- Subhash Gatade
Rarely does Jantar-Mantar, the
place in the heart of Delhi, gets ‘enlivened’ with people who share very
similar type of tragedy - one should say man made tragedy. The culmination of
125 day Bhim Yatra - led by Safai Karmchari Aandolan - which had started
from Dibrugarh in the North East on 10 th December and had traversed around 500
districts and 30 states, proved to be one such occasion. (13 th April 2016)
The big public meeting organised at
Jantar Mantar, attended by hundreds of safai karmcharis from different parts of
the country and many individuals, activists who are sympathetic to their cause,
was just another way to celebrate Dr Ambedkar’s 125 th birth anniversary, a day
earlier. Special focus of the Yatra was on deaths in sewers and septic tanks
and the key slogan was ‘Stop Killing us in Dry Latrines, Sewers and Septic
tanks’. In fact, most of the people who were sitting on the podium belonged to
such families only, who had lost their near-dear ones in cleaning sewer or
septic tanks
Sunayana ( age 9 years) who lives
with her grandparents these days in Lucknow, had lost her father in similar
‘accident’ and her mother also died due to shock within few days of her
father’s death. There was Rahul ( aged 13 years) from Tamil Nadu who had lost
his father merely a week back and was inconsolable on stage also. Pinki ( aged
35 year) from Varanasi, a mother of two kids was one of the most articulate
among those who had gathered there. She had lost her husband three years back
and was emphatic that ‘we are not here for compensation.’ We are part of this
caravan now and ‘want that nobody should face similar tragedies hereafter.’
Kartar ( Delhi) still could recount how his son was called by his contractor
when a fellow worker had already died cleaning the sewer. According to him the
contractor rather forced him to descend into the sewer and take out fellow
workers body and in the process his son also inhaled poisonous gases and died
on the spot.
Everybody had a heartrending story
to tell. Many like Santosh just could not even utter a word as it was no
narrating an experience but ‘reliving’ the whole episode and its aftermath.
A query rather resonated all these
presentations: How long their sons/husbands will have to die cleaning other
people’s waste and excreta in a country which boasts of sending satellites into
space. How does one explain allotment of thousands of crores of Rs for drainage
and sewerage work, so much money being spent on laying/relaying pipes and
drains that are designed to kill? Is it because ours is a society where Varna
mind-set still dominates, and that’s why a human friendly system of garbage and
sewage management has still not been conceived as planners rely on ‘expendable
dalit labour’.
Charter of Demands -
Bhim Yatra : Stop KILLING us
To tender an apology to the safai karamchari
community for the historical injustice and centuries of humiliation heaped on
us by engaging us as manual scavengers,
To eliminate manual scavenging immediately, without
any further delay or postponement. We
will not accept any more deadlines that were extended in the past, from time to
time
Stop the deaths in sewer lines and septic tanks at
all costs. Modernize and mechanize the sanitation system and do whatever it
takes to stop killing people in sewer work
Pay Rs. 10 lakhs as mandated by the SC order, to
dependants of those who have died in sewer lines since 1993 without any hassles
or hesitation
Enhance the one time cash payment given as immediate
relief to liberated manual scavengers from Rs. 40,000 to Rs. Three lakhs.
Interestingly it was only last
month that a member of Parliament from Upper House during zero hour session
said that there ‘ there are more than 22,000 deaths every year while cleaning
sewers in different parts of the country ‘as per the records of National Commission
of Safai Karmacharis’(High death rate among scavengers while on duty: BJP MP) One does not know how the NCSK has got these
figures but it is interesting to note that the figures quoted by the honourable
member of the ruling party exactly matched the details of a story in a magazine
which had appeared nine years back. The said story titled “Life Inside a Black
Hole,” discussed how “Beneath the glitter of India are dark alleys in which are
trapped poisonous gases and millions of Dalits who do our dirty job in return
for disease and untouchability.” According to the author Siriyan Anand,
At least 22,327 Dalits of a sub-community die doing
sanitation work every year. Safai Kamgar Vikas Sangh, a body representing
sanitation workers of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), sought data
under the Right to Information Act in 2006, and found that 288 workers had died
in 2004–05, 316 in 2003–04, and 320 in 2002– 03, in just 14 of the 24 wards of
the BMC. About 25 deaths every month. These fi gures do not include civic
hospital workers, gutter cleaners or sanitation workers on contract. Compare
this with the 5,100 soldiers—army, police, paramilitaries—who have died between
1990 and 2007 combating militancy in Jammu and Kashmir ( Anand, Siriyavan
(2007) : "Life Inside a Black Hole," Tehelka, Vol 4, No 44,
http://archive.tehelka.com/story_main36.asp?filename=Neo81207LIFE_INSIDE.asp,accessed
on 18 Feb 2015).
Not that there have not been
legislative actions or policy interventions to stop these killings but the
impact has been symbolic. It was the year 2014 when Supreme Court passed a
historic judgement and also asked the all the State Governments and the Union
Territories to fully implement the 2013 act, prevent deaths in sewer holes and grant compensation of Rs 10 lakh to
families of all persons who have died in manholes. A study by Safai Karmchari
Aandolan reveals that only in 3 % cases families of victims received the
promised compensation.
So many avoidable deaths cleaning
sewers/septic tanks here can create an impression that deaths in sewers is a
common phenomenon everywhere? Definitely not. An occupational health physician
Ashish Mittal’s study on Sewer Workers ( Hole to Hell, 2005) had in fact
compared situation here with situation in most developed nations? It explained
‘[m]anhole workers there are protected in bunny
suits to avoid contact with contaminated water and sport a respiratory
apparatus; the sewers are well-lit, mechanically aerated with huge fans and
therefore are not so oxygen deficient. In Hong Kong, a sewer worker, after
adequate training, needs at least 15 licences and permits to enter a manhole.’
Addressing the gathering at Jantar
Mantar, Bejwada Wilson, who is a leading activist of the ‘Safai Karmachari
Aandolan’ narrated an experience from Ahmedabad leg of this tour. During
meeting in one of the bastis of safai karamcharis he met a young boy who told
him that he wants to become a doctor. When the boy was prodded further, it was
discovered that his father had died because of poisonous gases inside the
sewer, and could have been saved had he received medical attention in time. The
boy was emphatic ‘ If I become a doctor, then I can at least ensure that such
people can receive immediate medical treatment’.
It is very positive sign that there
are voices of fresh rumblings within the historically despised and stigmatised
'scavenging' communities and a large section of the younger ones of the
community are getting ready to come out of broom and human waste.
To conclude, the Bhim Yatra with
the key slogan of ‘Stop Killing Us in Dry Latrines, Sewers and Septic
Tanks’ has come at a very inopportune
time as far as the trumpetting which is being witnessed around Swacch Bharat Abhiyan.
One learns that the government
wants to send across a very positive image of its flagship programme. Apart
from directing different governments to retake the pledge which was
administered to them at the launch of the campaign and imposing a Swacch Bharat cess of
0.5 % on all services liable for service tax, a proposal is also under
consideration wherein the private companies and PSUs would be asked to spend
around 30 % of CSR funds on this initiative.
But as it is evident all the
glitter and glow would not be able to hide the penetrating questions being
raised or the devastating criticism it is being subjected to. All the claims of
Swacch Bharat Abhiyan notwithstanding , it will have to answer the simple query
raised by Bhim Yatra that manual scavengers are still being 'killed' in dry
latrines, sewers and septic tanks and for them how fictitious all these
promises of 'Clean India' look.
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