JEP » Issues » Waste and Globalised Inequalities » The ‘Abolishing’ of Manual Scavenging: Negotiations with Caste and Occupation in Ahmedabad

The ‘Abolishing’ of Manual Scavenging: Negotiations with Caste and Occupation in Ahmedabad

Autor*innen: Ivan Iyer
https://doi.org/10.20446/JEP-2414-3197-35-2-95
Volume XXXV • Issue 2/3 • 2019
Pages 95-115
Keywords: manual scavenging, caste-based discrimination, technological solutions, rehabilitation schemes, graded hierarchy of caste  

Abstract

Despite laws prohibiting the occupation of manual scavenging, it is widely prevalent in India. While it is recognised as a hazardous and undignified occupation that involves the manual handling of excreta, it is also recognised as a form of caste-based discrimination that is performed by the lowest Dalit castes in India. In Ahmedabad, manual scavenging and sanitation work is performed by the Bhangis who lack access to alternative occupations and bear the brunt of untouchability. While sanitation workers, activists, NGOs and trade unions attempt to uncover the prevalence of manual scavenging in Ahmedabad, government bodies continue to deny the existence of manual scavenging and caste based discrimination as such. In this paper, I look at the ways in which the occupation of manual scavenging is articulated, contested and negotiated by the aforementioned actors in Ahmedabad.

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