The New Indian Express By

In the latest in a series of such tragedies that occur across the country, on October 15, G Muniyandi and D Viswanathan died of asphyxiation while cleaning a manhole. The Dalit men, employed by the Madurai Corporation, were only in their twenties. They were using none of the protective gear mandated by the 2013 Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, an update of a 1993 law prohibiting manual scavenging, a caste-based form of exploitative labour already banned under 1955 Protection of Civil Rights Act. The Supreme Court last year ruled that manual scavenging was violative of international human rights. And yet, as the socio-economic caste census data of 2011 revealed, 1.8 lakh households remain engaged in this labour. Entangled in dynamics of caste oppression and gendered violence, manual scavenging often becomes a hereditary occupation, reinforcing patterns of untouchability.

A 2014 Human Rights Watch study on the matter found that barriers to stopping the practice included lack of modern sanitation, lack of support from local government, and lack of alternate employment options. Many interviewed in rural Rajasthan, Gujarat and other states where women remove night soil from houses, said they faced threats of violence if they refused to go to work and that their children were often discriminated against. Worse, the biggest violators of the law are ultimately the states: manual scavengers are employed, either directly or indirectly, by local government bodies, and agencies such as the Railways. They have been instructed to use machinery instead, but fail to.

Where is the pressure from lay citizens holding them accountable? Beyond organisations like Safai Karamchari Andolan, and Dalit groups, where is the anger from the rest of India? It is an indi­ctment of Indian society, and specifically the middle-class, that we tolerate and accept such blatant violation of the law, one that injures the dignity of scores of fellow-citizens across the country. Ultimately isn’t the blood of Muniyandi and Viswanathan on the hands of those of us who accept, who employ, who turn a blind eye and who fail to question why?