The mission for a clean India will not work without breaking the link between caste and occupation

In the third year since its launch, the purpose of Swachh Bharat is still not clear. We have to understand one thing: this entire campaign is to make India clean. But the people who actually make the countryswachh(clean), and have kept itswachhso far, have been left behind and Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants to achieve this goal without their participation.

The caste link

To clean the country, you have to address the problems of those who have spent a lifetime cleaning the country. You come out with your brooms and clean for a day. It is a photo opportunity for most of you. But I want to ask, what of the remaining 364 days? Who will clean your dirt? In India, there is an inexorable link between occupation and caste; the occupation of manual scavenging is linked with caste. We have to break the link between caste and occupation before we set out to achieve Swachh Bharat. It cannot be achieved by preaching ‘cleanliness is next to godliness’. You have made certain communities from particular castes clean the country. If that were not the case, why is it that for the last 4,000 years, the same communities are cleaning the countryside? Without breaking the chain, those who make Bharatswachhwill never be a part of the campaign. You will be projecting an illusion and to promote that, you will conceive of campaigns where the success of the illusion will depend on how well you promote it.

The Prime Minister has already missed the target before he set out to achieve the goal. He has to come out openly and say that caste is the root cause of the problem he wishes to annihilate. He has to say that despite the Constitution declaring the abolition of untouchability in Article 17, it is still practised by perpetuating occupations such as scavenging. The cause has not been made clear by the Prime Minister. Cleaning India is not a spiritual experience and he should not glorify it. In the Indian context, manual scavenging is a misery, drudgery, so one cannot worship it. Can a manual scavenger worship his occupation by cleaning someone’s faeces? One has to begin by recasting society and its target, reconstructing society first by breaking the links between occupation castes. Slogans like ‘Clean-up India’ are an illusion.

Shaming no solution

People are not using toilets because they neither have access nor the capacity to use one. You cannot organise campaigns to shame them. If your priority is the poor, let them choose what they want. The Constitution says the state cannot interfere in people’s lives. But by appointing whistle-blowers who shame those who do not use toilets, the state is terrorising people.

Then, let us come to the toilets being constructed. Each toilet requires a septic tank. My question is, who will clean the septic tank? Instead of modernising the sewer lines and septic tanks and investing money and energy on smart techniques of sanitation, you are adding more problems to the existing problem. You have no concern for those who are dying cleaning sewers. People who have given up their lives in keeping Bharat clean, you have not spoken about their Right to Life. All of this shows the insensitivity in setting this goal. The sewers are being cleaned by those very people shamed in the campaign. Every month, there is news about people dying in manholes after being ordered to clean them. Why hasn’t any thought gone into mechanised cleaning of manholes in the city? Why is it the job of the most depressed man to clean up and lose his life in the process?

As told to Anuradha Raman