“The ambulance left my brother on a stretcher at the RML hospital. My brother died there. In post mortem report, it was found that my brother had swallowed 150 ml of sewage. I urge the government to conduct an impartial inquiry and provide us justice. These killing should be stopped so that no one has to die like this.”

– says brother of deceased manual scavenger in a protest gathering in New Delhi. A report by Amardip Kumar Singh.

New Delhi: Yesterday hundreds of people gathered at Jantar Mantar to protest the deaths of manual scavengers in the country. Along with the families of the victims, the gathering included parliamentarians, student activists, social and cultural activists, and lawyers in the capital city. The families present there narrated their ordeal and the horrific instances where people had died due to inhaling poisonous gases, swallowing sewage while cleaning the sewer.

Vishal died in New Delhi last week. His brother, Angad described the ordeal. “My brother went into a sewer to clean it which was 20-25 feet deep. While my brother was inside, another worker had gone to bring water. When he came back, my brother was gasping for breath. The worker called two engineers who were working nearby. They immediately called an ambulance and sent my brother to Motinagar Acharya Bhikshu Hospital. The ambulance didn’t provide oxygen facility. On reaching the hospital, my brother vomited blood a few times. The doctors referred him to Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital. The ambulance left my brother on a stretcher at the RML hospital. My brother died there. No one from the DLF, for whom he was working, had come to see him. In Govt. hospitals, when we go alone, no one listens to us. In post mortem report, it was found that my brother had swallowed 150 ml of sewage. I urge the government to conduct an impartial inquiry and provide us justice. These killing should be stopped so that no one has to die like this.” – said Angad.

Pushpa Devi, whose husband had died on September 15, 2005 while cleaning a sewer, spoke at the protest site. “I have come from Panipat. I have two children. We do not have a source of income. No compensation has been provided by the govt. yet. I wish the sewer lines should be closed down so that no one’s husband or brother or father has to die like this. This tradition must stop immediately.” added Pushpa.

11 people have died in the sewers in the last 7 days alone. Manual Scavenging is banned in India as per Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 1993 and amended act 2013. Since then as many as 1790 manual scavengers have lost their lives while working. The National Commission for Safai Karmachari (NCSK) has shown that on average one person died in every five days  since 2017 while cleaning sewers and septic tanks.

In the protest gathering, Manoj Jha, a member of Rajya Sabha pledged to introduce a bill to end the inhuman tradition of manual scavenging. “When even after 70 years of independence, the caste of safai karmacharis have remained same, the process of cleaning our excreta remained same, then we should not have the audacity of launching Mangalyaan.” he added. In India, the manual scavengers are mainly from the Valmiki community and caste structure ensured that they were barred from any other form of employment. There are several laws that ensure safety of these workers but the caste prejudices in the Indian society and the ruling class has made sure that the laws remain defunct.

Also present on the dais were Arundhati Ray, Yogendra Yadav, Vrinda Grover, Brinda Karat, D. Raja, Umar Khalid, and newly elected Students’ representatives of Jawaharlal Nehru University among others. P. Sainath, a vocal critic of the anti-farmer policies and renowned journalist, lamented on the fact that while scamsters like Vijay Malya, Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi were allowed to loot millions of crores from the public sector banks, the government has failed to even provide the basic assistance to the cleaning staffs.

Bezwada Wilson, who is the national convener of Safai Karmachari Aandolan, promised to shake the capital in the coming month if the government continues to bear its silence on this. “The PM must answer to the killings in Sewer. These are murders and the government has to take the responsibility. We need technological assistance here. This inhuman treatment of manual scavengers has to stop.”

Ashok Bharati, a leader of All India Ambedkar Mahasabha, has warned the ruling party to be ready to face the political consequences of these murders.

Meanwhile, the state level monitoring committee to end manual scavenger met on 24th September, first time after it was established in December 2017. As per the 2013 amendment law the committee is to meet in every six month. The Chief Minister of Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal has sought for a report investigating why the meetings were not held so far. The government declared if workers cleaning sewers and septic tanks die on the job, their employers will booked for culpable homicide.

As per the law, a compensation of Rs. 10 lakh should be given to family of the manual scavenger died while working. However, the deaths are under counted. A many of the people involved in this job have not registered themselves as a manual scavenger. So, their deaths go unreported. The activists have been demanding the complete makeover of the cleaning process to end this manual cleaning and introduction of the advanced mechanism for long.

A slideshow of the event:

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Amardip is a student in JNU.