Gutter History

Hardnews delves into the entrenched caste system and political elite that have systematically condemned thousands of Dalits into the subhuman 'profession' of manual scavenging

Khalid Akhter Delhi

Despite the laws banning manual scavenging, the illegal task of cleaning human excrement from public places and dry latrines often using nothing but a broom and tin plates still prevails in India. We need to ask ourselves that why even in 2008, six decades after Independence, almost 3.5 lakh human beings survive on this inhuman 'profession' of cleaning human excreta in community and individual toilets across the country.
In India, the history of manual scavenging dates back to ancient times. This inhuman 'profession' rests on the foundation of the caste system and is forced upon the lowest among the Dalits by the upper castes. It is the worst expression of the entrenched beliefs perpetuated by the caste system - untouchability, purity-pollution, dharma and karma. We have references of manual scavenging in Narada Samhita and Vajasaneyi Samhita. One of the 15 duties enumerated in Narada Samhita was the disposal of human excreta. Chandalas in Vajasaneyi Samhita are referred to as slaves engaged in the disposal of human excreta.
Like other Dalits in traditional denigrated occupations, almost universally and eternally landless through the centuries of Manuwadi varna vyavastha, Dalits engaged in manual scavenging are considered untouchable by the mainstream, hierarchical society. They are thus physically and socially isolated from the social fabric. They are denied all avenues of development, social and economic opportunities and basic human rights. Ironically, the slightly more powerful within the Dalit communities consider safai karmcharis, sanitation workers and manual scavengers as untouchables and treat them as brutally as the upper castes generally treat Dalits.
The Harappan civilisation in 2,500 BC had water-borne toilets as is evident from excavations at Lothal in Gujarat. These toilets were linked by drains covered with burnt clay bricks. To facilitate operations and maintenance, this drainage system had manholes and chambers. However, with the decline of the Harappan civilisation, the science of sanitary engineering suffered a setback.
Nothing changed for manual scavengers in medieval times. Some argue that manual scavenging began in India with the Mughals (NR Malkani, Report of the Committee on Customary Rights to Scavenging, New Delhi: Ministry of Home Affairs, 1965, qouted in Shyamlal, The Bhangi: A Sweeper Caste). It is argued that prisoners of war were forced into manual scavenging and their descendents were called bhangis (also used as derogatory term against Dalits by the upper castes - like chura and chamaar).
Such a theory fits well into the Brahminical Hindutva paradigm that all social evils emanate from Muslim rule. Narratives like this are cooked to downplay the pervasive and perverse role of the caste system on which rests the foundation of many entrenched evils like manual scavenging.
Research on the medieval sewage system reveals that the bathing rooms of the Mughal forts had small outlets used as toilets. The waste was carried by gravity to the ramparts with water. This mechanism can be found in the Red Fort in Delhi, in the palaces of Rajasthan, in Hampi, Karnataka and in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala.
The practice of manual scavenging continued even under the Britishers who came to the 'Orient' on the pretext of a 'civilising mission'. The British legitimised and sytematised this degrading work while setting up army cantonments and municipalities. Official posts of manual scavengers were created. Every British institution - the army, railways, courts, industries and major towns were equipped with dry toilets instead of waterborne toilets/sewerage. Changes in the political economy after the arrival of the Britishers also forced many of the poorest and landless lower castes into this daily job. The upheavals caused by the commercialisation of land and destruction of artisan trades pushed people in the lower rungs out of agriculture and trade-related activities to sweeping and scavenging.
After the Partition, and despite Mahatma Gandhi's campaign against untouchability and experiments with clean and new designs of toilets, neither the Indian nor Pakistani political leadership and elite made any attempt to stop this dehumanising work or create alternative employment. Pakistan refused to allow the untouchables involved in safai work to move to India. While the Indian government tried to secure safe passage to India for the Hindus in Pakistan, there was no concern about the 'Dalit Hindus' left behind in Pakistan - not that a better life awaited them in independent India. Dr BR Ambedkar raised this issue in a letter to Jawaharlal Nehru in December 1947. (B R Ambedkar , Dr. Balasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches, vol. 17). However, nothing tangible in terms of a social or economic shift in their lives occurred during the Nehruvian era.
Has anything changed for thousands of manual scavengers in the larger, contemporary context of 'economically booming' India? Nothing. The large mass of these Dalits in small towns, villages and cities, except that in certain places they are officially given a piece of tin, a broom and a bucket to carry the faeces. Indeed, those recruited by the upper caste-dominated gram panchayats and condemned by tradition to work as manual scavengers, have to manage even these 'tools' on their own. The changes in large towns and big cities where dry toilets have been replaced by pour-flush toilets are illusory - the filth in drains, nullahs, and sewage pits is still cleaned by the scavengers who have been 'reincarnated' as safai karamchari and cleaners by various governments.
The municipal authorities have not yet 'discovered' any worthwhile technology which can stop this degrading work in subhuman conditions. These 'government employees' are not even given basic equipment, protective uniforms, gas masks or gloves as they often enter bare-bodied into the stinking gutters and drains full of dangerous gases, filth, waste and excreta. Many of them are reported to have died after inhaling these poisonous gases. Some get infectious diseases; some consume cheap alcohol before they enter the sewage pits, because it is impossible to work otherwise.
Others routinely say that they can't eat food or sleep for days after they enter the gutters. Others are afraid to go near their children, touch them, or play with them - because nothing is normal anymore.