In a tragic incident, reported by PTI,  seven persons, including four sanitation workers, died due to asphyxiation on Saturday while cleaning sewer of a hotel in Gujarat’s Vadodara district, officials said.

The incident took place at a hotel in Fartikui village in Dabhoi tehsil, about 30 km from Vadodara city.The incident happened at a hotel in Fartikui village in Dabhoi tehsil, about 30 km from Vadodara city. Three employees of the hotel were also among those killed.

“When one sanitation worker failed to come out of the manhole, others went inside. All of them died due to asphyxiation,” district collector Kiran Zaveri told PTI.
 

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Some people attained moksha (nirvana) while experiencing spirituality,

Protest against deaths in sewers, photo courtesy The Hindu

In his casteist book Karmayog, he wrote that manual scavenging is a spiritual experience, hence if some people die during cleaning sewers manually, that would be attaining moksha! In a caste Hindu society this should have been a matter of joy, that even in Kaliyuga, there are still some ‘pious’ soul who could give up all moh-maya and do this punya karma! How true this depiction/ description, one feels like saying: why not make the umpteen godmen-led spiritual movements in India take this route to spiritual moksha? This would perhaps have saved the many rapist-rioter babas from arrest and they could truly do their prayaschit (atonement) in these various, very Indian jails. This is after all the real world of this ‘spiritual experience’ of manual scavenging/sewer cleaning, where ‘Moksha’ means institutional killing!

The recent deaths of sewer workers in Delhi exposed this farce. These deaths are not mere work-place related accidents, but exposed the stinking caste biases of a rotten brahmanical social order! Only in September 2018, at least 11 workers died while cleaning either septic tanks or sewers. The issue of cleaning in general, and the issue of manual scavenging, in particular, has everything to do with the caste question. Not only is the work stigmatized but the workers are stigmatized as well – that is why Ambedkar asserted that caste is not merely the division of labour, it is also a division of labourers.

When these sewer cleaning workers died in Moti Nagar, Delhi, they were not wearing any safety equipment and succumbed to death after inhaling poisonous gases. It is not a secret anymore that private companies/contractors in the cleaning business very rarely provide safety measures/equipment to their workers. Even when they provide such equipment in one out of hundred cases, they are known to charge the workers for it. This has been the pattern in many other kinds of ‘menial’ work. After the workers died there should have been a case of culpable homicide against the contractor/s, but the police simply lodged a case of ‘negligence’ (an easily bailable offence). This is certainly not a case of ‘negligence’ which pertains to some unknown ‘human-error’, but is emphatically casteist, where state structures attribute sub-human status to Dalit lives which don’t deserve the faintest attention! It is matter of utter shame that we are witnessing all this in a country which is planning to introduce bullet trains and is developing space technology to go beyond the earth’s orbit but has developed scarcely any technology to clean beneath the earth! Had it been any upper/dominant caste cleaning the human excreta, there would have been 5th generation ultra nano technology in place for some years by now!

These deaths cannot be seen in vacuum but have to be viewed in the larger context of a complex web of caste atrocities by the ruling party and their ideological head Rashtriya Swamsevak Sangh (RSS). Though caste prejudices and practices are not the preserve of the BJP/ RSS, there is something specific here that needs to be underlined. When BJP came into power in 2014, PM Modi started the Swacch Bharat Abhiyaan (clean India Campaign) with splendour, spending huge amounts of public money. There was (and still is) not any nook and corner where one can’t see the campaign’s billboard or a picture of the PM cleaning an already clean street in his expensive attire! Nevertheless, one would assume that there would be something for the historically marginalised Dalits who form the majority in cleaning work! But Swacch Bharat Abhiyaan turned out to be a farce and just a media gimmick where the government has spent more than 500 crores rupees just on advertising with nothing for the safety of cleaning workers or even to raise their minimum wages! Delhi itself has seen many cleaning workers strikes in last 4 years, due to non-payment of their salaries. This also says a lot about the insensitivity and casteist attitude of local bodies like MCD (Municipal Corporation of Delhi) which is ruled by the right-wing BJP for last 15 years.

PM Modi claimed to come from a humble tea-seller background and from a backward caste. If one takes his word seriously, then the PM must have seen tea corner shops and how difficult it is to keep them clean day and night. One would think that he would be a little more sensitive towards manual scavenging work and the stigma attached with Dalits doing this work for ages! On the contrary, the famous ‘Gujarat Model’ showed that there is no space for Dalits there, when in 2016, 7 Dalit youth were flogged by gau-rakshaks (cow vigilantes). That was just the beginning of their aggressive attempts to defend the Brahminical social order through rampant cow-vigilantism. Even as PM Modi is evoking Dr. Ambedkar selectively, caste atrocity cases are on the rise in a state which is ruled by BJP for the last two decades.

I see this as calculated violence by the present regime at the instance of the RSS to suppress Dalit assertion. The examples are numerous and from various places. Whether it is the crackdown on Bhim Army, an active Dalit group that works for education of children from poor and marginal backgrounds in Uttar Pradesh; Bhima Koregaon in Maharashtra; or arrests made after the 2nd April All India protest, the repression speaks volumes about the kind of violence being perpetrated. The dilution and confusion created around the SC/ST Atrocities Act was also done to comfort their traditional savarna vote bank which has already taken a violent turn in many parts of the country. Through such moves, they are making a public constituency for anti-Dalit sentiments. One cannot forget the institutional murder of Rohith Vemula at Hyderabad Central University which completes the circle of anti-Dalit sentiment of the present regime, which doesn’t want Dalits to have a dignified life either in work or in education.

The BJP and RSS has been trying to appropriate Dalits through the agenda of ‘samajik samrasta’ (social harmony), which is nothing more than diluting radical Dalit politics. RSS has brought in fictional history books to claim that Hindu social structure is not vertical in nature, that instead it is horizontal, where there is a division of work that has nothing to do with one’s birth! The entire Hindu social structure is based on Karma (work) and not Janm (Birth). According to RSS history, it became a vertical order during the Muslim/Mughal period when Mughals invaded Bharat-Varsha (India) and disrupted the social order! However, the Vedic claim is different from this, where Dalits and women were kept on margins. The RSS claim does no good to Dalit assertion when one learns about the quotidian violence inflicted by savarna Hindus on Dalits – for ages and continuing today – for various reasons ranging from the simple act of wearing footwear to taking water from village waterbodies, from getting formal education to marrying a upper caste girl, from taking out marriage procession to temple entry.

It is not a coincidence that the humiliation of Dalits, one of the oldest surviving oppressed groups in the world, is enormous and has been sanctioned by Manu’s Law which happens to be the Holy book of the present regime, keeping Dalits perpetually on the verge of vulnerability. However, times are changing and Dalits assertion against this casteist regime is on the rise, both by denouncing the assigned marginality as well as asserting their rights as equals. As one of the slogans from Una Struggle rightly pointed out, Gai ki poonch tum rakho, hume hamari zameen do! (Keep the cow’s tail and give us our land!).

These deaths were neither the first and (unfortunately) nor the last! Every death is a shame on Government’s claim to digital India, to swachchh (clean) India, to Swasth (healthy) India. Dalits demand dignified material experience, instead this vacuous, Modi-style ‘spiritual’ experience.

The recent protest march against the killings of Dalit workers in sewers is a call for us as a society to stand up for workers who were restoring the flow of urban life but were failed by a State which brutally denied their life in return! Because, silence is not a solution! It never was! It never will be!

The writer is a research scholar in History and is interested in the question of Caste, Wrestling and Music.

Courtesy: Kafila.online
 

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Never mind that the law bans the entry of workers into manholes – except in cases of emergency, and not without proper safety gear.

Ten sanitation workers died inside sewers in a span of five weeks, from July 15 to August 20. One died at Lok Nayak Hospital, two at Funcity Mall, three at Lajpat Nagar, and four at Ghitorni – all while clearing manholes.

The latest victim of the sewers is Rishi Pal, father of three. Rishi and three other workers –Sumit, Bishan and Kiran – were called to clean the sewers at Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Hospital on August 20, Sunday. They were sent inside the manhole without any safety gear.

A hospital, supposed to meticulously follow safety procedures, is careless and callous when it comes to providing basic necessary gear to protect workers.

Courtesy: Newsclick.in

The post Killing Fields of Delhi: 10 Sanitation Workers Die in 5 Week appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Image: BBC

The post One more Sewer Death, Another Sanitation Worker dies cleaning Delhi drains; 10th death in 35 days: TOI appeared first on SabrangIndia.

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 Andolan – 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. (13th 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 forced him to descend into the sewer and take out the fellow worker's 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 mindset 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’(34. http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/high-death-rate-among-scavengers-while-on-duty-bjp-mp/article8331909.ece) 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 not withstanding , 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.

This article was first pubished on Kafila.org.
 

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