Affront to dignity: Dalit women still carry human excreta for wheat, roti and pickles in UP

A provision of Rs 12,300 crore has been made for 'Swachh Bharat Abhiyan' in the general budget of 2020-21. An average of Rs 10,000 crore is spent every year to construct toilets. But, manual scavenging is a scourge that continues to prevail in Jalaun district in UP.

Neetu Singh
| Updated: Last updated on December 31st, 2020,

Clad in a blue floral sari and holding a bamboo basket in one hand, Shobharani, who lives in Sandi village in Jalaun district, about 250 kilometres from Uttar Pradesh capital Lucknow, heads out to work at 10 in the morning every single day. Covering her nose and mouth with the loose end of her saree to avoid retching, she picks human excreta using an iron plate, drops it into the basket and hoists it on her head before emptying it in the outskirts of the village. 

Shobharani has been a manual scavenger since the day she came as a bride decades ago to this village in Kadaura block, about 17 km from Jalaun. She gathers waste from houses that do not have toilets, or where the residents, out of habit, defecate while squatting on bricks and cover the waste with ash. After collecting the waste, Shobharani sweeps the spot clean. She’s joined in this task by other women from the Balmiki community — the village has five Balmiki households, all landless.

Mamta Balmiki, picking human excreta in Sandi village of Jalaun district. Photo: Neetu Singh

Dehumanising work

For this danger-fraught work that strikes at human dignity, the women are usually given a few rotis, salt or pickle. Rarely, these households might pass on some leftover subzi. For some years now, the women have settled for 8-10 paseri (about 2.5 kilogrammes) of wheat a year, in lieu of this difficult work that erodes human dignity.

Shobharani thinks she must be between 45 and 50 years of age. She has been doing this work for the past 30-35 years and is employed by 10 to 12 houses in her village. She does not have a choice but to work. Her husband cannot do much work and her son is differently-abled. “In order to feed my grandchildren, I have to do this work. Who likes to pick up others’ excreta with one’s hand? But if these children need food, I have to do it. I struggle. The stench can get very bad and I feel like retching. It seems like a lifetime of doing this job, but there is no end in sight,” she told Gaon Connection.

Scourge of untouchability

How do the households where Shobharani works treat her? “Even today, when I walk with human waste, most people sprinkle water from behind. When I go asking for food, I must knock and wait outside the door before the roti is tossed from afar. Their utensils, their bodies must not touch us at all. The stigma of untouchability will end only when we die,” she told Gaon Connection.

Shobharani has been picking human excreta for the past 30-35 years. Photo: Neetu Singh.

It has been seven years since the  ‘Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act (Manual Scavengers Act) 2013 came into being, and crores of rupees have been spent under the Swachh Bharat Mission to construct toilets and encourage Indians to not defecate in the open. However, nothing has changed in the lives of people such as Shobharani.

Under the law, those involved in manual scavenging must be rehabilitated and survey committees at the state and district level must be constituted for this purpose. 

A provision of Rs 12,300 crore has been made for ‘Swachh Bharat Abhiyan’ in the general budget of 2020-21. According to the Swachh Bharat Mission-Rural website, 107.2 million (10,72,59,057) toilets have been constructed in rural India since October 2, 2014. An average of Rs 10,000 crore is spent every year in toilet construction.  

Every time someone writes about the prevalence of manual scavenging, there is outrage, and things return to normal. Guddi Devi, who is 44 years old, lives in Margayan village, about 35 km from Jalaun. “People come and leave after making a video, but there is no improvement in our lives. You may be paid money for this, but we never receive anything. Corona has made it difficult for us to even feed our children,” she told Gaon Connection. 

Lockdown-induced hunger

The Balmiki residents of this village say they are surviving on salt and roti, after the lockdown. “Our children cannot ever dream of milk or ghee. After Corona, people don’t give us vegetables very frequently. Who is there to care for us? Everyone talks about hygiene, what will we do? We work with human waste,” rued Guddi.

Guddi’s routine is fixed. She goes door to door from 8 am to noon collecting human waste, which she dumps in the village outskirts. Then, she bathes, and again knocks on the same doors with a bowl to beg for food. 

A survey conducted in August 2019 in 170 districts of 18 states by the National Safai Karamcharis Finance and Development Corporation (NSKFDC), an organisation under the Union ministry of social justice and empowerment, said 87,913 people had registered themselves as manual scavengers. Of this, only 42,303 people (less than 50 per cent) were considered manual scavengers by state governments. The survey said 41,068 people (the highest in the country) from 47 districts of Uttar Pradesh registered, of which 19,712 were “accepted” by the state. 

Mamta Balmiki wants to quit this job but she is helpless. Photo: Neetu Singh

According to the website of the National Safai Karamcharis Finance and Development Corporation, the surveys had been conducted every month from January 2019 to August 2019, and the number of registrations in Uttar Pradesh showed an increase every month — from 24,967 in January 2019 to 41,068 in August 2019. 

Force of habit to use dry toilets

Manual scavenging is prevalent despite the presence of toilets. “Eighty five per cent of households in our village have toilets,” Uday Bhanu, pradhan of Margayan village, told Gaon Connection. “But, even today, two women go to thirty to thirty fives houses for manual scavenging, in exchange for food.”

Why do they not use toilets? “Some people do not wish to use it. Their mindset has not changed. But, no one can be forced into manual scavenging,” Bhanu said.

In a reply to Parliament in July 2019, the ministry of social justice and empowerment said the government has been informed about 54,130 cases of manual scavenging from 170 districts across 18 states.

On record, does manual scavenging still exist in Jalaun district? Mannan Akhtar, district magistrate, Jalaun, told Gaon Connection that “four of five people were found in a village during a survey two years ago”. They were given Rs 40,000 towards rehabilitation. “Since there is no concept of dry toilets, the question of manual scavengers doesn’t arise. However, if you have proof that people continue to use them, let me know,” he said.

People of the Balmiki community in the villages of Sandi and Maragayan told Gaon Connection that 25 to 30 people from these two villages still work as manual scavengers. In response, Akhtar told Gaon Connection “I have been here for a longer time than you. I am in touch with the Gram Pradhan. In my knowledge, there is no person in the district who does this work. Sandi and Margayan are prosperous villages, and it is not possible people there are still doing this work. You are being misled.”

Jalaun district falls in Bundelkhand, a region infamous for drought. The presence of dry toilets here came to light after the Bundelkhand Dalit Adhikar Manch, which has been working for the rights of dalits for the past 10 years, carried out a survey three years ago. In 2017, by surveying two blocks of Jalaun, Kadaura and Mahewa, it identified 276 families who used to do scavenging.  

Three years ago, the Bundelkhand Dalit Adhikar Manch protested in front of the UP Legislative Assembly for the rights of manual scavengers.

March for justice

On Human Rights Day in 2017, these women undertook a march to the UP Assembly with a basket and broom, and the slogan, “When will we get rid of manual scavenging?” The government took cognisance of the matter. Around the same time, the Centre set up three camps in April 2018 in Jalaun under the National Safai Karamcharis Finance Development Corporation, in which 649 people were identified as manual scavengers.

“After three years of hard work, these 649 people were ‘accepted’,” Kuldeep Kumar Bauddh, convener of Bundelkhand’s Bundelkhand Dalit Adhikar Manch told Gaon Connection. “They gave forty thousand rupees for the rehabilitation of all of these families a year-and-a-half ago, but nothing happened after that. If they do not get access to other government schemes, they’d be forced to go back to the same job,” he said.

Bauddh said the group now had 1,138 completed forms of those who were employed as manual scavengers. He added that at least 2,500 women in the district were forced to take up this job, and alleged the government was “covering up” numbers. 

“About fifty women continue to do manual scavenging in Jalaun district,” Bhaggu Lal Balmiki, a member of the Uttar Pradesh state-level monitoring committee told Gaon Connection. “They still go to houses where the elderly, unwell and children defecate by placing bricks. However, as per the law, they are not considered scavengers. Even after the construction of toilets in many houses, the upper caste people continue to make these women do this work out of sheer habit.”

Sometimes, the persecution takes place because of another person who is underprivileged. Gaon Connection saw Mamta Balmiki, who is 40 years old and Shobharani’s neighbour, engaged in manual scavenging at Maya Vishwakarma’s house. “She is differently abled and cannot walk,” Mamta Balmiki said. “She defecates in a secluded place behind her house, and I come every morning and throw that waste.”

Maya Vishwakarma is differenlty abled. Mamta Balmiki comes here to pick up excreta. Photo: Neetu Singh

Vishwakarma said that despite applying many times, no toilet has been constructed in her house. “I don’t have a choice but to take Mamta’s help,” she said.

The Swachh Bharat Survey, published in January 2019, also revealed that there hasn’t been a perceptible “change in habit” of people in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. The survey said that despite having toilets at home, people belonging to a quarter of the households in these states, defecate in the open.   

“There is a need for organising another camp at the earliest. Forty thousand rupees is not enough for a livelihood. They should be rehabilitated by the government,” Bhaggu Lal told Gaon Connection.  

Ashwani Dubey is the son of the pradhan of Sandi village. He said that in his knowledge, no woman in his village carried waste, since 95 per cent of the people have been provided with toilets. When told about Maya Vishwakarma’s case, he said: “Many families have returned to the village during lockdown, you must have seen those houses. Maya’s husband works for wages elsewhere. Who will build a toilet for him in the village?”

Gaon Connection spent three days — December 7 to 9 — among Balmiki families in Margayan, Sandi and Chamari villages in Jalaun district. We found that even today, many women are engaged in manual scavenging. In fact, only the women of Chamari village have been liberated from this dehumanising practice, that too for the past 18 months, after receiving rehabilitation compensation.  

“We have constructed as many toilets as were applied for,” stated Abhay Kumar Yadav, the district panchayat raj officer of Jalaun district.  “A survey was conducted in 2018-19 and all manual scavengers identified were given the compensation. We are still finding people who can be rehabilitated. We are also trying to handover the upkeep of community toilets to these families at a salary of six thousand rupees a month,” he told Gaon Connection.

Riya Balmiki with her grandmother and mother.

What does the law say?  

The practice of manual scavenging was banned through a law for the first time in 1993. It was amended in 2013 — anyone engaging people for hazardous cleaning of sewers and septic tanks was liable for punishment.

Manual scavengers are rehabilitated in three ways — one-time cash assistance, imparting training and providing limited loan subsidies.  Manual scavengers are considered rehabilitated when they are employed after being imparted with training. Skill development training is provided to such individuals for two years with a stipend of Rs 3,000 a month. Manual scavengers are rehabilitated under the self-employment scheme of the ministry of social justice and empowerment.

While these are measures that seek to emancipate those who have to carry human waste, till it reaches all, there really is no answer to Shobharani, Guddi and Mamta’s question — Who is there to care for us? 

(This is the first part of Gaon Connection ‘s special series — Women Gathering Human Waste in Swachh Bharat)

Read the story in Hindi.