India's 'dignity of individual' promise exposed by reality of manual scavenging

New Indian Express

07-08-2025

More than a decade after India formally outlawed manual scavenging, this inhuman practice continues to haunt the margins of society, even as the government remains in denial. In a written response to a Lok Sabha question on 29 July this year, the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment reiterated that manual scavenging remains prohibited under the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, and stated that the government has not received any reports from states or Union territories indicating that the practice continues.
Replying to a question, Minister of State Ramdas Athawale claimed that no deaths due to manual scavenging—defined narrowly as the manual removal of human excreta from insanitary latrines—had been reported in the last five years. This assertion is likely to draw criticism from civil society groups and independent fact-finding missions, which have consistently documented fatal incidents during sewer and septic tank cleaning operations.
The government's response also denied any caste-based linkage to the occupation, claiming that manual scavenging is 'occupation-based rather than caste-based.' It further stated that caste-wise data on identified manual scavengers is not maintained. This contradicts field studies and historical accounts, which have repeatedly shown a disproportionately high representation of Scheduled Castes—particularly the Valmiki community—among those forced into this degrading work.
Activists highlight a troubling gap in government data: while fatalities during sewer cleaning are often acknowledged by the National Commission for Safai Karamcharis (NCSK) and reported in the media, the government's narrow definition of "manual scavenging" excludes these deaths, thereby underreporting the human toll. Legal experts argue that the 2013 Act prohibits not only dry latrine cleaning but also the manual handling of human waste in drains, sewers, and septic tanks—practices that remain commonplace in many states.
The Centre's reply raises more questions than it answers. With no official reports of continued practice or fatalities, yet overwhelming anecdotal and journalistic evidence to the contrary, the government's stance appears alarmingly detached from ground realities. Until robust data collection, caste-sensitive rehabilitation, and the mechanisation of sanitation work become institutional priorities, India's pledge to eradicate manual scavenging will remain unfulfilled.
The minister's statement also contradicts data available on the NCSK website, which shows that 1,313 sewer and septic tank deaths were reported between 1993 and 2025 (up to June 30). This includes 63 sanitation worker deaths in 2023 and another 52 in 2024. In a separate Parliamentary response on 31 July 2024, the same minister reported that 58,098 manual scavengers had been identified across the country. Under the NAMASTE scheme, 84,902 sewer and septic tank workers have been identified across 36 states and Union territories.
A recent social audit commissioned by the Union government into hazardous sewer and septic tank cleaning revealed that over 90% of workers who died while cleaning sewers did not have any safety gear or Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). The study, commissioned in September 2023 by the Social Justice Ministry, examined the circumstances surrounding 54 such deaths across 17 districts in eight states and Union territories in 2022 and 2023. Government data shows that 150 people died due to hazardous cleaning operations during this period. The audit's findings were tabled in Parliament on 22 July 2025.
The Fiefdoms of Shit
Unseen: The Truth about India's Manual Scavengers (2014) by Bhasha Singh powerfully documents the plight of those coerced into this dehumanizing work for centuries. It portrays how this practice has shackled an entire community in such deep insecurity that many among them do not even realize that their work is a manifestation of entrenched feudal oppression.
In Singh's account, a mother-in-law feels proud to gift a scavenging basket and broom to her newly wedded daughter-in-law, as part of a toxic legacy. 'The predicament of these people,' writes Bezwada Wilson in the book's introduction 'is the result of a conspiracy to keep them subjugated for generations so that they don't question the injustice of their exploitation. And it is the caste system which has designed this conspiracy, ensuring the continued oppression of manual scavengers. The society believes that the manual scavenging community is responsible for their shit—and the scavengers themselves feel that only they are responsible for others' shit!'
Singh exposes the ruthless mechanics of caste subjugation. In Madhya Pradesh, for instance, women engaged in manual scavenging are still called jagirdars, a now-defunct Mughal feudal title. Their jagir consists of the households from which they must collect human waste. This grotesque irony—where a title of high privilege is used to mask degrading servitude—highlights the systematic manner in which a whole community has been imprisoned in this hellish occupation. Historical records even show instances of these jagirs being mortgaged and sold, revealing how deeply institutionalized and commercialized the oppression has been.
In this context, the government's claim that 'manual scavenging is occupation-based rather than caste-based'—coming from a minister representing a party conceived by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar—is not just erroneous but cruel. The government may wish to sweep the issue under the carpet, but this is a gorilla in the room too large to hide.
The Broken Promise of Dignity
Aharon Barak, the eminent Israeli jurist, observed in Human Dignity: The Constitutional Value and the Constitutional Right (2015) that human dignity is the foundation of all human rights, forming the central argument for their very existence. After World War II, constitutional and international legal frameworks began adopting the concept of dignity, recognizing it both as a constitutional value and a fundamental right.
The modern understanding of dignity owes much to Immanuel Kant, who in Critique of Practical Reason, insisted that human beings must be treated as ends in themselves, not merely as means. Ethics, Kant argued, entails duties to oneself—such as cultivating one's talents—and to others, by contributing to their well-being. This capacity for moral agency is the essence of dignity.
Professor Upendra Baxi offered a powerful redefinition of dignity as empowerment, comprising three essential elements: respect for one's capacity to make free choices, respect for the choices made, and respect for the contexts in which those choices are exercised. The Indian Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed that the right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution includes the right to live with dignity.
And yet, when an entire community is forced to clean human excreta for generations, every pillar of that dignity collapses. The Preambular promise of 'dignity of the individual' remains a farce for India's manual scavengers.
In The Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel asserted that human history is driven by the struggle for recognition of human dignity. The struggle of manual scavengers is precisely that—a pursuit of personhood, of being seen as human. Manual scavenging is a direct and degrading consequence of untouchability, functioning as its most brutal, caste-entrenched form. Yet, while Article 17 constitutionally proscribes untouchability, it does not explicitly name or prohibit manual scavenging. This creates a normative and symbolic gap in our constitutional commitment to dignity, equality, and fraternity. Abolition of manual scavenging must be inserted in Article 17. It will give constitutional clarity and recognition to the abhorrence of this practice, elevate the offence of engaging or compelling manual scavenging to a constitutional wrong, not merely a statutory violation, and strengthen the legal and moral mandate of the state to prosecute violators and rehabilitate victims.
It is time the Indian state stops building Potemkin villages to mask the misery of manual scavengers. Instead, it must eradicate this dehumanizing practice, provide effective rehabilitation, and offer reparations for the historic injustice inflicted on this community across generations.
(The author is Deputy Law Secretary to the Government of Kerala and author of The Supreme Codex: A Citizen's Anxieties and Aspirations on the Indian Constitution.)