[nukkad] Curious - how so many 'fans' of Varsha Bhosle forgot this one

[Sai (Indian Rediff) <>]

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The instinct of a man is to pursue everything that flies from him, 
and to fly from all that pursue him. -Voltaire, philosopher (1694-1778)
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I have noticed that many postings that are mailed to
nukkad, esp. by Varsha and Rajeev, tend to be ones
boasting about the khaki chaddi waalas. However,
whenever they turn their ire onto the Hindus themselves,
they are conveniently omitted here at nukkad. 

I thought it would be nice to read her thoughts about
Casteism in Hindu India. It horrified me for one. 

Wonder what others have to say?

http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/nov/18varsha.htm

Varsha Bhosle
The naked face of casteism
In all my years of writing, I've never received as much
email for a single column as I did over the last two
weeks. Since I was more interested than I've ever been
to know readers' views, I not only read every single
message as it arrived, but also categorised it by sender
and content, besides noting down pertinent points.
However, I answered only those which inspired
unprintable invective; as for the rest, please
understand, I couldn't have conducted my personal
"survey" and responded to everybody, too. Thank you all
for writing in and giving me glimpses of your
caste-related thoughts and experiences --- I intend
addressing those issues soon.

The variety of opinions was instructive, but I
anticipated that from a people who widely differ on the
nature of their religion itself. Nevertheless, what I
did NOT expect were thoughts such as reader Poduri's:
"There is nothing wrong with doing the kinds of jobs
that are performed by the Shudras. The work in itself
should carry no stigma --- it is work that is needed by
the society, and someone needs to do it."

I wish it were the only mail of its kind...

Not! For, another reader forwarded me a link to the open
forum at Sulekha, with comments on my article by one
Satish Tiwary. I'm glad they weren't directly addressed
to me --- my reply would've been rendered incoherent by
my rage. I quote:

    * cleaning and hauling excreta --- this has no basis
in Indian culture... It started in India when the new
fashioned cities started with what we call 'kamau'
toilets... That, alongwith the freezing of the caste
boundaries that happened during the colonial period,
created a new caste of 'bhangis.' Now, with the advent
of modern sanitation, this thing has vanished, and
carrying human refuge [sic] as a job has been made
illegal throughout India. It is a social rather than
'hindu' problem.
    * burn corpses --- ditto. It is a job like any other
job and I have not seen anyone forced to do it. I think
it is a respectable job, and go try to insult Domraj at
Manikarnika Ghat, Kashi, if you dont believe it. The
whole received wisdom of hierarchy doesn't work there.
    * Tend morgues --- ditto. In addition, I know plenty
of so called 'upper caste' people who tend morgues in
different hospitals.
    * Skin dead animals --- ditto. People in leather
industry have to skin dead animals. They don't auto-skin.
* None of these jobs are insulting, other than carrying
human refuge [sic], which has been made illegal. As far
as I know, no one is forced to do these things, and I
should know as I come from a poor village in
north-western Bihar. Most of the young people from the
'castes' who were supposed to do these jobs dont do it
anymore as they dont pay enough. They work in the mills
and factories in Delhi or Bombay, or work as
agricultural laborers in Punjab.

Maybe, just maybe, I would've let this garbage pass ---
if not for the congratulatory chorus from Sulekha's
"secularists", "rationalists" and "chaddis" alike: "Good
views, Satish, esp the one regarding so called 'low'
jobs!" "Things are changing and it is labour for living
and dignity of labour gaining ground slowly but surely",
"Satish, Very succintly [sic] and elegantly put and I
concur", "ur comments were very good".

THIS is the naked face of casteism. There can't be a
more revealing example of how the "upper castes"
endeavour to limit Dalits to sub-human jobs --- in the
guise of "respecting" labour. The closed casteist
camaraderie is evident as they pat each other for
"telling it like it is". Which, according to Tiwary: "It
is economy, stupid! Rest of the noise is just harmful
bullshit."

It's easy to live abroad --- I guess, Tiwary & Co are
NRIs --- and talk about "knowing" non-Dalits who tend
morgues in Mumbai, burn corpses in Kolkata and shift
human refuse in Ranchi. Hundreds of readers happen by,
absorb the pile of garbage as facts, with no one to ask
the dork to put up or shut up; with online anonymity,
there's no question of credibility, integrity or
culpability, anyway. Rarely have I felt as violent as I
feel towards these poisonous thugs. And so, I will skin
Tiwary's postulates as I would his posterior.

The Government of India's All India Institute of Hygiene
and Public Health states that "only about 200 cities and
towns in India out of a total of more than 4,000 have
sewage systems and that too partial. Only very few of
these have sewerage treatment plants, most of which are
ill maintained and go out of operation more often than
not. As of today, less than 50% of the urban population
are having sanitary excreta disposal system. There are
still 4 lakh scavengers and 72.1 lakh dry latrines in
2,587 towns. In rural areas, open defecation in the
field continues to remain the only form of sanitation
for majority of the population... less than 10% of the
rural population have sanitary facilities. Facilities of
drainage and sewerage disposal are almost non-existent."

"This thing has vanished"...? Whether the Chuhras of
Punjab, Dumras of Rajasthan, Mehtars of Bihar, Bhuimalia
of Bengal, Bhangis of Gujarat, Pakhis of Andhra Pradesh,
or Sikkaliars and Thotis of Tamil Nadu, Dalit scavengers
exist under different caste names throughout the country
--- and have since pre-colonial times. Or did you think
that the Chitpavans of Punyanagri, or the Saraswats of
Karnataka, or the Rajputs of Rajasthan went to the
woods, or cleaned out their own night soil before the
advent of the British...?

The Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of
Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, 1993, punishes the
employment of scavengers or the construction of
non-flush (dry) latrines with imprisonment for up to one
year and/or a fine up to Rs 2,000. That's right --- this
Act was passed less than a decade ago. And all that's
changed is that the scavengers are now called "safai
karamcharis" and have a panel to oversee their welfare.
Using no more than a broom, metal plates and baskets,
Dalits are made to clear excreta from latrines and carry
it to dumping grounds --- even today.

According to the National Commission for Safai
Karamcharis, it's the Bhangis who engage in scavenging.
At all levels, whether in villages or in municipalities,
this class constitutes the workers who clean up after
the "upper castes". In a 1997 report, the commission
stated that the manual scavengers are "totally cut off
from the mainstream of progress" and are "still
subjected to the worst kind of oppression and
indignities. What is more pathetic is the fact that
manual scavenging is still largely a hereditary
occupation. Safai karamcharis are no doubt the most
oppressed and disadvantaged section of the population."

A survey conducted by Safai Karmachari Andolan found
over 1,650 scavengers in ten districts in Andhra
Pradesh; most were also engaged in underground sewage
work. It revealed that 98% of manual scavengers in the
state were Dalits, the rest being Shudra. Such workers
are employed by urban municipalities for about Rs 2,000
a month --- but paid only once every four to six months.
Why don't the "dignity"-dorks get out their Japanese
calculators and figure out what American janitors
receive per month for less taxing jobs...? Hint: In
August, Boston's "cleaning contractors" agitated for an
increase in their $11.30 per hour pay scale.

I'd like to know the "dignity" in manually cleaning out
--- without gloves, masks, overshoes, protective
overalls --- hundreds of dry latrines daily. Even other
scheduled-caste people do not touch the scavengers, who,
in canteens, are made to wash and handle their own
dishes so that those meant for caste Hindus are not
"polluted". Not a Hindu problem...?

In cities, scavengers are lowered by ropes into filthy
gutters to unclog them, without any protective gear
whatsoever. In Mumbai, I've seen boys emerge from
manholes completely covered in shit and scum. In cities,
many have died from carbon monoxide poisoning. Would
Tiwary allow his son to partake in this "dignity"...?

To The Week of August 15, 1999, Madhuben Parmar of
Limbdi village related her day: "I start my work at 6
am. With a broom or a tin plate, I collect human excreta
in a metal drum and dump it at a fixed place for the
municipality tractor-trolley to collect. Earlier, I had
to carry it on my head to the river a kilometre away
about 10 times a day. In the afternoon, I clean the
gutters. I carry it to the dumping yard nearby. In the
evening, I again collect human excreta. Sometimes I have
to dispose of dead animals. So late in the evening, I do
the rounds of various upper caste houses to collect valu
[leftover food]. But when I return home I can hardly eat
because of nausea. The men are lucky, they can drown it
all in liquor." Dignified enough for Tiwary...?

The Navsarjan Trust, an NGO working for abolition of
manual scavenging, challenged the Gujarat government to
conduct house-to-house surveys and disprove its finding
that over 7,000 manual scavengers work either for
municipalities or privately in Ahmedabad, Surendranagar
and Kheda districts alone. Said Martin Macwan, "Manual
scavenging cannot be looked at in isolation as an
occupation. It is built in the caste system and is
getting worse. Fifty years ago there was no technology
but today we have it. But things still remain the same.
Technology again is caste-based. If you are on the wrong
side of the fence, you hardly get exposed to it." Yes,
technology enables dorks to spew garbage online.

Dry latrines are no more than a small room in which a
hole in the ground opens into a compartment below. The
scavenger has to crawl into the compartment and empty
out the receptacle, with filth falling all over his
body. According to Preetiben Vaghela, a social activist
working among scavengers, because of these conditions,
almost all Bhangis suffer from respiratory infections,
gastrointestinal disorders and trachoma --- a form of
contagious bacterial conjunctivitis resulting in
blindness --- along with complaints of fever, headache,
fatigue and dizziness.

Also, each and every scavenger is an alcoholic --- right
from the tender years when his slight form was a "boon"
to crawl into narrow shit-filled pits. So lofty is this
"dignity of labour" that it can only be enjoyed when one
is drunk-oblivious of the surroundings. Tiwary should
try it: he'd become one with the environment.

"Burn corpses --- ditto. It is a job like any other
job." Right, just like techies punch on keyboards and
cabbies steer the wheel, the Doms --- ie, the
untouchables of Varanasi --- punch up the cremation
fires with long poles, hoist half of a skeleton and the
skull into the air, then slam it down and beat it with
the pole, breaking it up so that it would burn better.
So like any other job, no?

Since corpses can't auto-ignite, nor can electric
crematoriums deliver orthodox Hindus to where they are
bound (not swarg, surely), how do the "upper castes"
manipulate an entire stratum of people to do their
hideous jobs for them? Well, the leader of the Doms is
given the title of 'Raja' while his kin are sanctioned
to sell the wood, collect money and tend the
ever-burning "sacred" fire from which all pyres are lit
--- which fire has been kept lit by the Doms and passed
from father to son for generations!

This is a classic Brahmin ploy --- create an illusion of
grandeur and self-importance within a group of
"Untouchables" and then make them haul and split
corpses, while Brahmin Jr cavorts in the US of A
inventing theories on "dignity of labour".

Apropos the West, I accept that people take such jobs
because they want to, or because they didn't study
further, or because the pay is good, etc. In India,
whether or not some escape their forced, caste-based
existence, the fact remains that those who are in these
demeaning jobs are only Dalits --- locked in there by
the "upper castes".

As for those who escape as "agricultural laborers", any
Bihari should know this statistic: An estimated 40
million people, of which 15 million are children, are
bonded labourers --- the majority being Dalits.
Actually, that calls for a separate article --- which,
anyway, will be throwing more pearls before casteist swine.

Varsha Bhosle


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