It has been over eight years since the Parliament enacted the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act 2013. Two nationwide surveys were also conducted for the identification of manual scavengers, one in 2013 and another in 2018.
Amar Basfore, a slum dweller in Ward 10 of Guwahati, was left out from both surveys. Amar’s 10 feet by 12 feet home is just a stone’s throw away from the railway tracks. Being the sole bread earner for his three children and wife and not being able to access any of the schemes available for manual scavengers, Amar has no option but to clean human waste.
Amar used to work for the Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC) and even tried putting up a stall. But he could not continue with both the jobs as his salary was never on time in GMC, and he hardly found any customers who would buy from a sweeper.
“I put up a stall once. But everyone around here is aware that I am a sweeper, that I am a Basfore. As I clean septic tanks and drains, they think we do dirty work. They never take anything from our hands. They consider us untouchable,” said Amar.
Chaniya Devi is another resident of the Harijan colony who works as a manual scavenger from time to time. On some days, she has to throw around 500 buckets of human waste from septic tanks.
“If we do so much dirty work, how will we not fall sick? Sometimes I have a fever.
Sometimes, my entire body aches. Even if my body aches, there is no one else to work at home. There are small children at my home. So, I have to go to work after doing the housework. I have tablets. I bear my pain because there is no other way Who is there for us? Nobody! I pull out the dirt from the tanks like this (explaining with hand gestures) If I throw 500 buckets of dirt, how do you think my body will respond?” questioned Chaniya Devi.
Santosh Basfore, another slum dweller in Ward 10, is a sanitation worker. Unable to find their names in the list, Santosh, along with a few others from their slum, approached the Department of Welfare of Plain Tribes and Backward Classes and the Guwahati Municipal Corporation with an application to identify them as manual scavengers. The application that was submitted in 2017, however, was only tossed among the departments with no fruitful results to date.
Bhim Basfor, the president of the All Assam Safari Karmchari Students’ Union said that the government does not have time for the Harijan community in Assam and that the officers aren’t aware of the definition of slums.
“An officer should be aware of the definition of a slum. What should be the income in a slum. And what should be the condition of the houses in a slum. Only then he will be able to identify. One who is not aware will make a mistake. There is no fault at the officer’s end. What can be worse than this?” he questioned.
An M.Tech degree holder, Bhim decided to be a social activist to stand for the rights of the Harijan community. His organisation, with over 1,000 core members and over 1 lakh supporters moves around Assam to raise awareness about the rights of the Harijan community.
On being questioned about the missing manual scavengers of Guwahati from government’s data, Jayanta Das, Chairman, Assam State Development Corporation for Scheduled Castes Ltd, blamed the bureaucracy for the inconsistency. In this case, the bureaucrats of the government. “The entire implementation is dependent on their activity. Even if the chief minister, prime minister or department ministry puts forward a budget. The entire work remains in the hands of the bureaucrats. And until they come out in a mentally supporting mood. There are a lot of restrictions,” he said.
The Guwahati Municipal Corporation, meanwhile, accepts that nothing has been done until now but a change is definitely on the cards.
“I do agree that nothing has happened until now. But things are changing now and I am sure that we are going to do it very soon,” he said.
“These are very important people in our society, and we cannot neglect them. When we talk about developing the living conditions in cities. When we talk about developing our cities we need to look at our slums with the right earnest. So, it is definitely on the cards.”
However, the slum dwellers of Ward 10 in Guwahati have little to no hope of any difference in their subhuman living conditions.
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