The Valmiki community's protest against empty political gestures — and an oppressive occupation

Translated from Hindi by Bishaldeb Halder

Every second, the Valmiki community’s dignity and rights are murdered.

Our history has been written with tears of blood. For how long will our truth be obscured? On your pages lies our truth that nobody else has bothered to know. I want to place this important truth before society, in the light of recent events.

I am aware that when I state this, I will immediately be met with replies like ‘yes, this is a very grave issue, it must be highlighted’, or ‘it is time to shatter the silence around it’. But the fact remains that there is no one who wishes to work for the emancipation of this community. An example of this was seen at an exhibition on 24 February, at the Kumbh Mela.

Two ladies from the Valmiki community, Jyoti and Chhavi Devi, and three gentlemen, Pyarelal, Naresh Chandra and Horilal, had their feet washed — a ‘great’ deed, apparently. It has only instilled a sense of inferiority in us.

This act only serves to make us more untouchable.

There is a very old custom in this society of immediately taking a bath upon being touched by an “untouchable”, in order to purify oneself. How cruelly ironic that the same custom should be practiced on the people from our community in order to “respect” them!

We belong to a community that is considered untouchable even among the Dalits. It is such beliefs and views that need to be cleansed, not our feet.

It is this same set of beliefs that has led to this grand gesture. Since these people are from untouchable communities, care must be taken to see that their feet are not filthy, lest the entire arrangement should be polluted. That is why the gesture was made.

Why were they not honoured inside the temple where the worship occurs? Because, even today, members of our community are not allowed inside temples. After washing our dirty feet, you are honouring us. Is this honour or insult? What answer do we give to our raging minds?

Touching our feet is a bit excessive. We don’t even need you to make our community a vote bank; we sacrifice millions of votes for you anyway. If you are ready to become a great leader, pick up your pen and write that no one from the sanitation worker communities will engage in sanitation work and scavenging henceforth, in the country.

Did the Prime Minister not feel inclined to listen to the ‘Mann ki Baat’ of these workers? As for them, why did they not speak about their problems: their children’s education, their own health, their financial condition and the grossly unhygienic conditions of their work?

Why is such honour bestowed upon us around the time of the elections and not at all the other times when our people clean toilets and pick up others’ leftover food and utensils at railway stations with their own hands?

There is no proper protective clothing provided at all. Our mothers and sisters are forced to listen to remarks like ‘Can’t you see I’m walking here; my clothes will be soiled now’ while at work. What do you think they feel at being told off by young children half their age? Why is this so?

This is because the Valmiki community, on account of the work they are engaged in, are considered dirty and polluting. This issue has been relegated to the sidelines. The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan was inaugurated on 2 October 2014 with a budget of Rs 1.95 lakh crore, that was meant to be spent on building 1.2 lakh toilets in order to end the practice of open defecation. How many sanitation workers were honoured then? On the contrary, there was greater recruitment of such workers for cleaning these toilets.

Can there not be greater deeds than washing feet? And why now? So much money has been spent in the name of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. But has there been any provision made for educating the children of these families? Has there been any explanation or basis given for this historically unhygienic custom?

There have been so many universities built in the name of society. Have there been any martyr memorials built for those who sacrificed their lives in order to make the country clean?

Have their children been provided with jobs, or have any leaders offered consolation to such families?

In the heated cauldron of Indian politics, the Kumbh Mela is organised, where people take a dip in the Ganga, the Gita is read — and members of the Valmiki community only are given the job of cleaning. Of all these people, only three men and two women were chosen to have their feet washed by the Prime Minister in bronze vessels. It escapes comprehension as to why this was done right before the 2019 General Elections.

To this day, hundreds of thousands of people have died in the sewers due to inhaling toxic gases and ingesting the filth and nightsoil. Nobody has even bothered about their families. There are countless women who fall prey to several diseases while doing sanitation work, as a result of which their children are forced to take up the profession in their stead. There are no fixed timings for sanitation workers; they usually start their work before daybreak and have to continue working till late at night, in order to make ends meet.

If I speak in the context of Haryana, where I hail from, the Valmiki community has very little access to education. In villages, girls from the Valmiki community have to carry the filth and garbage of the rest of society, when they should actually be studying. Thus, the hope and promise of a bright future is snuffed out by this dirty custom.

For women of our community, this act of cleaning garbage begins in the dark of the night. Before daybreak, the mud, refuse and nightsoil of the entire village are already on the heads of the women and men of our community. Even all the refuse and nightsoil has a higher status than that of the members of our community. For I have always seen them weighed down by it. Everyday we are humiliated with the slur ‘choorha’, meaning an insect crawling in muck. What sort of dignity do we have?

Why does the act of carrying refuse begin at 4 am? So that nobody sees us in this act.

I have mostly seen the members of my community cursing governments for leaving them in such a condition. But when there was talk of an era of development, there were high hopes within the community. They believed they would progress too, and that their children would have brighter futures. Why has this ended up as a mere dream for my community?

Education is the only means by which the Valmiki community can bring about its intellectual development, by which it can hope for more gainful employment, and to break free of the shackles of such a profession. It is tragic that the situation of the sanitation workers with regard to education remains so worrying. A research study conducted by the Indian Social Institute across the states of Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and southern states like Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh concluded that a mere 0.6 percent of youth from sanitation worker communities manages to reach higher education. The study makes it clear that after the intermediate level, these students are forced to drop out.

The main reason for this is the lack of access to schools. Even when there is access, there are other reasons for the overwhelming dropout rates, such as the discrimination practised by teachers, weak financial condition and the negative self-esteem that these students develop as a result of constantly working with their parents in this profession. Even today, there is open and public discrimination practised by teachers towards children coming from sanitation worker families. Nothing has changed despite such discrimination being punishable by law. To this day, these children are forced to do sanitation work in schools.

For children from such families, the only source of education is the state government-run school. But the aforementioned study has also revealed that these schools are bereft of even the minimum facilities mandated by the Right to Education Act. Even after studying in these schools, these students cannot prepare themselves for good employment opportunities and competitive examinations, and have, perforce, to stick to their caste-ordained occupation.

Another reason for this is that our community has been denied any opportunity to acquire technical and professional skills such as mechanical work, electrical work etc. In such a scenario, having relinquished their caste-based unskilled work, they can find no other opportunities. The community continues to be trapped in this profession, generation after generation.

In the last few years, through the efforts of the Safai Karmachari Andolan and several other human rights organisations, new laws were passed in Parliament that made manual scavenging a crime. In spite of this, neither have the deaths in septic tanks stopped nor has the number of people recruited in other forms of sanitation work reduced. What is it that keeps people from these families from leaving their caste-ordained professions?

On 25 February, 2019, a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi honoured the five sanitation workers, Darshan Ratna Raavan, chief of the Aadi Dharm Samaaj (AADHAS), had gathered along with thousands of members of the Valmiki community at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi, in order to protest the deaths of sanitation workers and to fight for the rights of the community. There were thousands of women demanding justice for their family members, who had lost their lives in the sewers.

They were demanding that sanitation workers be given reservations. Till date, they have not been given any accommodation. Neither have their children been given any government jobs. They are far away from receiving any monetary compensation or damages. Such a situation only exists because there has been no implementation of our constitutionally guaranteed rights. If their demands could be met, it would lead to a very welcome social change.

As a female leader from the Valmiki community, I can clearly see that there has been a huge contribution by the sanitation worker communities in bringing you to power. Is it not the responsibility of the present administration that new schemes are devised for the development of our community, so that we too may join the mainstream? Or will we always be seen as a vote-bank? This attitude needs to change; we cannot see any more people lose their lives by drowning in filth. Otherwise, there is going to be large-scale opposition from our community, which will not be favourable to the current administration.

The practice of manual scavenging was banned by law in 1993, and yet it persists tenaciously. It was Bezwada Wilson’s initiative to fight for the rights and dignity of sanitation workers that spread the movement to every corner of the country. The movement highlighted the failure of implementation of this law in everyday life. It brought the attention of the government to this issue. In this context, here are a few questions that I would like to raise:

—Since the practice of manual scavenging and manual cleaning of sewers is banned by law, what has been done to ensure the implementation of this law? Because both these practices continue to exist in full force. Is it not the responsibility of the administration to check this?

—Does the administration not feel the need to look at the data on the number of people from the community who have lost their lives while working in sewers?

—Will the responsibility for the continuation of this dirty custom, that is being done by the administration, be taken up by the present government? Or will they introduce mechanical cleaning of sewers? Are there any machines for this purpose in your records? If there aren’t, what do you say is the basis of these “suicides” that occur in the gutters and manholes? Because there is a law against this in our Constitution.

—Are these workers committing suicide in the sewers?

—Does the self-respect and education of the Valmiki community in this country have no meaning for you?

—If those in charge of running the country are themselves encouraging these practices, who do we go to in order to press for the implementation of these laws?

The practice of keeping sanitation workers deliberately on contract and making them work in the sewers must be stopped. It is clearly evident that the state and administration have failed in implementing and upholding the rule of law. Nothing else can explain the continuation of these practices even after so many years of them being banned by law.

We would be happy if the Prime Minister would grant members of our community special reservations, through which we can avail of special positions in education and employment.

I would like to propose the following provisions and safeguards regarding employment opportunities and practices of the Valmiki community:

—Appointing some members of this community as judges

—Those sanitation workers who have lost their lives while working be granted the status of sanitation soldiers (Safai Sainik)

—There should be a provision by which all education of children belonging to sanitation worker families, from primary to higher education, be completely free

—The wages of those from our community who are engaged in this profession must be four times those of Grade A government officers. Since the pursuit of this profession involves humiliation at every moment, it is an exceedingly difficult job, one that they do by causing harm to their own self-respect

—Sewers must be cleaned using machines. The practice of sacrificing people from our community like animals must be stopped.

—It is very important to provide those engaged in scavenging with reservations based on economic, social, educational and political backwardness. Our community has been cleaning the filth of society for thousands of years in the face of such contempt and humiliation, to the extent that we have internalised this within our own community.

—We have been excluded from every kind of institution. We want a life of dignity in this country. Provide us with alternative opportunities, and make us part of the mainstream.

Till date, the mothers in my community have not been able to impart good education to their children, because the garbage of your society was being cleaned by them — for which they have never ever received fair and necessary wages. Society, as a whole, is responsible for this. But this debt lies in your hands; you can repay it if you want to. We are asking for our rights from the government of our country at the Kumbh Mela this year. This is not charity; these are our rights. Just give us our rights! Understand the value of our community or at least try to.

There cannot be a bigger deed during this Kumbh Mela than the present administration accepting our demands.

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