.N. Saibaba and save his life in the jail 
The Ukraine War’s Collateral Damage 
Constantly on the Verge of Collapse: How Palestinians Became a Factor in Israeli Politics 
The Solidarity Youth Movement launched its second state-level conference on the title theme ‘The tradition of liberation and the proud testimony of faith’ 
The Economy of Tolerable Massacres: The Uvalde Shootings 
Weep not just for Uvalde but for the hatred that consumes America and the world 
Candlelight Vigil for Shireen 
Binu Mathew, the editor of Countercurrents.org and the editorial team have been working selflessly with minimal funds and accepting no advertisements. Besides CC abhors foreign institutional funding, corporate funding or government aid. It has been in existence for about two decades and standing on the side of the people and taking an anti-establishment stance. To that extent it is like[Read More…]
