Swachchakar Dignity

An Initiative for Change in Uttar-Pradesh

2011-03-20T23:18:00.001-07:00

Fatehpur's Balmikis fight for Life with dignity and honor
By Vidya Bhushan Rawat

Chanda is a happy woman today as she has more confidence in her ability as a human being which was degraded due to her work which she was forced to do by the caste forces. In the Lalauli village of feudal Muslims and other Hindu castes, she was engaged in picking up the human excreta for nothing. Two chapatis were the things which they got in lieu of their work. But that Chapatis for the most degrading work actually took away the freedom, liberty and dignity of Chanda. Yet, when the people like Dheeraj Balmiki entered in the area with an aim to pursuade people leaving this occupation they had to face a lot of resistance. Primarily, the people were upset as what would they do in the absence of an 'alternative' and secondly and most importantly on the retailation from local powerful community of Muslims which would feel threatened as who 'would clean' their toilets if these people leave the work.
August 13th, 2010 , under the 'People's Alliance Against Untouchability' activist in different parts of Uttar-Pradesh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh took out rallies and protest marches against mannual scavenging and called for its total abolition and complete rehabilitation of the people engaged in this work. Chanda was in the forefront of that protest despite the known fact what would happen to her if things do not materialise. Actually, the confidence of Chanda had grown after participating in a conference against untouchability in Nagpur where she was asked to speak. For the first time, she ventured out of district headquarter of Fatehpur and stayed at Nagaloka Buddhist Center in Nagpur. She realised that life was much bigger outside her confined 'work' area and those domesticated world where she was always treated as untouchable and with utter contempt. Nobody would talk to her pleasanly and with respect but here in the conference for the first time she felt that she too was a human being and could shake hands with people and eat along with them at the same dining table. And then when she spoke to me, the fire in her started, ' Sir, I am now ready to fight. Now, I am changed completely. I will not at all do this work again even if I remain hungry. Even if the entire people kill me, I am not going to do this indignified work', she empahsied. Many months later when I met her in Fatehpur, one of the greatest victory for us was when the entire village of Lalauli was forced to leave the manual scavenging. After our memerendum to officials and continuous campaigning the government officials went to the village and souught clarification. The biggest threat was coming from those people who had these latrines but the officials threatened them with dire consequences if they do not close down their toielts. People like Chanda were already advocating for the community to come out of this mindset that their ancestors did this work hence they had to follow it. Its simply blackmailing of our community, she said.
Dalit Yuva Swabhiman Manch was leading the movement in the Balmiki community for voluntary rejection of manual scavenging from with in community. ofcourse, it was also part of the 'People's Alliance against Untouchability' and campaigning to collect about one lakh signature from the State of Uttar-Pradesh to submit it to the government to rehabilitate the women from this community who leave manual scavenging with five acres of agricultural land so that they can live theirilife with dignity. Today nearly 6 villages voluntarily left the work of manual scavenging in Fatehpur and our campaign is growing says, Dheeraj. The only thing people face is 'future' and 'alternative' and we have to think about it, he quipped.
'While we all know how government function in this country and that the community can not be dependent on government. We should campaign with government and put pressure on her but at the same point of time the community must also prepare itself to leave this dirty work at their own. What we were looking was a community initiative against manual scavenging and we feel happy that this has happened in many of the villages in Fatehpur where people have voluntarily left the manual scavenging', says Praksh Balmiki.
About 12 kilometer from Fatehpur is village Damapur which has a population of 1,500 people. In the five families of Balmikis 8 women were engaged in the manual scavenging who were cleaning the toilets at nearly 115 families of Muslims, Thakurs and Brahmins. Two of the families had 1/2 bigha agricultural land to cultivate. The women are now engaged as agricultural labour apart from work at the NREGA. Unfortunately, there is another grim reality of village life where even the basic facilities meant for them are not made available to them. None of the family have BPL cards to procure ration from the PDS shop. Most of them have got NREGA job card yet the payment made for the work done take three weeks to one month.
Ganga Deiya has four sons and three daughters. She left manual scavenging but has no pain though life is tougher for her. Her husband make bamboo work. In the absence of resources the children could not get education. Most of them feel that if the government provide them at least two acres of land then it would be able to create a sense of ownership and dignity among them. Some of them even felt that soft loans should be provided for buffelo rearing, goat rearing and pig rearing etc. However, they also felt that starting tea shop or grocerie shop in the village is not an option as none would buy product from them.
In the village Badanpur, which is about 6 kilometer from Fatehpur town nearly 9 women volutnarily left the work. These women were engaged in manual scavenging and after the intervention of Dalit Yuva Garima Manch, felt it important to leave the work. Here too they have the crisis of livelihood and most of them want to get some training whether in sewing or tailoring or Zardosi work. They are also demanding five acres of land from the state government so that they can live their lives in dignity and with honor.
It was a difficult work but not impossible to make people think that their dignity and self respect was more important than such non payable work which degrade them virtualy and make them 'slave' of the feudal caste Hindus and upper caste Muslims who too are in large number in some of these localities where manual scavenging takes place. According to Prakash Balmiki, its easier to complaint to municipality and then get an action but that is dangerous as it would only add to the woes of the community. The Manual Scavenging Abolition Act actually justify the victimisation of the victim and hence on many ocassions whenever we made a visit, we were careful not to send these informations to the authorities, the main action would be against the people engaged. In the past few months, many women who were doing and whose names appeared in the papers faced problems as their husbands who were working in the Nagar-Palikas as Safai Karmcharis were suspended. Such campaigns are not good in the people's interest says Dheeraj Balmiki. We can not be instrumental in targetting our own people even the Nagar-Palika. We have to understand why our women whose husbands or children work in the Nagar-Palika were still engaged in the work says Dheeraj. Most of the workers these days are being appointed on 'adhoc' and contract basis. They do not have any social security or leave benefit. Many time the salaries backlog is of over 6 months which kills them virtually. Moreover, the salaries are so low and if there is a leave then you do not get the amount too, that forces the females of the family to do the business. Dheeraj says that ' We need to be careful in such work. I have been using negative thing in my work to bring people to positivity, like leave this work otherwise we will complaint or such as giving example of what a great health and mind would be there with doing this 'work'. Some time you have to speak 'the exact opposite' for the people to understand otherwise they do not understand, says Dheeraj.
The battle is bigger for the Balmiki community as Malti Balmiki who has been constantly participating in the awareness programmes. From her personal life where pressure at home to now going outside for studies, she face oppression virtually daily, yet her head is high. ' It is not that only upper caste inflict untouchability on us, we are isolated in our own communities and they practice untouchability with us who claimed to be Scheduled Castes and backward communities too'. Malti devotes her time to social action too and persuing her studies too even after the marriage where she is living in a very traditional family where going out of home for work is not considered good.
It is a fact that the Balmiki community was kept out of many developmental programmes. There may be many reasons for that includng local caste politics. Most of them are not even in the developmental agenda of the organisations. When issue of land redistribution comes, organisations are conspicuously silent and Balmikis outside its perview may be becasue a majority of them living in the urban centers yet a look at the rural areas would show how difficult is the life of those who have not got a job with municipality. Actually, municipality is the 'lifeline' of the community. It has worked well but also kept them isolated from other movements of the Dalit communities and when politics comes it become easier for 'leaders' to take sides.
Majority of them are landless and live in the desperate situation. Yet, the new youngs have refused to accept the defeat. In Fatehpur people like Babulal have started their own band. Dheeraj himself did not go to do the same work while Prakash Balmiki is still persuing higher education. A number of girls are now learning computers and sewing along with other girls of different communities including Muslims. Today, at attempt has been made in Fatehpur to provide them literature of great writers and liberators such as Baba Saheb Ambedkar, Jyoti Ba Phule, Periyar and many others like them to bring awareness and change in their lives. The change is coming. Fatehpur's youngs are now not sitting idol and they are preparing a new , world of their own.
The community is now looking forward. It does not sit and wait for something happen. As I write this Dheeraj informs me about a possible blockade by the upper caste people as they have closed the main passage of the community which link to the road. Such road blockade by the caste Hindus are open and blantant violation of human rights of the Dalits. The fact is they not only block the road but filed FIR against the people opposing it. In fact UP government will have to introduce such stringent laws that where ever the Dalits and other marginalised communities are not allowed passage by the caste Hindus or Muslims or OBC people, actions must be taken against them as they are blatant violation of human rights.
In the village Vinobapuri, with the efforts of community mobilsation ( and here we have Kanjar community people), a link road is being developed and primary school also will soon be there in the locality. Ofcourse, just four kilometer from district headquarter and with in the local municiple area this does not have electricity at the moment. One can understand what could be the future of the people. As, I move a few yards from the village towards the main road, I find a locality which is called as 'Balmiki-Ambedkar Aawas Yojna' but most of the villagers say it is Duda colony. I decide to get down and want to have a look to only find to my utter dismay that there is not a single Balmiki family who have got a house here. There are a few of them who are from Chamar community but most others hail from relatively better background. Its tragic that such colonies too which are being built in the name of Balmiki-Ambedkar Awas does not have a space for people from the community. There is a dire need to stop this victimisation and isolation of communities. A large number of houses in such colonies are empty and most of those living there claims that 'powerful' people come here and 'enjoy' in the night. This has made the women feel threatned and unsafe in the entire area. Its tragic that when I leave this place, I found two old women ( mother and daughter) from Ravidasi community who wanted us to request the government provide them house. Living in pethatic conditions, now many of the families have got notices from the authorities to depoist the money which they have not. Actually, the Dalals i.e. middlemen with local political linkages take money from the people and promise them heaven. Most of the people who have got into these places felt that the government has gifted them these houses for a token amount of money but now they are realising that they are in a trap when huge bills piles up for them.
In Lalauli and Dasauli village, the local Muslims were the culprits of forcing people into the scavenging work. It was painful when I saw even young girls of 7-8 years age in manual scavenging. Now both the villages have lef manual scavenging work. Ofcourse, we have to hard think what alternative could we provide to the people as well as how can we take our children further. That is a big challenge but as Maina who came into this work at a very young age of 8 years, is now liberaated and ready to fly. Though she does not know what to do as her parents did not have time to send her to school, even at this age of 17 years, she has dreams of future. Much of our battle is 'internal' says Malti, we can fight with outsiders, we know how to tackle but who will tell our parents and in laws to allow their girls to go to school, do work, learn professional courses. ' Our community is not that weak financially, as others might be, but still they do not want us to go out. At the young age of 15, the social pressure is so much that we have to get married.
Malti has decided that she will work and work for the community. She put Baba Saheb Ambedkar and Buddha's photograph in her home despite reluctance of her in laws who worship the 'Hindu Gods'. Chanda is raring to go to fight against injustice. Dheeraj is already fighting for the community and now initiaed 'Prerna Kendra' for community girls and boys in Fatehpur along with Babu Prasad and Prakash to bring community boys and girls into the world of computers and literature of the Dalit movent. Dheeraj rightfully says that It is time for the community youth to come and join hand with other like minded people and combinely fight for their rights, dingity and freedom as well as be part of the revolution initiated by Baba Saheb Ambedkar.

Remarkable Journey of Koshal Panwar

2011-03-02T07:53:00.000-08:00

Theatre of Reservation »
Seema Duhan
Speaking
Tags: caste, dalit, JNU, modern, sanskrit, university, woman | 5 comments | 869 views

My first exchange with her left me with a sense of pleasance and an attraction yet to be understood, however, it was enough to thrill me to explore the depth of her persona and not let the opportunity slip away. Subsequently, I proposed her for an interview with me. She was Dr. Kaushal Panwar, an emerging Dalit thinker and intellectual. Before I begin unveiling my understanding of her, I shall explain that though I had decided to structure the interview in formal question and answer fashion, but during the interaction I lost my track and just flowed with unfoldings and decided to give it a biographical touch while setting down. There is a deliberate attempt to not let it appear as merely a dialogue between two individuals but a textured narrative account.

What led Kaushal Panwar – a girl born in the most marginalised caste of ‘Valmiki’ among the subaltern Dalit castes of a village ‘Rajoud’, Kaithal District, Haryana, to become Dr. Kaushal Panwar – a Sanskrit Scholar? The journey in itself is a saga of uprising for liberation from bondage. Kaushal as a child was closest to her father in the family and youngest of the three siblings. She learnt the ways of being a rebel in the early age and the course is continuing. Brothers who could not leap beyond high school were never treated specially against her. Father, who was a daily wage labourer, taught her early in life not to compromise upon the consciousness of righteousness.

History is witness to numerous instances, when oppression meets rebellious character; it had been the oppression mostly that had to retreat finally. In Kaushal’s case too, history was willing to absorb one more incident. In sixth standard, yet a child, Kaushal had to opt between Home Science and Sanskrit. She never wanted to study Home Science, background for which was nurtured by the non-liking for the daily household chores. Playing, studying and roaming around with her father used to consume her everyday life. Nevertheless, she had hunch that her decision to opt for Sanskrit would be meeting such an outrageous reaction. Her desire to study Sanskrit instead of Home Science caused enough heartburn to the subject teacher Surender Shastri – a Brahmin. Initially he tried to dissuade her by passing abhorring comments like “What use do studies have for you? After some years you have to do cleaning in our houses only”, “What a corrupt time is it, even Dalits can dare to study Sanskrit?” All kinds of humiliating passive tactics when did not pay well, then one day Surender Shastri resorted to thrash her before the entire class to break her determination. He was perhaps unaware that his vengeful and biased discharge was deciding the course of life for Kaushal. It was then, that Kaushal took resolution of becoming atleast a bigger scholar of Sanskrit than him, while another fact is that she never liked Sanskrit as a subject for which she even earned her doctorate from Jawahar Lal Nehru University. In her words, “I have gone through dilemma in my life because of Sanskrit. It was a subject whose literature and text is awfully rich with brahminical idea of hierarchical and unjust society, full of discriminatory and exploitive illustrations against Shudras and Ashudras – Dalits of contemporary times. However, I had no option but to face that text on everyday basis which loathed my own identity and origin. Since, my consciousness had pledged to study that only, I had to sacrifice my favourite subject of History.”

On being quizzed about the worth of Sanskrit Literature and its contribution in the development of the language, she explained that worth and progression of any language in the contemporary times can be evaluated by the positive contribution of its literature in the progression of social-political and philosophical systems. In that context, Sanskrit literature is in catch-22 situation. While on one hand it has rich text available on medical sciences and environment, poetry, drama in its archaic literature; the other hand it is a rigid language. Literature favours exclusiveness, Vedic deliberations and fortification of belief system without reasoning. It is this inflexible nature of Sanskrit that it is not able to communicate with the advancements in other branches of learning, be it Humanities or Basic Sciences.

Being a Sanskrit academician, she knows in and out of the literature that juxtaposes with her identity of being a Dalit woman and that cauldron is producing a fierce campaigner for Dalit rights, culture and identity out of her. The bitter truth of untouchability and humiliation as by-product of her identity became apparent to her in tender age when she started noticing that the colour of school uniform for Dalit and general caste students was different. Since, it was obvious to people outside the premises of school, hence for her, colour of school uniform joined the league of many other symbols of repression. The rebellious tender soul however was restless and the rules of the society were not acceptable to her as this example overtly expressed, “Once I was very thirsty and therefore drank water from the pitcher in school, which I generally did not do. That matter was sent to the notice of class teacher who was from general caste, by my classmates. Teacher scolded me badly and warned for drinking in future. It infuriated me and I shot at the pitcher of water to crack it. In that juvenile age fissuring of the pitcher felt like a win.”

At one level is the pain of prejudice that she endured while even more concerning is that society still conditions or rather forcefully indoctrinates the individuals to become oppressors and take part in discriminatory activities either by reward or by punishment. Such a situation exposes the bigoted mask of the social system which is harbingering to become out and out modern. “An incident I remember starkly, made clear to me that my every successful and assured move would be counted as failure of my fellow living beings who ‘fortunately’ but by chance are carrying titles from general castes. My all classmates, once were punished because I learnt a lesson by heart given as a part of home assignment, while none of them could. General caste students were beaten, scolded and sarcastic comments indirectly hinting towards me were made by the teacher to make them realise that a ‘Valmiki’ girl who on first account should not be sitting in that classroom itself could do her work properly but ‘they’ who the society considers by default to be the ‘productive and meritorious’ could not.”

Listening to her anecdotes of discrimination and hardships was sending chill down my spine and she was a living spirit sitting before me, forcing me to acknowledge that there is no end to endurance of human spirit. At the same time, it was making me caustic towards entire system of repression of which I am myself a part. This system of tyranny, prejudices is so deeply ingrained and systemically constructed no matter how educated, well travelled, read, at good socio-political standing one is. From her case, I understood that oppressive actions of the system were intensifying, evolving with her evolvement as an individual as if something was at stake, which could be gathered only by downing her. After completing her schooling, she used to commute 60 kms to and fro by bus from village to Kaithal town for graduate studies. The financial situation at home was too bad to encourage her for further studies. Yet, while simultaneously working as a daily wage labourer right outside the college campus she laboriously earned her graduate degree. For pursuing Post-Graduate studies she took admission in Kurukshetra University. She had struggled hard to get to that spot and yet in her heart of hearts she knew, her exertion was going to prolong and intensify with financial-social bottlenecks. She could not afford to get herself a place in university hostel and completed her post-graduation while renting a ‘jhuggi’ in the slum which was in the backyards of boys’ hostel. Every day for two years she was subjected to derogatory remarks. To make her ends meet and continue studies she worked part-time. All father could afford in such a situation was to give his daughter the much needed moral support and value system. During those days she joined Ambedker Students Union in KUK University. From Kurukshetra University only she did her B.Ed. During that time she opted to rent out a place with other classmates on sharing basis. But it was she who had to move herself from one place to another atleast 10 times during one year, owing to preconceived notions of people about her identity. She said, “There was a general tendency among people to ask me directly or indirectly to do cleaning in their houses. Since, I never entertained all such moves, hence I paid price in the form of inviting their hostility.”

Afterwards, for her M.Phill she went to Maharishi Dayanand University, Rohtak where again accommodation was a riddle for her to solve. Persons at reputed positions in the department, to her dismay, upon knowing about her caste explicitly or implicitly tried to take advantage of her situation. They expected her to do the same job for them as most of the people from her caste were ascertained to do historically, in lieu of helping for accommodation crisis. Finally, she decided to stay off campus on sharing basis. How vengeful attitude is structured as a product of prejudices and frustrations of not being able to stop the progression of someone from Dalit castes is beautifully presented in her effortful life. Her dissertation topic was completely changed by the advisor just a day before final viva. A student having undergone such a process in any given normal circumstances knows the extent of anxiety at that time but there Kaushal was forced to walk on the edge of the sword that had numbing effect. Not only did she complete M.Phil, but also got admitted to JNU for doctorate.

JNU – Jawaharlal Nehru University – a dreamland for student life with its liberal ambience, culture which makes learning experience even more bountiful had a distinct truth for her in its clasp. A Brahmin classmate upon knowing her caste “Valmiki” which is at the lowest rung among the Dalit sub-castes, used it as a pretext to isolate her in the class. Kaushal who had seen enough farce in her life, still had real difficulty in ramming a bigoted facet of the university life of JNU down her throat. Proceeding further in the story, she was mentally tortured by her room-mate who was a doctorate student of Japanese language and had travelled a lot, seen the world outside while for Kaushal a routine commutation was an affair to be thoughtfully settled on every day basis. The uneasiness and hatred which was woven by room-mate around the presence of Kaushal went to the extent of usage of some witchcraft to harm her.

All instances gave a glimpse of never ending tale of despotism, one by one pointing towards intensification of chauvinism in the form of institutionalised structure. In order to safeguard this biased fortification only, ‘fortunately privileged castes’ whip up question of merit recurrently which is nothing but an attempt to maintain the exclusive purity of the institutional discrimination and consequently utilization of those structures for gross tortures. In the face of such systematic repression, where one is being socially, mentally, economically, historically lashed out regularly, how little is being done and even meagre is accomplished through affirmative action. Hah!! And then policy of reservations is also considered as some sort of charity by many so called benevolent and progressive people.

After coming to JNU, Kaushal got associated with SFI and after the completion of Ph.D, she joined Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) and worked as an active member till one day when she had to resign since the allegation levied was a direct assault on her dignity. Her notion about the party which means Communist Party of India (Marxist) is both critical and favourable. She said, “Casteism is tacitly prevalent in the party, however party may deny it. Outside, in the society caste discrimination is right in your face, you can pin point the incidents what is what. Due to insinuating presence of caste discrimination in the party, it becomes difficult or rather impossible to point out. Further, sense of being discriminated has subjective appeal. What I may find as intimidating or discriminating, a progressive person in all his good intentions might not be able to comprehend. It requires right amount of sensitivity along with progressive thoughts, consistent efforts to understand the situation of a discriminated caste/ class/ gender or any other category. In that light, just see, it is easy and fashionable to deliver discourses on the rights of subalterns but empowering them down right with in the circle of your social and political existence generally takes diversion. It is here the structure of the party hierarchy crumbles in ensuring adequate representation of Women and Dalits at every level of its functioning across India. Although, it is better off among all the other political parties in India”

When I asked Dr. Kaushal, about her own take on her identity and the facets it disposes before her. She said that she identified herself as a woman from the most marginalised sub-caste of Dalits. And owing to it she felt that her every move should be directed towards the liberation of Women and Dalits from the shackles of discrimination, oppression and superstitions. Her knowledge of holy texts and scriptures of Hinduism written in Sanskrit has made it clear to her that casteism, spiritualism and superstitions are the pillars holding this faith and have created a fallacy around it.

Being Dalit is a humiliation, it was made vivid to her by the society quite early in childhood. To be born as a female, the first sign of embarrassment, remorse is generally felt within the family, which fortunately did not become part of her experience. Neither did her immediate social system consisting of Dalit households give any sickening expression. Quite strangely, however it is true that families bearing daughters were always held with regard in any congregation of Dalits. Opinion of families bearing daughters mattered more in case of civil disputes. How humiliating being a woman can be that realisation was granted to her by the feudal-patriarchal nexus existing just outside her Dalit hamlet.

Summing up her life’s learning and remembering her father with tears in her eyes, philosophically she said, “When I received my first salary being an Assistant Professor in Delhi University, which was a good sum, I could not believe myself that there were those days also of abject poverty which we as a family survived. Now, when I could buy few moments of happiness which had been eluded due to poverty, my father was not with me to share them. Sometimes, I am not able to understand if this life is an illusion or was it then.”

When interview was over, I kept seated in the couch for sometime in anaesthetic state where body doesn’t move but a chain of reactions leading to big collision was taking place inside the head. Will we be able to subvert the historical cruel order sitting with in and reflect it beyond our own personal spaces? Despite all the scientific advancements, talks of human evolution, how much are we conscious in fighting the prejudices with ourselves, in families, in the immediate social networking?

February 19th, 2011 | Category: caste, gender, self | (3 votes, average: 4.67 out of 5

When will manual scavenging be eliminated ?

2011-02-19T02:07:00.001-08:00

NAC forces govt to act on manual scavenging

Share|

Larger | Smaller

Swaraj ThapaTags : National Advisory Council, Sonia Gandhi,Urban Poverty Alleviation Ministry, Urban Development Ministry and the Railway MinistryPosted: Sat Feb 19 2011, 03:31 hrsNew Delhi:

Freelance Jobs China Wholesale Discount Shopping Buy Flower & Gift

Discussion
Blogs

No way to underestim... - By Rupom Razzaque Ias association - By k p chandra Obama will lose his ... - By Kodimirpal Vengsarkar the oracl... - By Ajay Ceo - By Angest Ceo - By Angest Misquoted....oh medi... - By fanny

As a consequence of a stinging reminder from the National Advisory Council headed by Congress president Sonia Gandhi on still prevalent manual scavenging, an interministerial group headed by Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Mukul Wasnik on Friday decided to set a fresh self-imposed deadline to end the shameful practice identified with only specific communities in society.

The meeting also decided to set a timetable to end the system of constructing dry latrines in the states besides setting up an official level committee to look into modalities on conducting a fresh survey to identify the exact number of manual scavengers in the country.

The meeting was attended by representatives of the Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Ministry, Urban Development Ministry and the Railway Ministry.

Three months ago, the NAC passed a resolution observing that the inhuman practice of "manual scavenging still persists in India despite being outlawed" and underlined that "governments have been weak" in implementing the Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, 1993 besides pointing out that no one had been punished under the law in the last 17 years.

Ads by GoogleICICI Medical Insurance Cashless Claims, No Check Up reqd* No paperwork + Huge Benefits.Hurry!ICICILombard.comMax Bupa Health Insurance Health Insurance for your complete Family. Cover upto 13 relationshipsMaxBupa.com/Family_H1Crore Life Cover - L I C Only a Right Step to Protect Your Family From Any MishapPolicyBazaar.com/ter

According to officials, a status report sought by Wasnik in the meeting acknowledged that barring one, not a single case had been registered in any of the 20 odd states as well as UTs which had themselves adopted the central law through resolutions in the state assemblies. Uttar Pradesh was the only state to have registered 20,000 cases so far under the Act, yet there was not a single case of prosecution, the status report said.

Those found guilty of constructing a dry latrine or employing another person to carry human waste are to be punished with imprisonment for upto a year along with a fine up to Rs 2000.

What has posed more problems for the Social Justice and Empowerment Ministry is that it has been spending hundreds of crores on a rehabilitation programme to end manual scavenging, without success. The ministry claims numbers have come down though complete eradication is yet to take place. From 7.70 lakh manual scavengers reported by the states in 1992, the figure came down to less than half when 4.2 lakh beneficiaries were rehabilitated in 2005, officials contend. The figure further dropped to 1.18 lakh in 18 states out of which 78,941 beneficiaries were rehabilitated by March 31, last year.

--
Vidya Bhushan Rawat
Visit my blog at
www.manukhsi.blogspot.com

For information on the issues, movements and priorities of Scavenger community in India please log on to
www.swachchakar.blogspot.com
For information on civil society initiatives on Muslims in UP please log on to
www.rehnumaa.blogspot.com

Follow me on twitter at freetohumanity

Skype at vbrawat

For Social action, land rights, right to food and hunger issues support Social Development Foundation at www.thesdf.org

2011-02-16T22:03:00.001-08:00

India's Shunned Latrine Cleaners Toil Despite Ban

By Tripti Nath
WeNews correspondent
Sunday, February 6, 2011

India banned manual cleaning of latrines in 1993. Eight years ago, an advocacy group petitioned the court to enforce the law. A new documentary tells the story of the lives of 300,000 workers, mostly women, who do this degrading work.

NEW DELHI (WOMENSENEWS)--For half of her life Jaanki, a 70-year-old widow in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India's largest state, has eked out a living cleaning latrines and carrying human excreta on her head, sometimes for as long as an hour, to the nearest drain.

Manual scavenging is the only way of life for her and the other women at the center of the recent documentary "Marching Towards Freedom," screened at a conference here in December.

For this nauseating work--banned by law in 1993--the workers get paid by each client household 30 rupees (less than $1 U.S.) per month.

The women are "Bhangis," a sub-caste of Dalits, who occupy the lowest tier in this nation's caste hierarchy.

The film about their labor was made by filmmaker Gopal Menon, who traveled to 20 of India's 28 states to depict the widespread practice.

India is home to about 300,000 manual scavengers, 85 percent of whom are women, according to estimates by the Safai Karamchari Andolan, a New Delhi-based group that monitors the outlawed practice. Any person who breaks the law by employing a manual scavenger faces punishment of up to year in prison, but the film shows the large extent to which the law is ignored.

Bezwada Wilson, founder of the Safai Karamchari Andolan, commissioned the film.

In 2003, Wilson organized workers to protest against manual scavenging and women across the country took to the streets to burn the cane and bamboo baskets they use for carrying the human excreta.

Petitioning Supreme Court
That same year, Wilson's group petitioned the Supreme Court to require strict enforcement of the 18-year-old scavenging ban, which requires conversion of latrines and rehabilitation for manual scavengers.

"We have full faith in the judiciary and we hope that they will address the problems of the most marginalized sections of society with due sensitivity," Wilson said in a recent interview.

Bindeshwar Pathak is the founder of Sulabh International, a nongovernment organization that has developed flush compost toilets to replace bucket toilets cleaned by manual scavengers.

"In 140 years, from the time the British introduced the sewage treatment facility for the first time in Calcutta in 1870, only 269 out of 5,161 towns in urban India have sewage treatment plants," Pathak said.

He added that Sulabh International has shown India "an affordable solution for an appropriate, indigenous and culturally-acceptable technology that can be put to effective use to discontinue manual scavenging."

Jaanki, one of the manual scavengers who attended the December conference, says the work is ostracizing, even for women in her state, which is governed by Mayawati, the leader of the Bahujan Samaj Party and a Dalit herself.

"People turn their back on us and don't even want our shadow to fall on them," she said.

|More
Even Children Recoil
Kusum, 40, who began working as a manual scavenger at 15 in Uttar Pradesh, said that even her children recoil.

"I begin my day at half past six. When I return home past lunch time, my children ask me to sit at a distance until I have bathed. It hurts me, but I laugh it off as they are my children," she said in an interview at the sidelines of the December conference. As she spoke she tried to hold back tears.

Sripati Devi, 50, from Chhapra in the state of Bihar, gave up manual scavenging in 2010. In an interview at the conference she said she would rather die than carry soil on her head again. "At work, I would put a beetle leaf between my teeth to avoid vomiting. We also faced so much discrimination. Villagers would drive us away from the community well."

One of the worst problems is that when women decide to leave the work there is often no other way for them to earn a living.

The work is also linked to health ailments such as asthma, skin diseases and back pain, one advocate said at the conference.

Bhasha Singh, a roving editor of a Hindi national daily, has studied the issues confronted by these women across 10 states over the last seven years.

"Nowhere have I come across women scavengers wearing gloves or boots," she said in an interview. "I have met women scavengers who have had miscarriages and are living with leucoderma and severe allergies. In some states, I met women who feel repulsed by the sight of yellow color and are not able to use turmeric, the ubiquitous Indian spice.

Copy of Supreme Court's Historic Order

2011-02-05T21:11:00.000-08:00

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA

CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION

CRIMINAL APPEAL NO(s). 889 OF 2007

ARUP BHUYAN Appellant (s)

VERSUS

STATE OF ASSAM Respondent(s)

O R D E R

Heard learned counsel for the parties.

This Appeal has been filed against the impugned judgment of the Designated Court, Assam at Guwahati dated 28.03.2007 passed in TADA Sessions Case No. 13 of 1991.

The facts have already been set out in the impugned judgment and hence we are not repeating the same here except wherever necessary.

The appellant is alleged to be a member of ULFA and the only material produced by the prosecution against the appellant is his alleged confessional statement made before the Superintendent of Police in which he is said to have identified the house of the deceased.

Confession to a police officer is inadmissible vide Section 25 of the Evidence Act, but it is admissible in TADA cases vide Section 15 of the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, 1987.

:1:

Confession is a very weak kind of evidence. As is well known, the wide spread and rampant practice in the police in India is to use third degree methods for extracting confessions from the alleged accused. Hence, the courts have to be cautious in accepting confessions made to the police by the alleged accused.

Unfortunately, the police in our country are not trained in scientific investigation (as is the police in Western countries) nor are they provided the technical equipments for scientific investigation, hence to obtain a conviction they often rely on the easy short cut of procuring a confession under torture.

Torture is such a terrible thing that when a person is under torture he will confess to almost any crime. Even Joan of Arc confessed to be a witch under torture. Hence, where the prosecution case mainly rests on the confessional statement made to the police by the alleged accused, in the absence of corroborative material, the courts must be hesitant before they accept such extra-judicial confessional statements.

In the instant case, the prosecution case mainly relies on the alleged confessional statement of the appellant made before the Superintendent of Police, which is an

:2:

extra-judicial confession and there is absence of corroborative material. Therefore, we are of the opinion that it will not be safe to convict the accused on the basis of alleged confessional statement.

For the reasons stated above, we are in agreement with the impugned judgment so far as it has taken the view that the confessional statement in question cannot be acted upon as the sole basis for conviction of the appellant.

However, the TADA Court has convicted the appellant under Section 3(5) of the TADA which makes mere membership of a banned organisation criminal. Although the appellant has denied that he was a member of ULFA, which is a banned organisation. Even assuming he was a member of ULFA it has not been proved that he was an active member and not a mere passive member.

In State of Kerala Vs. Raneef, 2011 (1) SCALE 8, we have respectfully agreed with the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Elfbrandt Vs. Russell, 384 U.S. 17 (1966) which has rejected the doctrine of 'guilt by association'. Mere membership of a banned organisation will not incriminate a person unless he resorts to violence or incites people to violence or does an act intended to create disorder or disturbance of public peace by resort to

:3:

violence (See : also the Constitution Bench judgment of this Court in Kedar Nath Vs. State of Bihar, AIR 1962 SCC 955 para 26).

In Clarence Brandenburg Vs. State of Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969) the U.S. Supreme Court went further and held that mere "advocacy or teaching the duty, necessity, or propriety" of violence as a means of accomplishing political or industrial reform, or publishing or circulating or displaying any book or paper containing such advocacy, or justifying the commission of violent acts with intent to exemplify, spread or advocate the propriety of the doctrines of criminal syndicalism, or to voluntarily assemble with a group formed "to teach or advocate the doctrines of criminal syndicalism" is not per seillegal. It will become illegal only if it incites to imminent lawless action. The statute under challenge was hence held to be unconstitutional being violative of the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

In United States Vs. Eugene Frank Robel, 389 U.S. 258, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a member of a communist organisation could not be regarded as doing an unlawful act by merely obtaining employment in a defence facility.

4. We respectfully agree with the above decisions, and are

of the opinion that they apply to India too, as our fundamental rights are similar to the Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution.

In our opinion, Section 3(5) cannot be read literally otherwise it will violate Articles 19 and 21 of the Constitution. It has to be read in the light of our observations made above. Hence, mere membership of a banned organisation will not make a person a criminal unless he resorts to violence or incites people to violence or creates public disorder by violence or incitement to violence.

Hence, the conviction of the appellant under Section 3(5) of the TADA is also not sustainable.

The impugned judgment of the Designated Court, Assam at Guwahati dated 28.03.2007 passed in TADA Sessions Case No. 13 of 1991 is set aside and the Appeal stands allowed.

By Order dated 29.10.2007 this Court had directed that the appellant be released on bail on his furnishing adequate security to the satisfaction of the trial court. Security furnished by the appellant in pursuance of Order dated 29.10.2007 shall stand discharged.

..........................J.

(MARKANDEY KATJU)

..........................J.

(GYAN SUDHA MISRA)

NEW DELHI;

FEBRUARY 03, 2011. :5:

Follow me on twitter at freetohumanity

Skype at vbrawat

For Social action, land rights, right to food and hunger issues support Social Development Foundation at www.thesdf.org

Supreme Court's Historic Judgement

2011-02-04T18:10:00.001-08:00

We should try to get a full text of this judgement and must be send across the country. Dalits, tribals, Minorities and human rights defenders are being targeted by the police and intelligence for being part of some ideology just because they are raising issues of their rights. Reading books and raising uncomfortable questions have become crime in India. Hundreds of activists have been arrested. It is time these matters should reach to each one of our friends who have been humiliated, and targeted by the state.

regards,

Vidya Bhushan Rawat

Just being member of banned outfit not a crime: Supreme Court

Dhananjay Mahapatra, TNN, Feb 5, 2011, 01.07am IST

Article

Comments (3)

Tags:ULFA|Terrorist And Disruptive Activities Act|Supreme Court|Arup Bhuyan

NEW DELHI: Members of banned organizations cannot be treated as criminals by police till they indulge in or incite violence, the Supreme Court ruled on Friday.

The apex court's Friday ruling is part of a judgment acquitting Arup Bhuyan, convicted by a Guwahati court under the now lapsed anti-terror law Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act. Bhuyan was a suspected member of the outlawed secessionist outfit United Liberation Front of Assam ( Ulfa) which figures at the top of the home ministry`s list of banned organizations.

"Mere membership of a banned organization will not make a person a criminal unless he resorts to violence or incites people to violence or creates public disorder by violence or incitement to violence," a Bench comprising Justices Markandey Katju and Gyan Sudha Misra said.

The order can have a bearing on the plans of outlawed outfits which include terror and insurgent groups. The list of 32 banned organizations on the website of ministry of home affairs includes al-Qaida, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Students` Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), CPI(M-L) and allied formations, militant groups active in north-eastern states, Khalistan Commando Force, Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, International Sikh Youth Federation, Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen and Al Badr.

Exactly a month ago, the same Bench had upheld bail to a doctor arrested for treating a man accused of chopping off the hand of a Kerala professor for setting a controversial question paper.

The January 3 judgment had said, "Mere membership of a banned organization will not incriminate a person unless he resorts to violence or incites people to violence or does an act intended to create disorder or disturbance of public peace by resort to violence."

The trial court had convicted Bhuyan based on his confession to police, admissible as evidence under TADA. Bhuyan had appealed in Supreme Court.

Allowing his petition, the court said his conviction was based on "a very weak kind of evidence" and could not be sustained in the absence of corroborative material.

On the confessions, Justices Katju and Misra expressed strong views. "As is well known, the widespread and rampant practice in the police in India is to use third-degree methods for extracting confessions from the alleged accused. Hence, the courts have to be cautious in accepting confessions made to the police by the alleged accused," the Bench said.

Police often extracted confession from an accused because they were neither trained nor equipped with gadgets to conduct scientific investigation like their western counterparts, the Bench said, adding, "Hence, to obtain a conviction, they often rely on the easy short-cut of procuring a confession under torture." The court added, "Torture is such a terrible thing that when a person is under torture, he will confess to almost any crime. Even Joan of Arc confessed to be a witch under torture."

Read more: Just being member of banned outfit not a crime: Supreme Court - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Just-being-member-of-banned-outfit-not-a-crime-Supreme-Court/articleshow/7428601.cms#ixzz1D2vCXIK9
--
Vidya Bhushan Rawat
Visit my blog at
www.manukhsi.blogspot.com

For information on the issues, movements and priorities of Scavenger community in India please log on to
www.swachchakar.blogspot.com
For information on civil society initiatives on Muslims in UP please log on to
www.rehnumaa.blogspot.com

Follow me on twitter at freetohumanity

Skype at vbrawat

For Social action, land rights, right to food and hunger issues support Social Development Foundation at www.thesdf.org

High Court on Manual Scavenging

2011-02-02T22:22:00.001-08:00

Times of India

on manual scavenging

TNN, Feb 2, 2011, 12.32am IST

Article

Comments

Tags:Manual Scavenging|Madras High Court

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has directed the Tamil Nadu government to approach the Centre to bring in necessary amendments in the law for effective implementation of ban on the practice of manual scavengingin the state.

The first bench comprising chief justice M Yusuf Eqbal and justice TS Sivagnanam was passing further orders on a contempt of court petitions against the municipal administration and Metrowater authorities. It also requested the additional solicitor-general, M Ravindran, to pursue the matter with the Centre and get the Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act 1993 amended.

It all began with a public interest writ petition filed by a Chennai-based non-governmental organisation against the widely prevalent practice of manual cleaning of sewers in the city. The high court, expanding the scope of the PIL, imposed a blanket ban on the practice all over the state. It also directed the authorities to constitute a committee to hold periodical meetings and review of the situation.

However, claiming that the authorities concerned had not made serious efforts to curb the menace and that no periodical meetings were held as per court orders, the NGO initiated the present contempt proceedings. It also named the municipal administration secretary, Ashok Varadhan Shetty, and the Metrowater managing director, Rajesh Lakhoni. Following a notice from the court, the officials appeared in person in the court in December 2010.

When the matter came up for further hearing, government advocate M Sneha furnished a copy of a letter dated January 25, stating that the state government has requested the Centre to make suitable amendments to the Act for the effective implementation of the directions of the court.

Recording the submissions, it directed the state to approach the Centre, and requested additional solicitor-general of South India Ravindran to do the needful for the speedy amendment of the Act.

Read more: HC tells govt to approach Centre for amending law on manual scavenging - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/HC-tells-govt-to-approach-Centre-for-amending-law-on-manual-scavenging/articleshow/7407900.cms#ixzz1CsGMuVx9
--
Vidya Bhushan Rawat
Visit my blog at
www.manukhsi.blogspot.com

For information on the issues, movements and priorities of Scavenger community in India please log on to
www.swachchakar.blogspot.com
For information on civil society initiatives on Muslims in UP please log on to
www.rehnumaa.blogspot.com

Follow me on twitter at freetohumanity

Skype at vbrawat

For Social action, land rights, right to food and hunger issues support Social Development Foundation at www.thesdf.org

How long shall we wait to implement these orders ?

2011-01-18T01:09:00.000-08:00

How long shall we wait for implementation of these orders ? Are all these legislations for public consumptions. What is the time schedule. There is enough data available, enough order but the ground situation is grim. New form of scavenging is appearing. Time is running out and this country is still in the dark ages.

VB

http://expressbuzz.com/cities/bangalore/hc-notice-to-state-on-night-soil-system/240369.html

HC notice to state on night soil system

Express News Service First Published : 18 Jan 2011 03:24:42 AM ISTLast Updated : 18 Jan 2011 08:34:08 AM IST

BANGALORE: The High Court on Monday issued notice to the state government on a petition seeking ban on carrying night soil in the state.
While hearing the public interest litigation filed by R N Narasimhamurthy, former advocate general and senior counsel, division bench comprising Chief Justice J S Khehar and Justice A S Pacchapure directed the state to file an objection in the
matter. The petitioner has cited media reports dated July 21, 2010, where Bhangi community people at Savanur in Haveri district were reported to have applied excreta to their body, asking the government to fulfil their demands.
The petitioner has stated that the incident is a national shame as we are still practising the manual night soil system despite six decades of independence. The incidents speaks of apathy of legislators and bureaucrats for not taking any action to ban such system in the state.
Practising of manual night soil is a violation of human rights. Even though the state had passed the legislation of Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibitory) Act, 1993, to prevent employment of manual scavengers and manual carrying of human excreta, the state has not implemented the Act, the petitioner's counsel argued.
The state has failed to provide rehabilitation to those who are engaged in scavenging and it is the failure on the part of the state government, the petitioner contended.
The petitioner is seeking direction to the state to prohibit the practice of night soil system and to provide employments opportunity to the people engaging in such system.
HC seeks fresh report for temple renovation
The High Court has directed Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to file a fresh report regarding renovation work of Siddalingeshwara Swamy temple at Yediyur in Kunigal taluk.
While hearing the public interest litigation filed by Dr Hatti Chandrashekar and others, the division bench headed by Chief Justice J S Khehar directed the ASI to file its report in the court within two months. The court has directed ASI to file a fresh report after the petitioner had objected to the first report of the ASI.
The state government has contended that the temple is not considered as protected monument and is not a centuryold temple. As the temple is in a deteriorated condition, the state wanted to renovate it, the state government told the HC.
However, the petitioner contended that the renovation work would damage the centuryold sanctum sanctorum of the temple.
State to computerise land records by December
State government on Monday told Karnataka High Court that all the land records, Acts and petitions would be computerised by December 3, 2011.
Representative of Revenue Department and deputy commissioner of Bangalore Urban district told the singlejudge bench that under Bhoomi project, the state government had decided to computerise land records in state. Principal secretary of Revenue Department appeared before the High Court and made the submission.

Campaign against Manual Scavenging

2010-12-31T20:33:00.001-08:00

Volume 28 - Issue 01 :: Jan. 01-14, 2011
INDIA'S NATIONAL MAGAZINE
from the publishers of THE HINDU • Contents

SOCIAL ISSUES

Resisting indignity

MARI MARCEL THEKAEKARA
Safai karmacharis are set to end their two-decade-long movement for a life of dignity on a victorious note.
PHOTOGRAPHS: TARIQ THEKAEKARA

ONE OF THE Balmiki women who undertook the bus yatra to Delhi, with a picture of B.R. Ambedkar.
DECEMBER 31, 2010. As revellers across the world prepare to celebrate the end of the first decade of the new millennium and the start of a new year, a million women across India will be celebrating not the end of a calendar year but the end of a centuries-old degrading and inhuman occupation – lifting of night soil, euphemistically referred to as manual scavenging.

This is the result of India's most moving campaign since Independence. The Safai Karmachari Andolan (SKA) is a movement for dignity and justice for India's safai karmacharis or Balmikis. It was Mahatma Gandhi who raised the question for the first time, over a century ago, in 1901, at a Kolkata meeting of the Indian National Congress. Several Prime Ministers declared they would eradicate manual scavenging. Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, who was reportedly obsessed with ending the obnoxious practice, got the Eradication of Manual Scavenging and Dry Latrines Act passed in 1993. He also created a commission to deal with the problem and allocated crores for the rehabilitation of manual scavengers. Seventeen years after the Act, the demeaning work of removing human excreta with a broom, pieces of tin sheet and a bucket or basket is finally ending.

This has been achieved more because a band of determined people from the community launched the Safai Karmachari Andolan than because politicians or bureaucrats took the initiative. The team of mostly young people from the community, led by a frail, soft-spoken, but charismatic Balmiki leader, Bejawada Wilson, its convener, put in motion a strategic plan about 15 years ago.

First came an awareness-building exercise at the grass roots. A team of youngsters from the Balmiki community were mobilised and trained to spread the message throughout the country that manual scavenging and dry latrines had been made illegal since 1993. They went from house to house, slum to slum, district to district, convincing Balmiki women to throw down their brooms, to stop cleaning excreta. Wilson then appeared, exhorting them to give up their degrading occupation for the sake of dignity.

“The Collector can be jailed for allowing dry latrines in his/her district, no one can force you to clean them,” Wilson told them. The women were stunned when they first heard that it was punishable under law to make them clean excreta manually. When they were asked to share their experiences, it was like a dam burst. Years of pent-up anguish and emotion gushed out. “No one ever asked us how we felt, or how we suffered all these years,” they said. From Kashmir to Kanyakumari, the women repeated the same story, with slight variations.

Lakshmi from Tamil Nadu recalls: “I came from a village, so when I got married to a boy from the town, my friends were envious. ‘Now you'll become a city girl with TV and electricity,' they teased me. The wedding was fun. The music, food, new clothes, dressing up. When the festivities ended, my mother-in-law said, ‘The wedding is over, it's time to go to work.' In the village, everyone went to the fields in the morning to defecate. But not here in the town, I had never seen a huge latrine like this. I did not know our people cleaned excreta in this manner. I vomited for months. Could not eat my food. Gradually I got used to it. I hated it, but there was no choice. Even today, the sight of dal makes me throw up. It reminds me of what I cleaned for years.”

The SKA then launched a campaign to destroy illegal dry latrines. In 2003, the SKA with 18 other organisations, filed a public interest litigation (PIL) petition in the Supreme Court. They sought eradication of manual scavenging, liberation of all safai karmacharis from their degrading jobs and initiation of measures for their rehabilitation. A shameful and scandalous game ensued. After several delaying tactics, which prolonged the case over many years, the government finally took some action. But it was not to end manual scavenging but to subvert justice. In an attempt to cover up the States' failure to implement the 1993 Act, almost all of them submitted false affidavits stating that manual scavenging and dry latrines were non-existent in their territories. They implied the SKA was lying. The Supreme Court asked the SKA to furnish proof of the existence of dry latrines and manual scavenging.

The SKA embarked on a nationwide survey to gather proof. Wilson recalls: “This wasn't just a survey. It was a question of our life, of human dignity.” An army of 1,260 SKA activists panned out to 274 districts in 18 States. They went from house to house photographing and documenting evidence. They took pictures and video footage of individual house owners with their names and door numbers and the names and photographs of the women who cleaned their private latrines. They were aided by NDTV; the TV channel aired the footage, to the embarrassment of the house owners. The unintentional “name and shame” campaign made people, especially in Punjab and Haryana, quickly demolish the dry toilets.

S.R. Sankaran, the legendary Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer who was Wilson's guide and mentor and a co-founder of the SKA, personally wrote letters to every Collector under whose jurisdiction dry latrines still existed. Some took action. Many were indifferent, callous and brusque.

Intensification of campaign

In 2004, the SKA decided to intensify its campaign by destroying illegal dry latrines. In Andhra Pradesh, there was a dry latrine in the Nizamabad Yellareddy court, used by lawyers and judges. “You cannot demolish this,” the authorities told them. “You will be arrested.” “We can and we will,” SKA campaigners retorted. “It is illegal; it is not supposed to exist!”

Sankaran declared, “We should have a closing date. We cannot go on forever.” Wilson saw the ‘Countdown to the Commonwealth Games' signboards and decided Campaign 2010 had a nice ring to it. And December 31, 2010, sounded like a great deadline.

The 2010 Campaign began with plans for an all-India bus yatra in October 2010. Five buses drove triumphantly into Delhi on October 31. One had started from the northernmost part of India, Kashmir; another from the southern tip, Kanyakumari. The third meandered from Dibrugarh to Delhi, and the fourth from Orissa. The last bus was from Dehradun in Uttarakhand. There were 250 safai karmacharis from 20 States. They converged on the Vishwa Yuva Kendra, Chanakyapuri, exhausted but victorious and happy, after a marathon, month-long mission. They had undertaken the pilgrimage through 172 districts, exhorting every Indian Balmiki, from bastis throughout the country to throw down their brooms and vow that they would never clean human excreta again.

On October 7, 2010, the SKA received a huge blow. Their mentor, Sankarangaru, as he was fondly called, suffered a heart attack and died. The poor from every corner of Andhra Pradesh, whom he had served, turned up in their thousands to mourn the passing away of a man who had touched the lives of millions. But his dream lived on, soon to be realised.

Some 1,000 safai karmacharis from 20 States, who until recently had worked as manual scavengers, assembled in New Delhi on November 1 and resolved to return to the capital on January 1, 2011, if their demands were not met. At a meeting at Mavalankar Hall, they shared their experiences and put forth their demands.

As each bus appeared, at Chanakyapuri, yatris were greeted and garlanded by a cheering band of supporters and well-wishers. They clambered down travel-weary but triumphant, shouting the slogans they had learnt from different States. “ Rookhi sookhi khayenge, maila nahi uthayenge!” they yelled. (We'll eat half a dry roti but never carry filth again.)

The slogans were sometimes difficult to decipher, but once you sorted out the myriad languages, they were upbeat and infectious. The effect was cacophonic – Bengali and Marathi merging with Oraon and Ho from Jharkhand, Kashmiri mingling with dialects like Bhojpuri, Oriya and Punjabi. The southern presence was pronounced and loud – Telegu, Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada.

Bejawada Wilson, convener of the SKA. He carried to the logical end an action plan he helped put together 15 years ago to eradicate manual scavenging.
The yatris had been together for an entire month. Many had picked up a few phrases of each language. They learnt new customs, new food habits and new languages. Tamilians shouted Johar (from Jharkhand), but strangest of all was to hear Punjabis and Kashmiris shouting “Velaga Velaga Velaga vay”, a victory cry from the deep South. North Indians ate sambar and idlis, while southern Balmikis learnt to enjoy aloo paranthas for breakfast.

Few of these women had ever left the slums they were born in or travelled, except to a relative's house for a wedding or a funeral. Yet the fervour and emotion generated by this mission to end manual scavenging had given them the courage to embark on a totally unknown journey, hundreds, even thousands of kilometres away, to a distant dream – to Delhi. Several had taken babies and small children with them. Each person who disembarked from the buses looked exhausted but exhilarated. Each one had grown in confidence and self-esteem. The excitement and pride were palpable.

People poured out of the buses and into the hall. The women were invited to take the stage. The first was Narayanamma from Andhra Pradesh. In October 2000, The Hindu reported Narayanamma's plight as she cleaned a 400-seat dry latrine in Anantapur town. The toilet was immediately demolished, and Narayanamma became a crusader in the fight to end manual scavenging. Ten years later she glows with pride and joy as she speaks about her fight for justice for her people.

Umayal from Puddukottai district in Tamil Nadu is all of 20 years old. She spent a month on the bus with her two-year-old daughter Sandhya. Tiny, with delicate, perfect features, she rapidly became the darling of the media after her firebrand speech. “I started doing this work when I was around 10 years old,” she began. “Once, I was working for some people and they would not let me sit on the mat. I had to sit far away in a corner on the floor. I wept and thought, I am untouchable because of the filthy work I do. When the SKA people came here and asked us to stop this work, I was only too happy to do so. I received a bank loan and now buy and sell coir. Even if someone offers me one lakh rupees, I will never do this work again.”

When Wilson took the microphone to speak, his words, deriving from his years of experience as a member of the Balmiki community, came straight from the heart. He said: “How many of our women have wept tears of shame as they did this filthy, humiliating work to feed their children? Our grandmothers, mothers, aunts, wives, sisters and daughters. They crept out from back doors, believing their touch pollutes. Today, with no promise of livelihood, no guarantee of rice or roti, they have bravely thrown down their brooms, those symbols of shame and oppression. They have travelled through the length and breadth of this country begging our people to do likewise. To throw down their buckets, baskets and brooms to liberate their children and future generations from life-long shame and oppression.”

A list of demands were announced, aimed at helping safai karmacharis to rebuild their lives with dignity. “If the government does not accept our demands within 60 days, we will all come to Delhi and stay put here until our demands are met,” Wilson declared.

The main demands were that the government must apologise to all safai karmacharis for the violation of their dignity and the degradation of an entire community over centuries; all dry latrines must be demolished; those violating the 1993 Act and forcing safai karmacharis to do manual scavenging must be punished. They also demanded that the government must release Rs.5 lakh for the rehabilitation of every safai karmachari, a separate Rs.10,000 as immediate relief, five acres of land, and Antyodaya cards and houses. A special pension for women safai karmacharis who were single, widowed or aged was also demanded.

There were loud cheers when Wilson issued his ultimatum to the government. There was a feeling that it was possible for the safai karmacharis to realise their dream. The dream does seem less impossible now. Wilson has appeared in national dailies, on television, even in British newspapers; he has held meetings with Ministers, senior IAS officers, the National Advisory Council and the Planning Commission. On October 23, an NAC meeting chaired by Sonia Gandhi issued a note ordering a crackdown on manual scavenging, with specific directions for State governments to end the shameful practice. An outline for rehabilitation was also issued.

A padayatra, launched on December 1 and culminating in Delhi on December 31, will bring this historic campaign to an end. After December, the SKA will start a “name and shame” campaign, naming Collectors who are guilty of dereliction of duty.

Few people took Wilson seriously when he started his work in 1987 in Kolar in Karnataka. The SKA has since spread to Kanyakumari, to Kashmir, to Kumaon. Its campaigners have persuaded lakhs of women to throw down their brooms, bringing down the number of manual scavengers from 13 lakh to three lakh. It has taken more than two decades, but he has achieved what even Mahatma Gandhi failed to do.

To dream an impossible dream takes courage. Yet this simple, unknown man with a small team of people has managed within two decades to sweep away the degradation of centuries for one million women with little more than the power of persuasion. It places him in the company of giants like Gandhi, Mandela and Martin Luther King. A bit over the top? Some people would say so. But not those one million Balmiki women.

Understanding the importance of Mahad movement

2010-12-24T18:49:00.001-08:00

Relevance of Mahad’s historical struggle

Manusmriti need to be burnt not in its physicality alone but also from our hearts and minds

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat

Two sisters from scavenging community were burnt to death by an upper caste mob in Moradabad district of Uttar-Pradesh for an alleged murder committed by their brother who is still at large. The family requested the police to protect them yet nothing happened. Contrary to what the girl’s distraught mother is saying, the Uttar-Pradesh police already suggested that the girls committed suicide because of the regular humiliation by their neighbors regarding their brothers.

Uttar-Pradesh, people say, is the laboratory of the Dalit-Bahujan politics. Unfortunately, Brahmanism still remains as powerful in the state as ever though its functionality and strategies have changed drastically. The Dalit- Bahujan concept has taken a beating here and to the best now the new agendas of different caste identities have emerged in the state. Tragically, this assertion movement has some where drifted from what Baba Saheb Ambedkar charted for all the oppressed of the country, a new vision under Buddha’s liberating path. Uttar-Pradesh has seen empowered Dalit Bahujan politics but unlike Maharastra the efforts for a counter culture here have not worked well. In the absence of a counter culture, the Dalit Bahujan leaderships of different communities are targeting each other and in the end reinforcing brahmanical beliefs of supremacy and purity. As long as caste remains, Brahmanism will work to the benefits of the powerful and maintain hegemonies of a few.

It is therefore necessary to revisit the historic path of Baba Saheb Ambedkar in Mahad where he fought the rights of the people denied human dignity and access the natural resources. Water is a natural resource and none has right to control it and Ambedkar’s fight for water right for the Dalits is an example of how people’s movement can bring social change as he was not just breaking the brahmanical hegemony over water but also pointing that without equality of women and their effective participation no movement would succeed. He, along with thousands of his followers, predominantly women, burnt Manusmriti, the law book of the Hindus. It was not just symbolic but a strong rejection of racist Hindu social order which denied human being equality, liberty and fraternity. It was just not a political issue as he made an important statement in burning Manusmriti, which means that the rejection of old order based on racial prejudices of cultural supremacy must essentially be part of any movement meant for social justice. Hence, December 25th must be celebrated as a human rights day of the oppressed all over the world. We can not leave this symbolic day to the pages of history only but take it further to demolish Machiavellian politics of highest kind where people are marginalized through divine sanctions and subjugated further in the name of Gods and the books supposedly written by them. No book was bigger than human liberty and freedom and therefore they need to be questioned and formulated according to modern concept of rights for all.

For every student of social sciences and human rights in India must read and understand this historical event of December 25th, 1927, as this will give them ideas to learn and understand what Ambedkar stood for and what he revolted. That was the time, when Baba Saheb challenged the religious superiority of Manu Smriti and termed it a law book of injustice and burnt it with his supporters, it was a big event for millions of people were fooled to believe in a book which can not be changed yet which was responsible for their miseries and sorrows. A person like Ambedkar would not believe in tokenism as he countered each of these laws with his thought provoking critical analysis, yet it was important for him to do something symbolic which sends a positive message among the community.

This is Ambedkar’s century and his forthright views are now a challenge for all hegemonies. Today, the movement for social justice can not imagine anything leaving Ambedkar from the centrality of it. Yet, very unfortunately, many new things are coming up projecting Ambedkar as a person from a particular community, who married to a non Dalit woman and most shockingly, they alleged, he embrace Buddhism under pressure of Hindus. This is the outcome of the growing caste identities being used for individual leaders and their fancies to achieve ‘political power’. There is nothing wrong in attaining political power but how will it sustain without a common cause and common rejection of the Varnashram dharma. How can we challenge Brahmanism without a counter-culture, which is more humane, progressive and ideologically stronger and better than an order based on prejudices and stereotypes? As Dalit Bahujan movement further split into the caste and sub-castes identities hitting at each other, the power of Ambedkar’s cultural vision become more than relevant for all of us. Ambedkar as a challenger of hegemony, a free thinker and an iconoclast would answer to all the irrelevant manipulations of his formulations and ideological constructs being constructed by these prophets of religions who find it unacceptable as why he embraced Buddhism. Problem with these thinking is that all of them denigrate Ambedkar’s great moral courage and hence it is essential to understand Ambedkar in true spirit of his philosophy of life and mission.

Yes, those who feel Ambedkar embraced Buddhism out of fear and pressure from Sangh Parivar do not really appreciate his commitment and strength. A man who could walk out of an audience with Pope John Paul just because the latter could not respond to his questions properly must have been having the courage of conviction. One must understand that Baba Saheb Ambedkar clearly mentioned that Hindu Fundamentalists are the biggest threat and Hindu Rashtra would be a colossal tragedy for India. He talked against political Islam and its threat. It would be very difficult to find a man of Ambedkar’s vision and courage who single handedly brought change in the lives of millions of people in India.

Ambedkar is the name of Freedom, liberty and enlightened individual. And he is aspiration and hope of millions of people denied rights and yet by dint of their hard work, they have challenge the brahmanical superstructure. He was a man of great pragmatism yet never ever compromised on his principles. His pragmatism never ever reflected in politics of opportunism which is very much part of today’s politics and politicians. His thrust on individual is a landmark from any standard as even European society and Americans had not discovered that individualism that Ambedkar aspired for. For him individual was supreme and those who denigrate individual can not really build a healthy society? Our societies deny individual the basic liberty and that is why it can not be called a society.

Today, on December 25th, we must have the courage to be as courageous as Baba Saheb Ambedkar was to his thoughts and action, his creations, his thoughts, of his convictions and commitments. His fight for the fundamental right of access to natural resources, added by rejection of the racist brahmanical order should be part of our college curriculum. Those who believe in egalitarian society must understand the meaning of Ambedkar and his fight for social justice. Today, in the world where our governments and societies are hurting the individual liberty the most, when our political parties are compromising with religious fundamentalists, when our Khap panchayats are deciding what we should do and what should we think, Ambedkar’s ideas remains a beacon of hope. Ambedkar is the hope for all the oppressed. The women in India need to understand that Dr Ambedkar’s struggle for them was supreme. This day when we celebrate the Christmas as big day, it is a big day for millions of people all over the world for their dignity and human right. His ideas need to globalised and propagated internationally so that more and more people understand the enormity of his struggle and modernity of his ideas which changed our world. Let president Obama read Dr Ambedkar and his writings and he will understand the cruelty of Indian village system as well as how a giant like Ambedkar could bring hopes in the lives of million without using any violent methods but simply advocating through a counter culture to oppression and subjugation. The politics of identity is great but as Ambedkar himself said about his own ‘ I was born as Hindu which was not in my hand but I will not die as a Hindu’. It clearly indicates that he was out to create new identity and harp on it. The sacrifice of Baba Saheb Ambedkar was for all of us to live in an enlightened society. We can not have our vision by reasserting our identities created under the brahmanical construct. A new dawn need to be created which means a cultural change is prerequisite for making final assault on Brahmanism and Ambedkar has shown us the path. It is time we chose that identity charted by him and get out of this big brahmanical game of hurting each other. We all may have minor contradiction but we need to understand the bigger contradiction of our life is with the order created by Manu. Baba Saheb chose to hit at that bigger contradiction in Mahad and it is time we need to follow that again and again. We may burn Manu Smriti in public but let us throw it away in the rubbish bin of history and pledge to work for a humanist society as envisaged by Baba Saheb Ambedkar. When we shed our internal prejudices then the mother of the scavenging community girls who were brutally burnt Moradabad would not feel isolated with in the Dalit Bahujan politics and we will not raise an issue when there is a good political crop to harvest. That time every individual is important for us as Baba Saheb time and again maintained. It is tragic that like the Hindus we also prejudge things and confine ourselves in the realm of identity politics. Baba Saheb’s message was meant for all of us and we must come in solidarity of all who need us. It is here that Balmikis of Moradabad need our support. Even if, as some people assume that the brothers of these girls who were burnt, were criminals, that does not mean that the girls and their family should have paid the price for the crime they never committed. Blaming people on their birth identity and on the crime of some one else is brahanical and need to be challenged at all level including our personal and ideological discourse. The biggest defeat of Manu Smriti would be the social-cultural unity of victims of that order created by it, but in the absence of a concrete programme of action and because of conspicuous silence on matter such as these killings create further rifts in the people and make them fall in the hands of those who are actually the biggest offenders of our dignity and human rights. Unity will never happen with big jargons and rhetoric but is only possible with expression of solidarity and participating and being part of every struggle for human dignity and human rights. And message from Mahad is that intellectuals who write must ensure at least some time of their life to be participants of a social movement and struggle for change. How did Baba Saheb Ambedkar found time to write so many things and yet be part of all the major struggles. His writings and work had the conviction strongly inbuilt that unless we become part of social movements for change and unless we shed these brahmanical prejudices and values in our personality, we will always be carrying Manu in our heart and mind. Ambedkar did not have the patience to hear Pope that it will take so many centuries for elimination of caste system and walked out of him. Ambedkar has done his work, it is time for us to pledge that we will not sit ideally unless this notorious system is demolished and the best way to do so would be by taking further his path and creating an enlightened and equitable society, if not among all, at least among our own selves.

We must follow up regularly the case of Valmiki girls murder in Moradabad

2010-12-21T22:50:00.000-08:00

Friends,

It is an important case how the Valmikis are treated. They face the biggest untouchability and are stigmatized even today. It is worst when the police says that the girls committed suicide.We need fair and impartial investigation. This case must be handed over to CBI and tried in a fast track court. The victims mother need support, both mental, social and financial. State government must act and take action against the guilty.

Vidya Bhushan Rawat

Dalit girls’ death: It was murder, not suicide, say panels in chorus

Express News Service

Tags : Dalit girls’ death, National Commission for Scheduled Castes, National Commission for Safai Karamcharis
Posted: Wed Dec 22 2010, 01:57 hrs
lucknow:

Dalit girls death
Freelance JobsChina WholesaleDiscount ShoppingCordless Headphone
Discussion
Blogs
Indo russia deal - By anil bharali
An ngo against polic... - By Matri Das
That's bjp effect! - By kedar
Fighting "korruption... - By oldindian
An old tecinique - By Abdul Sattar
India is banana repu... - By Kiran
Serious - By rooppeshen

The teams of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and the National Commission for Safai Karamcharis, which visited Moradabad on Tuesday to inquire into the deaths of two Dalit sisters on Saturday, said the girls were killed, and blamed the local officials for the tragedy.
Both the teams rejected the district administration’s claim that the girls had committed suicide, unable to bear the taunts of neighbours after their brothers were booked in a case of double murder.

The NCSC team was led by member Raju Parmar while Swaraj Jeevan headed the NCSK team.

NCSC chairman PL Punia told The Indian Express, “The officials of the district administration and the police are responsible for the death of the Dalit sisters. Our team has conducted an inquiry and the commission would get a case under the SC/ST Atrocity Act registered against erring officials according to the findings. The girls were killed and it was not a case of suicide.”

Ads by Google
Dabur Chyawanprash
Dabur ChyawanPrakash The time-tested benefits of
www.dabur.com/chyawa
Good Morning Heart
A Mission to Get India Heart Healthy.Take The Test Now!
www.GoodMorningHeart
Amex Corp Card
Save Upto 15 Lacs on flights with Amex Corporate Card Program. Apply!
americanexpress.com/
Jeevan said, “We conducted an inquiry and found that the mother of the victims had been requesting senior officials of the police and the administration for security since December 9. She feared attack on her and her daughters, but the officials hurled abuses at her and shooed her away from their offices.”

He further said, “It is a case of murder and I am recommending action against the District Magistrate and the DIG of Moradabad, holding them responsible for the killing of two Dalit girls and getting a false case of robbery and murder fabricated against the Dalit girls’ brothers Rakesh and Rajesh.”

Both the teams visited the house in Kothiwal Nagar where the charred bodies of Geeta and Neetu alias Monu were found and recorded the statement of their mother who was present in the house at the time of the incident. The teams also spoke to their neighbours.

Later, the teams met the doctors who conducted the postmortem examination of the two girls, and the forensic experts who had examined the room. They also recorded the statements of the local SHO, the Circle Officer, the SP (City), and the City Magistrate who had visited the spot on December 18.

Parmar and Jeevan met the DIG and the DM and inquired about the steps they had taken in the matter.

Moradabad DIG Ashok Kumar said he gave all details to the members of both the commissions and replied to their queries. “The investigation would find out if the mother’s allegation that Geeta and Neetu were set ablaze by a mob is true,” the DIG said. He said the police had already registered a case under various sections of IPC and the SC/ST Act and an Assistant SP was conducting the investigation.

Rajjo Devi had alleged in her complaint that a mob entered her house and set her daughters ablaze after outraging their modesty.

Her sons, Rajesh and Rakesh, were arrested after Pankaj Gagneja, who lives in the same locality, had lodged a complaint, naming them for the murder of his wife Pooja and daughter Sania, and robbery at his house on December 9.

While Rajesh was arrested the next day, Rakesh is on the run.

Dalit girls burnt in Morabadabad

2010-12-19T07:38:00.000-08:00

The Dalit dignity is challenged in Uttar-Pradesh. The government of Uttar-Pradesh must take this issue seriously and punish the culprit. This can not be suicide case as the police is pretending . A free and fair inquiry is needed.

VB

Two Dalit sisters burnt alive by mob
PTI, Dec 19, 2010, 04.02pm IST

Article
Comments (65)

Tags:Kothiwal Nagar|Dalit Community

MORADABAD: Two sisters belonging to the Dalit community were allegedly burnt alive in Kothiwal Nagar here by a mob protesting a double murder for which their brother was accused, police said on Sunday.

"An FIR has been registered in which the victim girls' mother has identified 12 people who were part of the mob," SP (City) Rahul Yadavendra told PTI.

According to the victims' mother Rajo, a mob gathered outside their house yesterday and set it ablaze. While she escaped unhurt, her daughters Gita (22) and Monu (20) were burnt alive in the ensuing fire.

The victims' brother Rakesh, who worked as a sweeper here, has been accused in the case of the murder of a woman and her 10-year-old daughter for robbery on December 9.

While Rakesh is absconding, his brother Rajesh was arrested by police.

Rajo has alleged that a mob had also gathered outside her house and threatened to set it ablaze about two days after the double murder.

She claimed she had requested police to provide security at her house or to place her and her two daughters at a secure location as there was a threat to their life, but the police did not help.

DIG Ashok Kumar had earlier denied the involvement of a mob in the incident and had said that prima facie, it was a case of accident or suicide.

Rajo also alleged that the police had initially refused to register her complaint in this connection, while the DIG had said that police was not approached.

Dalit activists today staged protest demonstrations and took out a march from Ambedkar Park here to the place where the bodies have been kept for post mortem.

They are demanding that the accused be arrested immediately.

Read more: Two Dalit sisters burnt alive by mob - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/Two-Dalit-sisters-burnt-alive-by-mob/articleshow/7127843.cms#ixzz18ZXVYj00

Manual scavengers in Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh

2010-12-16T00:03:00.001-08:00

Enslaved by tradition: the manual scavengers of Vidisha

MAHIM PRATAP SINGH
SHARE · COMMENT · PRINT · T+

THE HINDU FAILED BY MODERNITY: Basanti Bai, a manual scavenger, with her "tools" - a metal scraper and wicker basket. Photo: Mahim Pratap Singh
Over 200 families in this district of Madhya Pradesh continue to bear the brunt of caste discrimination.

Vidisha, a thriving trade centre of ancient India, finds glorious mention variously for Emperor Ashoka's governorship, for featuring in Pali scriptures and Kalidasa's romantic epic Meghdoot, as a premier tourist destination in glossy brochures of Madhya Pradesh Tourism and as the parliamentary constituency of Sushma Swaraj, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha.

That the banned practice of manual scavenging is still a forced occupation for several Dalit families here is seldom written about.

According to unofficial estimates, over 200 families in the district continue to bear the brunt of caste discrimination primarily through the practice of manual scavenging.

“Every morning, I go to eight to ten households, collect the garbage in a straw basket and dump it a mile away from the village. When it rains, the waste oozes through the basket over to my hair,” says Guddi Bai (38) of Nateran tehsil.

The waste she is talking about is human excreta, euphemistically called “night soil”. Guddi belongs to the Valmiki community, relegated by the caste system to practise manual scavenging as their traditional occupation.

Ironically, Guddi, who goes from house to house collecting human faeces every morning, has a water-seal latrine at her house.

Nateran, the tehsil visited by this correspondent, has eight families that practise manual scavenging in its headquarters alone, and in all cases it is the women who do the job while the men work as agricultural or construction labour.

While the practice was banned by law in 1993 with the passage of The Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, it still continues in several parts of India. The deadline for the eradication of manual scavenging from the country, after having been revised thrice (December 2007, March 2009 and March 2010), was recently set for 2012-end by the National Advisory Council, headed by UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi. Following its last meeting on the issue in October, the NAC noted that it was, “deeply distressed to observe that the shameful practice of manual scavenging persists in India, despite being outlawed”.

OFFICIAL DENIAL

An important reason for the failure of the Centre and the State government in eradicating this dehumanising practice seems to be consistent official denial.

In 2006, the Madhya Pradesh government, along with some other State governments, filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court claiming the practice had ceased to exist in the State. However, a counter-affidavit was filed by 17 organisations from all over India along with photographs and video clippings of manual scavenging, proving the official affidavits wrong.

While Vidisha District Collector Yogendra Sharma accepts that the practice still continues, he does not find economic deprivation to be a reason.

“All these families have alternative livelihood options; most of them have BPL and Antyodaya ration cards, cattle etc. The only reason, I understand, they are still doing it is because they have been doing it for generations and because it is easy money for them compared to jobs that require hard work like agriculture,” says Mr. Sharma.

“We are now making efforts to motivate them to abandon this practice willingly,” he adds.

THE DILEMMAS OF REHABILITATION

During the five-year period of the 10th Plan, Madhya Pradesh received Rs.2.9 crore under the Centrally-sponsored Pre-Matric Scholarship scheme for the children of those engaged in “unclean occupations”.

However, people in the occupation note the scholarship requires getting a 100-day “unclean work certificate” from the authorities, which is almost impossible since issuing the certificate would mean the legally abolished practice is still going on — a fact the authorities do not want to admit.

According to the Ministry of Social Justice figures, out of a total scavenger population of 81,307 in the State, 77,512 have been rehabilitated under the Centrally-funded Self-Employment Scheme for the Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers (SRMS) and only 3,795 remain.

Unofficial sources put this figure at around 8,000 to 10,000.

The SRMS, formulated in 2007, envisaged the rehabilitation of manual scavengers — in a phased manner, by the end of 2009 — by assisting them in finding alternative employment through term loans (up to Rs.5 lakh) and micro financing (up to Rs.25,000).

However, the rehabilitation schemes concentrated only on the financial aspect and ignored the social aspect, causing several “rehabilitated” people to eventually fall back to the practice. The financial rehabilitation programmes were male-centric, while it is the women who make up the largest chunk of those engaged in this occupation.

“Firstly, the programme does not have any specific provisions targeting women and secondly, most of the projects for which loans are provided are not women-friendly,” says Asif Sheikh of Garima Abiyaan, a Dewas-based NGO.

PATRON-CLIENT RELATIONS

Another important reason for the practice continuing even after 63 years of independence and 17 years after a law was passed by Parliament banning it, is that it derives a “traditional legitimacy” from the patron-client system, which is firmly entrenched in the psyche of those who perform this degrading job.

The families in Nateran note that scavenging is not a means of sustenance and they make ends meet by doing other jobs like agricultural labour.

“All I get for working everyday is around 20 to 50 kilos of grain annually and a few old clothes on occasion,” says Basanti Bai (40) who has been scavenging ever since she was handed the job by her sister-in-law after her marriage.

Why doesn't she quit then?

“If we quit, the upper caste women ridicule us. ‘Tum to panditaain ho gayi ho' [You seem to act like a Brahmin woman], they say. Moreover, that is the way it has always been going on,” she says.

“The patron-client system, in a strange way, provides security of employment and, given the nature of this job, it basically is secure as there is no one to compete with and hence it will require determined social, political and economic rehabilitation measures on the part of the government if this dehumanising practice is to end,” says Professor Nandu Ram, director of the Ambedkar Chair at the Centre for the Study of Social Systems, Jawaharlal Nehru University.

The Valmikis, and other scavenging communities, also face discrimination from other Dalit communities such as the Jatavs and the Ahirwars and are relegated to the lowest levels of the caste hierarchy among Dalits.

Keywords: caste discrimination, manual scavenging

India's unabated Shame

2010-12-01T21:07:00.000-08:00

http://expressbuzz.com/cities/chennai/manual-scavenger%E2%80%99s-daughter-forced-to-eat-trash/227112.html

In Chennai, a school teacher force a girl who happened to hail from a family of manual scavengers, to eat trash. Can it happen any where in the world. India and particularly Tamilnadu, the land of Periyar has such barbaric crime against the Dalits, need to ponder over where it failed. Despite loud claims of social justice, Tamilnadu, still has to go a long way. Ofcourse, Tamilnadu is not alone in crime against humanity. There is a common thread in crime in India. That common thread is upper caste hatred and contempt for Dalits particularly the manual scavengers. We have failed to abolish this practice and the blame game continues. Radicalisation of the community is a must. A voice from the community must now reject this slavery. Come out of it. All those who believe in dignity of individual and human rights of all, should join hand in the Self Respect Movement of the Manual Scavengers. It is time to do it and reject this criminal practice duly sanctioned by the Vaidiks. Karunanidhi and his government must take stringent action and warn the school teachers for violating the human dignity. Action must be immediate and strict.

Vidya Bhushan Rawat

Teacher forces scavenger’s daughter to eat trash

Nalini Ravichandran Express News ServiceFirst Published : 30 Nov 2010 03:36:08 AM ISTLast Updated : 30 Nov 2010 08:55:03 AM IST
CHENNAI: In a shocking incident smacking of caste discrimination, a Class VII student and daughter of a manual scavenger was forced to eat trash by a school teacher last year and no action has been taken against anyone yet, despite the parents going to the police the next day.
The incident was narrated on Monday in Chennai at the public hearing by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights by the girl’s father, Dhanapal, for whom it was not just “corporal punishment” but something that shattered his hope. The manual scavenger from Madurai had hoped that his daughter would be safe in school.
Dhanapal, who broke down while speaking of his daught er’s ordeal, said: “I do manual scavenging, a degrading work. I sent my daughter to school with the hope that she will never do anything close to what I am doing. Now I am devastated. I clean rubbish and my daught er was made to eat it,” he said.

Along with the girl, Priyanka (12), belonging to the Hindu Kuravar community, two other girls also faced the same humiliation at the Government Girls Higher Secondary School, Mahaboobpalayam off Madurai on March 19 last year.

The students were called by Latha, a teacher of another class, and asked to clean the classroom. Since Latha was not their class teacher the students initially refused. They were then forced to clean the room and also eat the garbage in the presence of other students. Priyanka said, “We knelt before her and asked for forgiveness. We cleaned the classroom, and pleaded with her to spare us. She did not relent and demanded that she won’t let them free till they eat it up. We had exams coming up and were really scared. In fear and disgust, we ate up the trash, a handful, which was given to each of us. It contained mud, dirty paper, food particles like rice and stones.... We felt sick.”

What ails our system..

2010-11-26T20:25:00.000-08:00

Scavenging law: SC asks govt to reply over delay
Dhananjay Mahapatra, TNN, Nov 9, 2010, 12.09am IST

Article
Comments (1)

Tags:Scavenging Law|Safai Karmachari Andolan|Justice S H Kapadia

NEW DELHI: President Barack Obama may have attributed his rise to the top post in the US to the inspiration he received from the ideals of Mahatma Gandhi but the Delhi government appears to be oblivious to the Father of the Nation having called manual scavenging the worst curse on society.

Gandhi said so more than 100 years ago and the Centre enacted the Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, 1993. But till date, the Delhi government has not notified its enforcement in the national capital.

It would have hardly impressed Obama. The Supreme Court was not. A Bench comprising Chief Justice S H Kapadia and Justices K S Radhakrishnan and Swatanter Kumar on Monday asked Delhi government counsel T S Doabia to detail the reasons behind the reluctance to notify enforcement of the law banning manual scavenging.

The question followed a revelation by NGO 'Safai Karmachari Andolan' that manual scavengers still carry excreta from dry latrines not far from Parliament.

There are as many as 1,085 of them in Delhi, the NGO claimed. This was strongly refuted by Doabia, but the counsel had no answer to the SC's query why the law banning manual scavenging was not notified by Delhi government for enforcement in the national capital.

Appearing for the NGO, senior advocate P S Narasimha said the Delhi SC/ST/OBC/Minorities and Handicapped Financial and Development Corporation was aware of a survey conducted by Delhi University's Department of Social Work, which had identified 1,085 scavengers still working in Delhi.

Though the Bench appeared disturbed by the findings, it decided to tread a cautious path and asked Narasimha whether the court could direct a state government to issue a notification to bring into force a law.

Terming the issue as one of constitutional importance, it requested the attorney general for assistance even as Narasimha argued that non-implementation of the law breached the fundamental right to life, which included right to live with dignity.

Read more: Scavenging law: SC asks govt to reply over delay - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Scavenging-law-SC-asks-govt-to-reply-over-delay-/articleshow/6891189.cms#ixzz16SBIjwsv

Rehabilitation of the Swachchakars

2010-11-26T20:23:00.000-08:00

http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=67602

Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers
16:55 IST
25 November, 2010 The Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines(Prohibition) Act, 1993 prohibits manual scavenging. As per the Act, no person shall (a) engage in or employ for or permit to be engaged in or employed for any other person for manually carrying human excreta; or (b) construct or maintain a dry latrine. Contravention of these provisions is a criminal offence.

So far, the Act has been adopted by 23 States and all Union Territories. Two States, viz. Manipur and Mizoram have reported that they have no dry latrines, or they are scavenger free. Two States, viz. Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan have their own Acts. State of Jammu & Kashmir is yet to adopt the Act. Sanitation is a State subject. Enforcement of the Act lies with State Governments.

As per the available information, dry latrines exist in three States, namely Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. The Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation is implementing the Integrated Low Cost Sanitation Scheme, which aims at conversion of dry latrines into pour flush latrines.

Self Employment Scheme for Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers (SRMS) was launched in January, 2007 to provide financial support to the manual scavengers and their dependents for their rehabilitation in alternative occupations. The Scheme has the following main components:-

(i) Skill training for a period upto one year, with payment of stipend @ Rs. 1,000 per month.
(ii) Loan at concessional rate of interest for self employment projects costing upto Rs. 5 lakh.
(iii) Capital subsidy @ 50% of the project cost, for projects upto Rs. 25,000, and @ 25% for projects above Rs. 25,000, with a minimum of Rs. 12,500 and maximum of Rs. 20,000.

As per reports received from State Governments/Union Territory Administrations, there were 1,18,474 manual scavengers and their dependents for rehabilitation under the Self Employment Scheme for Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers (SRMS), out of which 78,941 beneficiaries found to be eligible and willing for loan, have been provided loan and capital subsidy for enabling them to take up alternative self employment ventures.

This information was given by Shri. D. Napoleon, the Minister of State for Social Justice & Empowerment, in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha today.

VBA/RS
****

2010-10-02T06:05:00.001-07:00

Businesses in the Big City | Main

October 1, 2010
Toilets: A Matter of Pride for the Indian Bride

by Lesley D. Biswas
-India-

• Basanti has a mobile phone and a color television but no toilet. Jharkhand, India. Photograph courtesy of the author. •
Among the first things you notice when you come to India is the repelling sight of people defecating in the open. Be it a rural village or the teeming city slums, you see people lined up besides railway tracks, fields, and rivers answering nature’s call.

Out of the estimated 2.6 billion people globally who have no access to proper sanitation, 638 million belong to India. According to the UN, more than 55 percent of Indians practice open defecation. Even where local municipalities have constructed public toilets, the UN has questioned the utility of these services, terming them unhygienic and unusable and lacking in running water, drainage, and electricity.

The small village of Palamu, in the eastern state of Jharkhand, is a farming community. Basanti, who lives in one of the few brick houses in the village, owns a mobile phone and a color television, but like many others in her village she does not have a toilet.

For women like Basanti the daily struggle begins well before dawn. “I have to wake up early every morning and walk to the nearby stream. First, it is important to find a secluded spot away from men and pigs. Second, the spot should not be already soiled with raw feces,” says Basanti. Most of the spots are overused and for the majority of village folk who walk barefoot, the experience they face every morning is unimaginable.

• Many poor defecate on the banks of the Eastern Drainage canal in Kolkata, India. Photograph courtesy of the author. •“During the monsoons it is worse. In the dark when we visit the water logged field overgrown with grass and floating with night soil, the danger of getting bitten by snakes and scorpions is also high” informs Basanti, veiling her bright smile with her sari palu. Although it is visible that she is embarrassed, what is also evident is that Basanti’s family has the means to construct a toilet, yet a toilet is not their priority. And surprisingly, it is also not the priority among millions of poor across India.
According to a UN study on sanitation, 563.7 million people in India have access to mobile phones while only 366 million have access to a toilet. The report estimates the cost of building a toilet at $300 USD, which includes labor, materials, and advice.

Jack Sim, founder and president of the World Toilet Organization (WTO) points out that the only way poor Indian families will prioritize toilets is through local entrepreneurs. “Train the poor to become sanitation entrepreneurs and sales agents,” says Sim, whose mission is to improve sanitation globally.

Sim goes on to explain the logic behind this theory. “We can create a sustainable sanitation delivery model that is profit driven. The technologies are available. All we need is to build the market supply chain and distribution infrastructures [and] train the poor to collaborate with business people to create a vibrant marketplace that works to earn profit and save lives.”

He further adds, “Toilets have to be designed to be emotionally appealing so that they become status symbols and objects of desire amongst the poor, which is the only reason why poor are buying mobile phones and not investing in toilets.”

• Even in the city of Kolkata open defecation is a common sight as poor lack access to toilets. Photograph by the author. •Lack of proper sanitation is also a major cause of girls dropping out of school after adolescence. It is estimated that less than half of the 738,150 primary schools run by the government across India have proper toilets. Only 28.25 percent of all primary schools in the country have separate toilets for girls. According to Education World, the human development magazine, improper sanitation is the reason why only 63 million girls of the 102 million girls who begin schooling continue their education up to class VIII, India’s secondary level education.
Water, Sanitation and Hygiene, or WASH, a collaboration between UNICEF and the Geneva-based Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) to accelerate efforts by both organizations to achieve Millennium Development Goal Seven – to reduce by half the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015 - reports that diarrhea due to drinking contaminated water and poor sanitation claims the lives of around two million children globally each year. Half of the deaths reported are in India. With the health ministry of India putting the economic cost for illness and disease from poor sanitation at a staggering $255 a year, a solution is far overdue.

Paul Calvert is the brain behind eco-toilets, a dry compost toilet with a separate urine-diverting system. It has been found that open defecation and private soakaway’s are the prime reason for drinking water getting contaminated, and eco-toilets, says Calvert, ensure that does not happen. “Eco-toilets do not waste water and they do not pollute water. What they do is allow the valuable nutrients to be recycled and used for fuel and fodder production,” explains Calvert.

Another problem brought on by improper sanitation that needs immediate redressing is human scavenging, the demeaning practice of cleaning dry latrines, mostly done with bare hands. To end human scavenging, dry latrines must go.

• Image of Paul Calvert's eco-toilet "The Ecopan." Eco-toilets are easy to build and give owners a sense of pride. Photograph courtesy of eco-solutions •Traditional dry latrines are not connected to drainage systems and must be manually cleaned. In 1993 the government of India banned human scavenging under Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act. The act also deems the construction of dry latrines a legal offense holding a penalty of up to one year imprisonment or a fine of around $50.
Despite the ban in 2002-03 there are still 6 million dry latrines used in India, according to Union Ministry for Social Justice and Empowerment. Although it is less common to see women carrying bowls of human feces upon their heads and a thick hard bristled broom in their hand, like some decades ago, 6.4 lakh human scavengers (604,000) are still waiting to be rehabilitated, 95 percent of whom are women.

Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak, founder of Sulabh International, a social service organization that has built over 1.2 million individual toilets and over 7,500 public toilets across India and has liberated over 60,000 scavengers by constructing flush toilets, says, “To eliminate scavenging and bring about total sanitation, the government, NGO’s, and the citizenry need to work in close collaboration to make a real difference. When that happens, programs become a success. But when they work in isolation the project lags behind.”

According to Dr. Pathak, state governments in Jharkhand, Orissa, and Goa who implemented this methodology have eliminated human scavenging. A number of private and government projects are underway to construct toilets by providing subsidies to beneficiaries who seek to build them. But policies alone are not going to solve India’s sanitation problems. Communities, especially women, who suffer the most, must be instrumental in developing solutions.

In Haryana, a northeastern state in India, women are doing just that. The "No Toilet, No Bride" campaign, launched by the Ministry of Rural Development, has resulted in the construction of approximately 1.4 million toilets across rural India in less than five years. The movement takes advantage of the fact that Haryana suffers form a warped sex ratio, a result of India’s cultural preference for boys over girls. The scarcity of brides in the state helps prospective brides use their bargaining power to force their suitors to construct toilets for them before they marry.

“I think such a pledge is very good. It creates a social norm that creates peers pressure for the greater good,” said Sim, who hopes to see India achieve their goal of complete sanitation soon.

When women are willing to change the situation a real difference is made to society. Only if women decide to prioritize toilets can the policy makers ensure their demand is fulfilled.

About the Author:
Lesley D. Biswas is a freelance creative writer and journalist based in Kolkata, India. She has written extensively for the past eleven years on sports, gardening, women and youth issues. Her articles have appeared both in print and online for publications such as the Woman’s Era, Reader's Digest, Funds for Writers, 4indianwoman, Kolkata Mirror and East Kolkata, among others.

2010-09-28T04:33:00.000-07:00

The Stink Of Savanur

By Anand Teltumbde

27 September, 2010
Countercurrents.org

On 20 July 2010, some manual scavengers of Savanur, a small town in Haveri district of north Karnataka performed a novel act in protest against their helplessness. They smeared themselves with human excreta in public before the municipal council office. The stink of it strangely attracted many, including Pramod Muthalik of the notorious Sriram Sene, the militant Hindutva outfit to the Bhangi Colony and thrown up numerous issues of consequence.

The Shame of India

India that prides on being one of the high growth economies and emerging super power has many persistent shames. Certainly, the manual scavenging, a euphemism for some people carrying shit of others for living is the topmost. India enacted a special act, as it usually does, way back in 1993, the Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act providing for imprisonment up to one year and a fine of Rs. 2,000 or both to those practicing it. Actually, it well constituted a crime under the existing but much dreaded Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. The only impact these Acts had was to send the authorities into denial mode while huge funds were being consumed with the shifting target to end the obnoxious practice. Recently, the Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment Mukul Wasnik admitted in the Rajya Sabha that manual scavenging should have been eradicated two years ago, but now the target had been fixed for March 2010. Well, the government may have sung self congratulatory requiem to this top shame on 1 April, making fool of people. But soon after three months, Savanur stink again exposed the lie and brought the issue to the fore.

The Savanur Protest

The issue was simple, so at least the people in Municipal Council of Savnur thought and ignored it. But it spelt virtual death to Dalits. They were suddenly asked by the Municipal Council to evict the land they lived on for generations just to construct a commercial complex there. The orders in terms of law were illegal but who would contest the authorities. The Dalits kept on pleading but their plea fell on deaf years. On the contrary, to pressure them the Municipal authorities cut off their water connection. Poor Dalits who belonged to the Bhangi sub caste, would be forbidden to take water from any other source because of their untouchability. Buying it was out of question as they barely subsided on a pittance thrown to them for cleaning dry latrines. What may appear simple to others was thus a death knell for them, which drove them to the desperate act of daubing themselves with human excreta. The sensational act attracted media and thereby swarms of politicians. The ministers came, held meetings, issued orders and at least temporarily saved the Bhangis from devastation. As it happens, the action taken may prove to be mere wash up as suspected by the PUCL (Karnataka) fact finding (preliminary) report on the incident. (http://www.puclkarnataka.org)

Hypocrisy, Thy Name India

Although the method of this protest was novel, there was nothing unusual about it. The people who did it, only showed their routine predicament to the public, which just pretended not to notice. When it comes to Dalits, the Indian State as well as civil society always recoils into a denial mode. The hypocritical attitude of the government is best exposed in the international forums where it vehemently opposes caste even being discussed. India always enthusiastically showed up as fighter against racism, colonialism and apartheid being observed elsewhere but when the UN Conference at Durban sought to include caste in its agenda, the government spiritedly opposed it with indefensible alibi like caste is not race or it is its internal matter, or worse, there is no caste discrimination in India. While caste may not be race in technical terms but as the descent based discrimination, there is no functional difference between the two, which is what the Durban conference contended. Indian elite in its cocoon always tend to believe that caste is a thing of past. The hypocrisy no where gets better exposed than in the case of manual scavenging. While it enacted the law against it in 1993, most states had not adopted it until 2003 saying that they did not have any manual scavengers. With all flip-flops in face of the contrary evidence brought up by various surveys, which still maintain that the number of manual scavengers are well over 1.3 million, the government is about to declare the issue as dead.

Even Shit Gathers Vultures

The swiftness with which the authorities acted puzzled many. Within 24 hours the Irrigation Minister Basavarj Bommai, who happens to be local legislator held a special meeting in Savanur to discuss the issue, which decided among others not to evict the 13 Bhangi families from the present place till alternative arrangements are made; to allot them Ashraya plots; to provide basic amenities with immediate effect and to provide them employment as sweepers under contractor. For the next couple of days there was a continuous flow of politicians to the Bhangi colony which culminated in the visit of Pramod Muthalik himself closeting with Bhangis. The mystery lay in the demographic composition of Savanur which has about 60 percent Muslim population and its Municipal Council having predominance of the Congress, commanding 15 members out of total 23, leaving just three for the BJP. Karnataka is a happening place under the present Sangh Parivar dispensation. There is a campaign of sorts to lure Dalits into the Hindutva fold in the communal divide being engineered in the State. Recently, the Pejawar swamy Vishwesha Teertha from the Hindutva camp toured the Dalit colony in Mysore and hosted the Madiga swamy Maadaara Channaiah visiting the Brahmin colony in response to convince latter that the Dalits should shun conversion to other faiths. The Sangh Parivar obviously saw a great opportunity in communalizing the Savanur issue to its own advantage in its communal design. Who knows what is in store for Savanur in future!

Disturbing Desperation

There is something menacing about the mode of protest of the Bhangis of Savanur. The Dalit protest is historically characterized by denunciation of the markers of their humiliating social status. Dr Ambedkar had exhorted his followers to give up dragging dead animals, eating their meat, discard caste indicative ornaments and practices and even later launched a famous struggle against Mahar watans, considered special rights of Dalits by others. Strangely, the Dalit protest here used the very marker of their dehumanization. While it sought to forcefully project their plight, it has also tacitly marked their helplessness and separation from the mainstream Dalit movement. Bhangis have been a miniscule minority among Dalits and are considered untouchable even by other Dalits. As a result, they have always lived in their own ghettoes. This bespeaks of a big malady of the dalit movement, purportedly aimed at annihilation of castes, but paradoxically using caste as its cementing force. It has failed to realize despite persistent failure over six decades to keep its folks together, that caste is no such a force; it rather is a divisive force that splinters what looks together. Although desperation in Savanur act is confined to the Bhangis, in some measure, it indicates the state of generic Dalits, as it is perceived by the others. If the Dalit movement as for instance in the heyday of the Dalit Sangharsh Samiti in Karnataka was strong, such an act would have been inconceivable.

Savanur prompts the entire Dalit movement to rethink its strategy in face of repeated experience with failure to constitute ‘Dalit’. It is high time Dalits realized that their caste centric outlook to oppose caste is not only theoretically and morally incorrect but also is strategically and empirically wrong. It is high time they shunned the caste idiom and regrouped themselves as a class.

India's Shame : Women working as scavengers

2010-09-14T02:10:00.001-07:00

Women News Network
HOMEABOUTB R E A K I N G NEWS PORTALOPINIONREVIEWSHUMANITARIAN PUBLICATIONSACTIONSFILM/VIDEOACTION IRANSUBMISSIONSGRANTSJOBSWNN STAFFCONTACTThe Heavyweight Girls of ManipurHarvesting a Field of Their Own –Woman’s Right to Food in the Global Food CrisisMAY 12, 2008...3:00 PM
A Nation’s Lowest Women Work Under Severe Degradation
By Shuriah Niazi with Lys Anzia – Women News Network – WNN

- Manual Scavenging Girl, India – Matt Corks 2006 image -

“In some urban slums of many major cities of India, and more so in the case of semi-urban areas, dry toilets are a sad part of the common reality,” said Dr. Sam Paul, National Secretary of Public Affairs, All India Christian Council, a human rights organization based in Secunderabad, India, in a recent report for the All India Christian Council on March 28.

The United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UN-HRC), at a 2002 meeting of the Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery, said, “Public latrines – some with as many as 400 seats – are cleaned on a daily basis by female workers using a broom and a tin plate. The excrement is piled into baskets which are carried on the head to a location which can be up to four kilometers away from the latrine. At all times, and especially during the rainy season, the contents of the basket will drip onto a scavenger’s hair, clothes and body.”

In spite of the modernization of many parts of India, the age old custom of using dry – non-flush – toilets have exposed many bio-hazards to women in India who work as manual scavengers. Manual scavengers are, “exposed to the most virulent forms of viral and bacterial infections which affect their skin, eyes, limbs, respiratory and gastrointestinal systems. TB (tuberculosis) is rife among the community,” continues the UN report.

This is only a fraction of the suffering women manual scavengers face today in India. Labor slavery, severe discrimination and lack of the most basic human rights are only some of the challenges.

A 2005, US Department of Health, report states that disease for women manual scavengers can be “passed directly from soiled hands to the mouth or indirectly by way of objects, surfaces, food or water soiled with faeces.”

Women working unprotected are in grave danger of contacting countless diseases through their daily and close contact with human waste. Some of these diseases, in addition to TB, include: campylobacter infection, cryptosporidiosis, giardiasis, hand, foot and mouth disease, hepatitis A, meningitis (viral), rotavirus infection, salmonella infection, shigella infection, thrush, viral gastroenteritis, worms and yersiniosis.

Facing the dangers of daily contact, “Ninety percent of all manual scavengers have not been provided proper equipment to protect them from faeces borne illness,” said a recent, Jan 2007, report on safety by India’s TISS – Tata Institute of Social Sciences. This includes safety equipment like gloves, masks, boots and/or brooms.

The use of hands by women manual scavengers, along with the certainty that they will have direct skin contact with human waste, is a very dangerous combination that is contributing to serious health conditions. Chronic skin diseases and lung diseases are very common among women manual scavengers.

To add to the danger, “Removal of bodies and dead animals is the third most common practice of manual scavenging, preceeded by sewerage sweeping, and the carrying of night-soil by basket/bucket or on the head,” continued the 2007 TISS report.

In spite of its being “illegal” the practice and use of manual scavengers continues in many low-income urban and rural parts of India today.

But the law is clear.

The Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrine Act of 1993 states that, “No person shall engage in or employ for or permit to be engaged in or employed by any other person for manually carrying human excreta; or to construct or maintain a dry latrine.”

Legal loopholes and non-enforcement of the law on manual scavenging continues in many parts of India, even as organizations protecting the rights of manual scavengers present detailed reports. At present the ST/SC All India Commission, representing the lowest castes and tribes in India, has much more to do to strengthen legislation on India’s illegal industry.

On the first week of July this year, the United Nations will be hosting two dozen women manual scavengers to tell their life stories to the UN General Assembly. One of them is Usha Chomar, from the town of Alwar in Rajasthan district of Western India.

Remembering her childhood in India at the age of seven, Chomar recounts, “When I was a little child I would often insist on taking a broom from my mother so I could do the scavenging. The disposal of human excreta was the only thought that dominated my mind.”

“The worst part of this primitive toilet system is the method of clearing these human feces. Men and women, often right from their teens, invariably the Dalits of the Dalit do this ignoble job,” continues Dr. Paul in his March 2008 report. “They literally sweep the feces with their hands using two small metal sheets collecting them into a bucket or bin to be eventually dumped into another larger container (sometimes sealed but often kept open) the contents of which is periodically disposed of far away.”

“I remember the first time I had to carry a basketful on my head. I slipped and fell into the gutter. No one would come to pick me up because the basket was so dirty and I was covered with filth,” said manual scavenger Safai Karmachari Andolan, Sept 2006, for The Hindu news magazine – FRONTLINE. “I sat there, howling, until another woman scavenger arrived,” continued Safai. “She hosed me down and took me home. But that day, I felt like the most unfortunate child in the whole world.”

Making up 98 percent of the majority of manual scavenging workers, these women, also known as “Valmikis,” come from the very lowest castes in India.

As India juggles its many traditions, with an incoming tide of new technological advancement from the modern world, legal solutions in the crisis for women manual scavengers are being lost in India’s longstanding “bureaucratic” shuffle.

The 2007 dateline, set by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation to end the practice of manual scavenging in India, has now been reached without success. “2010 might be a more realistic deadline,” admitted Kumari Selja, rural agriculturalist and Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Minister.

Placed on the bottom of the list in India’s legislation, women manual scavengers are trapped by Indian society and caste discrimination, as they endlessly bound in cycles of poverty, inequality and lost opportunity.

According to the 2006 FRONTLINE report by The Hindu Times, “There are approx 50,000 – 60,000 scavengers (both men and women) in Gujarat alone” in the same city that hailed the birth of India’s Mahatma Gandhi.

“Mahatma Gandhi raised the issue of the horrible working and social conditions of Bhangis (manual scavengers) more than 100 years ago, in 1901, at the Congress meeting in Bengal. Yet it took about 90 years for the country to enact a uniform law abolishing manual scavenging,” says Dr. Sam Paul.

– Cleaning the sewers of India –

Inheriting the work of manual scavenging from her mother-in-law for 15 years in the village of Tonkakala in the Dewas district in Madhya Pradesh of Central India, Rekha Bai unwillingly continued her position as a manual scavenger. “I did not like this work. But I was forced to do this to make both ends meet. There was no alternative,” she confided.

Rekha tried to stop carrying night-soil after struggling for years with the hard conditions surrounding manual scavengers in Tonkakala. Finally, she decided to give up her “detestable work.” Soon after quitting she had to resume, due to pressures placed on her to continue by her family, neighbors and community. Today, in spite of the struggles in finding new work, Rekha has been able to change jobs and move on.

The outcome in the case of Laxmi Bai of Devgarh village is not as good. After struggling with the work that “no one wants to do” she quit as a manual scavenger, but resumed her work again after staying away only two months.

Vimla Bai and Dhanna Lal, two other women from Devgarh village, faced many similar dilemmas as they worked for years under detestable conditions. Even though they are still considered to be “untouchable” by India’s society at large, they have managed to push through to finally free themselves from the work of manual scavenging.

The Dewas district of Madhya Pradesh has almost ended the practice of manual scavenging. But it is continuing unabated in other districts of Central India. Even though the “illegal” act of carrying night-soil is steadily on the wane, the basic problems for women manual scavengers remain the same.

Struggling to find the means to a new livelihood in India often makes changes impossible and out of reach for women manual scavengers.

Women working in the “night-soil” industry are often caught in an endless bind of indebtedness to the upper-caste neighbor households they serve. As they accept loans from employers for their “illegal” work, the women are trapped in an ongoing cycle of debt. These “impossible” loans, coming with a standard 10 percent finance charge, often leave the women workers in a state of perpetual obligation, servitude and bondage.

Unable to pay back any loan, with very little money, many women reach a point of great personal crisis. “Their poverty is so acute that, in desperation, some Bhangis resort to separating out non-digested wheat from buffalo dung,” continues the 2002 UN-HRC report.

To shift away from their labor as “night-soil” workers, many women in India try to seek work as farm laborers to help sustain their families. But they are often met with discouraging news. Getting these jobs are not easy. Today charity assistance and some government aide is available to help women locate new jobs. But, unfortunately, the jobs are scarce. Most jobs available are usually reserved for men.

Vimla Bai, who worked many years as a manual scavenger in Devgarh before she broke free, confided, “It is not easy to get any other job after giving up this work. People do not want to employ us due to (our) untouchability.”

Despite prohibitions in India, “untouchability” continues to be accepted as part of the normal cultural landscape.

Not all women manual scavengers are from the Dalit community. The Tarana village of the Ujjain district region use women members from the Muslim Haisla caste to carry night-soil. Using baskets on their heads they work at the same pace in the same way as all other women do in India who gather human waste. There is no formal training in this occupation, but the expectations are clearly outlined.

Even though the usual discrimination against “untouchability” for this job does not apply inside the religion of Islam, the Haisla women are still greatly “set-apart” due to their work as manual scavengers.

“I did not like carrying night-soil. But there was so much pressure of family and society that I had no other option,” said Taslim from Kayatha, India. “However, I decided to give up this work after the social workers persuaded me. It is my endeavor that no other woman in this area may have to do this work again,” she added.

Just how much money do women manual scavengers in Central India get for their work? In one month the usual pay, for removing human waste, averages 20 to 30 rupees – approx 50 cents to a little more than one dollar USD – from each household. On special occasions or festivals, women manual scavengers might even manage to get one sweet roti or some throw-away clothes from those who employ them.

The JanSahas organization of India began eight years ago, in 2000, to help women scavengers find a new life. Starting first by helping women find alternative employment in the rural and urban areas of Dewas, Ujjain and the Indore districts of Madhya Pradesh, JanSahas finds it is an “uphill” climb to help, educate and empower the women.

Assistance for women working in the “night-soil” industry is challenged today by a dichotomy of legislative inconsistencies. According to law, children can receive scholarships for their education only as long as their family continues to work as scavengers. Indian government officials say these scholarships are meant only for the children of people engaged in “insanitary occupations.” But once women manual scavengers quit their work it becomes clear – there are no more scholarships for their children.

“This is the reason that many women have returned to this work after quitting it once,” said Mr. Ashif Sahikh from the office of JanSahas.

“My grandsons and granddaughters were discriminated at school when we used to work. Now that we have quit, we are no longer in a position to send them to school,” said 54 yr. old Mannu Bai from the small village of Sia, who’s population is only 2,500.

In rural Sia, many manual scavengers wait for the ripening of crops to find new work. When the jobs do not become available, women and their families wait again to get permission from Sia’s legislative office to work cleaning sewage from the drains and gutters of the village. After only 15 days, though, according to the rule of law in Sia, even this meager and difficult work must be given to another waiting family.

In 2002, recommendations by the UN-HRC outlined two solutions to improve the terrible conditions facing women manual scavengers in India. The first solution: “The Government of India should press all states to implement The Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, 1993, and prosecute officials responsible for the perpetuation of the practice.” The second solution: “The Government of India should ensure that all manual scavengers are rehabilitated according to the law in all states throughout the country.”

It’s a shame, after 60 years of independence, after reports, meetings and humanitarian outcrys on the continuing use of manual scavengers in India, that the government of India has still failed to eradicate this inhuman practice. Many of the regional State governments of India have actually denied the existence of dry latrines and the practice of manual scavenging.

Several affidavits and counter affidavits showing the existence of dry latrines and manual scavenging are now due to appear in the 2008 Indian Court.
___________________________________________________________

This 2003 film, shows the degrading conditions for a Dalit woman manual scavenger. Without protective gloves, masks or shoes she works to clean the dry latrines.
___________________________________________________________

To see other reports, actions and programs on women manual scavenging:

Safai Karamchari Andolan 2008 report on manual scavenging in India
Public Affairs Centre - Bangalore, India
TISS – Tata Institute of Social Sciences – Ongoing Field Action Projects, Dalit and Tribal Issues
Dalit Freedom Network
Anti-Slavery.org – UN Commission on Human Rights. 2002 report
All India Christian Council – India government report resources

______________________________________

Journalist Shuriah Niazi is a WNN correspondent based in Central India. In 2006, he received an award recongnition at the sixth Sarojini Naidu journalism awards hosted by The Hunger Project – India. Lys Anzia, is humanitarian journalist and Editor-At-Large for Women News Network – WNN.

______________________________________

Manual Scavenging is National Shame and must be abolished immediately

2010-09-10T07:54:00.000-07:00

Nagpur Declaration
“
People’s Alliance Against Untouchability” plea for and work towards “National alliance” of all civil societies organisations, academicians, institutes, unions, professionals, students and activists to end all forms of discrimination based on caste and dissent such as untouchability particularly with reference to manual scavenging and other unclean (allied) occupations. It has been found in numerous studies that untouchability, though prohibited under Article 17 of the Indian Constitution, has been widely practiced violating the true spirit of a republican democratic society based on equality, fraternity and dignity. The untouchables in India constitute nearly 17% of our two billion people which is a substantially higher number than the combine population of several developed European countries. The menace of untouchability is not actually confined to India alone. In the south Asia, countries like Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan too have the issues of untouchability. In countries like Japan certain communities are considered untouchables while Nigeria too had similar problems. In Europe, Roma people still face discriminations at all level. Hence, untouchability is an international issue.

In India, the biggest victims of untouchability are the community of manual scavengers or simply known as, Balmikis, Mehtars or Safai karmcharis in different locations. Though the 1993 act for abolition of manual scavenging is existence yet the fact is that it is still being practiced in different parts of the country. The government has itself admitted its failure in eliminating manual scavenging and their honorable rehabilitation. Keeping all these in mind, we the activists working on the issue of elimination of manual scavenging resolved to fight for the right of the community and enable them get their honorable place in the society.

We, therefore, resolve the following:

1. The government must implement all the anti-discrimination laws in its true spirits as envisaged by the makers of the Constitution.
2. We feel that Eradication of Manual Scavenging & Dry Latrine (Abolition) Act 1993, is highly inefficient, inadequate and completely ineffective. We would like the government to come out with a new set of law by redefining the meaning of manual scavenging and also making it compulsory for state for their honorable rehabilitation. We want stringent action be part of new law against erring municipalities and state governments for their failure in curbing the menace of manual scavenging. We also want a time bound monitoring of government’s efforts in this regards.

3. We have come together to vow absolute abolition of Manual Scavenging in all forms including the workers clearing the human excreta on heads and the workers entering into the manhole full of excreta and toxic waste.

4. We understand that “Manual Scavenging” involves the issue of degradation of human being into sub-human beings and strikes at the root of human dignity. Also continuation of all types of manual scavenging affects environment and makes the sanitation system ‘unsanitary’. There is no doubt that it is also a critical environmental issue.

5. We feel that there is an urgent need to redefine and widen the scope of “Manual Scavenging” from the legal perspective, to include not only conventional definition but also sewage cleaning work, carrying / disposing of carcasses, direct handling of medical waste and all other subhuman occupation.

6. We must stop the growing practice of employing laborers through contractors in sanitation work and ensure adequate compensation, social security, medical benefits and health security for the workers. It is totally missing in the present dispensation which is against Labour laws and Human rights. All existing “contract workers” and daily wagers should be regularized and compensated from the date of joining and treated based on the principle of “equal pay for equal work”

7. Elimination of manual scavenging means elimination of open defecation and pit toilets. This will directly result in the reduction of pollution of all water bodies. Manual scavenging should also be seen as a barrier to environment. Hence we call upon all environmentalists to support, advocate and involve eliminating all forms of manual scavenging and extending solidarity.

8. We denounce all practices, ideology and religious sanctity which glorify and justify all forms of manual scavenging and note with concern the increasing feminization of such jobs.

9. As a part of rehabilitation policy for Manual Scavengers, women involved in manual scavenging in villages or rural blocks should be allotted 5 acres of fertile and irrigable land for ensuring sustained livelihood. In urban areas, the women should be given permanent job in the Municipality with dignity and self respect. In both cases the women should be given constructed house for her family. This would bring in a quality change in life and occupation of such woman.

10. For such an initiative to change the lives of manual scavengers, proactive local-self governance units such as panchayats and wards should be involved. Special facilitation to the panchayats from the State should be awarded.

11. We also feel that there is a need to do comparative study on various commissions’ findings and recommendations on eradication of manual scavenging and the honorable rehabilitation of manual scavengers in different states. This will help us develop a comprehensive mechanism to deal with the entire situation all over the country as some states have done much better work while many have not taken enough action for the elimination of manual scavenging.

12. The children of the Manual scavenging community should be given 5% reservation in all educational institutions and government and semi-public undertaking in line with the order passed by the State of Tamil Nadu. It is also essential for the governments to provide them jobs in non sanitation work so that they could be delinked from this occupation which is the reason of discrimination against them.

13. So far elimination of Manual Scavenging has remained a problem of the Communities and NGOs working with them. Whereas continuation of such subhuman work is a National Shame and it is the responsibility of all of India to come together to put an end to this National Shame.

14. We pledge to work with all the national, regional and international organizations working on the issue of elimination of manual scavenging and their honorable rehabilitation. We extend our invitation to all those who believe that this is the most important task before Indian nation, to join hand and strengthen the movement against untouchability and manual scavenging.

Dated 29th August 2010. Naglok, Nagpur, State of Maharashtra,
INDIA

Signatories
Mangesh Dahiwale, Manuski, Pune
Vidya Bhushan Rawat, Social Development Foundation, Delhi
Priyadarshi Telang, Manuski, Pune,
D.Leena, Social Development Foundation, Delhi
Ananth Narayanan, Chennai
Dheeraj Balmiki, Garima Abhiyan, Fatehpur Uttar-Pradesh
Sangeeta and Deepmala, Social Development Foundation, Kushingar,
Puja, Himanshi, Bharati, Manuski, Pune
Rajkapoor Rawat, Prakash Rawat, Ramapati Shastri, Ghazipur, UP
Nandlal, Ravi Kumar & Ravi Kumar, West Champaran, Bihar,
Kishan Balmiki, West Bengal
Sachin Balmiki, Haryana
Malti Balmiki, Fatehpur, Uttar-Pradesh
Raju Mahar, Charan Singh Azad, Uttarakhand
Ved Prakash, Mohd Sarwar, Delhi
and others participants in the programme.

File Contempt plea against Karanataka government

2010-09-09T21:17:00.000-07:00

We must expose the practice of manual scavenging everywhere and force the government to act on the honorable rehabilitation of the community. This is national shame that despite 60 years of our independence we still find people dipping into the sewage pits to clean it resulting in deeply humiliating work to be conducted with out any machines as well as causing health hazards.

One hope that the Supreme court would be able to do something concrete on it.

VB

http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/karnataka/article623584.ece

The Hindu, September 9th, 2010

PUCL urged to file contempt plea against State of Karnataka on Manual Scavenging

The former Chief Justice of Delhi High Court, Rajendra Sachar, has urged the People's Union of Civil Liberties (PUCL) to file a contempt petition against the claim made by the Karnataka government before the Supreme Court that there is no practice of manual scavenging in the State.

Mr. Justice Sachar was speaking after releasing PUCL's fact-finding report on the incident at Savanur on July 20 where people of Bhangi community poured faeces on themselves demanding housing rights. Describing manual scavenging as “inhuman, horrible and inexcusable in free Hindustan” he said that Karnataka's false claim should be exposed with the help of PUCL's report. The Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, 1993, is observed in breach in many States and social organisations should work towards finding alternative employment for manual scavengers in occupation other than that of safai karmacharis, he added.

Sanjay Parikh, national vice-president of PUCL, said authorities seemed to be interested in eliminating the entire community of scavengers rather than providing them alternative livelihood.

“There is no dearth of funds to rehabilitate them, with Rs. 8,000 crore set aside for the purpose,” said Bezwada Wilson, convener of Safai Karmachari Andolan. There was a problem with identifying people of the community, he said, and added that his organisation had collected data on the practice of manual scavenging in 274 districts in India.

Y.G. Rajendra of PUCL-Karnataka said that their fact-finding report showed there was clear violation of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, by the government officials in Savanur, including the Deputy Commissioner.

The municipal authorities had passed several resolutions on building a commercial complex where the Bhangi community lived, without bringing it to their notice, he added. The Social Welfare Department too had failed to help the community in any way.

Keywords: PUCL, Rajinder Sachar,

We want our land back...

2010-09-01T18:08:00.000-07:00

Over the year, the greedy builders are eyeing the land where most of the scavenger community live. With the politicians including so-called Dalit leaders also not interested in their cause, they have no way other than to resort to such protests. Karnataka has seen such protests in the past and the government seems to have done very little. One hope that the like minded groups, human rights activists, Dalit organisations will consider this issue of utmost importance and join hand.

VB

http://www.mid-day.com/news/2010/aug/170810-Ambedkar-Colony-protest-Vidhan-Soudha-property.htmNo sh*t! we want our land back'
By: Manjunath L Hanji Date: 2010-08-17 Place: Bangalore

Ambedkar Nagar residents cover themselves in faecal matter; demand action against corporates that have allegedly encroached upon their property

THIS group of Dalit protesters will go to any extreme to be seen, heard and probably, even be smelt a mile away. Residents of Ambedkar Colony in Whitefield on Monday gathered in front of the Vidhan Soudha, covered in human excreta, to get their point across - that they are being treated as 'shit' by the authorities.

The issue at hand is alleged land grabbing by corporates. Led by local Dalit leader AR Annayya, the protesters claimed that the Prestige group of companies and Joy Ice Cream had encroached upon land allotted to them by the government. They also accused inspector BN Gopal Krishna of the Whitefield police station of harassment.

Covered in human excreta, protestors from Ambedkar Colony in Whitefield gathered in front of the Vidhan Soudha yesterday.

The state government had, in 1974, granted over 70 acres of land to the residents of Ambedkar Nagar. Over time, 600 flats came up on the land.

However, the state government gave away over three acre of the land in Ambedkar Nagar on lease to Prestige and Joy ice cream. The protesters now allege that the two companies have started encroaching upon the rest of the land too.

The residents claim that despite requests, the companies have not cleared the land they had encroached upon. With even the government maintaining silence over the issue, they were forced to stage a protest in this manner, the agitators said.

Blame game is on
Monday was not the first time the group had staged this form of protest. On Saturday, the protesters had gathered in Whitefield area covered in excreta. The police claim that the protesters beat the men in uniform. Krishna said that Annayya is a history sheeter.

"Annayya has over five cases registered against him with the Whitefield and HAL police stations since 2003. The protesters are alleging harassment because I did not support them. I will now act as per my seniors' orders," Krishna said.

Annayya's associates deny Krishna's claims. Rafiq, a close friend of Annayya, said, "The police have registered false cases of robbery and theft against Annayya. On Saturday, Krishna lodged another complaint against him for assaulting a police officer.

How can anyone beat up a cop, especially if the media glare is on him? Krishna has a grudge against Annayya, which is why he has falsely implicated our leader."

Seeking justice

"We want justice from the government as well as the police. The two companies have acquired our land, but the police are acting hand-in-glove with them.

The higher authorities should remove Whitefield inspector."

However, V Gopal, senior vice-president (projects and planning), Prestige Group said, "I am not aware of the issue. Our public relations officer would be able to throw light on the matter."

It all started in Savanur
The Bhangi community of Savanur, Haveri district has literally been picking up the faeces to protest against land grab.

They smeared human excreta over themselves as their form of a stir against those they claim are trying to evict them from their homes.

The municipal corporation of Savanur has planned to build commercial complexes in the area, where the community has been residing in for the last 70 years.

Parliamentarians Speak against atrocities on Dalits

2010-08-30T23:31:00.000-07:00

You are here: Home » India
MPs unite to protest atrocities against dalits
TNN, Aug 31, 2010, 03.52am IST

Article
Comments

Tags:sonia gandhi|dalits|chidambaram

NEW DELHI: In a debate that saw MPs from almost all parties registering their strong protests over rising incidents of atrocities against Scheduled Castes and Tribes, home minister P Chidambaram said district judges needed to ensure proper and speedy disposal of such cases in their jurisdiction.

Chidambaram pointed to a high pendency of more than 70% for cases relating to dalits and tribals and said these were adversely affected by delays, witnesses vanishing or turning hostile or indifference of police investigators. The role of the district judge in holding monthly meetings to assess progress of cases and pushing DMs and SPs to ensure quick disposal was necessary, the minister said.

Replying to a debate in Lok Sabha on Monday, Chidambaram pointed out that cases of atrocities against SCs/STs had risen over 2006-08 and while this could be because of higher registration as these sections assert themselves, 33,000 cases in 2008 was a matter of deep shame. "Some of this crime is aimed at crippling SCs economically," the minister said.

Though he refrained from naming states, he alluded to a recent incident in a neighbouring state, clearly Haryana, where dalits had to flee from the village they inhabited. He pointed to a circular issued by the home ministry on April 1, 2010 outlining guidelines on how such cases were to be dealt with, pointing out that the "will and intent" of state governments was crucial.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi was present through the discussions on Monday as the home minister responded to MPs who said district administrations often lacked the will to pursue accused, often powerful local upper castes. "It is not a matter of pride that so many cases are registered, it is deeply disturbing," Chidambaram said.

The minister also said there were some lacunae in the public order act as courts did not take cognizance of a case until a magistrate committed it to trial. He said some states had set up special courts but these also looked at several other cases apart from those relating to dalits and STs. "Often there is nothing special about these cases." Some states had been better than others, like Andhra Pradesh has set up 22 mobile courts, Tamil Nadu has focused on districts where caste violence is severe while West Bengal has asked district judges to double up as special judges.

Read more: MPs unite to protest atrocities against dalits - India - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/MPs-unite-to-protest-atrocities-against-dalits/articleshow/6462965.cms#ixzz0yAjB4abw

Supreme Court slams Haryana on Mirchpur

2010-08-26T21:41:00.000-07:00

Supreme Court slams Haryana over Mirchpur

J. Venkatesan
NEW DELHI: Taking a serious view of the Haryana Government's failure to arrest the perpetrators of atrocities against the Dalits of Mirchpur village, the Supreme Court on Thursday directed the State to arrest by this coming Monday all those who are wanted in the case by the police.

A Bench of Justice G. S. Singhvi and Justice A. K. Ganguly is hearing a writ petition filed by Jaswant Singh and others seeking relief and compensation for the Dalit families whose houses were burnt down on April 21.

Justice Singhvi observed, “If those responsible for committing atrocities could not be arrested then what right does the Director-General of Police have to continue in office? If Haryana Police is incapable of arresting those wanted in the Mirchpur violence, then we will ask some paramilitary forces to arrest them.”

When it was submitted on behalf of the State that 52 people involved in the incident had been arrested and the others would be arrested soon, Justice Singhvi asked whether the remaining accused had gone to Dubai or fled to other States in the country. Expressing serious concern over the State's inaction, Justice Singhvi wondered what the State Chief Secretary was doing.

The Bench made it clear that all those wanted in the Mirchpur case should be arrested by Monday. It said all those who had committed the crime should be brought before the law and be made to account for their sins.

Senior counsel Colin Gonsalves submitted that Dalit children were not going to school and that a 14-year-old Dalit girl died of shock after she was scolded and humiliated in school. He said Dalit families were starving as no food was being provided to them.

Justice Singhvi told the State Advocate-General: “Such incidents of killings are taking place for the last five years. Apart from legal issues we are concerned with the humanitarian aspect of the victims. All the people who are uprooted should be settled and protected. They should not live under threat.”

The Bench in its order directed the State Government to provide two quintals of wheat to each of the Dalit family in seven days. It asked the State to furnish all the records in support of its claim that it had given 65 people 100 days' employment under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. The Bench posted the matter for further hearing on September 10.

Sweeping the Gold from dust...

2010-08-22T23:24:00.000-07:00

http://www.livemint.com/2010/08/20213043/In-Ahmedabad-sweepers-help-je.html?atype=tp

Interesting story in live mint. One hope if sweeping does not remain cleaning of dirt and filth. How could it change the caste structure if sweeping produce gold from dust.. see the change in the behavirial pattern of people towards this work..

VB

In Ahmedabad, sweepers help jewellers make gold out of dust
Soumitra Trivedi, soumitra.t@livemint.com

Email Print
del.icio.us
digg
newsVine
font size
Eighty-year-old Ganga Gohel painstakingly sweeps the narrow streets of Sheth Ni Pol in the Ratan Pol area in the walled city of Ahmedabad, well before the municipal corporation workers turn up. To all intents and purposes, she looks like an old lady eking out a living by keeping the 25m-long street clean.

The truth is that she pays `6,000 for the privilege. For that money, Gohel gets to sweep three streets for gold twice a day. Her monthly takings after that fee—`15,000.

Gohel is a dhul-dhoya, literally dust-washer in Gujarati. She is one of around 200 people who comb Manek Chowk and Ratan Pol, which has more than 5,000 jewellery manufacturing units, shops and bullion trading houses.

“I collect and sieve dust from the garbage and sell it to a bigger dhul-dhoya (a wholesale buyer),” Gohel says. “They refine the dust and turn it into gold and sell it to the jewellers.”

Gohel has been doing this job for over four decades and the income has helped her raise two daughters after her husband died some 30 years ago.

According to Shree Choksi Mahajan, Manek Chowk, an association of bullion traders and jewellers in Ahmedabad’s walled city area, the total daily turnover of the Manek Chowk and Ratan Pol bullion and jewellery industry is about `25 crore per day.

“As a manufacturing house, when we make jewellery or refine gold, some portion of the precious metal is lost as it turns into fine dust, flies out in air and gets mixed with dust in the street,” says Bababhai Soni, owner of Ambica Touch, a bullion-testing lab in Ratan Pol. “We cannot get this lost portion back as we don’t have people and time to sweep streets.”

Soni has also been operating gold refining and jewellery manufacturing facilities in the same area for the last three decades.

The sweepers earn `15,000- 20,000 a month and have become an integral part of the century-old bullion trade in Ahmedabad.

The wholesale buyers pay `800-1,000 per 500g of washed dust depending on the potential of gold recovery from it.

“After the sweepers sell the dust to us, we wash it and mix it with mercury, which helps us to separate metals from the dust,” says a 30-year-old wholesale buyer, who did not want to be named. “This metal dust is further washed with nitric acid, which melts other metals, but keeps gold and silver intact.”

The fine gold dust that they get after the nitric acid wash is melted in a furnace for around 10 hours until the temperature reaches 1,000 degrees Celsius. The molten metal is cooled and turned into a plate of raw gold.

“First we get the raw gold tested in the lab. The grade is digitally measured. Once we get a certificate (of caratage), we sell it to the jewellers at the prevailing gold prices,” says another wholesale buyer of dust based in Ratan Pol, where the old Ahmedabad Stock Exchange building is located.

On an average, wholesale buyers have to refine as much as 2-3kg of dust to get 10-15g of gold.

“Some jewellers collect dust from their shops for years and then sell it directly to wholesale buyers for lakhs of rupees,” says Hiren Soni, who owns a jewellery shop in Sheth Ni Pol. “Wholesale buyers of dust also buy old cushions, doormats and carpets from us and pay us a lump sum, which runs into thousands of rupees.”

Not only do they pay for such items, from which they hope to extract gold dust, they also replace them with new ones.

While Bababhai Soni contends that the dhul-dhoya tradition benefits all participants in the system equitably, his son Nitesh says that occasionally the dust-gatherers can get lucky.

“Though rarely, we do lose small nuggets of gold or smaller loose parts of jewellery in the basin at times while washing it with chemicals,” says the younger Soni. “These sweepers who clean the drainage often find these lost nuggets. It’s like a jackpot for them.”

But, like much else, the advancing tide of technology could spell the end of the dhul-dhoyas.

The new methods minimize metal loss during the manufacturing process, says Harshwardhan Choksi, president of of Shree Choksi Mahajan, Manek Chowk. That will make it more difficult to find gold in the dust of Ahmedabad’s streets.

Hands destined to hold broom instead of pen..

2010-08-21T23:14:00.000-07:00

It is not destiny but our failure. In our aim to make the headline looks more sensitive we misuse the terminology. It is the failure of India as a nation that young children are still in the sanitation. As one of my friends wrote long back that to call it a profession is an insult to work. It is slavery. India must show its spine to eliminate this slavery.

VB

Hands destined to hold broom instead of pen
TNN, Aug 21, 2010, 10.53pm IST

Tags:varanasi nagar nigam|safai karamchari

VARANASI: For Priya (name changed), a nine-year-old girl who studies in one of government primary schools in Durgakund, sweeping roads and removing garbage in the morning hours has taken precedence over regular attendance in school. What is shocking is that it is her 'Nani' (maternal grandmother) who has pushed the little girl into work, putting broom in a hand that should be holding pencils and books.

The grandmother of the poor girl is a safai karamchari (sanitary worker) of Varanasi Nagar Nigam (VNN) and the girl is doing work allotted to her grandmother. She is not alone. There are a number of other young children in the vicinity, one of the slum areas behind the famous Durga Temple, who are engaged in all sorts of work, including rag picking, working in garage and shops. They are all already enrolled in different schools with some of them even admitted to a special school run by NGO for them.

When team TOI spoke to Madhuri, the safai worker and grandmother of the girl, she at first tried to deny that the young girl was involved in such work. Later, she claimed the girl was destined for the work and educating her would not help in earning bread and butter for the family.

It may be mentioned here that there are over 3,000 safai workers in VNN, out of which more than 1,200 are permanent employees deployed in five different wards of the city.

According to nagar health officer SK Singh, stringent monitoring of cleanliness and sanitation work is being maintained in the city, especially during the Shrawan month. He also said if the safai workers were found absent from duties, strict action would be taken against them, which would include suspension and termination.

Recently two safai workers were removed from service after the death of a woman from diarrhoea in Bazardiha. Meanwhile, basic shiksha adhikari Pradeep Pandey maintained that retention of young children and their regular attendance in government schools would be ensured in the Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan.

Times of India, August 21st, 2010

Read more: Hands destined to hold broom instead of pen - Varanasi - City - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/varanasi/Hands-destined-to-hold-broom-instead-of-pen/articleshow/6388871.cms#ixzz0xJSAXBnB

Karanata CM calls Dalits as Useless people..

2010-08-04T05:48:00.000-07:00

Karanatka's Hindutva protogonist Yedyruppa has shamelessly called Dalits a useless people without acting on the demand to eliminate manual scavenging. Rather than developing a concrete rehabilitation plan to eliminate this dirty racial practice of scavenging which has been reserved for a particular community. it is time when Yedyruppa must be asked to apologise for his remark. We all know that these people have something else in heart and something different outside it.

India Today India South Story Courtesy: Mail Today

Karnataka CM calls Dalits 'useless people'
Aravinda Gowda
Davanagere (Karnataka), August 3, 2010

Chief minister B. S. Yeddyurappa landed himself in trouble on Monday after he allegedly insulted Dalits and the state police while addressing a BJP rally in Davanagere, a central town in Karnataka.

According to the Dalit Sangharsh Samithi (DSS), the CM termed its activists as "Congress agents" and "useless people" when they tried to approach him at the rally for fulfilment of their demands.

The CM also reportedly called the police "donkey grazers" for not controlling the protesting Dalits.

Enraged by Yeddyurappa's sudden outburst, the Dalits planned to lodge an FIR. But the police convinced them not to complain against the CM. DSS activist K. Sannappanavar said the organisation would now launch a state-wide agitation in protest.

The drama unfolded soon after the rally started. The DSS activists stormed the venue demanding an end to manual scavenging, which is widely prevalent in central Karnataka.

The issue had come into prominence after the Dalits highlighted the evil practice by immersing themselves in human waste two weeks ago in Savanur. Since then, they had been trying to meet the CM in vain.

At the rally, the activists raised slogans against the CM and the BJP government for neglecting their problems. Their commotion attracted the attention of Yeddyurappa, who snatched the microphone on the dais and started hurling abuses.

He said: "Meet me personally if you have problems. Why are you disturbing my party's rally? Your problem is no greater than that of the two lakh people who have gathered here to listen to me. Your problem is more than 60 years old. I cannot solve it in 25 days."

The CM's statement further enraged the protesting Dalits, who started shouting slogans again.

Yeddyurappa, who is under considerable pressure because of internal bickering in the state BJP, then lost his cool and shouted at the protesters: "I know you are here to create trouble. You are not genuine peopleâ€¦ You are useless people. All of you are Congress agents. Get lost. Go away from here in five minutes. "He also shouted at reporters for listening to the Dalits. "Get away from there. You should not be standing near them. All this is happening because of you (media)â€¦" he added.

The CM next called the senior police officers to the dais and abused them. "You are useless. Are you here to graze donkeys or provide security at the rally? I want the protesters out of the venue," he shouted.

Subsequently, the police evicted the Dalits. The rally also brought to the fore the widening gap between Yeddyurappa and the Bellary Reddy brothers, who did not turn up at the event.

They instead organised a public meeting in Bellary to condemn the Congress leaders' rally seeking a CBI inquiry into illegal mining.

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/Story/107635/India/karnataka-cm-calls-dalits-useless-people.html

Sub Quota for Valmikis in Punjab ?

2010-08-03T06:03:00.000-07:00

Will this open a new series of demand for separate quota among quota in other states ? Punjab government is going to Supreme Court for a 12.5% quota for Valmikis in the state. what will be repurcussion of it in other parts of the country. Will it divide the already divided movement ? Or do Punjab government know that this will not stand in the Supreme Court... politicians know things better than us as how to betray people ?

VB

Punjab to file petition in SC on quota for Valmiki Sikhs
Press Trust Of India

Chandigarh, July 25, 2010First Published: 21:29 IST(25/7/2010)
Last Updated: 21:33 IST(25/7/2010) in The Hindustan Times

'Valmiki' and 'Mazhabi' Sikhs on Sunday called off their proposed bandh on July 27 after being assured that the Punjab government would file a petition in the Supreme Court seeking restoration of 12.5 per cent quota for them in various jobs and educational institutions. An assurance to this effect was given by Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal to a delegation of about 200 members of 'Valmiki and Mazhabi Sikh Arakshan Bachao Morcha', and other organizations, who called on the Chief Minister here today, an official release said.

Badal also assured the delegation led by Vijay Danav, National President of 'Bhartiya Valmiki Dharam Samaj Bhavadhas' that he would certainly take up this matter with the Prime Minister and the Law Ministry for a permanent solution.

Expressing gratitude to the Chief Minister, the 31-member Committee of the morcha called off its proposed state-wide bandh on July 27.

Dwelling on the plight of Valmikis and Mazhabi Sikhs, the Chairman of the Morcha Purshotam Chhabra demanded wholehearted support of the state government to resolve this issue on priority.

Badal said that the state government would leave no stone unturned to resolve the issue and esnure the uplift of the 'Valmiki' and Mazhabi Sikh communities in the State.

Badal said that he had already ordered closure of the ongoing process of counselling for the recruitment of 7654 teachers in the Education Department where Valmiki/Mazhabi Sikh applicants were not being given their due share of 12.5 per cent reservation.

Be ware of those who sells dream

2010-08-01T00:11:00.000-07:00

Hi, this is a story of the women from Arundhatiyar community, a majority of who are into scavenging work. How they have been duped by fictitious people who sale them dream and then disappear with their money. This is a reality in other parts of the country too.

VB

Dalit women taken for a ride

M Rafi Ahmed Express News ServiceFirst Published : 25 Jul 2010 03:45:12 AM ISTLast Updated : 25 Jul 2010 08:36:17 AM IST
COIMBATORE: A trickster played the trick on 150 dalit women at Ammankulam area in the heart of the city promising them to get micro finance. However, he left them in lurch after he fled away with the collection.

The incident came to light through R Murugan, a dalit panchayat president and taluk organiser of Vizhuthugal, an NGO working for the cause of Arunthathiyars when the women members poured out their woes to him during his visit to the colony.
It was T Gomathy, a resident of the locality who enrolled women members by issuing application forms of ‘Pothigai Thendral’, a selfstyled service organisation located at RS Puram.
Since Gomathy had helped them get micro finance from other sources earlier, the dalit women believed her and joined the scheme after remitting anywhere between Rs 150 and Rs 300.
The ‘Pothigai Thendral’ service organisation was run by Sreenivasan alias Raja and the office was located at RS Puram.
To their disappointment, the person never kept his promise of getting them micro finance.
Sensing trouble, the dalit women along with other members from Ammankulam, Balasubramania Nagar, Puliyakulam, Pappanaickenpalayam went to the office of the service organisation only to infer that the office was vacated.
Sheela, who runs a roadside eatery at Ammankulam told Express that she was repeatedly scolded by her husband for her foolish act.
Frequent squabbles between the couple became a regular feature during night hours.
Gomathy told Express that she made frantic efforts to locate the person who was running the service organisation besides the collection agent. After much pain, she was able to zero in at the house of the promoter at Karamadai. And she was shocked to see the house locked.
Later, she came to know that he had fled away from the place without vacating the house. Aggrieved women members knocked the doors of B2 RS Puram Police Station seeking help. But they failed to entertain their complaint.
A police constable is understood to have told them that the trickster Sreenivasan alias Raja had obtained anticipatory bail. Vizhuthugal organiser Murugan said that they have planned to stage a demonstration in front of Red Cross building on July 28 demanding police action against the culprit who cheated the dalit women of Rs 76,000.

Express Buzz, July 25th 2010
http://expressbuzz.com/states/tamilnadu/dalit-women-taken-for-a-ride/192634.html

Madras High Court's notice on Manual Scavenging

2010-07-30T06:06:00.000-07:00

Some good news and friends like Anant Narayan must be complimented for fighting the cause.

HC seeks report on removal of manual scavenging

Express News Service First Published : 29 Jul 2010 03:13:58 AM ISTLast Updated : 29 Jul 2010 08:40:13 AM IST
CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has directed the Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply & Sewerage Board (CMWS&SB) boss to submit a preliminary report on the steps to eliminate manual scavenging and improving the sewerage system in the State.
The CMWS&SB managing director had earlier been appointed by the court as the chairman of a special committee to study the issue. The HC has now asked him to hold a meeting in the first week of August and submit a preliminary report.
The First Bench comprising Chief Justice M Y Eqbal and Justice T S Sivagnanam gave the direction while passing orders on an application arising out of a contempt petition from A Narayanan, trustee of Sevaman Trust in Virugambakkam, on July 22.
Earlier on August 5, 2009, the bench had passed an order on a public interest writ petition from Narayanan.
The bench had constituted a special committee for providing suggestions and recommendations to improve the drainage system and maintain the overall environment in metropolitan cities and towns in the State.
The CMWS&SB in its report had submitted that entry of sanitary workers into the manholes in the sewerage systems had been stopped and machineries had been utilised for maintaining the sewerage system.
However, Narayanan, who was also a member of the committee, alleged that the committee members and the chairman were not taking the issue seriously. No concrete decisions had so far been taken.
“Considering the seriousness of the matter, we think it proper that this bench should monitor the further course of action and the steps that may be taken by the authorities responsible to remove the old system,” the bench observed and gave the direction.
feedback@expressbuzz.com

Manual Scavenging : Our biggest failure as a nation

2010-07-27T00:45:00.000-07:00

Elimination of manual Scavenging should be made the National Priority

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat

It’s a town sandwiched between two important cities of Uttar-Pradesh namely Allahabad and Kanpur. It is a town which was once represented by a former prime minister in Parliament. Unlike Amethi and Raibarelley, it could not become a VIP town which could have changed its fortune. Yes, we are talking about Fatehpur, a rural district headquarter in Central Uttar-Pradesh which is just 120 kilometer away from Allahabad city. Yet, the urban Fatehpur and its rural areas still have rampant manual scavenging. Painful thing is that in many villages even children are engaged to do this most inhuman work. It is not just Fatehpur but even the cities like Gorakhpur, Rudrapur, Laar, Mau, Mohammdabad, Kanpur, Lucknow, Musanagar and many other small towns too have the scavenging practices. Of course, on the record of the municipalities, it does not exist and they can easily make loud claims that they have already eliminated. Yet, reality is different.

While politically the district may have changed a lot in the past 20 years yet one of the major concerns which most of the human rights activists have is the power of the upper caste remain intact and the violence against the Dalits rampant, though not much reported in the media. Just a year back when two boys from Balmiki community died while cleaning the safety tank of a toilet owned by a Brahmin. When the gas emerged from the safety tank, both the boys cried yet there was no support provided by the owner of the house and they died. After a few days cries the situation came back to normal and resulted in an unfortunate ‘compromise’, with a few thousand rupees as compensation for the family deceased. The compromise was force by various political forces which shows how despite political change in Uttar-Pradesh the power politics still remain in the hand of the mighty feudal upper caste elements.

Though the Nagar-Palikas may report the number of the manual scavengers as nothing the fact is that the practice is growing and has been feminized. In 2006, by government’s own admission there were nearly Six lakhs Seventy Six thousand manual scavengers all over the country but the Safai Karmchari Andolan felt it was over 1.3 million that time. But the most shocking figures have recently come when the government says that the number of manual scavengers in the country is reduced to just one lakh Seventy thousand. The government has admitted its failure as they have not been able to stick to their deadlines to complete this. The question is how are they going to rehabilitate the people in the process? The government may consider it one of the economic activity yet it is a socio-cultural issue too that expose the dirty side of our system. By its own admission, the government is suggesting that it would completely eliminate the manual scavenging by December 2010. The government talks about municipalities and those related to it but the fact is as unplanned urbanization process start, the problem of manual scavenging is growing. The fact of the matter is that government agencies have been ruthless in their neglect towards the issues of the community.

Builders eye the Balmiki Bastis

The incidents are common in different parts of the country. If they are living in houses provided to them by municipality then they are under the threat as the builders and land mafia often eye those locations which are central of the city. It was the British who were kind enough to provide residential quarters to the community engaged in sanitation work. After the British left, the municipalities have done little to improve the condition of the people. Instead, most often, these municipalities threaten the communities often and target their houses. The recent example of incident in Karnataka is an eye opener where because of the fear the community people protested in the worst form by applying human excreta over their body to stop the demolition of their houses. That was a one of the most desperate protest by the community and one only adopt such in deep isolation and helplessness. We only react to those and therefore in most other places the people have been dislocated and one of the political parties ever raises their issue.

Take for example of Howarh municipal corporation case when they dislocated over seven thousand people from the Belilius Park in the middle of the city when an industrialist close to CPM filed a petition in the High Court that the living of the scavenging communities in this area was a threat to environment and the ‘honorable’ High court gave a decision to dislocate the vast scavenging communities mostly immigrants from UP, Bihar, Delhi and Haryana and see not a single political party came to support them. Mamta Banerjee who claims to represent people never ever bothered about them and most of these community people are living in a virtual hell in just 5000 square ft complex as many as 27 families staying together without any facility of toilet and bathrooms. People are living like insects and no air to breathe. How are their children going to study?
In most of the cases, both the parents go to work early morning around 6 without eating anything while handing over the homes and young children to elder daughters. The children face discrimination at school. Because of the burden at home most of them are unable to be regular at the school. The teachers remain mostly in caste mind. The boycott of mid day meal being cooked by dalit cook has been in the news for the past few weeks in Uttar-Pradesh, forcing the government of state to withdraw the Dalit cooks where the children are not ready to eat food being cooked by them. And one can never think that a woman from scavenging community would ever be able to become a cook at a school. It is beyond our imagination whether any one would eat food cooked by her. And why should government succumb to such nonsense where student refuse to eat her food. The government must not give food to the upper caste children. Let them bring food from their home and completely bar from holding any government positions in future.

Manual Scavenging in Uttar-Pradesh

Manual scavenging has not got its due attention from the government and policy makers because of its inherent racist nature. The governments on the one side work on papers and provide fictitious figures of development while hounding the community people for their ‘alleged’ violation of the ‘Elimination of manual scavenging act’. Uttar-Pradesh government last year went on spree to recruit one lakh sweepers in the village areas. This resulted in a massive response by even the upper castes applying for the job. For many living in their own world, it was like India’s biggest social change where the caste Hindus applying for sweeper’s work but is it possible for a country to find upper caste sweepers when their arrogant children refuse to eat mid day meal cooked by the Dalit cooks. Hence the reality of the upper caste sweepers remained like absentee landlord where the government salary is owned by the person who sign the register and sub let that job to a Balmiki. In fact, during my conversation in a number of Safai-Karmcharis, I found that even if they do not let their job done to others, the upper castes are carefully not given the sweeping and cleaning their work. So in a majority of Nagar-Palikas if some upper castes or non Swachchakar, non Balmikis have taken to sanitation job, they do not indulge in the job. They are simply doing office work. So, the appointment is in the name of sweeper while the work of office assistance is being taken. The corruption is so high that some of the community took heavy loans from money lenders to get the job and yet failed to so and now living in deeply desperate situation. Many of them sold their small belongings to get this ‘sarkari’ job. Unable to get any thing and trapped in the corruption they force their children into scavenging.

The tragic part in UP is that the Balmiki Vimukti Yojna is not visible at all. Perhaps the government does not think that manual scavenging is prevalent in Uttar-Pradesh. We have the footage of many town areas in Uttar-Pradesh where manual scavenging is in practice and the authorities are not able to do anything accept whenever the cases have come to their highlight they threaten the people with dire action. One is not surprised that such responses do not result in elimination of scavenging but put the people on alert and therefore they do not report to the government. Rehabilitation is an important area where the governments have miserably failed.

Municipalities: The biggest offenders

In Uttar-Pradesh the contract labor has further aggravated the situation and the government and municipal bodies must be taken to task for violating the basic human rights of the people from scavenging communities for their inability to provide honorable job grounds and social security for those in the work. The first thing about the contract labors is that it does not really fulfill minimum wages criteria and there is no social security, no health insurance for the person. Secondly, in most of the cases, it is being taken over by men as the nagar-Palikas are not appointing families and in that case it is the woman who has to face the brunt. In leave because of ailment and the payment gets cut. There are no holidays, no social security and working in such dire conditions makes you sick yet there is no compensation for your ailment. Contrary to this, the salary gets cut and by the month end the salary accrued is much lower than the person deserved. The pain gets aggravated during national holidays and festivities when rest of the world celebrates with their children, this community has to forget its own pains and continue the work for meager amount.

One must understand that for the community the job at municipality is like get rid of the filthy work at the private latrines for nothing. So most of them feel that municipal job give them a social security as well as better life as plain sweeping and cleaning streets looks still better than that dehumanizing work that has kept community subjugated for years. But during the past few years the government has completely put the sanitation services on contracts basis therefore resulting a much difficult condition for the community. However, the more difficulty lies in with fewer employees and more work. One must understand that the size of the original municipalities and sizes have grown enormously thus making the old arrangements virtually redundant. The Nagar-Palikas are on the spree of reducing the size of the work. So, almost same people are cleaning the garbage of 5 times more people at the moment.

And the biggest casualty in this is the contract workers who are forced to do the work much more then their energy. Those who are fixed become bosses. These contract workers have the worst case scenario at home. They feel that despite these hardships they would be confirmed as workers and their children would have a bright future. But Uttar-Pradesh is unique in this. The people who left the scavenging and joined Nagar-Palika’s contract labor actually could not afford to stop their wives from doing the private work of manual scavenging. I tried to investigate this matter at different level and through 10 years of my searching for private latrines and video graphing those filthy conditions, on many occasions my friends left me there to evade those dirty things. Even during the filming of these events, most of the friends leave the place.. One can imagine when we can not see how degrading and dehumanizing it would be for those who are involved in the work and yet it does not become our national priority. It does not hurt any one. The real reason for women getting involved in the practice is the brutal scenario that municipalities have done with the contract labours or simply called ‘Samvida’ in Uttar-Pradesh.

The municipalities of Uttar-Pradesh must be taken to task for most dehumanizing and insensitive attitude towards this community. Most of them never really pay salaries to these people on time. Yes, Nagarpalikas must be charged for dereliction of their social duty as well as their inability to pay the contract workers on time. In most cases they get salary only after four to six months. They shout, protest and the Nagarpalikas give them two months salary and again remain with the same backlog. If some one protests much then he is threatened with termination. This is most insensitive. Till a year ago, this salary was around 2100 which does not even fulfill the basic criteria of Rs 100/- wage per day thus violating the very principals of minimum wages act. The backlog in payment has created a crisis like situation in many places in Uttar-Pradesh as the female ward of the contract staff returning to the original manual scavenging. They charge the government for being more insensitive to their needs. Most of them actually said that they are resorting to this as they can not see their children starving. The government has betrayed their cause they charge. It is easier to say why you do this but the pain and sense of betrayal is always visible in the faces of the community.

New Urbanisation and more feminization of the scavenging

While the details that the governments are providing are those which come under the town area. There is no news about the newly mushrooming semi urban villages or rural townships which are not under the municipalities. In these areas normally the people from Balmiki community are concentrated outside the village in a ghettoized rural slum exclusive for them. They are allowed to live in the village because they are doing the scavenging work otherwise they would be thrown away from these villages. I visited many villages in Mohammadabad and then in Fatehpur district where such a situation exist that if people want to leave this profession they wont be able to do so unless there is a social security not only terms of their job but also their housing. When I saw young children of 8 years involved in the practice, I could not hold my self feeling criminal in this country. Parents have forced their children into it. More and more women have turned to it because they do not get job in the municipality and when their husbands do not get salaries on time they have to depend on this.

The new urbanization process has created many things. One is feudal values remain the same hence despite economic problems the families want to look better and create concrete structure around them. However, the most neglected things in any family in India is its toilet. That shows our habit how we treat the people who are involved in it. A majority of them have not been able to do anything related to their toilets. There is no sewerage system in the village. The one system which is being popularized by the municipalities is called ‘bahau’ which is a cemented platform and once you defecate you just pour water and the human excreta go directly to the nearby open drains. Even for that purpose, a sweeper is required. The other is ‘Uthau’ which is where a pot is placed to defecate and the person come and place the excreta to her basket and throw it to some isolated place, mostly in the dirty ponds around the village where pigs and other animals roam around. So, despite modernity, the urbanization has not helped reduce it. Most of the people of scavenging community are completely landless and live on the mercy of the powerful community in the village. Like in villages in Mohammadbad, it is Bhumihars and Muslim localities in the villages where most of the scavenging takes place. In Fatehpur too it is the villages dominated by Muslims where scavenging is largely visible and the community people clearly informs us that if they leave this, they will have to be out of the village.

Racial discrimination and need strong measures

Recently report of mid day meals being cooked by Dalit cooks were not being eaten by by the non Dalit communities. In the past few years many dalit women have been making mid day meals at different schools and there was no opposition. Then what happened all of a sudden. The fact is that in three to four places the first time ever, Balmiki women were placed as cook and that lead to boycott of the mid day meal by the others. It is tragic that any effort to bring this community to mainstream and putting them into non sanitary work has many challenges and obstacles. That is one reason that it is easy to tell people to move to other work. The problem is what is ‘the’ other work? If a Balmiki boy start a tea shop in a village, the villagers at first instance, would not allow him to do it and even if he or she start it, it would be only possibly depend on the community. When the government of the state has succumbed to the pressure of the other communities and virtually humiliated the women who were involved in cooking of mid day meals by withdrawing its own order fixing quota for SC-ST-OBC people, then we can understand the situation in rural Uttar-Pradesh and Bihar.

This issue can not be kept under the carpet as a small matter. It is a serious matter and we will have to introspect as why such things are happening. Once we analyze the things in proper perspective we will understand why we are unable to eliminate manual scavenging.

The government and its authorities will have to work more seriously on the issue. It is a shame that the authorities have not been able to do anything. The entry of non Balmiki communities in to municipal job and their subleasing the job to the Balmikis again show how the forces of status quo are ready to foil every effort for the welfare of the community. It is up to the government to show its will. The scavenging communities have been betrayed by almost all the governments and political parties. Their representation is fairly low at every available space. It is time to think specific quota for them at the non sanitation profession to completely alienate them from the traditional occupations. The Municipalities must be made accountable and must be prosecuted for their failure to provide justice this community. You can not eliminate manual scavenging by victimizing the victims and threatening the very people who we have subjugated for years. All the cases of violation of rights of the community must be tackled seriously and municipalities hobnobbing with builders to throw them away from their locations must be booked under SC-ST prevention of Atrocities Act.

India has failed to protect its own people. It has failed to implement the rule of law as far as manual scavenging is concern. It is a national shame that the country is unable to eliminate it and that its children are still into this shameful practice. It is time it become our national priority and political parties and social movement takes the issue more serious and not in symbolic way.

Scavenging Still prevalent in Karnataka

2010-07-24T18:02:00.000-07:00

`Inhuman' practise still prevalent in NK
Basavaraj F Kattimani, TNN, Jul 22, 2010, 10.38pm IST

HUBLI: The recent incident of some members of Bhangi community in Haveri district dousing themselves with faeces to draw the government's attention towards their problems has exposed the inhuman custom of collecting and carrying of human excreta.

Congress leader B Basalingappa, while serving as the minister in the then chief minister Devaraj Urs' cabinet, had made honest efforts to eradicate the practice by Bhangi community.

The society was supposed to have been free from the practise in 1976-77 itself. But the exploitation of the community -- to collect and dispose faeces -- continued clandestinely in most of the districts in the state, especially in north Karnataka region.

A study conducted by Hyderabad-Karnataka Vimochana Vedike (HKVV) and Sri Goutam Gram Kalyan (SGGK) - NGOs are striving to create awareness about the social evil - indicated its prevalence in the interior and backward villages of Gadag district, Kundgol taluk of Dharwad district, Rabakavi, Banahatti of Bagalkot district, Bijapur, Gulbarga, Bidar, Haveri, and Raichur districts. Forty families in Raichur besides over 1,200 families elsewhere in the region are indulging in the age-old practice at the behest of upper caste people.

This has been the case for decades now, according to Ambanna Arolikar, HKVV activist from Raichur, and SGGK president Parathsarati. "We have studied most of the districts in north Karnataka, only to see people of a certain section being exploited. They are also not being paid well," they added.

Bhangi community members are working at panchyats and municipal council as pourkarmikas, but their nature of work is to remove/ collect faeces with bare hands. With no safety gear, they get into manholes to clear the filth, and put their health to risk.

"We have urged the government to regularize their (Bhangi community members) job contracts, and pay a minimum salary of Rs 4,500," they said, adding their other demands are on ensuring their health, and encouraging their children to pursue education. However, their major demand is to put an end to the inhuman practice.

According to our findings, the lack of proper underground drainages in NK is the main reason for the exploitation of Bhangi community. "The government should at least now chalk out long-term plans to rehabilitate Bhangi families," Arolikar said.

We need positive stories but can not ignore gross violation of human rights

2010-07-21T20:53:00.000-07:00

An Awakening movement is essential to fight against oppression

I feel time has come to stop highlighting only atrocities and protests. It is time to highlight the inherent strengths of our people and build a future on that. Dalits should lead a struggle to usher in constitutional governance for all instead of all the time focusing on ghetto and pathos. You know the extent to which we have succeeded in this approach to Dalit liberation : M.C.Raj,

My response

Raj, I agree to some extent. We definitely should provide the success stories to instill confidence in the community. We have worked on that. But a country which claims and boast its 'liberal' thinking and rule of law, we can not really shut our eyes on this gross violation of human rights.

As a movement as you have done it in Tumkur and some of us trying to replicate in our part of the world, I agree that an awareness movement has to be build in the community but at the same time, I would say, with my own experience working with the community ( and I have been working with this community for over 15 years), I found that we need to provide alternative. We should force the government to do things but at the same time should not wait for them only.

I am sorry but being a human rights activists, I find these news depressing but can not sit on that depression only. We have to shame the government, the authorities that they are lying. That their promises remain false. We can not victimise the victims. The state too has a responsibility and we can not exonerate it. The battle for the change is both the ways. At one level, with in the community and on the other side forcing the government to act.

Just a few days back the government of India say there are just one lakh seventy thousand people involved in scavenging, which is grossly under evaluated. We have got information from various municipalities that they have finished it yet I have recently found that children too are involved in it.

While raising the issue of their violation of rights, we are trying to do our best to provide alternatives like computer education, libraries at the local level. My film ' Badlav Ki Chah' is an example from the community in Ghazipur where the young have revolted and today are completely liberated. We want Badlav ki chah' every where and it is our combined duty not to fear from stories of depression but to fight them out. It is not their fault if they are in the profession imposed by vicious brahmanical order, it is the reality of Indian society. It need to be exposed daily but definitely we must work on the models like Tumkurs.. it is battle which has to be fought at different level.. an awareness in the community and exposing the sinister brahmanical disorder.

Finally, some promises by Karnataka minister !

2010-07-21T17:33:00.000-07:00

Finally, an immediate action by the Karnataka government. Hope they will not wait for another day for ending similar protest elsewhere. States must be asked to furnish the true details of scavenging in their cities. Most of the data given by them look fictitious. Can we ask what have been the rehabilitation process? Let the Karnataka government take action against such municipalities where scavenging still persist.

VB

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bangalore/Bommai-comes-to-rescue-of-dalit-families/articleshow/6198258.cms

Times of India, July 23rd, 2010

Bommai comes to rescue of dalit families
TNN, Jul 22, 2010, 03.41am IST

Article
Comments

Tags:Bangalore|Basavaraj Bommai|water resources minister

HAVERI: Water resources minister Basavaraj Bommai visited Kamal Bangadi locality of Savanur on Wednesday afternoon and apologized to them for the inconvenience caused by the city municipal council officials. He also assured them of all help from the state government.

He heard out their grievances. "It is shocking news for me and I bow my head for the mistake of officials who took the extreme step of evacuating these families in the name of building a complex," he said.

He appealed to them to leave their jobs of cleaning toilets and collecting and dumping faeces. "You come out of this bhangi business and go for self-employment, loans will be sanctioned under different schemes," he said.

Criminal action against guilty: Addressing mediapersons after his visit, he said that DC H G Srivara is authorized to conduct an inquiry into the incident and that a report would be submitted to the government within seven days. Criminal action will be initiated against the guilty, he assured.

He also instructed the CMC not to disturb the dalit families. "Emotionally, they have been living here for the past seven decades, let them live here," he said.

Under the special scheme of 22.5%, the municipality will provide all basic infrastructure for their comfortable livelihood. Taps will be re-fitted within 24 hours. He instructed taluk magistrate Dr Prashant Nalwar to see that their children get free education and motivated them to join schools and colleges.

After the press meet, Bommai held a closed-door meeting with municipal, police and revenue officials about their negligence. Bommai was very angry with chief officer H N Bhajakkanavar for his inefficiency, sources said. BJP leader Somanna Bevinamarad and SP Dr Chandra Gupta were present.

Karanataka's Shame

2010-07-21T09:13:00.000-07:00

Indian State is a racist state. Its respective governments have failed in protecting the dignity and self respect of scavenging communities. It is shocking beyond anything. Where is our media. Will our MPs ever listen to these cries. will they hear the cries. Nothing is more shameful in this country than such incidents. If this is not a priority of the nation then what is the priority.

To save their humble homes, protesting Dalits smear themselves with human excreta
Protesting Dalits smear themselves with human excreta
Savanur (Haveri dist), July 20, DHNS

What can be said of a system that forces a community to inflict upon themselves the lowest form of humiliation, just so they are allowed to live in their own homes?

A basic right, taken for granted with no second thoughts for many, is a struggle for the Bhangi community in Savanur. The community members went as far as pouring human excreta over themselves, so that their voices are heard and as a sign of protest against those trying to evict them from their homes.

Reason

For the past 70 years, four families of the Bhangi community, who work as night soil workers, have been living in huts built on land belonging to the Savanur Town Municipal Council (TMC).

At a meeting some time ago, the TMC decided to evict the families and build a commercial complex in its place. Ever since, the TMC has employed various devious ways to force the families out of their homes.

Starting with an oral directive, the TMC has resorted to cutting water connection to the families, dumping waste in front of their homes, barging into their homes, insulting their women and threatening them.

The community members, who are treated as the lowest among the dalits, submitted an appeal to the sub-divisional officer in January against their eviction and have ever since submitted numerous appeals to the government over the past seven months.

Finding no sympathisers in the system for their cause, the community members finally resorted to this extreme form of protest on Tuesday.

The families submitted an appeal to the Assistant Commissioner on Monday demanding
temporary water connection. But they were asked to pay the TMC Rs 2,000 for each connection.

Helpless, the community members took out a mock funeral from their homes in Kamala Bangadi to the TMC on Tuesday. At the TMC, three members of the community poured human excreta over themselves and begged for water to clean themselves.

Officials apathy

As if this was not heart-wrenching enough, none of the officials at the Town Municipal Council came forward to receive their appeal.

A verbal duel ensued between TMC officials and Dalit Sangarsha Samithi activists. TMC Executive Officer H N Bajakkanavar defended the TMC, saying they never tried to evict the Bhangis, but added that TMC would provide houses for them under various housing schemes.

He also said only illegal water connections were cut off. However, the DSS pointed out that several illegal water connections in the town were untouched and only those feeding Bhangis were cut off. “This is harassment against a community that is still treated like untouchables,” they said.

When no official accepted the appeal from the Bhangis, the latter cleaned the toilets in the TMC premises.

They then went to the Revenue Department and submitted their appeal to Tahsildar Prashanth Nalavar.

News from Deccan Herald

2010-07-20T06:23:00.000-07:00

Sweeper becomes police officer in Jharkhand
Indo Asian News Service, Updated: July 20, 2010 15:17 IST

Ranchi: Through his sheer grit and determination, a young man working as a sweeper in Jharkhand has bagged a job as Deputy Superintendent of Police after clearing the state public service examination.

Roshan Gudia, who works as a sweeper in a primary health centre of Simdega district, cleared the Jharkhand Public Service Commission (JPSC) examination in his fourth attempt.

He is a resident of Karamtand village of Khuti district. His father, Soma Gudia, is a retired army man.

Since his childhood, Roshan wanted to become a police officer. He would study hard and did not let the initial setbacks deter him. He took up a job as sweeper two years ago, but did not give up on his studies, or hope.

Today, Roshan is a happy man. "My dream has been achieved," he said.

His mother, Sunila, is also happy with her son's achievement. Tears rolled down her face upon hearing the news of her son being selected for a police officer's job.

Like Roshan, there are many other poor students in Jharkhand who have qualified as state level administrative officers of Deputy SP rank.

Mukesh Mahuwa, the son of a rickshaw puller, has qualified as a deputy collector. Mukesh, a resident of Bundu block on the outskirts of Ranchi, used to play the drums during the marriage season to earn money. His father, Nimai Mahuwa, is a rickshaw puller.

Similarly, Krishan Kumar, the son of a driver, has been selected as a deputy collector. His father, Bhuneshwar Prajapati, works as a driver in Hazaribagh.

The result of the JPSC examination was announced Sunday night. A total of 175 candidates qualified for different posts.

Read more at: http://www.ndtv.com/article/cities/sweeper-becomes-police-officer-in-jharkhand-38588?cp

Is the government speaking the truth of number of manual scavengers in the country

2010-07-19T20:59:00.000-07:00

Can we believe in these figures ? The governments should do something real to eradicate manual scavenging rather than hiding the figures.

VB

MPs contest figures on manual scavengers

SMITA GUPTA
SHARE · PRINT · T+
Contesting government figures, several MPs on Monday stressed that the number of manual scavengers still left in the country was much higher than what was furnished by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment — 1.17 lakh.

At a meeting of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee attached to the Ministry, they pointed out that this figure did not square with the much larger number of proposals received by the Ministry of Housing and Poverty Alleviation for conversion of dry latrines, according to sources on the panel. It was therefore imperative, the MPs said, that the Social Justice Ministry immediately conduct a survey to check the figures and vigorously work towards ending what the National Human Rights Commission recently termed “one of the worst violations of human rights.”

Monday's meeting comes in the wake of the Centre appointing an expert committee — to be jointly overseen by the Ministries of Social Justice and Labour — to abolish manual scavenging.

The committee — which has a representative each from the Ministries of Social Justice, Urban Development and Railways, and one from the Planning Commission — has been asked to draft a new law and submit its report by September 30.

At the meeting, Social Justice Minister Mukul Wasnik said that while all States and Union Territories had confirmed the rehabilitation of all eligible and willing beneficiaries under the Self-Employment Scheme for Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers (SRMS), his Ministry would continue to work with the States to identify any persons who might still need to be rehabilitated.

Under the SRMS, term loans up to Rs.5 lakh and micro financing up to Rs.25,000 are given for rehabilitation in alternative occupations. Mr. Wasnik said information about each identified beneficiary had been placed on the websites of the apex corporations, the State governments, State channelling agencies and the districts concerned to make it open to public scrutiny.

Simultaneously, action was being initiated to undertake a 100 per cent internal audit of the work done under the SRMS by the State governments, and at least 25 per cent external audit through the State Commissions for Safai Karamcharis/SCs and other independent bodies.

Though the government introduced as far back as in 1993 the Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act in 1993 — under which no person can be engaged in manual scavenging and construction of dry latrines is prohibited — the Centre missed three deadlines to abolish manual scavenging: December 2007, March 2009 and March 2010. The biggest defaulters are Meghalaya, Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, U.P., Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and even Delhi. The MPs who attended the meeting are Rudra Madhab Ray, Shakti Mohan Malik, Arjun Munda, Thangso Baite and P.L. Punia.

2010-07-12T22:33:00.000-07:00

Sanitation staff launch stir for regularization
TNN, Jul 12, 2010, 10.39pm IST

Article
Comments

Tags:Municipal Corporation|Balmiki Youth Federation|sanitization

LUDHIANA: Irked over delay in regularization of sanitation employees, members of Balmiki Youth Federation and workers of sanitation committees blocked the traffic at Bharat Nagar Chowk on Monday. They alleged that the state government and Municipal Corporation officials were playing with their lives by not fulfilling their promises.

The regularization of the sanitation employees had been hanging fire for the last two years but despite notifications and preparation of the lists, the authorities had not regularized even a single employee. The authorities even cancelled the lists saying they were not up to the mark. The employees demanded for the regularization of around 3,400 employees immediately. Warning the authorities for regularizing the employees as soon as possible, the staff said otherwise they would launch a stir. The members informed that in every public meeting, chief minister Parkash Singh Badal promised to appoint the employees. "We would continue our protest until we would get our right and regularization takes place," said Pardeep Bohad.

Times of INdia, July 12th, 2010

Do Constitutional provision mean anything ?

2010-07-12T03:25:00.001-07:00

Manual scavenging continues despite law V Raghunathan, 28 February 2010, 08:45 PM IST. Times of India, Delhi

I have frequently maintained that ours is a country that confuses words for action. Consider this. Not only did we allow the practice of "manual scavenging" to flourish for decades after Independence, it was to be as late as 1993 before our parliamentarians would wake up to pass the Employment of Manual Scavengers and Dry Latrine Construction (Prohibition) Act. It was to be another four years before the Act was notified in the Gazette of India.

Three states, namely, Kerala, Nagaland and Pondicherry refused to adopt the Act on the ground that dry latrines, and hence manual scavenging, had already been abolished in their states. And yet, according to the records of the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Kerala still has 1,339 dry toilets, Nagaland 1,800 and Pondicherry 476, while the country as a whole still employs some 1.3 million 'manual scavengers' – mostly employed by the Government (read the Defence, Railways and Public Sector organizations), municipalities and private homes! So whatever happened to the prohibition seventeen years after it was enacted? Incidentally, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan are yet to adopt the Act – at least they have no pretense that they care.

'Manual scavenging' as we all know, represents the most inhuman of all professions conceivable, which involves either removal of human excreta using brooms, tin plates, baskets or buckets carried on the head or entering sewage pits for cleaning without any protection whatsoever.

Needless to say, virtually all such task is carried out by dalits, employed on subcontract, often on wages as little as Rs 1000 per month, in flagrant violation of minimum wages. And when they are not carrying night soil on their heads, they are left to enter sewage pits, almost completely naked save a minimal loin-cloth, a rope tied around his waist with the loose end in the hands of a municipal official, with his breath-holding capacity his only protection. Body suits and oxygen masks are not for him, and if he asphyxiates to death from time to time, you may (and then again, may not) see a two-centimeter news ITEM tucked away in the local editions of newspapers. National TV networks haven’t been known to pick up their cause yet.

That six decades after Independence and a decade into the twenty-first century, the Government of India should still have 'scavengers' and 'bhangis' in its official lexicon and employ is the smaller tragedy. The bigger tragedies are our acceptance of the fact that it is all right for a section of the society to live a wretched existence of ultimate degradation so that the rest of us could live better; that as a society we should consider our task accomplished with the passing of an Act rather than its implementation; our pseudo argument that the dalits currently manning this degrading task need that employment and the indifference of this scourge of our society by an otherwise more activist Supreme Court and the visual media.

Dishonored killing

2010-07-11T01:42:00.000-07:00

We talk a lot of unity among different caste. We fight against brahmanism but when the question of our identities comes, we are trapped in to it. Honored killing or killing of shame are nothing but a brahmanical brutality inflicted upon our children. We do not want them to take a decision about their life. It is shameful. there can not be any unity between castes, the only thing that is needed supremacy of individual and annihiliation of caste as envisaged by Ambedkar. The more we respect individual choices for marriages and partnership, caste will become a thing of past. And ofcourse, those who are afraid of it, will always want to utilise it. Caste is a utility certificate for each one of us. It is patriarchical in nature. it is brahmanical in nature.. how beautifully baba Saheb Ambedkar portrayed it ' ascending order of reverence and descending order of contempt..

Time to condemn such brutalities.

VB

Delhi dishonoured again, lovers killed
Rahul Tripathi, TNN, Jul 5, 2010, 12.04am IST

Article
Comments (41)

Tags:Delhi|anju|Honour killing|Ashok Vihar|lovers killed

NEW DELHI: Even as the capital is recovering from the shock of triple murder in an honour killing case, it has been jolted yet again by the ghastly murder of a class IV employee and his live-in partner, who wanted to marry against the wish of their families.

Uttam Kumar (33), a class IV employee at Safdarjung Hospital, met the woman, identified as Anju (28), at the hospital few years ago. "The couple wanted to marry and repeatedly approached their family members but their families were against the alliance as Uttam was from Jaatav community and Anju was a Balmiki,'' said a senior police officer.

Facing resistance, they started staying together in Netaji Nagar in Sarojini Nagar in south Delhi last year. This move evoked strong reaction from their family members, who started threatening them with dire consequences. They were finally murdered in June this year, said police. According to the police, Uttam was killed on June 19 and his body dumped in Daruhera in Haryana. Anju, who was married earlier to one Karamveer (30) but was separated for the past few months, was allegedly killed on June 23 by her first husband after an argument.

The Sarojini Nagar police have arrested six persons, including Anju's brother and her estranged husband, for the double murder.

"Anju's family approached Karamveer, who is from the same caste, and asked him to counsel her. He tried to bring Anju back. But, Anju refused and the couple continued to stay together,'' said a senior police officer.

Police added that Uttam went missing from June 19 and when he did not report for work for a week, his colleagues from Safdarjung Hospital approached his house. "When they did not get a satisfactory reply from the family members, one of the employees approached the police on which a missing report was lodged at Sarojini Nagar police on June 27. When a police team went to question the family members, it found the woman's brother absconding,'' the officer added.

When police questioned family members of Uttam at length, it was revealed that Uttam along with Anju had been murdered and their body disposed by the brothers. All the six arrested will be produced before the court on Monday.

Last month, a couple from Swaroop Nagar Asha Saini and Yogesh planning to marry against the wishes of the family were killed on June 14. Another couple from Ashok Vihar Monica and Kuldeep married for past four years were found dead in on June 21 this year. A day later, Shubha, Monica's cousin, was also murdered in the name of honour and her body was found inside a car at Ashok Vihar. Three persons the brothers were arrested in connection with the case.

Times of India, Delhi, July 5th, 2010

Balmiki woman elected Sarpanch in Haryana

2010-07-09T23:51:00.000-07:00

Dalit woman elected sarpanch in khapland
Bhaskar Mukherjee, TNN, Jul 8, 2010, 05.53am IST

Article
Comments (2)

Tags:dalit|Jat|sarpanch|Rani Devi|Raju Balmiki

HISAR: Caste may have split Mirchpur — where two dalits were burnt alive in a caste violence blamed on Jats about three months back — but hardly 40km away, a Jat-dominated Serhada village has done something unbelievable: it unanimously elected a dalit woman as its sarpanch.

Rani Devi, wife of Raju Balmiki was among 24 candidates for the post, which was reserved for a general category woman.

In a break from the prevailing trend in caste-ridden state, representatives of all castes sat together and decided to elect Rani Devi as the village sarpanch.

"Our decision is a reply to the political leaders with vested interests in the Mirchpur incident. We have set a positive example," said Master Abhay Singh Lathar, a village elder, who chaired the proceedings to elect Rani.

Wife of a poor shepherd, Rani, who is in her early 30s, was surprised when she was informed about the decision taken by the village khap. "I am daughter-in-law of this village, and now I have the responsibility towards each family living here. Though we were a part of their families on all occasions, this would further strengthen our bond," said Rani.

She got 1,384 votes out of 1,702 from this block. There were 24 women candidates left after the withdrawal of nominations.

In a panchayat held two days before the election, under the leadership of Lathar, all the 36 communities presented in the meeting decided unanimously to vote for a dalit woman.

"The government should declare our village as a model village. We all want prosperity for everyone. We have full faith in Rani Devi," said Raghuveer Lathar and Jagbeer Poonia, panchayat members.

Times of India, Delhi, July 8th, 2010
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Dalit-woman-elected-sarpanch-in-khapland/articleshow/6141224.cms

Please report to us where-ever manual scavenging is prevalent

2010-05-21T22:30:00.000-07:00

India – Rating of Cities under the National Urban Sanitation Policy
India – Rating of Cities under the National Urban Sanitation Policy
May 12, 2010envhealth@usaidLeave a commentGo to comments
Rating of Cities under the National Urban Sanitation Policy announced yesterday is the part of the exercise started last year to create awareness about sanitation. The exercise of rating of Cities covers all major cities of the country and almost 72 percent of India’s total urban population. The country was divided into five zones for the purpose- North; South; West; East and North East and Central and South Central. Each city has been scored on 19 indicators which are divided into three categories: Output (50 points), Process (30 points) and Outcome (20 points).

The methodology for the exercise was designed incorporating standardized methods for measurement and scoring and was evolved after extensive stakeholder consultations. The rating makes use of both primary data collection during field visits and secondary data from published sources such as census. Each agency was required to follow the prescribed methodology, ensuring uniformity and comparability of data. The data was collected from cities in a consultative and collaborative manner. Based on the scores for output, process and outcome indicators, cities were then classified under four color categories; red, blck, blue and green.

The rating was carried out by three agencies i.e AC Nielsen-ORG Marg, Development and Research Services (DRS) and CEPT University, which were selected through a transparent and open bidding process. The process of data collection was carried out between December 2009 and March 2010 and was subsequently scrutinised in April by a team of experts. The results were communicated to State Governments as part of consultations and presented to the National Advisory Group on Urban Sanitation, the apex Group which oversees implementation of the Policy. The final consultations with States and Cities were held at Vigyan Bhawan before declaration of ratings.

The rating of Cities creates a baseline which can be used to measure progress in respect of sanitation in our cities and is expected to encourage cities to perform better in years to come. Based on the results of the rating, the best performers will be recognized with a National Award- “The Nirmal Shahar Puruskar”.

The award aims to recognize and reward improvements made by a city towards becoming totally clean and healthy by achieving 100% sanitation. A totally sanitized city is one that has achieved the objectives specified in the National Urban Sanitation Policy i.e open-defecation free city; universal access to toilets for all including the urban poor; elimination of manual scavenging; adequate provision of personnel protection equipment that addresses safety of sanitation workers; safe collection, treatment and disposal of all wastewater, solid waste and storm water; and recycle/reuse of treated wastewater with the ultimate objective of ensuring improved public health outcomes and environmental well being.

The exercise reveals that more than half of the cities are in the Blue or Black categories. There are four cities in the blue category which have scored above 66 but less than 90 marks out of hundred. Almost all cities report complete elimination of manual scavenging. More than 50 cities report 90 percent or above safe collection of human excreta. Twenty four cities collect more than 80 percent of their solid wastes – another six show an outstanding performance of nearly 100 percent primary collection. While treatment is a big challenge for most, 17 cities have achieved treating at least 60 percent of their wastes. Most cities have performed well in the process indicators, especially the larger cities, but results for the output and outcome indicators are mixed.

The exercise also highlights that considerable efforts are required to improve access to community and public toilets for the urban poor and to stop open-defecation. Wastewater treatment poses considerable challenges – 380 cities collect and treat less than 40% of their human excreta, though there are six cities that treat more than 90% of their human excreta.

It is expected that the ratings will help in bringing city sanitation in focus in all States and Cities. With significant enhancement in grants for urban local bodies under 13th Finance Commission recommendations, and assistance available under schemes like Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, Urban Infrastructure Scheme for Small and Medium Towns, Infrastructure Development Scheme for Satellite Towns, North Eastern Region Urban Development Programme, Backward Region Grant Fund, multilateral and bilateral funds and significant initiatives by States themselves, it should be indeed possible to move towards better levels of sanitation and the ratings seek to trigger this much needed change.

List of the rating of the cities on sanitation parameters ( 10 pages) is available on PIB site www.pib.nic.in.

Link to the city rankings: http://pib.nic.in/archieve/others/2010/may/d2010051103.pdf

Stop manual scavenging

2010-05-21T01:35:00.000-07:00

Message received from Manuski.

Two labourers die cleaning manhole

http://www.mumbaimirror.com/article/2/2010052120100521024301540a72abaea/Two-labourers-die-cleaning-manhole.html

The conservancy workers were working inside the drain without any safety gear; police lodge an FIR against the contractor for violating guidelines

In most developed countries, manhole workers are provided with oxygen masks and bunny suits, but in India conservancy workers - go in almost naked - risking their life and limb.

On Thursday, two contract labourers died inside a manhole near Kalachowki while the third one is recuperating at KEM Hospital.

The workers, who died due to suffocation and inhaling toxic gases, were carrying out ‘manhole cleaning work’ for a Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) contractor.

The deceased have been identified as Umakrishnan Kalia Perumal, 25, and Pandiyan Challa Perumal, 25. They were spotted by another labourer Anu Londe, 30 inside the manhole near Kalachowkie on G D Ambedkar Road.

According to other labourers, Londe entered the manhole to find Umakrishnan and Pandiyan after they did not come out for a long time. But he quickly jumped out of the drain as he felt nauseated due to toxic gases. Labourers said that Umakrishnan had entered the manhole first.

When he did not return for a long time, Pandiyan descended in search of him. Londe entered the drain, when the two of them did not come out for long.

Top: File photos of workers cleaning sewers without any safety gear, and (above) one of the two victims, who died after they entered a manhole near Kalachowki and inhaled toxic gases on Thursday (Pics: Sudharak Olwe)

Police have registered an FIR against the contractor R P S Mehta Constorium and the supervisor for the negligence. Police have even arrested Ashok Wajaji Chaudhary alia Patel, 25, the supervisor, who was present at the site when the incident occurred.

Meanwhile, the BMC has issued a show cause notice to the contractor asking them to reply whether they have violated the terms and conditions of the tender which includes the safety of contract labourers. “They were cleaning and strengthening the British era drains as per the contractor’s instruction.

We will investigate if there was any negligence in giving the safety gears to the labourers. Strict action will be taken against the contractor,” said P J Shah, deputy chief engineer (city) of BMC’s storm water drain department.

He added that the police have filed an FIR and have recorded the statements of the contractor, supervisor, BMC engineers. “We will take suitable action against the contractor,” Shah said.

“Contract labourers are always treated in an inhumane manner. No officer takes cognizance, whether proper safety gears are provided to them or not when they enter manholes and drains,” complained Uttam Gade, general secretary of Safai Kamgar Union. Gade, who has been associated with conservancy workers and contract labourers for the past 25 years lamented on the conditions under which labourers are forced to work.

“The High Court has given clear cut guidelines to the BMC, while giving such contracts, but the rules are hardly followed. Each time there is a accident or casualty, the guidelines are followed for few months,” Gade said.

Elaborating further, Gade said that as per the rule, labourers should be tied with belts at the waist and be given safety gears - oxygen mask, gumboots, apart from mechanised air blower, hand gloves, safety head lamp, gas mask among other things.

“They also need to be provided with breathing apparatus, wadder suit, diver suit and gas monitor to check the toxic level of gases. In addition, a mobile water tank for bathing and cleaning also needs to be provided as per the high court guidelines, but nothing is provided to the labourers,” Gade claimed.

__._,_.___

Insensitivity towards Scavenging community in India : The Hindu must apologise

2009-11-29T03:50:00.001-08:00

The insensitivity of a sensitive paper

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat

The Hindu has been termed as one of the most sensitive dailies in India. Despite all provocations, its editors have tried to be non provocative. On many occasions when the Delhi’s dailies went berserk, the Hindu had a wisdom to control things. And such sanity on parts of the Hindu was highly appreciable particularly during the anti Mandal imbroglio in Delhi or the Ayodhya’s shameful demolition of Babari mosque or unearthing the Bofors scandal or reporting on Bombay riots and then the blasts that ripped the city last year.

Ofcourse, during this course, Hindus reporting on many areas was questionable particularly on Nandigram and Singur violence. It was shocking but those who are the students of media understand its compulsions.

A few years back your sister publication ‘Frontline’ brought out a cover story on the horrible and shameful traditions of manual scavenging. That was definitely a praise worthy thing but unfortunately again the clean chit given to West Bengal government on manual scavenging without ever caring to speak to thousands of the people belonging to scavenging community at the Belilius Park who were mercilessly displaced. Today, nothing happened to them. They were neither rehabilitated nor got any other place to live as most of them were the people from various scavenging communities like Balmikis, Helas, Rawats from different north Indian states. Most of them were employed as sweepers at Howarh Municipal Corporation where people were still doing manual scavenging long back.

However, despite all this, it never felt that Hindu is offending the sentiments of the people though your claims that Gandhi fought for untouchable while completely ignoring the heroic struggle of Ambedkar is example how selective you can be. But, November 27th write up by Praveen Swamy on Mumbai’s horrific incidents under headline ‘ where style has trumped substance’ has unnecessarily compared the issue of scavengers with police men.

In his article Swamy shamelessly argues,’ ‘Working upwards of fourteen hours a day — not counting the typically three hours spent commuting — constable Kamble earns a basic pay of Rs. 5,200 a month. Sanitation workers employed by the Brihan Mumbai Municipal Corporation are paid less — Rs. 4,440 a month — but end up taking home similar wages, because of overtime. Indeed, until the Sixth Pay Commission recently upgraded the categorisation of police work as semi-skilled from skilled, sanitation workers actually made more money. Little has been done to upgrade the police’s living standards and training.’

Swamy does not know that those who scavenge or are involved in sanitary work do not have any holidays. Even when they might get relatively better salary in Mumbai, yet there is no holidays for them and why is it that most of them come from one particular community. Swamy has forgotten about the racial nature of the sanitation work in India.It is worst then that as these workers may not get a home in a normal location, they do not drink tea at a common place and might get it in a dhaba when nobody know their identity.

Yes, today, people like Praveen Swamy might feel that the sweepers are getting over time and the policemen are getting it. Will Praveen Swamy ever visit to those untouchable women who clean shit and do not get paid up. Can you send your reporters to find out how many of the people from scavenging communities are getting two meals a day despite involved in this heinous occupation. Despite all claims and works done by not only Gandhi but various governments, manual scavenging is still prevalent and going high. In the villages it is faminised as most of the men go to the urban areas for work and women continue to do it. The reason the lowest salaries for them and mostly they are contract labors who never get their salaries on time. In Uttar-Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, there are thousands of people from scavenging communities who are working on contract yet have not got their salaries for past six months. And this is a regular features yet our newspapers have no time for the same. Even when government claim that manual scavenging has been eliminated from cities ( it is a false claim and we can still get the same in Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai), yet if we see the unfortunate deaths of the people from the same community in sewage pipe lines. Who are the people dying in these sewage pipe lines without any protective gears? Have you ever asked how much money they get for dying for cleaning our wastes?

We have no complain against your supporting the cause of policemen who are lowly paid but to compare their work with that of sanitation workers is utterly disgraceful. It has shown the insensitivity of the author coming from upper caste background and thinking he and his community have sole property right over patriotism. Should we think that Hindu’s editors remain highly insensitive to the issue of untouchables in the country by publishing Praveen Swamy’s article without editing?

Even when policemen are dying for the ‘country’, most of the countrymen will never have sympathy with them as long as they think themselves above the law. We can understand the threat of terrorism but we must not ignore the fact that police system is created by the government where their Jawans are just hated not by the terrorists but Aadivasis and Dalits where they become state’s main torturing agency to extract money and rob them of their resources. On the contrary, whether it was British or Indians, the scavenging work is done by same community and all efforts by politicians and governments have been far below satisfaction. In such situation, if a seasoned writer compares the work of sanitation workers as ‘free lunch’, he must be made to apologize.

Untouchability is a blot on face of India. Despite all claims of our progress, it still remains. It is hidden apartheid. Much bigger then the issue of terrorism which grows out of victim mindset. As long as the caste Hindus refuse to accept this heinous crime done on humanity, they will have to live with the biggest shame of civilization. The biggest untouchability and racial prejudice is manual scavenging and Balmikis face is daily in their work. The indignity heaped on them can not be erased by paying them a few thousand rupees. Praveen Swamy deserve condemnation from civil society. The Hindu must apologize for its publication and desist publishing such insensitive pieces in future. Let it lead a campaign against untouchability and manual scavenging for erase its serious lap in the publication of such a sinister article.

India's Shame : Death of two Dalit boys in Shit-Pit

2009-05-29T04:29:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends,

Following letter has been send to various authorities for action including UP Chief Minister.. you may like to write them please..manual scavenging is not going to die.. it is in fact reappearing in a big form..

Caste purity could not allow a Brahmin to touch and save two Dalit ( Balimiki) boys cleaning his ‘shit’.

Deaths in the Soak pits in Gazipur village, Fatehpur District, Uttar Pradesh

Ms Mayawatiji,

Honorable Chief Minister of Uttar-Pradesh,

Chief Minister’s Secretariat,

Lucknow May 29, 2009

Two workers from valmiki Dalit community died after inhaling poisonous gases in a soak pit of Abdul Gani Locality of Fatehpur district on May 5, 2009. The victim Naresh aged 35 years, son of Bankelal was an employee of local Municipality while the other victim Deepak aged 22 years son of Munnilal, was a daily wage worker with the same municipality and a neighbor. Both were residents of Arabpur locality of Fatehpur.

A fact finding team constituted by Social Development Foundation, Delhi lead by Ms Sehroj Fatima, Chitrakoot, visited the site on May 7^th, 2009, to take stock of the situation in Abdul Gani locality where the accident occurred and Arabpur locality where the families of the deceased workers live. The situation in the entire area is grim and unrest prevails still.

There is no manual scavenging prevalent in the district, said the District Magistrate a few days back in Fatehpur district of Uttar-Pradesh. Fact of the matter is that most of the districts in Uttar-Pradesh and elsewhere claim that manual scavenging have been eliminated. Many notices send by the National Human Rights Commission have been returned empty handed blaming the complainant for politicizing the issue.

About the victims:

Naresh who used to work in the Local Municipality as Safai Karamchari was aged 35 years and was living with his wife, four children, younger brother and sister. He was a permanent employee of the municipality for the past 10 years, yet due to economic pressure, would take up the private work of cleaning the soak pits on requirement. Due to lesser wages for Class IV employee in municipality, Naresh has to work beyond is working hours to meet ends. He used to go for cleaning jobs and even as part of orchestra playing in weddings in the area to earn a little more.

Despite repeated reports, the municipalities claim that there is no manual scavenging. Some of them feel that with the construction of cemented toilets without sewerage system, the issue of scavenging is over. Hence they falsely report about the elimination of scavenging. With low wages and irregular wages for the daily wage workers in the municipality, most of them work privately and clean night soil.

On the fateful day also, he went to clean the soak pit of one Jugal Kishore Misra, who promised Rs 1000 for the work, along with Deepak 22, an unemployed youth who would play drum and orchestra to meet his financial needs. Deepak was not married and was living with his parents and other siblings. Naresh and Deepak, parents were working in the Municipality. Deepak was highly dependent on Daily wage work and used to do all sorts of cleaning work and also be part of the Orchestra party like Naresh. On the day of incident, Naresh took Deepak along so that they can equally divide the money among each other after few hours of work.

What happened at the site?

Most of the houses in the area are dry latrine and the Balmiki community is still engaged in manual scavenging and this is how they earn their living. But there are few houses which have toilets connected to a deep soak pit where the waste gets collected over years. After few years, depending on the depth of the soak pit, people have to get it cleaned. This can be cleaned both through machines and also manually. Unfortunately, mechanization process has not yet happened in India and therefore we see young and old boys from the scavenging community involved in this gruesome work at the risk of their life. This can not be called a work as it involves killing of human dignity and degrading his self respect, yet despite all this, the work continues, thanks to our governments and their antipathetic bureaucratic attitude that emancipation of the community does not come in their mind and rehabilitation of the community means a job in the municipality for them.

In this particular case, Mr. Jugal Kishore Misra, the owner of the house where the site of accident is, engaged Naresh to clean the soak pit for Rs 1000. Naresh, after coming back from work, had his food and asked Deepak to come along to clean the soak pit. At first they used rope and bucket to drain waste water collected in the tank. But then the owner shouted at the two workers ordering them to get inside the tank and clean the entire tank properly.

On his insistence, the duo entered the ill-fated soak pit with help of an iron ladder, immediately lost consciousness and fainted in side the tank. Naresh got stuck in the sludge immediately while Deepak drowned in the waste water while yelling for help.

The owner and his son were witness to the entire episode, instead of rescuing the duo; they asked his grandson to inform the family of the victims. Even though the distance between the two localities was hardly 500-700 meters, but by the time the relatives reached and removed the bodies from the soak pit, both of them were dead.

Role of the Authorities

Later the doctors of the Government Hospital also confirmed the death. According to the relatives, if the owner had acted quickly in rescuing the men, they would have been alive. As the angry relatives demanded arrest of the owner and due compensation to the family, the police called PSC force to keep the protest under vigil.

The local tehsildar calmed the agitators by saying that the information of the death has been sent and they are waiting for the news from the State Government. While the officials from the Municipality gave Rs 5,000 to each of the victims family. While the SDM of the Area Mr Arvind Chaurasia said that since both of them have government connection they will not be eligible for compensation but help will be given from CM relief fund.

The police did not show the FIR while Mishra was having his connections. The cases have been filed after much pressure but people do not know what exactly the charges are. The community leaders have not been consulted on this, neither the family people were told about the charges leveled against Mishra. Moreover, the Post Mortem report has also not been given to the family people of both Naresh and Deepak.

It is sad that the authorities in the state still behave in feudal brahmanical way and do not have sense of duty towards the Balmiki community which remains lowest of the low due to its traditional occupation. Such racial prejudices on part of administration is condemnable and we demand strict against the police officials, district officials and municipality leaders.

Evidences collected from the relatives of the victim:

According to Naresh’s wife Anita, Naresh was removing waste water from the tank with help of bucket and rope, but then the owner asked him to go inside the tank to clean it properly as he was paying him Rs 1000. Then they entered the tank with help of an Iron ladder, but soon lost his conscious and got stuck in the sludge. When the owner was questioned about his inaction he categorically said that he had only one son and moreover this work is of the Dalit untouchable community.

According to Rakesh, brother of the deceased Naresh, when they rushed to the site, they saw the sludge all over the place and the owners’ family was also standing. When he looked inside the soak pit, he saw a body and soon realised that both of them had died in the tank. Then he tied rope on his waist and got down the tank. According to him, it was easier to lift Deepak’s body as it was floating on water, but Naresh’s body was stuck in the sludge. Both the bodies were full of insects. After removing the bodies from the tank, he was also feeling giddiness due to the gas.

The bodies were taken to the police station where they refused to register the case, next they took the body to the government hospital where the doctors refused to do post-mortem. But then the relatives got very angry and they agitated and blocked the road. This compelled the hospital to do postmortem but the report is still not made public.

According to Deepak’s mother Rampati, Deepak will not be getting any compensation as both his parents are working in Municipality and he was unmarried. She also pointed out that nobody took photographs of the accident site. The postmortem was conducted at the time it was dark. They have not received the report as yet.

Jugal Kishore Mishra is a powerful man and trying to save his skins. For two days the local bar went on strike against filing case against Jugal Kishore Mishra. This shows which side the law stands in our society. It is tragic that the entire issue is being seen as a ‘mere accident’ by the administration. After the Balmiki community protested, there are efforts to silent it by a token compensation from the Chief Minister’s Funds.

While we demand the enough rehabilitation and compensation need to be paid to both the families so that none of their family people return to this disgusting work, it is also needed that government must work on taking prompt action on the issue. The Nagar Palikas are lying in the state and every year going for huge ‘appointments’ to placate the Balmiki community for the ‘government’ job. We request this must stop. To rehabilitate the community, a proper alternative time bound action plan is needed and the time has come when the government shows that it is seriously concern.

We demand the following:

Can the issue be just relegated to mere compensation according to the law? How much does government give to class IVth employee?

Should not there be an action against the owner of the house for forcibly sending the two into soak pit.

What is the role of municipality? The District Magistrate and Government Officials must see what have the municipality report to them related to this case.

Why this case shouldn’t be filed against the authorities under the prevention of SC-ST act.

Compensate the families of both the deceased handsomely so that none of the family members return to this work again and it becomes a model code for every one. May be a hefty fine should be imposed on both the owner of the house as well as municipality. Some strict punitive measures are needed in this regard.

Order a judicial inquiry and ask for recommendation to eliminate this practice and fixing up responsibility and accountability of various departments.

I hope that your government will look into this serious crime against humanity and take necessary action.

Thank you,

For Social Development Foundation,

Vidya Bhushan Rawat

Tragic Tale of the deaths of Suddhu and Jiuti Devi

2008-02-15T03:03:00.000-08:00

In Death they got liberated from hunger and indignity

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat

Often our law makers question the motives of the civil society activists for sensationalizing things. The paradox of democracy today is that even those who claims to hail from a very humble background want to be known as leader of ‘shining India’ when come to power. This antipathy of the leaders and their anger when reports of hunger deaths are brought into limelight, and to the authorities, is not only absolutely insensitive but anti people. I write this story of a family who I knew and tried to save and yet failed. This is not a day’s death. Death was waiting for both of them for many years as they had nothing to survive on.

It is difficult to say that the man died of hunger, say the authorities. They have their own criteria and accordingly none in India died of Hunger. The fact is that nobody dies of hunger even in Ethiopia; after all, nobody can remain without something in the stomach. Now, what is eatable and what could be termed as food, need to be defined clearly. If that is defined in pure medical terms then certainly Indian authorities will have more problems to hide their inefficiency as well as insincerity. It is this insincerity of approach that I want to discuss today, as how I saw a family dying in the past five year. If that is not a hunger deaths then what could be a hunger death.

This story is of a scavenger family in Pakhanpura village of Bhanwarkol block in Ghazipur district. About three years back when I was working on a film ‘Cry for Change’ on the condition of the scavenger families in Ghazipur. In fact, some of our friends and colleagues have been working to mobilize the community against this atrocious practice, a sin against humanity. We were mobilizing people against it and interviewed those who were involved in the practice of scavenging. Mostly, women were involved hence we went to their homes at the time when they felt free to speak to us. It was difficult to catch them as in the morning they were too busy to do their work and in the afternoon they would go to the village to collect the food which was offered by the ‘big’ people. One feel sorry as why these people are big who can not construct toilets for them and have no money to pay to the workers. It is worst then any other failed programme of government of India. Atleast for the NREGS, you get some work and get paid for it. It is work without payment. You do not even pay for their work but give them alms. It is the most crude and savage practice.

About three kilometer from Mohammdabad town is this village Pakhanpura, a village of Muslims. Passing through the dirty lanes of the localities with a camera in my hand, I finally arrived in the scavenger area. Surrounded by dirty stale water, I entered in the ‘house’ of Suddhu Rawat, a person of the age of 45. After usual questioning about his work (he was working on contract in the municipality) which used to give him about Rs 1100/- per month. He never received that too on time. Most of the Nagarpalikas have been paying the salaries to sweepers almost year later. Suddhu’s bare body was showing his physical condition. One could even count the total number of bones in his chest. He was barely living a life. What do you want your children to be, I asked? ‘I would like them to study and get a job’. He was optimistic. What you are suffering from, I asked. ‘ I am not well. I have a paralytic attack as well as doctor say that I have TB’, he said. ‘ I do not have the money to go to the doctor’. His wife Jiuti Devi, 40 had gone to collect her routine food from the local people. She was involved in manual scavenging. ‘ How much she gets for her work, I asked. ‘It’s nothing. We get left over food and 5 kg of rice at the year end. Some thing on Diwali and Holi’, he said. Then why don’t you leave this work. ‘ ‘What is the alternative’, said Suddhu. I do not have regular income. My wife works in the house of ‘big people’ and they help us time to time that is how we are surviving.’

Suddhu did not have a house. Later, we came to know that after paralytic attack, he was using his younger child to do the work of municipality so that the he does not lose his monthly salary. Some of us made effort to get him a house under Indira Awas Yojana. He got funds for it but unfortunately after the second installment, it seems, he used the money to pay the medical bill to the doctor. So the so called house could not be completed. Suddhu finally died about 1 year back in the absence of food and medication.

His wife Jiuti Devi’s condition was not good. One will have to be not only sensitive but realistic to see the situation of the community. How the people involved in scavenging and cleaning the narrow lanes and sewerage pipes develop different diseases including gastroenteritis. This apart, they normally have breathing problems and develop skin diseases also. Since there is no medication for them, they develop psychological problems also. The day meal depend on the alms of the local lords who are not even lords but at least they feel great over lording a community who is still enslaved to an old racist tradition. A tradition which degraded humanity and human lives in India and its ‘wonderful’ villages which still reverberate India’s notorious caste system.

Jiuti Devi was still running the family with three children. In all she and Suddhu had six children. The elderly two namely Jitendra, 21 and Dharmendra, 19 had migrated to Mumbai in search of better profession. The other three Virendra, 17, Neha, 13 and Surendra 10 were with her. Since Suddhu was not even a permanent employee of Nagarpalika, there was not much money left for the children after his death. Jiuti Devi continued with her work of cleaning latrines every day in nearly 15 families. She would go early morning at around 6 am without having anything. Breakfast is a luxury. Leaving her younger children at home. The single 20 X 20 ft long thatched hut was not enough to have separate cooking. Moreover, there was virtually nothing at home to cook. The family was totally devoid of any support. Moreover, with Suddhu’s illness, the family even used the Indira Awas money.

Jiuti’s life became a hell. She was already ailing and now she had to survive for the family. The two elder children who migrated to Mumbai just never thought of asking their mother about her condition. She always complained but the thing is that even those two children in Mumbai, what would they earn? Who knows in what conditions they might be living there. With more rhetorical and insensitive political class in Mumbai getting nasty, it is the poor who is paying a price of her honesty. Nagarpalika never thought of giving her a job. She was not in a position to even ask for it. She might have gone several times but as usual women ‘sacrifice’ for their husbands. It is actually the Nagarpalika which sacrifice women for their husbands.

It was in July 2007 that her condition started deteriorating, about six month later from her husband’s death. She went to the municipality even when her condition was not stable. My friend Raj Kapur Rawat, who hails from the community, went along with her to the municipality to her get the dues of her husband. She was suffering from breathlessness. She has gas problem and lack of blood. After the death of her husband, when the family’s condition worsened, she kept on working. But human body has limitations. Working on a ‘tired’ body resulted in severe ailment of Jiuti Devi.

In such a time, she decided to transfer her ‘work’ to her ‘sister in law’ Runia Devi under the condition that the food received from the 15 families would be given to her and her children. Runia Devi agreed to this. Unfortunately, Runia Devi could not fulfill her promise to Jiuti Devi and stopped providing them the day’s meal. Hence the condition of the family deteriorated further. The children had no food to eat.

On August 15th, 2007, I was in Mohammdabad, to meet some of the family members of the scavenger community we work with. Jiuti Devi was expected to visit us as we were helping her in her treatment. Amidst our meeting, I got a call from friends that Jiuti Devi has passed away. It was a great shock to me. Now her two children who were minor became orphan with this sudden death.

Jiuti Devi’s death, as well as that of Suddhu in early 40s, indicates the problems of the scavenger community. This hell’s work is predominant in Uttar-Pradesh which claims to be having all kind of government in the past 15 years. Social Justice, Socialisits, Ambedkarite, Hindutvavadi and what not but the scavenging and its crude practice is still common. Most atrocious thing is that the authorities are not ready to accept that this practice is there and that people suffer from malnutrition. One does not know whether this government has any specific agenda for the liberation of the scavenging community. Community’s elder sit silently and wait for some miracles while community continuously suffer from humiliation and indignity.

Though these two younger children are being taken care of some relatives of Jiuti and Siddhu in Ghazipur, these are the stories of hunger that we come across directly working. Some time even minor help from us does not do justice. It is shocking. It is shameful that our eyes do not catch how people are surviving here in India. How a civilization has degraded people and do not even allow them to fetch and how the successive governments after independence have shamelessly failed in providing honor, dignity and certainty to the lives of millions of scavengers in the country. How long will people suffer. This is one story of a case where a family died of hunger. There are many. We fear people feel it is repetition. But then what is the alternative. What can we do for such people? I do not want to end this in a question mark since some of us are still trying to look beyond. Definitely, a people’s response would be welcome. This is not an isolated incident. There are hundreds of cases. The need is to be sensitive and act. In the end, death liberated both Suddhu and Jiuti from hunger and indignity.

SDF-UPLA Lucknow Convention Report

2008-02-12T02:40:00.000-08:00

Report of the three days Convention of Social Development Foundation and Uttar-Pradesh Land Alliance at the Chhedi Lal Dharmshala, Lucknow 21st-23rd January 2008

Introduction

SDF & UPLA have been organizing their annual conventions every year since 2004. The first meeting to start Uttar-Pradesh Land Alliance was organized in Ghazipur, followed by Shaheed Udham Singh Nagar, Chauri Chaura, and Kushingagar. This was the fifth convention where the organizations working on the issue of land and livelihood came and discussed their issues. For the first time after the inception of the UPLA, the convention was organized in Lucknow to enable people from other states to join the meet and share their experiences with us.

About 300 participants from over 150 organisations, community based organizations, individuals, joined the discussions for the two days. The participation ranged from states like Uttar-Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhatishgarh, Uttarakhand, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, and Goa. The Uttar-Pradesh’s participation covered almost all the regions of the state. A rainbow coalition of communities was visible in the meet. It is rare that people from different communities came forward and discussed the issue confronting them. Moreover, the social movements are ultimately witnessing a change, as women as set to take over the change. Its going to be women’s leadership in future leading the social movements.

The programme began with Mr Ram Chandra Prasad and Mr Raj Kapoor Rawat,
Coordinators of UPLA as well as Social Development Foundation, made their
Presentations for the last one-year programmes and activities undertaken by the organizations.

Exposing the miracles

The first session was devoted to ‘Miracle Exposure’. SDF is a secular humanist organization and it understands that superstitions are imposed on the exploited communities in the garb of cultural practices. These outdated practices become source of exploitation and particularly women bear brunt of it. To keep in mind, as most of SDF-UPLA member, member organizations comes from Dalit-tribal background, it was important to educate them on the issue. Apart from this, a very large chunk of our members hail from Muslim community, which has faced the traumas of the fundamentalist threat from outside as well as from with in the community. Hence the issue of ‘ Secularisation of civil society’ was an important agenda item to discuss. A large number of fundamentalist mindset have now started shifting the agenda of the civil society and hence it is important to question this intrusion in the civil society agendas by hate mongers.

Prof Narendra Nayak, President of Federation of Indian Rationalist Association, had kept the participants spell bound with his expose of the miracles. Prof Nayak remain a favorite of the participants since he had his first direct interaction some three months back in Kushingar where a large number of SDF-UPLA partners participated in his training workshops. For nearly three hours, despite his bad throat, Prof Nayak explained the ways of the quacks that exploit the rural people in the name of Gods and miracles. The reason for his instant hit programmes are the socio-cultural environ around us where people particularly rural poor particularly women face the worst of such practice routinely. We cannot really keep away from the incident of terming women as Dayan, whore or under the influence of evil spirit.

Idea of UPLA

Secularisation of Civil Society was an important discussion point initiated by Vidya Bhushan Rawat. He pointed out how the radical right were also participating in civil society actions and silently pushing their agendas. Women and children become their victim. In Uttar-Pradesh and other north Indian states, the condition is grim as old parochial people have started trusts and societies and are using ‘civil liberties’ and NGOs for their own nefarious purposes. In the name of NGOs people are on the land grab. They are acquiring huge track of land for false purposes. This has to stop. UPLA will oppose any such land grab by the so-called civil society organisations. VB Rawat also outlined the aim of UPLA and why we have a stated position on certain issues. UPLA has its constituency from the Dalits who were denied human rights for long in the name of traditions. These cultural values were completely alien to the Dalits and were instrumental in their subjugation and their justification. Therefore UPLA’s official stand is against imposing a culture of value and tradition on unwanted communities. Secondly, UPLA cannot keep quiet on the growing target on its member constituents because of their religion and caste. The current situation is quite depressing as far as the civil society is concern and is a challenge to meet. Some time, the civil society networks glorify the past and communal identities become powerful to lord over the individual identity. Identity works to certain extent but also keep people subjugated to certain thoughts that outlived their utility. When communities like Mushahars, Bansfors, Scavengers work with us, we can not ask them to stick to their traditional occupations. They will have to look for new. That those professions which were unclean became their entrypoint to a hell where they are still trapped in.

Ofcourse, as the modernization and science can not remain unquestioned as one friend Ram Bhuvan question about the mechanized farming and inorganic products. When UPLA support modernization ‘ will it support’ contract farming and mechanized farming he asked. ‘ Yes, the question is very important and delicate. You have to choose between tradition and modernity. Our stand is that not everything is bad in tradition. There is ample knowledge among our communities. That knowledge need to be documented. In fact UPLA will take lead in doing so. Secondly, UPLA is not an organization ingrained in some tainted vision of ideology. It look ahead and learn a lesson from history. It reflect in diversity. Despite not believing in caste, we still try to bring various caste identities. Between the human rights of a peasant or ideology, we will definitely be with the rights side of a community. That is why UPLA is always with the struggling masses and so many people, beyond our expectations here, are a tribute to the work of UPLA activists.

Since, it is still in the nascent stage, that is why this ideological discussions are taking place. These discussions here are meant to upgrade us as well as you about the latest happening in civil society. A civil society is first a civil society and later working on a particular issue. Hence we should adhere to basic ideas of human liberty, rule of law, non violence, respect for the marginalized, physically challenged, women and minorities and provide them space and opportunities in our forum. That is one reason why we have so much of discussion on various issues but all of them ultimately revolve around land and livelihood.

Mission Land Literacy

An important part of the first day’s programme was the book ‘ Bhumi Shaksharata ki aur’ compiled by Vidya Bhushan Rawat. The book contains short narratives regarding land movements in India, its current issues, administrative problems, and practical tools for the grassroots activists to know about the measurement of land etc. It has human rights treaties and issue of SEZ and other challenges that today’s land rights movement have. This apart, the book, had provided information regarding reports writing and institutions for their remedies.

The book was released by five girls from Mohammdabad, Ghazipur where SDF is successfully running a women’s development programme including change in mindset and providing alternative module to the scavenger girls. Deep Mala, who is now volunteering with SDF, apart from her education said that the book would definitely be a milestone for activists as they would learn from it about their right and fight more competently for the land rights?

Afterwards, other activists shared their opinion about the book. Munni Begum said that it is a great work, which will help women like her to learn their rights so that they can fight with more confidence and get the justice. Suman Singh also praised the work. Mr Ram Chandra Prasad mentioned that the book could be good tool to spread land literacy movement all over the state.

Ms Sujatha from Hyderabad said that the book land literacy will be a milestone for every activist at the grassroot. She expressed her desire to develop a similar manual in Telugu, for the Andhra Pradesh activists.

After the release the girls from Mohammadabad danced and sang a humanist song penned by SDF’s coordinator Raj Kapoor Rawat.

Hunger and Starvation:

The issue of hunger and starvation has rocked Uttar-Pradesh. The authorities and the government might not agree that there are hunger deaths but if living conditions and the governance is any criteria then we seem to have failed. In fact, recently Commissioners to the Supreme Court of India have given report on the existing farm crisis in Bundelkhand region. In fact, most of the persons dying and starving of hunger are those who have lost access to their livelihood. Whether it is fishermen or Mushahars, Bansfors ( bamboo workers) or scavengers ( who clean shit), all of them are facing worst crisis of their lives. Forest communities in Uttar-Pradesh have rarely been recognized. The Tharus in the Tarai and Kols in Bundelkhand have virtually no access to forest produce and are victimized by the forest department officials. Mushahars used to depend on forest but if they venture today, they are caught and arrested.

The so-called anti poverty programmes are miserably failed. The condition of NREGA is worthy of mentioning here. It would be asking for too much if individuals got employment for even 30 days under this scheme. Wrong entries, card held up with the Sarpanches, women being denied equal wages and work with machines are some of the ‘hallmark’ of the NREGA programme in Uttar-Pradesh.

When such conditions are prevalent in Uttar-Pradesh, MCK Food for Hungary Foundation joined hand with SDF and UPLA and adopted a village in Malwabar Mushahar Bastee and is supporting the mid day meal programme for the school children. Though, the school if still informal and it need an overhauling of the society particularly in the village to bring the habit of study among the students as well as their parents. It also shows that mere talk of rights will not work. Rights have to be preceded with charity so that rural poor is not fed with an artificial dose of ideologies to sidetrack his issues.

MCK Food for Hungary Foundation is developing a ‘Zero Hunger Act’ proposal on behalf of the civil society. UPLA-SDF team has been supporting them in this initiative. Two of their representatives, Ms Baby Rani and Gufran, made two separate presentations related to this. A wide discussion was held on the issue. Both the participants from MCKS Food for Hungary Foundation informed the members and participants of UPLA that further consultation need on this important issue. It was decided that national regional consultation would be organized to understand the entire issue and find out new ideas before submitting it to the government, as it would be difficult for participants to give input to an issue that they have not thought so far.

Environmental Challenges & the livelihood of marginalised

As mentioned a number of time that the local distilleries as well as sugar mills have played havoc with the livelihood of both the farmers and fishermen. Mr Ramashraya Nishad, General Secretary of Uttar-Pradesh Machchua Mallah Sangh, said that his community if worst affected from the river pollution. The chemical affluent being flown into various rivers of Poorvanchal (eastern UP) has virtually decimated river, lake and Taals and therefore jeopardizing livelihood of thousands of fishermen. Nishad has launched a war against the polluting companies under UPLA and his organization in the region. There was a time, when the fishermen would get a handsome catch over night but now not only they do not get anything, but also face severe health problems. The water they drink is completely polluted.
Fishermen are migrating to big cities in search of job. Being untrained labour they work as non-skilled labour at the very low rate. The families of fishermen are facing severe hardship. Pollution Control Board has done very little for the cause of the fishermen as Ramashray has time and again written to many in the Ministry, but of no avail.

Rajendra Sahni, from Tal Ratoy Machchua Mallah Samiti, Maryadpur, Mau narrated his experiences. Several years back, with the support of SDF under International Land Coalition’s CEF programme, the fishermen of the area worked hard and developed a Taal, which had virtually become defunct. It was one of the biggest initiatives of our time in independent India as hundreds of fishermen worked on redeveloping the lake. The farmers also joined hand and the result was that over 500 acres of land which was inundated in water for years, was recovered. Today, many of those who had no access to their land for the past fifty years, are tilling the land. This was a great mobilization. Not only the farmers got benefited from it but also the fishermen. But since, it is not just issue of development. The powerful forces in the village, which create differences between different communities, were active again. While farmers and fishermen joined hand, the feudal forces used all tricks to destabilize this unity. Politics is the backbone of the village. Politicization is good but over politicization for narrow personal gains is dangerous aspect of the Indian village system, which is divided on caste line, and every caste is a village and nation.

Today, the Uttar-Pradesh government is trying to divide the community and eyeing on this lake to develop it for ‘tourism’ purposes. SDF had predicted this thing long back that if the fishermen and farmers do not unite, the government wills sale the wonderful water of Ghaghra. Rajinder Sahni is a worried man but he is determined. All the organization with active support of SDF and UPLA plan to launch a Cycle March in the area to mobilize people against this so-called water tourism. The campaign for environmental sustainability has already been raised in the area.

Mr Suresh Yadav, leader of the Bharatiya Kisan Union and a solid supporter of UPLA and SDF in the Mau region lambasted on the policies of the government which were anti farmer. Yadav said that the sugar mills have destroyed the farmers in the region. They do not pay the farmers due rates. Farmers have lost their crops to sugarcane, as sugarcane growers cannot really shift to another crop easily. The farmer is over burdened particularly when he feel that the government would provide him money from the sugar mills. While to send the cane to the mills the farmers have to procure everything in cash from the market but the sugar mills never pay him back the cash. Their own money is given to them years after and for that too, the farmers have wage a fierce battle. The sugar mills are enjoying the fruits of the work of the farmers. On the one side, they get huge credit from the farmers and on the other side; their rich chemical affluent is destroying our environment, our land and water. It is the biggest threat.

Mr Yadav also talked about the failed land reform in Uttar-Pradesh. The so-called Gandhian methods failed the people. Vinoba’s Bhoodan was a clever ploy to stop people from capturing land. Where is Bhoodan lad now? Those who ‘donated’ their land have ‘got’ it back through various acts of omissions and commissions. The family of many donors approached the court and got the stay. So, Bhudan was one of the biggest lies of our time.

It was generally suggested that Poorvanchal provide an important entry point for the civil society to intervene on the issue of livelihood and sustainable development. It is a rare opportunity, that the issue of environmental degradation has been directly challenged by the victimized communities and they understand its implications. In fact, Mr. Suresh Yadav, Ramashray Sahni and Rajinder Sahni are planning a anti-environmental campaign with protest marches, sittings at the block headquarters in their respective districts of Mau and Deoria in the coming days. This massive mobilization of fishermen and farmers will ultimately pave way for their coming together and joining hand on various related issues and is a very positive sign. Both SDF and UPLA have pledged their support for the farmers and fishermen’s struggle for sustainable environment and clean water.

Challenges before the Dalit Bahujan Women

This was one of the most fascinating sessions chaired by Ms Surepally Sujatha and the voices of women that came to be heard during this period grabbed the attention of every one. This also showed the great organizational and ideological clarity among women. That they are ready to take on any fundamentalist onslaught. Those sharing the dais with Sujatha were women from the very field, the scavenger women, who had never had the opportunity to speak on a microphone. There were others who are developing as new leaders of the UPLA movement. There was Suman Singh from Kanpur, Deep Mala, from Ghazipur, Urmila from Chitrakoot. Apart from this, many others spoke like Munni Begum, from Pratapgarh, Prem Lata Maurya from Mau.

Beginning her inaugural statement, Sujatha Surepally who has been actively involved in the Dalit Women’s movement in Andhra Pradesh and fought for the rights of tribal women too, said that women’s struggle against patriarchy is a must before we start any other process. She said that women had inherent power in her to face the challenges and her work is not recognized. Women should not just succumb to pulls and pressures but also question and challenge. She has a right to enjoy her life in her own way.

Two scavenger women from Mohammadabad, Ghazipur spoke of their anguish and wished to leave the work they have been forced into. ‘ WE are not interested in doing this dirty work but we do not have any alternative. We have no economic resources to stand on our feet, no land, and no other social security in a village, which is totally dominated by the caste Hindus.

Deep Mala, who is a student of 11th standard and has been associated with the youth wing of SDF, spoke highly of the community initiative taken by SDF in Mohammdabad. ‘ I would not have been here and speak in front of you had SDF not supported me for the past 5 years. I owe it to the organization for taking care of my education and giving me opportunity to excel and speak in front of people like you. I know how difficult it is for the person hailing from a community whose tradition has been scavenging but then she wonder why we do not take a strong stand against it. In her own case, her father, who was jobless, rejected his parents demand to allow his wife to do the ‘cleaning job’. He was so determined that he left his parents house after the marriage and shifted to his mother in laws place and told them that his wife would not in any way be involved in scavenging work. Today, Lal Bahadur’s daughter Deep Mala is growing in front of all of us and giving a new direction and sense of achievement to our work among the community. Deepmala the younger face of the community want more emphasis in education and economic development. She felt that cultural changes are also important for us so that this baggage of the past is eliminated.

Suman Singh spoke about the problems of the women farmers and how they have to face problems. She said it is the women who are working on the field and do not get legitimate acknowledgement for the same. Women are not given priority in the NREGA, Indira Awas Yojana and all other scheme, which are totally dominated by men. It is important that we focus on the work of women and organize them.

Prem Lata Maurya was equally vociferous on the issue of male chauvinism with in the organsiations. Women find it difficult as there is virtually no encouragement and solidarity by the male colleagues. It is important that women be encouraged and given task and support by the male friends.

The session’s most thought provoking statement came from Urmila, from Chitrakoot. Narrating her own struggle and growing patriarchical values even among the ‘civil society’, she hit them hard. The loud voice with emotion actually rattled the audiences and all those who witness her speak realize that women’s day has finally arrived in Uttar-Pradesh. Gone are the days when you would find submissive women working in civil society and adhering the patriarchical values. Now, the things are changing fast and women’s are deciding about their choices and preferences. She was very unhappy with some of the male members attitude’s towards women. ‘Even the social sector men have not got rid of the tainted vision and attitude that they have towards women’, she lambasted. The challenges before the Dalit women are double as she has to fight not only the caste forces outside her community but also the patriarchy with in the community. The identity politics does not allow the issues of women to be highlighted for the fear of changing power equations. Urmila said that a fight for women’s right can not happen unless we take a strong stand the patriacarchical forces, demand women’s right over property and land. Women’s struggle has to be inclusive and not in isolation as many of us might feel. It is not just economic battle but battle of mind, culture and society, she said.

As Urmila finished her remarkable speech, she got a standing ovation from all the women particularly the girl students from Hyderabad. It was thought provoking and equally inspiring presentation.

Issue of Muslims

Uttar-Pradesh has a substantial Muslim populace. Uttar-Pradesh had in past some of the most influential Muslim leaders of the country. It has some of the oldest Muslim lineages, sufi shrines, Mosques, Imambaras which reflect the rich cultural heritage that Islam has brought to India. During the freedom struggle the Muslim fought with Hindus in liberating India and the combined cultural heritage and mutual understanding of the traditions of each other had been the hallmark of Muslim rule in India.

After the independence, Uttar-Pradesh was dogged in a number of communal disturbances. A large number of Muslim dominated towns like Meerut, Moradabad, Aligarh, Kanpur, Lucknow were the target of the communal agenda.

Uttar-Pradesh became hotbed for communal and caste politics and at the end of the day Muslims became further isolated in the entire scheme of things. Their marginalisastion was systematic and nobody was interested in saying that they too had a problem. Once you raise the issue of backwardness of Muslims, it is easier for the communal and sectarian forces to term you as ‘appeasing’ the Muslims. The condition of the poor and women remain a matter of grave concern among the Muslim community. The drop out rate is high and the civil society organizations have rarely reached them. Unfortunately, there have been little efforts to develop civil society organizations in the community. Most of the civil society work is the religious-charitable and therefore on contenscious issues like education, health and empowerment, not much have been achieved. We do not find women’s Self Help Groups among Muslims. A very limited number of people or activists understand the predicament of Muslims. Without understanding the socio-cultural environment of the community, we try to become judgmental on each issue they face. The activists do not go there with a feeling of working with them but more with a loud mouth to preach them. It is here that a number of young Muslim minds joined hand and decided to start a network named as ‘Rehnuma’, which means leader.

Starting with her strong viewpoint, Mohammad Nasim Ansari, from Tarun Chetna Sansthan, Pratapgarh said that time has come to focus on the poverty and educational issues of the Muslim community. The community is legging behind and the developmental programmes are not reaching the community. No attempt is being made to involve the community in the social sector and it is a matter of grave concern, said Ansari. He cited Sachar Commission’s report to point out the growing isolation of Muslims. Time has come when the community and Community Based Organisations should take charge of it and do something. Nasim bhai said the Mirco finance is a must to provide support to Muslim organizations in the rural sector.

Naqvi Bhai of the Sadbhavana mission was more categorical about the community’s issue. Today, being Muslim is a crime. Your identity is the baggage you have to carry all the time. You do not get houses on rent, nor even at the hotels once the owner comes to know that you are a Muslim. He said that the community must focus on women’s development, health and education. Land Right campaign for Muslim women is essential if we want to mainstream our work, he said. He blamed the Muslim political leadership for betraying the aspirations of the community. He also said that nothing specific has been done as a civil society among the Muslims. He wanted that even SHGs among the Muslim women are very rare and his organization is now trying to venture into the micro finance. Unfortunately, things move very slowly for the Muslims and support does not come from the donor agencies. In many areas, the condition of Muslims remain a matter of concern and they are legging far behind from other marginalized communities like the Dalits and OBCs.

Munni Begum wanted that the first and foremost priority should be to provide education to the Muslims. She further emphasized that girls education was a must for the Muslims. ‘ How can we gain from reservation, if there are not enough people’, she opined. She also spoke against those men who keep their women inside their houses. Today, she said, if I am here, it is because of our own grit and determination.

Ms Azma Aziz mentioned that need of the hour is to look inward also. She said that as a Muslims, we face many problems which are related to terrorism and extremism but not all Muslims are like that. The danger of stereotyping has made the community more conservative. ‘ We need to come out at our own. Our parents must support us. She thanked her father for her bringing that despite from a Nawab family, she was still not wearing a Burqa.

Ms Sehroj Fatima, from Chitrakoot opined that Muslim women have to come out from the purdah system. We can not allow our women to sit at home and remain uneducated. Education was the key. The organizations must support Muslim women in their endeavour to progress.

Mr Aftab Alam, Behraich, talked about Muslims problems in general and wanted all the organizations to join hand. He also spoke about the Islamic banking.

Is It Emancipation or elimination of scavengers in Laar town ( Deoria)

2007-10-25T02:22:00.000-07:00

Nagar Palikas in Uttar-Pradesh continue to exploit the scavengers without proper alternative and rehabilitation

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat

In March 2007, I visited Laar town and met many persons from the scavenger community. Many of the sweepers who came and narrated their plight had not got their salaries since the appointment in the Nagar Palika. Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav, the then chief minister was on a spree to announce various schemes and one of them was ‘jobs’ ‘reserved’ of sweepers for the Valmikis or scavenger community. In the eastern Uttar-Pradesh, they do not use the term Balmikis/Valmiks for the sweeper. Instead there are people from the communities of Rawats, Bansfors, Helas, Mehtars who are engaged in scavenging work. Many of the women narrated their plight and how they wish to get out of the scavenging hell.

A report was submitted to National Human Rights Commission and after which the commission, it seems, issued notices to the state government. We realized that after it the municipal authorities approached the Sweepers and those who were engaged in scavenging to leave their work otherwise face severe consequences in the form of dismissal or jail. It was like the victims themselves were being victimized for the century old exploitation they faced without any dilution.

Pain of contract workers

That time too, all those working on contract had not got their salaries for seven months. Those who joined the municipality in the hope it would ultimately relieve them from indignity of manual scavenging later felt betrayed, for they not only lost their earlier work but now had no chance to go another work.

To find out what was the latest happening there, I visited Laar last month to find out the condition of the people and their depressing condition. As being reported here that manual scavenging is still going despite the denial by Nagar Palika. In fact, we have not only recorded the entire event in video but also got affidavit from the families and large part of text is being produced here. It is unfortunate that all the government’s measures to eliminate scavenging are half hearted and lack sincerity and conviction. That time too our investigations revealed how the Swachchakar Vimukti programme has failed and gone in the hand of middlemen. The officers have got a new tool to exploit people.

It is unfortunate that the Safai Karmcharis had to resort to strike for their legitimate right just a few days ago, which ended after administration’s highhandedness and duplicity. The administration played its dubious role. One month salary was paid last month but ultimately till date it has now been informed that over 8 months salary is still due and the Nagar Palika has done very little to repair the damage. Instead, the Safai Karmcharis were threatened and we are informed Rs 500/- was given to each of the karmcharis to keep away from striking further. A small penny therefore divided the community, which has lost all hope.

What will happen to a community, which does not get its legitimate amount even when that is much below the ‘normal limit’ of decency? Why are the safai karmcharis at the receiving end at each nagar palikas. When the work on contract was publicized by Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav, in many municipalities we received complaint or even appreciation that even the backward and upper castes were applying for sweeper’s job. It has now been revealed that all these OBCs or Upper castes, working in municipalities in the name of sweeper do not really mix up with the sweeper community and some of them are benami sweepers. When the sweeper community does not get paid up salary for over 7 months, it reverse back to scavenging, a profession that government and nagar-palikas claims to have vanished. In Laar and other towns and villages of India, it is still prevalent and we have not only recorded evidence but also people on affidavit claiming they are engaged in the work.

Back to scavenging

In the Laar town the Mehtar community is still carrying the nightsoil. Around 10 women are still involved in the work. The national Scavenger Liberation Scheme has failed because of malfunctioning and corruption in the scheme, which never reach the poor. These 10 women are doing the manual scavenging work in nearly 110 houses.

As you may be aware of the fact that Social Development Foundation had earlier also given a report regarding Laar but so far we do not know what action has been taken. We have been given the impression by the scavenger community that after the report was send by NHRC, the Nagar Palika official went to the locality and threatened those who were allegedly involved in the scavenging work.

Rehabilitation of scavenger should be the utmost priority of the government but elimination of scavenging cannot be done by half hearted publicity measures, which the authorities are involved in. It will require lot of commitment and sincerity on part of bureaucracy and the officers. Unfortunately, that seems to be lacking in most of the towns in Uttar-Pradesh. If removal of scavenging is forcefully prohibited without providing an amicable and dignified solution, then we are afraid the situation would go out of control.

The municipality officials not only threatened the husbands of the women involved in scavenging but also did not give them any other opportunity of survival with dignity. No action is normally taken against the municipalities who have failed with the compliance. Women are not being given any job opportunity by the Nagar Palikas resulting in their returning to old profession. Further, none of those who are working with the municipality have got any salary for the past seven months. We are still amused as why the authorities find it difficult to pay to those who keep their cities clean. It is said that the government is providing an alternative to scavenging in the form of providing employment to those who are involved in scavenging. Yet, as our report suggest, women have got no employment as well as those who got appointment on contract basis have not got any salary for the past seven month. The result is that their wives have started returning to their traditional occupation. The condition of the scavenger community is a matter of grave concern but our governments and civil society organizations have failed to respond to the issue. They are virtually suffering in indignity and humiliation. On the one hand the municipal officials threaten them with dire consequences, on the other side, there is no way they will get a job. It is a usual phenomena in Uttar-Pradesh that the Safai-Karmcharis never get their salary on time. Normally it takes six months to get their salaries. Government expects them to be rehabilitated. Their children do not get opportunity to sit with upper caste students. The women folks later resort to manual scavenging because it help them get not only a peanut for their survival but mainly they are able to get loans for local people for running their families.

According to report appeared in local newspaper Dainik Jagaran that 46 people were charged under this. For the financial year 2006-2007 about Rs 58 lakh came to the municipality but only Rs 9 lakh were used. No one knows about other Rs 49 lakh. More than 110 houses have still dry latrines. In January, it was reported that FIR was lodged against 17 persons. In March 2006, DUDA has lodged FIR against 29 persons (Dainik Jagaran, Gorakhpur, September 8th, 2007).

Work without payment

In his affidavit Krishna s/o Vishwnath said that he was given appointment on contract by the Laar Nagarpalika. But more than 7 months have passed and yet they have got no salary. Whenever she tried to contact the chairman of the Nagar Panchayat, he has been thrown away and is being threatened of being dismissal from the job. It is very difficult to run the family on credit. In the absence of no salary for the past seven months, his family and children are suffering in indignity, hunger and depression.

Sadabriksha has three children who do not go to school. For seven months of work, he was unable to get any salary. They go early morning at six and return at 10. Again for the day shift they go at 2.00 pm and return at 6 pm.

Gita, wife of Dilip has on record mentioned that she is still doing the manual scavenging work in more than 10 houses of Laar town. Mr Bakhsi in the Nagar Panchayat is forcing us to leave this work and got her signed at a blank paper. She was promised work under contract in Nagar Palika but never got it. However, her husband is a sweeper on contract in the Nagar-Palika and have got no salary for the past seven months. How do the government expect them to get rid of this vicious circle when they are not interested. Now, Gita claims that the municipality is threatening her husband with dire consequences if she does not leave her work.

Basanti wife of Krishna charged the municipality of threatening her to leave the manual scavenging work. ‘ I was promised work on contract but till date, I have got nothing. My husband was given work on contract and now it is over 7 month that we are without any money. I cannot open a shop and start selling things. One we do not have the money and second no body would buy any product from us. When people keep away distances from us how are they going to accept us other than sweeping and cleaning. But we are ready to any other work if alternative is given. Though I have left the work but what is the option. How do my children go to school in the absence of any income, she said.

Kanhaiya is a sweeper on contract at the Nagar Palika but because of non-payment of salaries his condition is worsening. He is a student of 12th standard but unfortunately he got no work. He is married and unable to run his family. Now, even the shopkeepers do not give us things on credit.

Subhawati wife of Ram Pyare is engaged in the manual scavenging work in nearly 15 houses in Laar. She charge municipal corporations officer Mr Bakhsi for taking her signature in plain paper under the pretext that she would get work. So far she has got nothing. Instead she is being threatened that her husband would be dismissed. ‘My husband is working in the municipality on contract yet nothing has been paid to him in the past seven months. Now the government says that you leave manual scavenging but what is it giving to us for our survival’, she said.

Gaura Devi wife of Bechu works in 10-15 houses. She gets rupees 10 per months for her work, which cannot survive her along with her three children. Unfortunately, because of the economy of indebtedness has an important role in the community’s inability to get out of the profession. Nowhere the municipalities are known to be paying salaries to sweepers on time. Most of the time they get their salaries after six to seven months. Therefore the women folks have to resort to manual scavenging as they remain in the good books of the upper castes and can extract some cash credit in the time of emergency.

Vidyawati w/o Harinder is also engaged in six to seven homes. She has the same argument that when the government does not provide them anything, how can they leave the work. Nagar Palika has promised them work but so far nothing has materialized.

Sushila Devi w/o Ramchander said that she was called by the municipality for a job but later denied me a job because my son got a job in the municipality. It is difficult to run the family and in the absence of salaried paid for over seven months. Now, we are in difficult condition as our children are virtually starving. Who will think of sending them to schools? I will have to resort to manual scavenging again to get food on credit to run my family says, Sushila.

Lilawati Devi has no work. Her husband Om Prakash is also jobless. They have four children and all starving at the moment. Municipal officials asked us to leave this work but provided no alternative. What do we do? After all, we have to work for our livelihood and we do not get anything else.

Kamala Devi wife of Basant was doing work previously but after the municipality promised them work, she left manual scavenging. I was asked to sign on a blank paper and informed that my job has been confirmed. When she went to the municipality she was told to get out. She has big family of 10 people to support and her husband has no work at the moment.

Rajan Kumar is working in the municipality on contract and is depressed at the moment as he can not go to any other job in the absence of non payment of salaries for past seven
Months.

Shambhunath is a permanent sweeper in Nagarpalika, working for over 25 years. At the moment he is getting Rs 7000/- per month. He says on the discrimination against his community that he never got promotion in the municipality as a Safai Nayak. Till date not a single person from the Balmiki community has been appointed as supervisor. The other community people who never get involved in sweeping and cleaning are appointed as supervisor. We all clean dirty lanes, Nalis, sever etc but without any mask, globe or shoes. Whenever we tried to ask question regarding our safety, we have been threatened away.

According to Basant, there are number of Safai Karmacharis who can be termed as ‘benami’. Many people from upper caste Muslims and backward communities have been appointed in the sweepers job on contract but they never come along with us to clean and sweep the street. They normally do office work and later many of them got promoted as supervisors.

Conclusion: The aim of this write up is to bring to the notice the persistently denigrating conditions of the swachchakar community in various parts of Uttar-Pradesh. We will continue to bring out reports on prevailing situation and where has our governance failed. We would warn the authorities not to go on exploiting our report and torturing the people who are in the profession. Aim is that the authorities should introspect and provide decent employment to people from this community. There should be income generation programme for the community and special school targeted to help the community’s new young children. Most importantly municipalities must be penalized for not being able to rehabilitate the community and holding up their salaries for so many months. Special focus should be given to women, as it is they are one hundred percent involved in scavenging. Swachchakar Vimukti Yojana needs to be channalised through Non Governmental Organisations and not through the government officials. All the scavenger women should be provided alternative and decent employment. The Swachchakar community needs special treatment. May be government can fix a quota for the educated youth of Swachchakar community in the jobs other than sweeping and scavenging. That would be the first step from the government side to delink the community from its traditional occupation, a burden it still is carrying on its vast soldiers. It is time we wake up and bring dignity to our work and fellow workers and stop this greatest sin of our time.

The Swachchakar community needs to be liberated from this living hell at the moment. Their locality has no water supply. Dirt everywhere and in the absence any proper sewage system, they throw the human excreta in the stale water. I was amazed to find the same women after doing their work washed their hand in the same water they threw the garbage. It needs to be seen how this community is surviving in filth. It reflect of our betrayal to the community that even fifty years after independence we have not been able to modernize our life style and most importantly our thoughts remain completely out of date and racist in nature. That a community is made to clean your dirt and this thing is still happening in India is a shame which we all have ourselves to blame, most importantly the political class for whom they become a ‘vote bank’. It is time we get out of this mindset, involve ourselves in the national mission of liberation of manual scavengers and the first thing could be penalizing the officials and Nagar Palikas if they do not rehabilitate the community and exploit them.

P.S: Copies of affidavits of some of the swachchakars from Laar town are being send to National Human Rights Commission, National Scheduled Caste Commission as well as Chief Minister of Uttar-Pradesh, along with our previous reports.

Following are the persons in Laar town municipality who have not got any salary for the past Eight months as on October 25th, 2007

Ramchandra s/p Swaminath
Ramesh s/o Mahesh
Krishna s/o Vishwanath
Rampyare s/o swaminath
Jitendra s/o Kailash
Rajan s/o Ramchandra
Raju s/o Harendra
Parvati s/o Lal Saheb
Mamta w/o Shankar
Ramesh s/o Baijnath
Bimla w/o Late Lakhan
Gita w/o Dilip
Sriniwas s/o Chanmuni
Dilip s/o Bhola
Rajkumar s/o Bhola
Manoj s/o Bhola
Anil s/o Suresh
Kanhaiya s/o Suresh
Sharma s/o Nebulal
Sadavriksha s/p Nebulal
Rakesh
Nirmala w/o Ashok
Suresh s/o Gambhir
Ashok

Women working as scavengers and need rehabilitation are following

Shubhawati w/o Rampyare
Shakuntala w/o Shyambabu
Gauri w/o Bechu
Vidya w/o Harendra Rawat
Lilawati w/o Om Prakash
Basanti w/o Krishna
Manju w/o Mahesh
Kamladevi w/o Basant
Manju w/o Kailash
Sushila w/o Ramchandra