“If I were to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi, I would only ask him to pull out all manual scavengers from the dirtand filth, and ensure a dignified life for them,” says Usha Chomar, a former manual scavenger. After all, it was toilets or the lack of them that made their life hell.
Ms. Chomar is a born leader and orator but born into a family of manual scavengers where the only skill imparted to her was how to clean toilets and carry night soil on her head so that it did not spill around, particularly during rains — no matter if it fell on her clothes. At 10 when she was married, Ms. Chomar had got used to not only cleaning and carrying night soil but also to the indignity and exploitation associated with it.
“I would tell the Prime Minister if there were toilets everywhere, manual scavenging would end automatically. And [if] children of manual scavengers were given free education and scholarships, they can come into the national mainstream and not looked down upon,” she said. Isn’t it shocking to go behind the bushes, using umbrellas as cover and facing violence while going out in the field just because there are no toilets, she asked. Everyone knew about it but no one spoke over it until August 15 last year, she points out.
The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013 has also brought some hope among to the scavengers and they hope it would be implemented in letter and spirit.
“It was when Sulabh International started ‘Nai Disha’ — a skill imparting centre — that I, along with others realised what living with dignity was,”' Ms Chomar told The Hindu here while narrating her journey from a scavenger to president of Sulabh International in Rajasthan. She shudders at the kind of language she used when she joined the centre. “We did not even know what respect meant. We were never given any,” said Ms. Chomar .
Alwar was the first city in the country to be declared manual scavenging-free in April 2003, followed by Tonk in 2008.
When Sulabh International took over the task of making these manual scavengers free from this profession, it constructed toilets at all the places and households, where these women were employed. Over 700 toilets were built with the help of non-governmental organisations and government funding. “This was to ensure that these women did not go back to their old professional for additional income,” said Rajiv Kumar Sinha, manager of Nai Disha.
The centre began with 23 women and now has 112, who are imparted skills in addition to being paid a monthly stipend. Most of them now can read and write Hindi and some English, too. These women have as many as nine self-help groups with a decent capital.
The social change that has come about in just a decade is remarkable. Until 2002, these women were not even allowed to enter homes through the main gates, and the money was thrown at them; today they are welcomed in by the very same families for weddings to apply ‘mehndi’ as on-call beauticians and for religious functions to help in cooking. Rajasthan had 56,000 manual scavengers in 2012, though most of them are in remote areas and not reachable.
We did not even know what respect meant, says Usha
