Its the year 2020, and the effect of caste system and inequality in India is such that more sanitation workers die in sewage than soldiers in national borders in India.
(https://qz.com/india/1074911/more-indians-die-cleaning-sewers-than-fighting-terrorists-in-kashmir/)
Wonder why the deaths of sanitation workers don’t arouse the same sentiments among the society’s conscience as any other death of human being. Have we all tacitly agreed that they are poor low caste (sub) humans?
Our seemingly less intelligent cousins, well in fact all of the other family members in our animal kingdom, do a pretty good job at it.
There are many Yoga poses based on animals, maybe we need to learn one more Asana from the animals; Take-care-of-your-own-shit asana.
The problems faced by them is because we as a society are acting a like leaky baby and not growing up to learn how to handle our own waste! Or maybe we are too grown up privileged and pampered to consider doing it so.
Wouldn’t this world be a better place if instead of seeing these four men losing their life, we would have seen them graduating in engineering, specializing in chemistry, instrumentation and robotics, operating remote controlled machines and research tool and in fact studying the entire underworld of sanitation system like an ecosystem with collaboration from nearby institutes and colleges?
Wouldn’t it be better if privileged communities also start sanitation as an issue of great human concern and importance and participate in it pro-actively ?
Their families would have been living in just as same house as most of us humans would have desired to have as basic amenities; water, electricity, clean air, safe and friendly neighborhood etc. Their children would have been playing alongside ours and learning from and growing with each other. Our cultures, like music and food, would merged and co evolved. In future there would have been more children with beautiful mixed featured and made up of genetically diverse cells and tissues!
Do we want monsoon of Mumbai, 2020 to end up in a situation like Memphis, 1968?
Since according to science, sanitation workers are equivalent to Bio-Chemical Warriors! Whatever waste that we generate can fester very harmful gases and organisms which are deadly if left uncontrolled. Hydrogen Sulfide (H2S), Carbon Monoxide (CO) and Methane (CH4) are very common deadly gases that keep accumulating in the sewer lines.
Although we have so much advanced gas detectors and sensors, they are rarely ever used. Forget sensors, sometimes even basic safety measures like gloves and gumboots are not provided.
Sanitation workers these days are supposed to operate a good suction pump remotely and they need not go into the hole (lets stop sending men into it, please). Instead of men, small remote controlled devices can be sent into the sewer lines to collect readings of important parameters like gases evolving, location of choke, image of choke, etc.
Diaohhrea and other communicable diseases can become widespread if their work is stopped even for a day.
Although it men who exclusively die in the sewer lines, (its called a man-hole for a reason), sanitation worker women don’t have a fair deal either!
In fact if only we went and asked them how is their daily life, as TISS scholar Hemangi Tadlak has researched, many of them face aggravated sexual exploitation, wage inequality, and if not such extreme condition then chronic oppression like regular rude behaviour, classist and castiest taunts, and a sense of non-inclusion in the home or work place festivities and celebrations of the employers. This problem is specifically Indian in nature due to caste aspect and skewed growth economy is resulting in widening class divide, adding more misery and apathy to their woes.
Their work in saving people’s life is no less than that of doctors and armed forces. Requesting all to take some time to reflect about their life, their problems, their saddened families and take personal and collective measures to end sanitation workers death and manual scavenging.
Kamgaar Patrika is a new magazine dedicated to this cause. Please find the link at : http://annihilationofcaste.in/index.php/2020/02/12/kamgaar-patrika-edition-1/