In this edition of Qafe, Paramita Banerjee trains her gaze on the dirt that Modi’s brooms will never clean. And no, it’s not just about Gujarat.
Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. Clean India Campaign. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s flagship initiative launched on October 2, 2014. Central government personnel, accustomed for years to enjoying a national holiday on Gandhiji’s birthday, had to wield brooms this year instead, as did the Prime Minister himself. The principal aim of the campaign is to have an India free of open defecation, mentioned as one of the main causes of infant and child mortality in the country, by 2019 – the 150th year of Gandhiji’s birth. With a number of specific objectives outlined in relevant ministerial websites, the emphasis is on the construction of individual, cluster and community toilets; separate toilets for girls and boys in all schools; solid and liquid waste management through Gram Panchayats; and laying water pipelines in all villages to ensure water supply to every household by 2019. However, the need for modifying mindsets for the desired behaviour change of latrine use has not been forgotten either. The objectives include the rise of public awareness on the problems of open defecation, as also the advantages of latrine use; and the recruitment of proper and dedicated ground staff to facilitate behaviour change and promote latrine use. The language draws remarkably from HIV/AIDS discourse, even though the new government has already issued a circular – so far known only to those working in this sphere – that the Department of AIDS Control will be dismantled, with only nodal officers in position under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare for HIV/AIDS related response. However, that is not for discussion now.
With an estimated cost of Rs 62,009 crores, as reported by major media sources including the PTI, the campaign is being advertised as a tribute to the Father of the Nation, who had apparently said, “Sanitation is as important as independence” – a quote prominently displayed on all relevant ministerial web portals, without any reference to the source, though. More importantly, Modi has linked the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan directly to the economic prosperity of the nation, claiming that the campaign can contribute to GDP growth, provide employment, reduce health costs and increase India’s popularity as a tourism destination by providing world-class hygiene and cleanliness. From tinsel town stars to corporates, from sports persons to mass media – everyone has lapped it up like a cat would a bowl of milk.
Of course, there is no denying the fact that global perception of our country would definitely change if we could really make the country entirely free of open defecation. Even this qafeteer, committed to being in contra position always, would be forced to appreciate such an achievement. However, one cannot quite stop wondering why the issue of manual scavenging finds no mention in the campaign discourse. It is rather hard to think of toilets and cleanliness without a reference to the gross human rights violations that manual scavengers have to face in caste divided India, one would imagine. In fact, not so long ago – on October 25, 2010, the National Advisory Council headed by Sonia Gandhi had announced with a fair amount of fanfare that manual scavenging would be abolished entirely during the 12th Five Year Plan period. Public memory, with its legendary shortness, has probably relegated that to the realm of oblivion by the time the Clean India Campaign has been launched four years down the line.
Manual Scavenging was outlawed in the country way back in 1993, through the Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act. It is to be noted that this law does not prohibit the use of manual scavengers to clear septic tanks and manholes, or the sewage system as and when needed. Even then, till the year 2000, many states had not even notified this Act. The strong political will of the governments in power since the enactment of this Act in 1993 is evident in the 2011 Census data, which mentions 26 lakh non-sanitary toilets needing manual scavenging. It is to be noted that the use of manual scavengers to clean septic tanks and keep the sewage system of cities and townships is not reflected in this data.
The response of the previous government to this lack of commitment towards abolishing manual scavenging and working out a feasible plan for their rehabilitation was to enact a new law in 2013: the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act. However, the Supreme Court needed to outlaw manual scavenging once more on March 27 this year, instructing all states to enforce the 2013 Act on war-footing. That reminds me of a discussion in CNN-IBN on July 20, 2012 on this very issue of manual scavenging – when the then Union Minister Mukul Wasnik had mentioned that his government was already addressing the issue of rehabilitating manual scavengers on war-footing. Yes – he had used this very phrase, indeed. (Those in doubt may check it out on the web; the entire text of that discussion anchored by Sagarika Ghosh is easily available.)
Manual scavenging, as it happens, is far too deeply entrenched in the caste system of the country for politicians of any hue to take this up with any seriousness. It is to be noted in this context that the Father of the Nation himself held a rather ambivalent attitude towards manual scavengers. He, of course, glorified them and even called himself a Bhangi (a caste term referring to manual scavengers) in order to show his solidarity with them. However, he fought more to secure their entry into temples, than towards abolition of the caste system and their employment in that connection. In fact, he was more willing to depend on a change of hearts of the oppressing castes rather than on any organised movement by them. It may be remembered in this context that Gandhi was opposed to the manual scavengers’ strike in Mumbai – stating clearly that such protest was certainly not the way to ending their strife. (Gandhi, M.K.: Sweepers’ Strike, Why Bhangis Quarter? available at http://www.gandhiserve.org/cwmg/Vol. 090.Pdf Vol. 90: 25 February, 1946 – 19 May, 1946.)
It was Dr B R Ambedkar, in fact, who vociferously pushed for the abolition of the caste system altogether, delineating clearly that manual scavenging would continue otherwise, since the higher castes would never enter a gutter. Even as he advocated for organised rights movement by the manual scavengers, he was also made it quite clear that the continuation of the caste system would make it impossible to delink the profession of manual scavenging from the caste one is born into. Is it because of these radical views that Dr Ambedkar is conspicuously absent from the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan discourse?
There are no exact estimates available, but many activists claim that at least 1 or 2 manual scavengers die every day literally in the gutters. Media scan for just the last five years reflect quite clearly that the death of manual scavengers makes news every now and then – and not from some remote rural corner, but from cities like Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai and even Varanasi – the Prime Minister’s constituency. Unfortunately, his flagship Campaign not only forgets to mention manual scavengers, but also restricts the campaign to rural India only – simultaneously forgetting the urban poor and the manual scavengers whose services are indispensible as of now to keep the sewage system of our cities working. These fringe-living human beings do not, apparently, constitute an important enough population group to mar the clean image of India that Modi is so determined to present to the rest of the world. They are not important enough to evoke the righteous indignation of corporates and film-stars and sports persons and the media in general, either – at least in connection with the brand new image of a clean India that we are all so preoccupied with.
Swachhata, as it happens, means much more than just cleanliness. It means transparency. This qafeteer cannot stop wondering why the Prime Minister has chosen to strictly restrict the meaning of the term. Is it because a Transparent India Campaign would perhaps need him to first disown many of his trusted colleagues for their role in the Gujarat pogrom of 2002 and allow the rule of law to take its own course without any interference from those in power? Maybe it would need him to come clean himself on his precise role during those hours of calculated slaughter and mayhem. It would need to be limited to a narrow meaning of the term ‘clean’, defined only as free from open defecation. Social ills such as religious majoritarianism do not capture the Prime Minister’s imagination, obviously, as important for elimination for India to be clean.
There are, of course, other issues directly related to the proposals of waste management and water supply, which have not even been touched upon here. The few points mentioned here are already enough to question the basis, as well as the real aim, of the Clean India Campaign – without even getting into public health engineering related technical problems that are quite likely to jeopardise the initiative in a country that simultaneously suffers from floods in certain parts and droughts in other.
