SKA gave a national call to stop telling lies and end sewer and septic tank deaths. At the protest, the women safai karmacharis stated that dalit lives and dalit deaths are invisible to the government. They declared that sewer and septic tank deaths are caste atrocities. So they don’t matter to the government with its casteist mindset.

As many as 59 Indian citizens were killed in sewer and septic tanks in 2023 but the government denied and lied to Parliament that only nine persons died. Pained and deeply anguished by these blatant and continuous lies, SKA gave this call.

SKA launched a nationwide #stopkillingus campaign on 11th May 2022 against government apathy on sewer and septic tank deaths. Since that day, safai karmachari women, youth, men and children have been campaigning for #StopKillingUs on the streets across the country every day without a break. August 28 was 475th day of the campaign.

Women who lost their family members in sewer and septic tank cleaning came with evidences of the deaths along with photos of the deceased persons and exposed the government’s lies. They narrated that the government denial and negligence has increased their trauma. The country has forced youth as young as 18 to 25 years to get killed in sewer and septic tanks.

59 citizens were killed in sewer and septic tanks in 2023 but government denied and lied in Parliament

SKA raised slogans, banners and placards at the protest site that pushed the demands; Guarantee Right to Life with dignity (Article 21), budget allocations to remove caste based discrimination in sanitation work, rehabilitation with dignity, zero tolerance for sewer and septic tank deaths etc.

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The fight for Dalit rights has taken a louder voice now more than ever before. We all know of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar as being the pioneer of the Dalit movement in India and there are people who have carried his legacy through. Thus, Dalits have found their place in society through politics and activism which has gone a long way in bringing the Dalit voice to the forefront. Assertion of Dalits for achieving equality has increased over the years.

“Indifferentism is the worst kind of disease that can affect people,” said Babasaheb in one of his writings and this has been imbibed by Dalit leaders and activists who followed him and who are still continuing their work for upliftment of Dalits.

Here’s a look at modern day Dalit leaders and activists who will continue to highlight Dalit issues and reform the community:

Chandrashekhar Azad

Born in Ghadkhauli village, Sahranpur, Uttar Pradesh, Chandrashekhar Azad is known to have come to prominence after he put up a board outside his village “The Great Chamars of Ghadkhauli Welcome you”.

(Image Courtesy: Stars Unfolded)

He is a law graduate and he along with Vinay Ratan Singh co-founded the Bhim Army or the Bhim Army Ekta Mission to fight for the development and upliftment of Dalits and other marginalized sections.

Bhim Army is an unregistered organization and claims to have over 40,000 members across 7 states. It also runs around 300 schools. He was arrested in 2017 for fanning protest by Dalit Community in Saharanpur and was released more than a year later. He was booked under the National Security Act.

He was recently granted bail by a Delhi Court recognising his right to protest as a constitutional right as he was part of anti-CAA protest at Jama Masjid in Delhi. Even when the police were trying to arrest him, he had managed to give them a slip and had emerged in another protest.

Jignesh Mevani

Jignesh Mevani rose from being a grassroots activist to an elected Assembly member in Gujarat. His rise to popularity was when led the Dalit Asmita Yatra after a video of Dalit men being stripped down and being whipped in Gujarat’s Gir Somnath district went viral. He coined the slogan, “Gai ki loom aap rakho; hume humaari zameen do (You may keep the cow’s tail, give us our land)”.

He considers himself primarily to be an agitator who decided to enter politics to be able to raise issues from a non-compromising position. He has a deep interest in writings of Karl Marx and Babasaheb Ambedkar and the same is reflected in his oratory.

His demand has been that every landless Dalit should get 5 acres of land, which according to him is rightfully theirs. He has earlier worked as a reporter and has a degree in law.

Dr. Ruth Manorama

As per Dr. Ruth Manorama, who is a Dalit women’s rights activist, the condition of Dalit women is the worst as they suffer from triple alienation due to their caste, class and their gender. So Dalit women don’t just have to fight upper class oppressors but also men from their own community.

For her work, Manorama has received the Right Livelihood Award in 2006 for “her commitment over decades to achieving equality for Dalit women, building effective and committed women’s organizations and working for their rights at national and international levels.”

(Image Courtesy: The Right Livelihood Award)

She has been actively involved in educating, organizing and mobilizing women, Dalits, urban poor and the unorganized sector from the grass-root to the National levels. She is also the recipient of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Award for doing work among women and Dalits in Karnataka.

Bezwada Wilson

Wilson, himself a Dalit, has vehemently campaigned against the inhuman practice of manual scavenging. He has played a role in saving and helping rehabilitate 3 lakh manual scavengers. He comes from a Dalit family in Kolar who were involved in manual scavenging for generations. He is the national convenor of Safai Karmchari Andolan. He also got a Supreme Court judgment to his credit which directed all States and UTs to provide compensation to families of people who died cleaning sewers. He is a recipient of the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay award.

(Image Courtesy: Youth Ki Awaaz)

He was pivotal in getting the Kolar Gold Mines to demolish dry latrines which had to be cleaned by people from his community, including his father and brother. Speaking about the beginning of his journey of caste consciousness, he said, “For the first time, I understood that we are scavengers not because we are illiterate or poor but because we are born into a caste. I started relating all my personal experiences to this history of my people.”

Kiruba Munusamy

Kiruba is the first Dalit woman lawyer from Tamil Nadu to practice law in the Supreme Court. She has started a training centre for human rights litigation where lawyers, including women from disadvantaged communities, can be trained with professional skills and provided with a co-working space to act independently. She grew up facing caste discrimination first hand; once in the queue for drawing water from the public tank she moved a pail of water and a higher caste girl poured it all out and cleaned it only because Kiruba had touched it.

(Image Courtesy: Hague Talks)

She finds inspiration from Babasaheb Ambedkar’s quote, “Cultivation of mind should be the ultimate aim of human existence.” Through her activism she works for the annihilation of caste and supports Dalit women empowerment, indigenous rights, LGBTQI rights, minorities, advancement of disadvantaged groups, and freedom of expression. Apart from the legal framework, she organizes and conducts awareness campaigns, workshops to bring awareness and educate the downtrodden, sexual minorities (LGBTQI) and Dalit women about their fundamental human rights and legal remedies on violation.

Related:

How to talk about caste and casteism
How NRC further marginalises Transgender people
Rohith’s death: We are all to blame
At the Pyre of Caste Hatred: Dalit suicides and the Media
Rohith Vemula March: The Caste Turn for Student Delhites?

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According to Wilson, 11 sewer deaths were reported in India in 2019 alone. In 2018, the number went up to 105. Not even a word of condolence has ever been expressed by the Prime Minister or the Prime Ministers Office. No necessary steps to eradicate manual scavenging have been taken by the government, even though mechanised sewer cleaning technologies have been in existence for long now. At a protest at Jantar Mantar, women santiation workers burned their baskets which they use to carry human excreta on their heads, in protest against manual scavenging and demanding alternate livelihood. The Prime Minister doesn’t seem to realise that the sanitation workers don’t want his admiration of the work they do, they want freedom from manual scavenging without exception.

In light of the statement made by the PM, which only adds insult to injury, the Indian Cultural Forum takes a look at the injustice that is manual scavenging and brings to you, from the archives, the numerous struggles to eradicate manual scavenging.

Basket Burning by safai karmacharis at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi – a symbolic act of defiance to push the demand for elimination of manual scavenging. Photo Credit:
Safai Karmachari Andolan

12 Crore New Toilets, but Who Will Clean Them?
Bezwada Wilson talks about manual scavenging, the inhumane practice that it is and how it is forced upon the lower castes. With the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan’s new aims of building more toilets across the country, the already burdened scavengers will be made to take on the additional job of cleaning the new toilets. Wilson remarks on the failure of the government to tackle this problem and the lack of technology advancements in this area, and how it continues to normalise the oppression of this particular class of people.

“On how many fronts can I fight?”
“If these machines had been brought in before, my children’s papa would not have left them. Now they are not of any use to me, but they will at least be useful for other women. Their men will not die in the sewers. No one should have to suffer the way I do.” So saying, a visibly distressed Rani Kumari became silent.

We must understand that ‘Caste’ is linked with ‘Scavenging’:

“I have been going into this hell for decades”
Mani is a Dalit, from the Chakkliar caste. He left school because his teachers and fellow students would call him thoti, a derogatory term for the scavenging caste in south India, and ask him to sit separately. “They would abuse me because I used to clean dead bodies and shit. Teachers would ask me to sit outside the classroom,” says Mani.  

Bezwada Wilson on Eradicating Manual Scavenging
Bezwada Wilson talks about the lack of political will when it comes to eradicating untouchability and manual scavenging.

Women break the walls of toilets in protest of Manual Scavenging:

The Long March to Eliminate Manual Scavenging
Why are the Indian government and even the media and civil society quiet about the death of more than a thousand of its citizens (Thomas, 2016)? People are being killed in sewer and septic tanks every day and yet, so far there has been no relevant discussion by policymakers, in state assemblies or the Parliament. By the time you are reading this essay, this number would have increased multifold. What could be the reason for this apathy and indifference? Is this because all who die in sewers and septic tanks are Dalits? Why is it that even amidst the rhetoric of development and progress in 2017, 1.3 million (FirstPost, 2016) Dalits in India, and mostly women, are forced to manually clean human excreta? Why does the country allocate a budget of INR 16,248 crore 1 for the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan while it has only INR 5 crore to spare for rehabilitation of manual scavengers, as per the Union Budget for the fiscal year 2017–18? Why is India unable to invest in finding a technology to clean sewer septic tanks without endangering human life? These are serious questions that Indian democracy must answer.

“Minimum protective gear, maximum risk, no holidays, no pay, and ever-lurking disease and death”
Tens of thousands of Dalits still work as manual scavengers in India – unclogging sewers, emptying septic tanks, and more. They work with no protective gear, no holidays, irregular wages, and the constant threat of disease and death. All this along with deep social stigma – while the government speaks of a Swachh Bharat and of ‘open defecation free’ villages.

Bezwada Wilson: “We cannot address manual scavenging without addressing untouchability, without taking on inequality”:

“You do not want us to occupy your space because we smell?”
The sanitation workers are employed by the university on a contractual basis and receive no benefits from their employers. Narrating a personal experience, the spokesperson said that some time ago when he was hurt, he had incurred an expense of four lakh rupees from the hospital where he was being treated. Forget receiving monetary support from the university, “no one,” he remarked “from the university staff or administration had cared to even pay him a visit during his stay at the hospital. In spite of this, I am still here being the good worker that I am and I will be here tomorrow as well.”

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum

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New Delhi: Eleven Indians died while working in the last seven days, out of which six died in Delhi. One Indian dies every five days while cleaning sewers and septic tanks. The price of manually cleaning human excreta in India is death. What’s more, it’s practically been made legal.
 
The Safai Karamchari Andolan (SKA) led by activist Bezwada Wilson, has announced a protest on Tuesday, 25 September, at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi from 11 am to #StopKilingUs.
 
Speaking to Sabrang India, Mr. Wilson said, “We just have one demand, stop killing us in sewers and septic tanks. That’s it. Just one demand.”
 
“In the last few months, 83 persons have been killed. 221 persons were killed in sewer holes since 2017. Who is responsible? The buck is passed from PM to the contractor. With everyone denying responsibility where does it stop! Manual scavenging is killing our fellow citizens in sewer holes every day. 1790 persons killed inside the sewers and still counting! The silence of the state and authorities is deafening. Blatant violation of the Manual Scavenging Prohibition Act 2013. Zero implementation of Supreme Court Judgement on strict enforcement of the law (Civil Petition 583/2003) This can’t go on as normal. We demand answers and accountability. How long will we allow this killing of our fellow citizens with impunity?” he wrote in the invitation for the protest.
 
#StopKillingUs is a battle cry for ‘manual scavenger’ who have been left defenceless.
 
“The more hazardous forms involving the often fatal task of entering toxic sewerage systems, mainly in urban areas, have not been documented officially. This, despite the fact that the 1993 law outlawing manual scavenging in India was amended in 2013 to include sewer and septic tank cleaning,” reported Indian Express.
 
“We have repeatedly asked states to identify those involved in these jobs but the states deny the existence of manual scavenging as the practice is banned under law. As a result, in many cases, the families of the dead don’t even get the compensation,” said NCSK chairperson Manhar Valjibhai Zala to IE.
 
Rs. 530 crores were spent on Swaccha Bharat Abhiyan advertisements in the last three years but as per National Commission for Safai Karamcharis (NCSK) data, the Rs. 10 lakh compensation that is mandated under law in case of manual scavenging deaths, has been paid in only 70 of the 123 cases.
 
“In his book, Karmayog, Prime Minister Narendra Modi talks of manual scavenging as a “spiritual experience”. I urge him to ask a manual scavenger if s/he feels even remotely spiritual while cleaning other people’s excreta, whether the daily round feels like a pilgrimage. Without exception, they do it because there is no option, no alternative employment for those born into castes identified with scavenging. It’s this kind of ‘spiritual’ whitewash that prevents the government from allocating money for the rehabilitation of manual scavengers. Even the little that is allocated is squandered on government departments, and more committees and surveys. These might provide employment to government surveyors but not to manual scavengers,” wrote Bezwada Wilson in India Today.
 
If the country’s governments had proper drainage systems that need not be needed to be cleaned by humans, then there wouldn’t be so many people who lost their lives. PM can’t also say ‘it is a state affair’. How is Swachh Bharat a central affair then? When you want to construct the toilet, it’s a central affair. When people die cleaning them, it’s a state affair. How will this solve the problem?” he asked in a report by the Huffington Post.
 
Stories like Anil’s became social media sensation and the families have received much-needed help from the fundraiser. Meanwhile, many continue to die as the govt and contractors pass the buck and a solution refuses to be implemented. Who is to blame for every Indian death that occurs once in five days?
 

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Interview with Bezwada Wilson
Interviewed by P.G. Ambedkar

Bezwada Wilson speaks to Newsclick  on the Delhi Government’s plan to completely mechanise sewer cleaning in the capital city. He says it was Safai Karmachari Andolan’s intervention to involve scientists from Hindustan Aeronautical Limited (HAL) to help prevent the deaths of sanitation workers in sewers. It is not the PMOs initiative as they claim it.

Courtesy: Newsclick.in

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Bezwada Wilson: "Nobody takes responsibility for the deaths in sewers," sighed activist Bezwada Wilson on hearing of the deaths of four men while cleaning a tank in Vasant Kunj on Saturday.

Bemoaning the fact that there is much talk about smart cities and bullet trains, Wilson contrasts this with double standards of Indians who never speak of smart sanitation  "If 39 deaths in 100 days don't matter to the country, then this is one of the biggest challenges for our democracy," he declared.

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Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum

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This conversation with Bezwada Wilson and TM Krishna was part of the Indus Conversations series by Tulika Books, 11th December 2016. TM Krishna, a carnatic music vocalist and social commentator, and Bezwada Wilson, National Convenor of the Safai Karamchari Andolan, are recipients of the 2016 Ramon Magsaysay Awards. TM Krishna was honoured for his work toward "social inclusiveness in culture", and his sustained efforts to bring music and arts to the marginalised sections of society, particularly in the underdeveloped rural areas of Tamil Nadu. Bezwada Wilson has spent his life campaigning against manual scavenging. He founded the community based  Safai Karamchari Andolan (SKA) to fight for the eradication of manual scavenging. 

The conversation of the two awardees with writer Nilanjana Roy probes a range of issues from the meaning of liberty and equality, and nationalism and freedom, to the experience of caste based discrimination, and the role of art in changing our perpectives of the world.

Courtesy: Newsclick.in
 

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Crisis of Democracy, Bezwada Wilson of the Safai Karmachari Andolan gives an electrifying 38 minute speech  at JNU’s Freedom Square that came back to life with its renewed series of lectures in protest against the oppression of the campus. Ten students from among the most deprived, first generation learners—Dalits, Adivasis, OBCs and minorities—were suspended while protesting against discriminatory admission practices recently introduced by the administration.

“The State has become Cruel and we have Destroyed a Dalit Mother’s Dreams.  Radhika Vemula who is an icon of resistance to this oppression is today scared of her second son (she lost her son Rohith who was killed by the Hyderabad Central University one year back on January 17, 2016) of joining any Indian University even though he has a first class in Geology (MSC). It is a shame that a Dalit scholar with a first class is today driving an autorickshaw in Guntur because our Universites do not offer a life of dignity or safety to Dalit scholars.

“Forty years back, my mother –who never saw the shadows of the walls of any school as she lived the life of a manual scavenger –saw education, and higher education as a way out of Bondage and slavery. Now 40 years later, a Dalit mother finds the University unsafe for Indian Dalit research scholars. What is happening? What is the government doing? What is the Prime Minister doing?

“Yesterday Radhika Vemula was not allowed to enter the University where her son lost his life. She was picked up by Telangana police, abused in unmentionable words and then released. Why is Radhika a threat to the Hyderabad Central University? Why am I not allowed to enter JNU freely? JNU is an icon of Freedom of Expression and Thought.”

This was the first among three lectures given today.

The JNU’s Third Wave of Public Lectures at Freedom Square Lectures were today re-inaugurated with lectures by Bezwada Wilson, Archana Prasad and Ashwini
Deshpande.

Before the lectures began, JNU’s Freedom Square cames back into Light with a brilliant cultural performance by the Students that depicted the state of the country with a proto-fascist government controlling free thought and movement and unleashing repression.

 

Related articles:

1. Protest Barricading of Freedom Square: JNU Students begin Sign Campaign

2. The Real Classroom: Outdoor Lectures Dissect Nationalism at JNU

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