A downside to the modern convenient lives that hundreds of millions of people around the world lead is simply that we are disconnected from various aspects of life itself. One of those is the remarkably new way of life in human history--we don't think much about the shit that we produce. Literally, the shit. The toilet tank flushes water down and our shit goes somewhere that we don't care about.
But, in the old country, dealing with shit continues to be a logistical and controversial issue, one that is also loaded with casteism.
Five years ago, I blogged about the social justice activist and Magsaysay award recipient, Bezwada Wilson, has been fighting for the eradication of manual scavenging for, well, a very long time. First, a clarification for those who might be unfamiliar with the phrase "manual scavenging." Wikipedia explains it well: It "is a term used mainly in India for "manually cleaning, carrying, disposing of, or otherwise handling, human excreta in an insanitary latrine or in an open drain or sewer or in a septic tank or a pit."
Contemporary India has sewer systems and septic tanks, yes. But, manual scavenging in some form or the other continues to exist. Consider the possibility that a sewer pipeline is clogged somewhere. Or, even a storm water pipe is clogged. Here in America, we have seen trucks with big fat hoses snaking down manholes and workers in protective gear working with the machines. Right?
Not so in India. Such machines are few and far between.
So, when work needs to be done, men literally climb down the manholes. And often without any protective equipment. One can easily imagine the consequences.
Last year, Vice reported on how "the task of cleaning human faeces often falls on Dalits, a community deemed the lowest in the ancient Hindu caste system." The report was graphic, including photographs like the one below:
A SANITATION WORKER SUBMERGED IN AN UNDERGROUND SEWAGE CANAL, CLEARING OUT A BLOCKAGE. A GROUP OF FOUR OR FIVE SANITATION WORKERS HAD COME THERE TO DO THE SAME. “THE WORKERS ARE OFTEN RELATED SINCE THEY ARE RECRUITED FROM THE SAME CASTE, THE ARUNTHATHIYARS,” SAID KUMAR. “SANITATION WORKERS ARE OFTEN FORCED TO BE COMPLETELY SUBMERGED UNDER HUMAN WASTE TO CLEAR BLOCKAGES. NAUSEATING WORK SITUATIONS SUCH AS THESE HAVE FORCED MANY TO TAKE TO ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION. EXCESSIVE ALCOHOLISM HAS BECOME AN AREA OF PARTICULAR CONCERN FOR THE ARUNTHATHIYAR COMMUNITY.”
Contrast that photo with other images of India. Like Bollywood glamour. Or after a successful rocket launch.
Sanitation is reserved for Dalits. So there is no development in that field. We have apps to deliver food home without involving human beings but they can’t discover a technology to clear human waste. Caste is the reason behind this discrimination.
He added: "Every field has extensive research, but in sanitation, no research is ever done. We are over 130 crore [1.3 billion] people, we defecate every day. We have a caste to clean it up. We don’t even think about it."
India spends gazillions on its military and space programs. The old country does not lack expertise to develop the needed technology. Yet the country does not because ... of caste issues.
Right from my teenage years, I have been questioning India's priorities. I did what I could, including refusing to watch the Asian Games for which the government invested precious money--and this was when India was literally a nation of hundreds of thousands of beggars. As I got older, I understood that I did not have the balls to be an activist. The best I could then do was to at least intellectually begin to understand the issues and engage with a few people about it.
In 2013, when I blogged about this tragic misallocation of resources, a commenter disagreed with me, and I responded in plenty. Read it and weep, as we say here in America.
It is now 2022. The caste-loaded biosolid cleaning continues in the old country, and deaths are frequent. Bezwada Wilson's activist organization, Safai Karmachari Andolan, has a nationwide campaign "Stop Killing Us" and he tweets about the events around the country, like this latest one:
Saving lives in sewers and septic tanks is not a cat and mouse game played by police these days, it needs political commitment | #Action2022 campaign back in #Kerala at #Kozhikode today | #StopKillingUs #JaiBhim pic.twitter.com/VlsPwErJHK
— Bezwada Wilson (@BezwadaWilson) July 5, 2022
So, what can you and I do? At the very least, we watch, read, and learn. We need to pay attention to the injustices all around us. As MLK noted, “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
(If thin-skinned desis take offense to this post, well, yes, in the US too there is tremendous misallocation of resources. I critique them too and have blogged in plenty. Like this post.)
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