IF SANITATION work in India brings with it untouchability, disease and death, why then do the Dalits not just give it up? At the least, why can’t they go on strike and ask for better working conditions? It is not that they did not try. In Delhi’s Balmiki Bara in Aryapura, Rajinder Kumar, a Delhi Jal Board sewer worker, offers us some non-textbook history. “Safai karamcharis have raised their voice several times. On July 31, 1957, there was huge procession planned in Delhi. Sanitation workers from several states had gathered. We had been demanding oxygen kits, masks, safety equipment. Nehru’s government imposed Section 144. They opened fire, and Bhoop Singh, a worker from Haryana died.” Today Bhoop Singh is a martyr, and safai karamchairs observe July 31 as Safai Mazdoor Diwas.

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi recently said, “Scavenging must have been a spiritual experience for the Balmiki caste... At some point in time somebody must have got enlightenment in scavenging.” Not many found this amusing, but Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s views were not very different. There’s a popular myth that Gandhi was opposed to scavenging. A reading of the man’s own words, found in the hundred-volume Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, reveals that Gandhi romanticised and often justified the labour of “Bhangis”, insisting they continue with “the most honourable occupation”.

If the problem of physical removal of human excreta and sewage persists, and if a particular caste is forced to retain an occupational identity, it owes a lot to the dominance of Gandhian thinking at the policy level. Let’s sample what Gandhi really had to say. Writing in Harijan in 1934, he declared: “I call scavenging as one of the most honourable occupations to which mankind is called. I don’t consider it an unclean occupation by any means. That you have to handle dirt is true. But that every mother is doing and has to do. But nobody says a mother’s occupation is unclean.”

He even argues that the problem in fact lies with the community: “I know many scavengers eat carrion and beef. Those who are doing this must abstain. Many of them are given to the evil habit of drink. Drink is a bad, filthy, unclean, degrading habit. A man who drinks intoxicating liquor forgets the distinction between wife, mother and sister. I would beseech you to give up all evil habits…” Gandhi implies that sanitation workers, after getting drunk, commit adultery.

Gandhi begins another piece entitled The Ideal Bhangi, published in Harijan in 1936, thus: “The ideal Bhangi of my conception would be a Brahmin par excellence, possibly even excel him.” He makes such ludicrous claims here that it is worth quoting him in-extenso, to avoid misquoting: “What qualities should such an honoured servant of society exemplify in his person? In my opinion an ideal Bhangi should have a thorough knowledge of the principles of sanitation. He should know how a right kind of latrine is constructed and the correct way of cleaning it. He should know how to overcome and destroy the odour of excreta and the various disinfectants to render them innocuous. He should likewise know the process of converting night-soil and urine into manure.

“But that is not all. My ideal Bhangi would know the quality of night-soil and urine. He would keep a close watch on these and give a timely warning to the individual concerned. Thus he will give a timely notice of the results of his examination of the excreta. That presupposes a scientific knowledge of the requirements of his profession. He would likewise be an authority on the subject of disposal of nightsoil in small villages as well as big cities and his advice and guidance in the matter would be sought for and freely given to society. It goes without saying that he would have the usual learning necessary for reaching the standard here laid down for his profession. Such an ideal Bhangi, while deriving his livelihood from his occupation, would approach it only as a sacred duty. In other words, he would not dream of amassing wealth out of it. He would consider himself responsible for the proper removal and disposal of all the dirt and night-soil within the area which he serves and regard the maintenance of healthy and sanitary condition within the same as the summum bonum of his existence.”

Not only does Gandhi place enormous social and “scientific” burden on sanitation workers, he even believes they are not entitled to a decent wage. In the Gandhian schema, they of course shall have no freedom to strike work. In 1946, he said: “There are certain matters in which strikes would be wrong. Sweepers’ grievances come in this category…. A Bhangi may not give up his work even for a day. And there are many other ways open to him securing justice.”

IN HER study of the Safai Karamchari Andolan, India Stinking, Gita Ramaswamy notes that during and after the Partition, despite the ethnic cleansing of Hindus, Pakistan refused to allow “untouchable Hindus” involved in safai karamchari work to emigrate to India. “While the Indian government tried to secure safe passage for the Hindus of Pakistan, there was no concern about the Dalit ‘Hindus’ left behind in Pakistan, not that a better life awaited them in India. Ambedkar raised this issue in a letter to Jawaharlal Nehru in December 1947. He expressed concern over the fact that the Pakistan government had declared sweepers as belonging to the ‘essential services’ and whom they are were not prepared to release except on one month’s notice.”

Ambedkar’s perception of the issue was diametrically opposed to Gandhi’s: “Under Hinduism scavenging was not a matter of choice, it was a matter of force. What does Gandhism do? It seeks to perpetuate this system by praising scavenging as the noblest service to society! What is the use of telling the scavenger that even a Brahmin is prepared to do scavenging when it is clear that according to Hindu Shastras and Hindu notions even if a Brahmin did scavenging he would never be subject to the disabilities of one who is a born scavenger? For in India a man is not a scavenger because of his work. He is a scavenger because of his birth irrespective of the question whether he does scavenging or not.”

As long as Gandhism shapes policy on sanitation work, and as long as the state refuses to embrace Ambedkarite thinking, we will have a problem at hand.(Artical from Tahelka , if u would like to say some words for this eye opening article , writer 's e mail is given below)

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