On Wednesday, India’s Supreme Court ordered an immediate halt to manual scavenging and the hazardous practice of cleaning sewers and septic tanks in major metropolitan cities of the world’s fifth-largest economy – Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad.
A bench led by Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia instructed municipal authorities to submit a detailed affidavit outlining how and when manual scavenging and sewer cleaning will be eliminated in their cities, with a deadline set for February 13.
The Supreme Court issued the order while overseeing its October 2023 ruling that mandated all states and Union Territories to completely eliminate the inhumane practice of manual scavenging. On Wednesday, the court expressed its frustration over ongoing violations and non-compliance. “Can we say today that manual scavenging is banned from now on?... We are fed up with orders. We are directing you: either do it or face consequences,” the bench said.
This latest order is unlikely to be a game-changer for Rishabh Pamariya, 22, who begins most days by going to the nearby Brahmin colony in Nagra, Jhansi, in central India, where he still cleans open latrines used in the older parts of the city.
Hailing from the ‘dom’ community – a Dalit (formerly “untouchable”) at the bottom of the Hindu caste pyramid – this is his community’s profession and there is nothing he can do about it.
He wanted to be a teacher, but after dropping out after finishing eighth grade, he had to start work as a sweeper and human scavenger, like his parents.
“No matter what you become, you will always remain a dom,” says his mother Shanti, who has been manually cleaning latrines since she married in her teens. She recalls getting paid 5 to 8 rupees a month from each household in the early 1990s; now her son gets 40 to 50 rupees ($0.47 to $0.58) for the same work. He is barely able to earn 8,500 rupees a month ($100), not enough to make ends meet.
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