case study on caste discrimination in india

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Indian student's fight against caste discrimination raises Dalit hopes

Police try to stop people belonging to the Dalit community as they take part in a protest during a nationwide strike called by Dalit organisations, in Chandigarh, India, April 2, 2018. REUTERS/Ajay Verma TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

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Six decades after India banned caste-based discrimination, Dalit students say they face widespread bullying and mistreatment on campus

By Anuradha Nagaraj

CHENNAI, India, Nov 30 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Bullied by academic staff, barred from the university laboratory and even denied a chair, Deepa P. Mohanan despaired of ever being able to finish her PhD as a low-caste Indian woman. But then she decided to fight back.

Mohanan, who is researching on nanomedicine, became a poster girl for tens of thousands of fellow Dalit students when she went on hunger strike to protest discrimination and succeeded in winning reform pledges from university authorities.

"I desperately want to finish my PhD and realised that it would not be possible till I publicly called out the campus discrimination I had faced for years," Mohanan, 36, said in a phone interview from her home in Kottayam in southern India.

Mohanan ended her 11-day hunger strike earlier this month after the head of the Mahatma Gandhi university's International and Inter University Centre for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology was dismissed following her complaints.

The university has also set up a committee under the vice chancellor to look into her accusations, which rights campaigners say reflect rampant discrimination against low-caste students on campuses across the nation of 1.3 billion people.

India's 200 million Dalits , who are on the lowest rung of an ancient caste hierarchy, still struggle to access education and jobs six decades after India banned caste-based discrimination and introduced minimum quotas to boost their representation.

"Caste discrimination is very prevalent on campuses ... classrooms have become terrible spaces," said Jenny Rowena, an English professor in Delhi University.

Rowena, who contributes to a YouTube Channel documenting the experiences of Dalits and other marginalised communities, said many Dalit students skip classes to avoid being humiliated or drop out altogether - exacerbating their under-representation.

Government higher education data shows enrollment of students from marginalised communities or low castes - known as schedule castes - in 2019-20 was 14.7% of all students aged 18-23, missing the mandated quota of 15% in many subject areas.

case study on caste discrimination in india

'EVERYDAY STRUGGLE'

Mohanan, who is researching on building wound-healing scaffolds using nanoparticles, was the only Dalit student in her batch of 100 when she joined her postgraduate programme.

A single mother, she is the first person in her family to go to university and pursue postgraduate research.

"Really, I wasn't expecting so much discrimination," said Mohanan, who prior to her hunger strike had made numerous complaints to the university and filed a legal complaint.

"It was finally spelt out in a conversation that if a Dalit student is favoured it will affect the discipline of the institution. I felt defeated at first but then resolved to fight," she said.

For many Dalit students, campus life is an everyday struggle, said Anuraji P.R., national vice-president of student body Bhim Army, which supported Mohanan's protest.

Many are failed in internal assessments and supervisors often refuse to be their guides for postdoctoral studies or question their abilities, said one postgraduate student, requesting anonymity as he was about to sit for exams.

Intake quotas for students from under-represented groups, including low-caste Indians, have fuelled discrimination, said C. Lakshmanan, a political science professor who is also national convener of the Dalit Intellectual Collective.

"Students coming in through reservation are seen as undeserving by their urban upper-class peers and teachers, who largely come from the same elite space. It is very unfortunate that a hunger strike is needed to fulfill an academic pursuit."

The University Grants Commission, which oversees higher education in India, wrote to institutions in September urging them to strictly prevent caste discrimination on campus.

It asked universities to ensure complaint registers and websites are available to students and said a committee should be set up to look into them.

The Commission's chairman and secretary were not available for comment.

GASLIGHTING

Abeda Salim Tadvi, whose 26-year-old daughter Payal died by suicide in her college hostel room in May 2019, blames caste discrimination and bullying for her death.

A resident doctor at a Mumbai hospital, Payal was doing a master's in obstetrics and gynaecology, but faced daily abuse - from name-calling and being asked to sleep on the floor by roommates to being banned from attending important surgeries.

"The grief is still in my heart ... I am not able to shake it off," said Tadvi, recalling numerous conversations with her daughter about how she was being harassed by more senior student doctors.

"We tried ignoring it, complaining about it but in the end she could not deal with it. There was no mechanism on campus that reassured or supported her."

Tadvi, along with Radhika Vemula - whose son Rohith, a PhD scholar at the University of Hyderabad, took his own life in 2016 and alluded to caste discrimination in a suicide note - have filed a petition in India's top court demanding action.

In their petition in the ingoing case, the two women said all universities and higher education institutions should establish equality units to ensure complaints about caste discrimination are addressed.

At the moment, there are rarely any consequences for college officials if a caste discrimination case is reported on their campus, said the women's lawyer, Disha Wadekar.

"The most common response to complaints is gaslighting, where students are told it's 'all in your head'," she said.

But Tadvi is hopeful that her case will bring some change.

"Students and parents should keep complaining because that's the only way to record the prevalence and highlight our fight," she said from her home in Jalgaon in Maharashtra state.

Mohanan said she also hoped her fight would help make student life easier for other Dalits.

"So many students from across India called me after I ended my strike saying they felt hopeful," she said.

"For them and for my daughter, I'm glad I spoke up."

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India's "Untouchables" Face Violence, Discrimination

More than 160 million people in India are considered "Untouchable"—people tainted by their birth into a caste system that deems them impure, less than human.

Human rights abuses against these people, known as Dalits, are legion. A random sampling of headlines in mainstream Indian newspapers tells their story: "Dalit boy beaten to death for plucking flowers"; "Dalit tortured by cops for three days"; "Dalit 'witch' paraded naked in Bihar"; "Dalit killed in lock-up at Kurnool"; "7 Dalits burnt alive in caste clash"; "5 Dalits lynched in Haryana"; "Dalit woman gang-raped, paraded naked"; "Police egged on mob to lynch Dalits".

"Dalits are not allowed to drink from the same wells, attend the same temples, wear shoes in the presence of an upper caste, or drink from the same cups in tea stalls," said Smita Narula, a senior researcher with Human Rights Watch , and author of Broken People: Caste Violence Against India's "Untouchables." Human Rights Watch is a worldwide activist organization based in New York.

India's Untouchables are relegated to the lowest jobs, and live in constant fear of being publicly humiliated, paraded naked, beaten, and raped with impunity by upper-caste Hindus seeking to keep them in their place. Merely walking through an upper-caste neighborhood is a life-threatening offense.

Nearly 90 percent of all the poor Indians and 95 percent of all the illiterate Indians are Dalits, according to figures presented at the International Dalit Conference that took place May 16 to 18 in Vancouver, Canada.

Crime Against Dalits

Statistics compiled by India's National Crime Records Bureau indicate that in the year 2000, the last year for which figures are available, 25,455 crimes were committed against Dalits. Every hour two Dalits are assaulted; every day three Dalit women are raped, two Dalits are murdered, and two Dalit homes are torched.

No one believes these numbers are anywhere close to the reality of crimes committed against Dalits. Because the police, village councils, and government officials often support the caste system, which is based on the religious teachings of Hinduism, many crimes go unreported due to fear of reprisal, intimidation by police, inability to pay bribes demanded by police, or simply the knowledge that the police will do nothing.

"There have been large-scale abuses by the police, acting in collusion with upper castes, including raids, beatings in custody, failure to charge offenders or investigate reported crimes," said Narula.

That same year, 68,160 complaints were filed against the police for activities ranging from murder, torture, and collusion in acts of atrocity, to refusal to file a complaint. Sixty two percent of the cases were dismissed as unsubstantiated; 26 police officers were convicted in court.

Despite the fact that untouchability was officially banned when India adopted its constitution in 1950, discrimination against Dalits remained so pervasive that in 1989 the government passed legislation known as The Prevention of Atrocities Act. The act specifically made it illegal to parade people naked through the streets, force them to eat feces, take away their land, foul their water, interfere with their right to vote, and burn down their homes.

Since then, the violence has escalated, largely as a result of the emergence of a grassroots human rights movement among Dalits to demand their rights and resist the dictates of untouchability, said Narula.

Lack of Enforcement, Not Laws

Enforcement of laws designed to protect Dalits is lax if not non-existent in many regions of India. The practice of untouchability is strongest in rural areas, where 80 percent of the country's population resides. There, the underlying religious principles of Hinduism dominate.

Hindus believe a person is born into one of four castes based on karma and "purity"—how he or she lived their past lives. Those born as Brahmans are priests and teachers; Kshatriyas are rulers and soldiers; Vaisyas are merchants and traders; and Sudras are laborers. Within the four castes, there are thousands of sub-castes, defined by profession, region, dialect, and other factors.

Untouchables are literally outcastes; a fifth group that is so unworthy it doesn't fall within the caste system.

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Although based on religious principles practiced for some 1,500 years, the system persists today for economic as much as religious reasons.

Because they are considered impure from birth, Untouchables perform jobs that are traditionally considered "unclean" or exceedingly menial, and for very little pay. One million Dalits work as manual scavengers, cleaning latrines and sewers by hand and clearing away dead animals. Millions more are agricultural workers trapped in an inescapable cycle of extreme poverty, illiteracy, and oppression.

Although illegal, 40 million people in India, most of them Dalits, are bonded workers, many working to pay off debts that were incurred generations ago, according to a report by Human Rights Watch published in 1999. These people, 15 million of whom are children, work under slave-like conditions hauling rocks, or working in fields or factories for less than U.S. $1 day.

Crimes Against Women

Dalit women are particularly hard hit. They are frequently raped or beaten as a means of reprisal against male relatives who are thought to have committed some act worthy of upper-caste vengeance. They are also subject to arrest if they have male relatives hiding from the authorities.

A case reported in 1999 illustrates the toxic mix of gender and caste.

A 42-year-old Dalit woman was gang-raped and then burnt alive after she, her husband, and two sons had been held in captivity and tortured for eight days. Her crime? Another son had eloped with the daughter of the higher-caste family doing the torturing. The local police knew the Dalit family was being held, but did nothing because of the higher-caste family's local influence.

There is very little recourse available to victims.

A report released by Amnesty International in 2001 found an "extremely high" number of sexual assaults on Dalit women, frequently perpetrated by landlords, upper-caste villagers, and police officers. The study estimates that only about 5 percent of attacks are registered, and that police officers dismissed at least 30 percent of rape complaints as false.

The study also found that the police routinely demand bribes, intimidate witnesses, cover up evidence, and beat up the women's husbands. Little or nothing is done to prevent attacks on rape victims by gangs of upper-caste villagers seeking to prevent a case from being pursued. Sometimes the policemen even join in, the study suggests. Rape victims have also been murdered. Such crimes often go unpunished.

Thousands of pre-teen Dalit girls are forced into prostitution under cover of a religious practice known as devadasis , which means "female servant of god." The girls are dedicated or "married" to a deity or a temple. Once dedicated, they are unable to marry, forced to have sex with upper-caste community members, and eventually sold to an urban brothel.

Resistance and Progress

Within India, grassroots efforts to change are emerging, despite retaliation and intimidation by local officials and upper-caste villagers. In some states, caste conflict has escalated to caste warfare, and militia-like vigilante groups have conducted raids on villages, burning homes, raping, and massacring the people. These raids are sometimes conducted with the tacit approval of the police.

In the province Bihar, local Dalits are retaliating, committing atrocities also. Non-aligned Dalits are frequently caught in the middle, victims of both groups.

"There is a growing grassroots movement of activists, trade unions, and other NGOs that are organizing to democratically and peacefully demand their rights, higher wages, and more equitable land distribution," said Narula. "There has been progress in terms of building a human rights movement within India, and in drawing international attention to the issue."

In August 2002, the UN Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (UN CERD) approved a resolution condemning caste or descent-based discrimination.

"But at the national level, very little is being done to implement or enforce the laws," said Narula.

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How India’s caste system limits diversity in science — in six charts

Data show how privileged groups still dominate many of the country’s elite research institutes.

By Ankur Paliwal

11 January 2023

Conceptual illustration showing the outline of faces above India.

Illustration by Polygon8

This article is part of a Nature series examining data on ethnic or racial diversity in science in different countries. See also: How UK science is failing Black researchers — in nine stark charts.

Samadhan is an outlier in his home village in western India. Last year, he became the first person from there to start a science PhD. Samadhan, a student in Maharashtra state, is an Adivasi or indigenous person — a member of one of the most marginalized and poorest communities in India.

For that reason, he doesn’t want to publicize his last name or institution, partly because he fears that doing so would bring his social status to the attention of a wider group of Indian scientists. “They’d know that I am from a lower category and will think that I have progressed because of [the] quota,” he says.

The quota Samadhan refers to is also known as a reservation policy: a form of affirmative action that was written into India’s constitution in 1950. Reservation policies aimed to uplift marginalized communities by allocating quotas for them in public-sector jobs and in education. Mirroring India’s caste system of social hierarchy, the most privileged castes dominated white-collar professions, including roles in science and technology. After many years, the Indian government settled on a 7.5% quota for Adivasis (referred to as ‘Scheduled Tribes’ in official records) and a 15% quota for another marginalized group, the Dalits (referred to in government records as ‘Scheduled Castes’, and formerly known by the dehumanizing term ‘untouchables’). These quotas — which apply to almost all Indian research institutes — roughly correspond to these communities’ representation in the population, according to the most recent census of 2011.

But the historically privileged castes — the ‘General’ category in government records — still dominate many of India’s elite research institutions. Above the level of PhD students, the representation of Adivasis and Dalits falls off a cliff. Less than 1% of professors come from these communities at the top-ranked institutes among the 23 that together are known as the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), according to data provided to Nature under right-to-information requests (see ‘Diversity at top Indian institutions’; the figures are for 2020, the latest available at time of collection).

Diversity at top Indian institutions

Universities in India are failing to meet government quotas for marginalized communities in academia. The government provides detailed national figures for undergraduate and master’s students, but not for academic levels above those; Nature collated figures from right-to-information requests. These data show that the representation of marginalized castes and other groups falls at higher academic levels.

Nationwide figures

Top-ranked IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology)†

Assistant professor

Associate professor

PhD student

Career level

Undergrad (STEM)*

Government quota

(‘reservation’ policy)

Proportion of total (%)

*Science, technology, engineering and mathematics; government data 2019–20. †Data obtained from Nature information requests, 2020 (latest available at time of collection). PhD: IITs: Delhi, Bombay (Mumbai), Madras (Chennai), Kanpur, Kharaghur. All other career levels: IITs: Delhi, Bombay (Mumbai), Kanpur, Kharagpur. ‡Other Backward Classes. The Indian government refers to ‘Other Backward Classes’ as educationally and socially marginalized groups that are not Scheduled Castes (Dalit) or Scheduled Tribes (Adivasi). §‘General’ is the government term for all groups that are not OBC, Dalit or Adivasi: that is, historically privileged castes.

Top-ranked IITs

(Indian Institutes of Technology)†

“This is deliberate” on the part of institutes that “don’t want us to succeed”, says Ramesh Chandra, a Dalit, who retired as a senior professor at the University of Delhi last June. Researchers blame institute heads for not following the reservation policies, and the government for letting them off the hook.

Diversity gaps are common in science in many countries but they take different forms in each nation. The situation in India highlights how its caste system limits scientific opportunities for certain groups in a nation striving to become a global research leader.

India’s government publishes summary student data, but its figures for academic levels beyond this don’t allow analyses of scientists by caste and academic position, and most universities do not publish these data. In the past few years, however, journalists, student groups and researchers have been gathering diversity data using public-information laws, and arguing for change. Nature has used some of these figures, and its own information requests, to examine the diversity picture. Together, these data show that there are major gaps in diversity in Indian science institutions.

Early barriers

The challenge starts in schools and feeds through to university admissions. Adivasis and Dalits are under-represented in undergraduate science courses but not arts courses, higher-education survey data show (see ‘Undergraduate students in India’).

Undergraduate students in India

At undergraduate level, Adivasis and Dalits are under-represented in science courses but not arts courses (2019–20 government data).

Engineering

That is not because arts courses are more popular, but because teachers and mentors specializing in science are rare in the rural high schools attended by these students, especially Adivasis, says Sonajharia Minz, a computer scientist and vice-chancellor of Sido Kanhu Murmu University in Dumka, eastern India. (Minz is the second Adivasi woman to hold a vice-chancellorship in India.)

Sonajharia Minz at the university with students.

Sonajharia Minz (front right), an Adivasi, computer scientist and vice-chancellor of Sido Kanhu Murmu University in Dumka, says better support systems are needed for marginalized groups. Credit: Balkishor Tudu (BK)

Samadhan says that when he started a life-science bachelor’s degree in 2009, students from privileged castes often called him and other students from marginalized communities “free off” — a slur referring to students on government aid.

Another marginalized group, termed ‘other backward classes’ or OBCs, makes up around 44% of science students and 30% of medical students at the undergraduate level. India’s national proportion of OBCs is not known, because the country’s census does not count them. But a government household survey from 2006 suggests they make up around 41% of the population. (Reservation policies require academic institutions to have 27% of admissions or recruitments from OBCs.)

In 2012, Samadhan progressed to a master’s degree at a high-ranking university in western India. Student diversity at master’s level is slightly lower than at the undergraduate level, data show (see ‘Master’s students in India’).

Master’s students in India

At master’s level, the under-representation of marginalized castes or groups in Indian universities worsens slightly, compared with undergraduates (2019–20 government data).

During his master’s, Samadhan often considered dropping out because he felt intimidated by the English-speaking culture and intense coursework that he wasn’t used to. This is a common experience among students from underprivileged communities, says Akash Gautam, a Dalit and an assistant professor of neuroscience at the University of Hyderabad. “Many of them are first learners in their families. They need more time and support from the universities, which they don’t get.”

Akash Gautam, a Dalit and an assistant professor of neuroscience at the University of Hyderabad. Credit: Asiqul Ali

At the PhD level, the proportion of marginalized communities dips further — particularly at elite institutions. Data for PhD courses in 2020 at five high-ranked IITs, collected by Nature , show an average of 10% representation for Dalits and 2% for Adivasis — slightly lower than the average for five mid-ranking IITs. India’s top-ranked university, the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bengaluru, fares badly too (see ‘PhD students in India’).

Akash Gautam at the main gate entrance of the University of Hyderabad, in Hyderabad, India.

PhD students in India

Data from a dozen Indian universities and institutes, sourced through information requests, show under-representation of marginalized castes in PhD programmes.

Government quota (‘reservation’ policy)

Top−ranked IITs‡

Mid-ranked IITs §

Banaras Hindu

University ¶

*Groups that are not Dalit, Advasi or OBC. †’Other backward classes’. ‡Delhi, Bombay (Mumbai), Madras (Chennai), Kanpur, Kharagpur. § Dhanbad, Patna, Guwahati, Ropar, and Goa. IIT Goa was created too recently to have an official ranking. || Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru. ¶ Faculty of Science data shown. All data from Nature information requests, 2020 (latest available at time of collection), except for Patna, Goa and Guwahati from requests by the Egalitarians group.

“Let’s face it, a PhD is somewhat of an elite pursuit” requiring financial support from families, says an IIT Delhi assistant professor from a privileged caste, speaking on condition of anonymity. Students from marginalized castes also often lack the recommendation networks and interview training to get recruited to PhD programmes, the assistant professor says.

Even when they start a PhD, many still struggle to find a good mentor willing to take them on. It is “quite common” for privileged-caste professors not to supervise students from marginalized communities, says Kirpa Ram, who belongs to the OBC grouping and is an assistant professor of environmental sciences at the Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi.

Kirpa Ram, who belongs to the OBC group, is an environmental scientist at the Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi. Credit: Kirpa Ram

An Adivasi PhD student from a science department at Delhi University, for instance, told Nature that in 2018, when she approached a privileged-caste professor to be her supervisor, he responded that she was a “quota candidate” and could find a supervisor anywhere.

Gautam and other scientists told Nature that sometimes privileged-caste professors don’t provide the extra mentoring that students from underprivileged backgrounds might need — leading some to quit before completing their PhDs. “It’s a tactic,” Gautam says.

Staffing fall

Very few doctoral students from marginalized castes reach staff positions in elite institutes (see ‘Faculty members in India’). At higher-tier IITs and the IISc, 98% of professors and more than 90% of assistant or associate professors are from privileged castes, Nature found. In the Mumbai-based Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), all professors are from the privileged castes, the data it provided to Nature suggest. TIFR belongs to a class of federally funded ‘Institutions of Excellence’ exempt from following reservation policies.

Faculty members in India

Data from 13 elite institutions in India show that a very low proportion of faculty members are from marginalized castes, especially at the assistant professor level and above.

Proportion of known ethnicities (%)

Top-ranked IITs‡

Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

Banaras Hindu University

(All departments)

Tata Institute of Fundamental

Research, Mumbai

*Groups that are not Dalit, Advasi or OBC. †’Other backward classes’. ‡Delhi, Bombay (Mumbai), Kanpur, Kharagpur. (IIT Madras didn’t provide faculty data). § Dhanbad, Patna, Guwahati, Varanasi, and Goa. IIT Goa was created too recently to have an official ranking. || Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru. All data from Nature information requests, 2020 (latest available at time of collection), except for Patna, Goa and Guwahati from requests by the Egalitarians group.

Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai

Banaras Hindu University (All departments)

Jawaharlal Nehru University,

Some premier institutes are doing a little better. At the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, a group of 38 labs, 18% of researchers (combining senior staff grades) were Dalits and 4% Adivasis, according to data Nature received from 31 of those labs.

Funding mismatch

Most of India’s research funders don’t disclose data on funding by caste, or don’t collect them in the first place. But the Department of Science and Technology (DST), one of India’s two main science-funding government agencies, did share data with Nature on postdoctoral researchers whom it had awarded INSPIRE Faculty Fellowships — positions aimed at supporting young talent, which represent an important but small part of the DST’s total funding. Between 2016 and 2020, 80% of recipients were from privileged castes, just 6% were Scheduled Castes (Dalits) and less than 1% Scheduled Tribes (Adivasis). The DST says the selection was “strictly based on merit”. Funding given by the DST’s Technology Development and Transfer Division showed a similar pattern (see ‘Diversity in India’s research funding’). In both cases, the DST didn’t share application success rates.

Diversity in India’s research funding

Data on two funding schemes, shared with Nature by India’s Department of Science and Technology (DST) under information requests, suggest most money goes to researchers from privileged castes or groups.

INSPIRE faculty fellowship for postdoctoral research, 2016−20

DST Tech Development and Transfer Division grants 2016−20

In the past few years, groups of activists, students and researchers have been pushing institutions not only to follow quotas but also to better support researchers from underprivileged communities . “We are doing this to hold a mirror to these institutes to show how ugly they are,” says a spokesperson for Egalitarians , an organization that tries to collect and publish diversity data.

The issue is part of a wider recognition of how privileged-caste groups have been discriminating against marginalized communities — emboldened by India’s pro-Hindu prime minister Narendra Modi, say some academics who spoke to Nature but did not want their names on record.

Some minority religious groups in India, such as Muslims — who are present across a variety of social and caste divisions, including Dalits — also face structural inequities in society. According to the 2011 census, Muslims make up around 14% of the country’s population, but only 5.5% of those enrolled in higher education in 2019–20 were Muslims, survey data suggest.

Because no more detailed data were available, Nature asked IITs and other institutes for figures to do with Muslim representation. Most replied that they didn’t have the figures, but the sparse data that a few institutions shared suggest that Muslims are under-represented in elite academic institutes. In 2020, Muslims made up less than 5% of PhD students in IIT Madras in Chennai and less than 1% of science-teaching faculty in IIT Kharagpur; both are prestigious institutes. However, in IIT Dhanbad, a mid-ranking institute in a region where Muslims are not unusually numerous, 55% of PhD students were Muslims.

The rising criticism of under-representation and discrimination in academic institutions, particularly around caste, is prodding some institutes into action. India’s Ministry of Education, which didn’t respond to Nature ’s request for an interview, has several times since 2019 told federally funded institutes, including the IITs, to comply with reservation norms when recruiting teachers.

In 2019, Modi’s government expanded the reservation quotas by 10% to cover lower-income people not part of marginalized castes or groups, who would otherwise fall in the ‘General’ category; they would be categorized under ‘Economically Weaker Sections’ of society. The extension is controversial but, after legal challenges, was upheld in a November 2022 ruling by India’s Supreme Court.

Representatives at four IITs talked on record to Nature for this story; others didn’t respond. “Equating under-representation with discrimination is incorrect. There is no discrimination,” said Neela Nataraj, a mathematician and dean of faculty affairs at IIT Bombay in Mumbai. She accepted that the institute had a shortage of students and faculty members from some social categories, but said it was on a mission to improve representation through recruitment without compromising on quality, and through encouraging more students from under-represented communities to start PhDs. Angelie Multani, a professor of literature who was appointed in August 2022 as IIT Delhi’s first dean to increase diversity on campus, says the institute recognized that, like others, it had “under-representation of marginalized sections of society” and was working to improve the situation through measures such as hiring drives. And Amalendu Chandra, dean of faculty affairs at IIT Kanpur, says that the institute had offered appointments to 48 teachers from marginalized communities in the past year. (The institute has 413 faculty members, according to its website).

At IIT Goa, Amaldev Manuel, a computer scientist and chair of PhD admissions in 2022, noted that the institution’s acceptance rate for PhD applicants from marginalized communities was higher (at above 1%) than for the ‘general’ category (below 1%), even though it received fewer applications from people of less privileged castes.

Some researchers, such as Ramesh Chandra, doubt that diversity initiatives by institutions will make a big dent until India’s government takes action against institutes for violating reservation policies. “You have to take punitive action against the [institutes’] directors,” says Chandra. “Remove them.”

At the very least, says Ram, the government should require universities to publicly disclose diversity data and monitor compliance. And Minz thinks that for the situation to change, support systems need to be created at every step from school education to high-level recruitments in academia — such as training on grant-proposal-writing and communication skills for researchers recruited from marginalized communities. “The playing field is not equal at any stage,” she says.

For Samadhan, the marker of change would be more personal. “The day I would be able to say my full name without hesitation in an institute, I will feel that equality has arrived,” he says.

This article is also available as a pdf version .

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Caste Discrimination in Contemporary India

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To what extent do social identities rooted in antiquity, such as caste, shape present-day socioeconomic outcomes in a rapidly globalizing and modernizing economy, such as India? It has been argued that “rapid economic growth and the expansion of the middle class are accompanied by new opportunities for individual mobility which further loosens the association between caste and occupation” and that “there are other areas of life in which the consciousness of caste has been dying down” (Beteille, 2012). In addition to rapid changes in the economy, the critical 73rd and 74th amendments to India’s constitution in 1992 paved the way for greater political representation of the so-called lower castes. Their sustained increased presence in the political arena, both as elected representatives at various levels, as well as important leaders within several political parties, has been termed India’s “silent revolution”. This is one more reason to expect either a reversal, or at least a flattening of traditional caste hierarchies. Indeed, this has been viewed as a large enough flux, such that we now have “a plethora of assertive caste identities … [that] articulate alternative hierarchies” leading to a scenario where “there is hardly any unanimity on ranking between jatis” (Gupta, 2004).

I am grateful to William (Sandy) Darity and participants at the World Bank–IEA roundtable on “Shared Prosperity and Growth” for comments on an earlier version of this paper. I alone am responsible for all remaining errors.

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Deshpande, A., Darity, W. (2016). Caste Discrimination in Contemporary India. In: Basu, K., Stiglitz, J.E. (eds) Inequality and Growth: Patterns and Policy. International Economics Association. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137554598_8

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Gangashree walks through the village to manually clean human excrement from dry toilets in Kasela, Uttar Pradesh, which she will collect in her basket and carry to the outskirts of the village for disposal.

Cleaning Human Waste

"Manual Scavenging," Caste, and Discrimination in India

Gangashree walks through the village to manually clean human excrement from dry toilets in Kasela, Uttar Pradesh, which she will collect in her basket and carry to the outskirts of the village for disposal. © 2014 Digvijay Singh

Bhangi : Literally, “broken identity,” a derogatory name used to refer to people from the caste traditionally responsible for manual scavenging.

Dalit: Literally “broken people,” a self-designated term for so-called “untouchables” who traditionally occupy the lowest place in the Indian caste system.

Dry toilet: Toilet that does not flush, is not connected to a septic tank or sewage system, and requires daily manual cleaning.

FIR : First Information Report, recorded complaint of a crime filed by police.

Panchayat/Gram Panchayat : Village-level administration, usually elected officials, responsible for preparing and executing plans for economic and social development.

Open defecation : Defecation on roads and plots that requires manual disposal. A 2010 report from the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) found that 665 million Indians—more than half the population—practice open defecation.

Pradhan/Sarpanch : Village headman.

Scheduled Castes: Caste groups, also known as Dalits, that are eligible for quotas in education and government jobs and protected under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act, 1989. Muslim and Christian Dalits are not included as Scheduled Castes and are therefore not currently protected under the 1989 Act.

Superintendent of Police (SP): Officer in charge of a police district.

Wada toilet : Designated defecation area enclosed by four 5-foot walls that requires manual cleaning. Also referred to as a wadolia toilet.

I clean toilets in 20 houses every day. I use a tin plate and broom to remove the excrement that has collected in the toilet, I collect the excrement in a basket, and then I take it and throw it away. This work is so awful I don’t feel like eating.

—Manisha, Mainpuri district, Uttar Pradesh, January 2014

[Manual scavenging] is the worst surviving symbol of untouchability.

—National Advisory Council resolution, October 23, 2010

The practice of manually cleaning excrement from private and public dry toilets and open drains persists in several parts of South Asia. Across much of India, consistent with centuries-old feudal and caste-based custom, women from communities that traditionally worked as “manual scavengers,” still collect human waste on a daily basis, load it into cane baskets or metal troughs, and carry it away on their heads for disposal at the outskirts of the settlement.

India’s central government since independence in 1947 has adopted legislative and policy efforts to end manual scavenging. In recent years these include commitments to modernize sanitation so there is no further need for manual disposal of feces, and prohibitions on engaging anyone to do this work. However, because these policies are not properly implemented, people remain unaware of their right to refuse this role, and those who do refuse may face intense social pressure, including threats of violence and expulsion from their village, often with the complicity of local government officials.

Manual scavengers are usually from caste groups customarily relegated to the bottom of the caste hierarchy and confined to livelihood tasks viewed as deplorable or deemed too menial by higher caste groups. Their caste-designated occupation reinforces the social stigma that they are unclean or “untouchable” and perpetuates widespread discrimination. Women usually clean dry toilets, men and women clean excrement from open defecation sites, gutters, and drains, and men are called upon to do the more physically demanding work of cleaning sewers and septic tanks.

Ashif Shaikh, founder and convener of the Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan, a grassroots campaign against manual scavenging, explained the systematic discrimination that emerges from this practice:

The manual carrying of human feces is not a form of employment, but an injustice akin to slavery. It is one of the most prominent forms of discrimination against Dalits, and it is central to the violation of their human rights.

In Kasela village in Uttar Pradesh state’s Etah district, women from 12 families manually clean toilets with the full knowledge of village authorities. After spending the morning manually removing excrement from the toilets, the women return to the houses they cleaned to collect leftover food as payment. They are given grain donations at the harvest and old clothes at festival times, but receive no cash wages. Munnidevi told Human Rights Watch she stopped going to homes where she was not given any food, but says she returned to work after her employers warned that she would not be able to enter community land to collect firewood or graze her livestock. “I have to go. If I miss a single day, I am threatened,” she said.

On September 6, 2013, the Indian Parliament passed The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act, 2013 (the 2013 Act), committing itself yet again to ending manual scavenging. Seven months later, on March 27, 2014, the Indian Supreme Court held that India’s constitution requires state intervention to end manual scavenging and “rehabilitate” all people engaged in the practice. This meant not only ending the practice but also ending the abuses faced by communities engaged in manual scavenging.

The government’s recognition in the 2013 Act of the historically rooted and ongoing injustice faced by communities engaged in manual scavenging is important, but also points to failures in implementing previous laws and policies to address the problem. Recent examples from communities engaged in manual scavenging in the states of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh highlight the failures of previous government attempts to end manual scavenging and eliminate the entrenched attitudes and discriminatory practices that still bind members of affected communities to this degrading and unnecessary occupation.

For instance, several women who sought to leave manual scavenging told Human Rights Watch that local authorities failed to intervene when they faced threats from the households they served. As retribution for leaving, they were denied access to community land and resources or threatened with eviction, frequently with the backing of village councils and other officials.

While the central government enacts laws, state representatives in panchayats , elected village councils, and municipal corporations too often not only fail to implement prohibitions on manual scavenging by private households, but also perpetuate the practice. In Maharashtra state, for instance, panchayats have recruited people to manually clean toilets and open defecation areas on the basis of their caste, even denying them other jobs for which they are qualified within the panchayat . While panchayats compensate families that clean dry toilets, drains, and open defecation sites with housing and wages, many of those employed told Human Rights Watch that they are denied regular wages and have been warned that they will be evicted from their houses if they refuse manual scavenging work.

The panchayat in Nhavi village in Maharashtra’s Jalgaon district hired nine women and men to manually clean open defecation sites. Bimal told Human Rights Watch that she does not want to clean excrement, but has continued to do so because she fears her family will be thrown out of the home where she lives:

We have farming and labor work, but then if I go for farming work I get threats from the panchayat —“If you don’t work, empty the house.” I am afraid to lose my house. If I had a place to live I would not do this dirty work.

Bimal’s husband, Kailash, has a college education, but began manually cleaning toilets in Nhavi in 1989 when he was unable to find alternate employment. He said, “I studied commerce and banking, but I couldn’t find work. Even though I am educated, the panchayat hired me to clean toilets because I am from this community.”

Human Rights Watch also found some instances in which women and men from the Valmiki caste are engaged by urban municipal corporations, both directly by the government and through contractors, to manually clean excrement. A municipal corporation worker, who has worked as a safai karmachari , or sanitation worker, for the Bharatpur municipal corporation since 2004 explained her work:

I clean my area, these two lanes. I clean twice a day because it is so dirty. I sweep the roads and I clean the drains. It is extremely dirty because the houses here flush the excrement from the toilets directly into the drains. I have to pick out the excreta, along with any garbage from the drains. I have to do it. If I do not, I will lose my job.

Some women said they faced threats of violence when they refused to practice manual scavenging. In November 2012, when Gangashri along with 12 other women in Parigama village in Uttar Pradesh’s Mainpuri district voluntarily stopped cleaning dry toilets, men from the dominant Thakur caste came to their homes and threatened to deny them grazing rights and expel them from the village. Despite these threats, the women refused to return to manual scavenging. Soon after, some 20 to 30 upper caste men from Parigama confronted the community. Gangashri recalls:

They called our men and said “If you don’t start sending your women to clean our toilets, we will beat them up. We will beat you up.” They said, “We will not let you live in peace.” We were afraid.

Such threats have been particularly effective in binding communities to manual scavenging because the affected communities face extreme difficulty in securing police protection. They are especially vulnerable to police refusal to register complaints due to caste bias by police and local government officials.

The rights abuses suffered by people who practice manual scavenging are mutually reinforcing. Constantly handling human excreta without protection can have severe health consequences. Those who do the work, however, also typically face untouchability practices. Discrimination that extends to all facets of their lives, including access to education for their children, makes it more likely they will have no choice but to continue to work as manual scavengers.

India’s Constitution bans the practice of untouchability, and the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955, prohibits compelling anyone to practice manual scavenging. Aimed specifically at ending manual scavenging, The Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, 1993 (the 1993 Act), declared the employment of manual scavengers and construction of dry toilets to be punishable with fines and imprisonment. Superseding the 1993 Act, the 2013 Act goes beyond prohibitions on dry latrines, and outlaws all manual excrement cleaning of insanitary latrines, open drains, or pits. And, importantly, it recognizes a constitutional obligation to correct the historical injustice and indignity suffered by manual scavenging communities by providing alternate livelihoods and other assistance.

However, women we spoke with who left manual scavenging, even those who had the support of community-based civil society initiatives, reported significant barriers to accessing housing, employment, and support from existing government programs aimed at their rehabilitation. Notably, under the 2013 Act, rehabilitation provisions are left to be implemented under existing central and state government schemes—the same set of programs that, to date, have not succeeded in ending manual scavenging.

India’s Supreme Court has ruled that the practice of manual scavenging violates international human rights law, including protections found in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). India is also a party to other international conventions that reinforce obligations to end manual scavenging.

In May 2014, Indians elected a new government. During his campaign, Prime Minister Narendra Modi highlighted the importance of modernizing India’s sanitation system, saying that building toilets was more important than temples. While modernizing India’s sanitation is an important step in ending manual cleaning of excrement by some of India’s most marginalized communities, investment in sanitation alone is far from sufficient to end the social and economic exclusion faced by these communities. The government’s continued inability to provide individuals the support necessary to leave manual scavenging predictably will undermine the renewed government effort to promote modern sanitation. This is especially true if decisive steps are not taken against local officials who themselves employ people to work as manual scavengers, lessening the urgency of modernizing sanitation practices in their localities.

As of July 2014, the Indian government has extended the time limit for ending manual scavenging at least eight times. To end manual scavenging practices, the government needs to not only modernize sanitation, but also take proactive measures to ensure that people who leave manual scavenging have prompt access to housing, employment, and essential services, and to hold local officials accountable for implementing all laws addressing manual scavenging and caste discrimination.

Key Recommendations to Indian Central and State Authorities

Identify all individuals currently engaged in manual scavenging and those who have engaged in the practice since it was outlawed under the 1993 Act (so the latter are entitled to benefits under the 2013 Act).
Ensure that rehabilitation entitlements under the 2013 Act—including financial assistance, scholarships, housing, alternative livelihood support, and other important legal and programmatic assistance—are available to manual scavenging communities.
Take immediate steps to ensure that officials effectively intervene to stop communities from being coerced to practice manual scavenging, including when members of such communities face threats and intimidation for attempting to leave manual scavenging. The steps should include holding officials accountable for properly enforcing relevant laws, including the 2013 Act and The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.
Strictly enforce the law against local government officials who themselves employ people to work as manual scavengers.
Enact The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Ordinance, 2014, No. 1 of 2014.

Methodology

This report is based on research Human Rights Watch conducted between November 2013 and July 2014 in the Indian states of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh.

We conducted over 135 interviews, including with women and men who currently or previously practiced manual scavenging, rights activists, trade union workers, lawyers, and government officials. These interviews took place in Delhi, one district in Gujarat, six districts in Madhya Pradesh, three districts in Maharashtra, one district in Rajasthan, and three districts in Uttar Pradesh . Interviews were conducted in English, Hindi, or Marathi.

All interviewees participated voluntarily and without compensation. As indicated in the text of the report, in some instances, interviewees requested that their names or village names be withheld. Manual scavenging communities in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh were identified with support from the Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan (a coalition of 30 civil society organizations from 13 Indian states dedicated to ending manual scavenging).

According to Government of India statistics, the states chosen have had the highest number of people engaged in manual scavenging. [1] They were also selected to provide a more complete picture of the various ways in which manual scavenging is practiced in India. For instance, in Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh, women clean dry toilets owned by private households. In Maharashtra and Rajasthan, both women and men are hired by gram panchayats and municipal corporations to clean public dry toilets, drains, and open defecation areas. Our research in Madhya Pradesh examined the challenges still facing women who were able to leave manual scavenging with the support of Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan.

In addition, we reviewed relevant documentation, including filings in Safai Karmachari Andolan v. Union of India , databases and manuals for government schemes to end manual scavenging and rehabilitate individuals engaged as manual scavengers, documents from Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan, and a wide range of secondary sources, including reports from national and international meetings addressing manual scavenging.

Terminology and Scope

Consistent with the terminology used in The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, in this report the term “manual scavenger” refers to “a person engaged or employed . . . by an individual or a local authority or an agency or a contractor, for manually cleaning, carrying, disposing of, or otherwise handling in any manner, human excreta in an insanitary latrine or in an open drain or pit .” [2] An

“insanitary latrine” is defined as “a latrine which requires human excreta to be cleaned or otherwise handled manually, either in situ , or in an open drain or pit into which the excreta is discharged or flushed out.”

Communities engaged as manual scavengers have distinct communal or caste names in various parts of the country. [3] The government identifies those that belong to the most marginalized, so-called untouchable castes as Scheduled Castes, eligible for quotas in education and employment. Rights activists from the community refer to themselves as Dalits, literally “broken people.” However, many from manual scavenging communities also call themselves Harijan , a term used by Mohandas Gandhi to describe them as people of God.

In formal legislative and legal contexts, the term safai karmachari has been introduced by rights activists to refer to manual scavenging as an occupation rather than an identity, but the term safai karmachari refers to people employed as sweepers and sanitation workers as well as those who manually clean excrement.

We refer to “manual scavenging” in the report because this is the terminology used in the 2013 Act. This report focuses on the persistence of manual scavenging practices that are linked to discrimination on the basis of caste or other status, and conclusively forbidden under Indian law. Accordingly, we focus on human rights violations faced by communities engaged in the manual cleaning of excrement in homes, open defecation areas, and open drains. We do not address the health and safety regulations necessary to protect sanitation workers and those who clean septic tanks, or examine the hiring, subcontracting, and sanitation practices of the Indian Railways that perpetuate manual scavenging. [4]

In the absence of reliable government survey information on the prevalence of the manual scavenging, when possible, we have used both government data and data collected by Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan in our assessments of prevalence.

I. Persistence of Manual Scavenging in India

I had to work with my head veiled. During the rains, my clothes would become drenched with excrement. They would not dry. The house would smell. I started to get skin disease and even to lose my hair.

—Badambai, Neemuch district, Madhya Pradesh, January 2014

In India, there are constitutional and legislative prohibitions on “untouchability” and manual scavenging. However, women and men continue to be engaged in manually cleaning human excrement from private and public dry toilets, open defecation sites, septic tanks, and open and closed gutters and sewers. They usually embark upon manual scavenging because of traditional caste-based roles that leave them few, if any, alternate employment options, a situation perpetuated by poor implementation of laws and policies prohibiting this practice.

Caste in India

Historically, civil, social, and economic life in India has been regulated by the caste system—a system of social stratification that designates ranked groups defined by descent and confined to particular occupations. [5] Caste-based social organization is governed by custom and is enforced socially and economically. [6] Irrespective of the religion practiced by an individual, caste in India is hereditary in nature. [7] A community’s caste designation has long had a significant impact on the ability of members of that community to control land and other productive resources, establishing broad congruence between caste and class. [8]

Dalits are relegated to the bottom of the caste hierarchy. [9] They have been traditionally limited to livelihoods viewed as deplorable or deemed too menial by higher caste groups— including as manual scavengers, leather workers, and cobblers, among others. [10] Their caste designation also renders them socially “polluted” or “untouchable” and is used to justify discriminatory practices. [11] As a result, in parts of India, Dalit communities are still denied access to community water sources, denied service by barbers, served tea in separate cups, barred from entering shops, excluded from temples, and prevented from taking part in community religious and ceremonial functions.

While India’s constitution and other laws guarantee equal status for all citizens and outlaws untouchability practices, various forms of discrimination persist. [12] Even under existing law, Muslim and Christian Dalits are not included as Scheduled Castes and thus are not eligible for the same protections as Hindu Dalits under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act, 1989. [13] The persistence of untouchability has been condemned by many Indian leaders, including then-Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who likened caste discrimination to apartheid. [14]

Political and rights movements have broken some caste barriers, but caste continues to be used to justify discriminatory, cruel, and inhuman treatment inflicted upon millions of Indians—especially in areas of rural India where caste-designation still dictates rigid roles and entitlements.

The Indian government has passed laws and adopted policies aimed at ending caste discrimination, but has done too little to address widespread failure to implement these measures and the role of local government officials in perpetuating discriminatory practices. [15]

Manual Scavenging

Within the caste structure, Dalits who work as manual scavengers are usually from the Hindu Valmiki sub-caste, which is further subdivided into regionally named groups such as Chuhada, Rokhi, Mehatar, Malkana, Halalkhor, and Lalbegi, or the Muslim Hela sub-caste. [16] These communities are held at the bottom of the social hierarchy and, accordingly, face discrimination even from within the Dalit community. Considered fit for only the most “polluting” labor, their role is to manually dispose of human excrement and perform other unsanitary tasks. [17]

The International Labor Organization (ILO) distinguishes three forms of manual scavenging: 1) removal of human excrement from public streets and dry latrines, 2) cleaning septic tanks, and 3) cleaning gutters and sewers. [18] These tasks are subdivided by gender: 95 percent of private and village toilets are cleaned by women; both women and men clean open defecation from roads, open areas, and open gutters; and men typically clean septic tanks, closed gutters, and sewers. [19]

The exact number of people who continue manual scavenging is disputed, with government estimates significantly lower than those by civil society groups. [20] In March 2014, in an effort to resolve this, the Supreme Court of India estimated that there are 9.6 million dry latrines that are still being cleaned manually by people belonging to the Scheduled Castes. [21] The Social Justice and Empowerment minister, Thaawar Chand Gehlot, told the Indian parliament in August 2014: “The practice of manual scavenging, arising from the continuing existence of insanitary latrines, still persists in various parts of the country.” [22] Neither the Supreme Court estimate, nor Gehlot’s statement, however, take into account manual cleaning of open defecation from roads and other areas, removing excrement flushed into uncovered drains by private households in rural, semi-urban, and underdeveloped urban areas, or manual cleaning of private and government septic tanks.

Feudal Caste-Based Customs

In accordance with the traditional jajmani system, in which service and artisan caste households serve upper caste households or jajmans in the village, women who clean toilets in private households generally “inherit” this practice when they get married, joining their mothers-in-law in the daily rounds of collecting excrement and carrying it in baskets to the outskirts of the settlement. [23] Human Rights Watch found that manual scavenging communities, consistent with traditional housing arrangements, continue to reside in separate enclaves in villages, and even in some urban areas.

Women who clean dry toilets in rural areas sometimes receive little or no cash wages, reflecting long-established customary practices, but instead receive daily rations of leftover food, grain during harvest, old clothes during festival times, and access to community and upper caste land for grazing livestock and collecting firewood—all given at the discretion of the households they serve. [24] After collecting and disposing excrement from each household, they still return to each home to collect leftover chapatis or rotis ( unleavened bread) as compensation. In areas where untouchability practices are intact, food is dropped into their hands or thrown in front of them. Rekhabai, from Devgarh village, Dewas district, Madhya Pradesh, described her “wage” to Human Rights Watch:

The homes I worked for would give me stale chapatis and leftovers, dropped into my hand from a distance. I was supposed to be paid Rs. 10 [US$0.20 or 20 cents] each month from each house. Sometimes, I was not paid for months. [25]

Women refer to manually cleaning toilets as their jagir , which, in Hindi, refers to an estate. In fact, a jagir —“entitling” the owner of the jagir to clean toilets in particular households in the village—has historically been a formal, valuable family asset. Each family typically serves between 10 and 30 households. Inheriting a greater number of households to clean is considered to increase the value of the inheritance. [26] “In some communities, women inherit the keys to the jewelry locker,” said Kuldeep Ghanwari, Rajasthan coordinator for the Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan. “In the Valmiki community they inherit the work of cleaning excrement from toilets.” [27]

Sevanti Fatrod, from Bhonrasa, in Dewas district, Madhya Pradesh, says that she, her mother-in-law, and her two sisters-in-laws cleaned toilets in 100 houses each day—allowing them to collect leftover food from the houses they cleaned:

I did not know that I would have to clean toilets. In Nepanagar, where I am from, my family did not do this work. My father told me that my husband’s family had a large jagir , with work that spanned 100 families—but he did not tell me what work this was. I learned my work when I came to Bhonrasa . . . A jagir , means the area that you own. I was called a maitarani [scavenging queen]—for what? My work was to clean people’s feces— for only one or two rupees a month. We were told we had to do it. There was no one to tell us we didn’t have to. [28]

While a jagir is considered a family asset, for the young women made to clean excrement immediately after their marriage, the jagir can be a traumatic inheritance. Sona, from Bharatpur city in Rajasthan, described her first day to Human Rights Watch:

The first day when I was cleaning the latrines and the drain, my foot slipped and my leg sank in the excrement up to my calf. I screamed and ran away. Then I came home and cried and cried. My husband went with me the next day and made me do it. I knew there was only this work for me. [29]

For people who practice manual scavenging, untouchability and social exclusion are inextricably linked. Manjula Pradeep, executive director of Navsarjan, a Gujarat based nongovernmental organization that has worked for decades around this issue explains:

Manual scavenging is itself a form of caste-based violence and needs to be understood that way. It is degrading, it is imposed upon very vulnerable people, and in order to leave manual scavenging, they have to make themselves even more vulnerable— they risk backlash, they don’t know how they will live. [30]

Social and Economic Pressure

Women engaged as manual scavengers face pressure from the community and family to continue this practice because their households have few other options for livelihoods. [31] These are often the poorest and most marginalized communities in India, where even food security is a serious challenge. [32] While men from manual scavenger communities may work as day laborers, their income is unreliable.

Without access to a consistent income, families rely on the food handouts women receive daily for survival. [33] This basic food security, Shanti, from Nagla Khushal, in Mainpuri district, Uttar Pradesh, explains, keeps her from leaving manual scavenging:

I clean 20 houses in Sandawli every day. They give me rotis . They don’t give more than two rotis , but they do give us something. My husband works in the fields, but work in the fields does not come every day. If I do this work, at least we will have something to eat. [34]

In addition to rotis , collected daily, the Valmiki community in Kasela village in Uttar Pradesh receives grain donations at harvest, and used-clothing donations during festivals. If Munnidevi misses even one day of cleaning, she risks forfeiting these donations. “They say, ‘If you miss one day, we will not give you grains at harvest. We will not give you any grain or cloth during festival times.’” [35]

Tradition-bound repressive relationships with in-laws, who depend on the food from manual scavenging, can also prevent women from refusing this practice. Rihanna began cleaning dry toilets in 1988 in the town of Tarana, in Ujjain district, Madhya Pradesh. When she stopped, she said, her mother-in-law was furious:

When I left, at first, my mother-in-law refused to give me any food. She would give food to my husband, but not to me or to my daughter. She said if I did not work I could not eat. [36]

Kannijbi explained that it took her a long time to stop the work because of family pressure. “I wanted to leave,” she said, “but our survival was more important. We needed the food I collected, so my family would not let me leave.” [37]

According to Sushilabai, from Gandharvpuri, in Dewas district, Madhya Pradesh, the pressure from her family was most extreme when they ran out of food:

After I left the work, after two or three days, we had no food to eat. One roti was divided into four pieces. That is when I faced the most pressure from the men in my family. “How are we going to eat?” they asked me. [38]

Women and men employed as sanitation workers by local government panchayats and municipal corporations also said that they do this work because they have no other livelihood options. Bablu, hired by the government through a contractor to clean garbage and excrement from drains in Bharatpur city, explained that he took up the work a year before we spoke with him, at 17 years old, because he could not find any other employment:

I studied till 8th standard, but here we don’t get any other job no matter where we go. I have tried. If I go to a hotel to find work, they ask my caste. Once I tell them I am Valmiki, they will only give me work cleaning the toilets. I want to do something else, I know this is discrimination, but what can I do? [39]

Persistent Discrimination

Those that practice manual scavenging are routinely denied access to communal water sources and public places of worship, prevented from purchasing goods and services, excluded from community religious and cultural events, and subjected to private discrimination from upper-caste community members. For instance, a temple in Rudawal town in Bharatpur district, Rajasthan, is a popular pilgrimage destination. Valmiki families clean garbage and open defecation from around the temple, but are not themselves allowed to enter the temple. [40]

While the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955, prohibits obstructing access to water sources on the basis of untouchability, people working as manual scavengers are often excluded from water sources in their communities. [41] As Sunita, who left manual scavenging in 2002, explained: “While doing dirt-cleaning work, I was not allowed to fill water from the well. I am still not allowed to fill water from the well.” [42]

Shanti said that before the government installed water taps in Nagla Khushal, Uttar Pradesh, there were times when she could not get water at all:

Three or four years ago we Valimikis were given our own tap by the government. Before that we were sometimes not able to get water. We had to wait until everyone else was finished. Sometimes we were shooed away with sticks. [43]

Children of manual scavengers also confront discrimination within schools from both teachers and classmates, resulting in particularly high dropout rates. [44] Martin Macwan, founder of Navsarjan , a Gujarat-based grassroots Dalit organization, reported that in Gujarat, 70 to 80 percent of children from manual scavenging communities drop out of school before they reach seventh grade. [45]

Shanti said her children, who attend a government school, suffer exclusion in the classroom as a result of her work. “My children are made to sit at the side of the classroom,” she said. “Recently, my son was beaten by the teacher for touching utensils belonging to an upper caste child .” [46] Shanti’s son Rahul, who is about eight years old, explained:

I was sitting with my friends and touched a bowl belonging to an upper caste boy. It was an accident. The boy ran to the teacher and told him. The teacher called me. He beat me with a stick—five times on my back. Each time he beat me, the teacher would say— “You are not allowed to touch it! If you touch it again, I will beat you again!” [47]

Rahul’s experience is not unique. Saiba, from Tarana, in Ujjain district, Madhya Pradesh, said that because of discrimination her children left the local government school:

My five children all left the government school because they faced too much discrimination. I could not make them go. They were referred to as “ Bhangi’s child.” When I went to the meetings at the school, even I faced discrimination. The teachers would say, “See, the Bhangis have come.” [48]

On July 5, 2014, parents from the Valmiki community in Ratanpur village, in Surendranagar district, Gujarat, confronted teachers at the government school after learning that their children were made to come to school early in order to clean toilets. A Navsarjan social worker in Surendranagar district, explained:

The parents learned that their children were being asked to come early to school to clean the toilets. When a group of parents approached the school authorities to complain, they were beaten and chased away from the school premises. When the children returned to the school, each child that had complained to their parents, was physically punished. They were lifted off the ground by their ears 50 times each. We have filed a complaint with the district probation officer, district collector, development officer, social welfare minister, and education minister. They have yet to take any action. [49]

Seema, from Aastha, a town in Sehore district, Madhya Pradesh, figured out that her daughters were being made to sweep the school because they would return home dirty. She told Human Rights Watch:

I learned my daughters were being made to sweep the floors in school because I would give them a bath, but they would return dirty, with dust in their hair. I went to the school and asked why my children were being made to sweep. First, the teacher said—“They are not being singled out.” Then, she said, “What do you expect? Your caste is responsible for this work.” [50]

Impact on Health

While more studies need to be conducted, a 2013 report submitted to the UN by Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan notes that the direct handling of human excreta involved in manual scavenging can have severe health consequences, including constant nausea and headaches, respiratory and skin diseases, anemia, diarrhea, vomiting, jaundice, trachoma, and carbon monoxide poisoning. [51] These conditions are exacerbated by widespread malnutrition and inability to access health services. [52]

In Bharatpur, a city in Rajasthan, a sanitation inspector for the Bharatpur municipal corporation said that the lack of safety equipment had an adverse impact on the health of sanitation workers employed by the municipal corporation:

They have no masks, no gloves, no shoes. Without these protections they get skin diseases, asthma, respiratory illnesses. [53]

Taslim from Tarana, a town in Ujjain district, Madhya Pradesh, said that people did not fully understand the dire health consequences of manual scavenging:

We didn’t know that it was because of this work that we were getting all these health problems. We didn’t understand why people got these skin diseases, or why they were infected with tuberculosis. [54]

Rihanna, also from Tarana, said she lost her hair and suffered skin disease, which she believed was related to her work: “The basket of excrement was heavy for me. I had to carry it on my head. Carrying the excrement on my head caused me to lose hair. I contracted skin diseases.” [55]

Baby, from Jharda, in Ujjain district, Madhya Pradesh, thought these health consequences were exacerbated by the heat and rain in the monsoon seasons:

Beginning when I was 15 or 16, my sister-in-law and I cleaned toilets in 100 houses. I carried the basket on my head and during the rains it would leak all over my body. My hair fell out in patches. No one helped me. They ridiculed me. [56]

Since beginning manual scavenging three years ago for the panchayat in Kusumba town, in Dhule district, Maharashtra, Rajubai said that her health has declined:

I have done this work for three years. Because of this my health has gone bad. I eat very little food because the work is so dirty. I also have stomach pain from carrying the buckets. They are very heavy. [57]

Kiran said that she suffered a miscarriage because she had to carry heavy loads:

I was three or four months pregnant. There was no one to help me carry the heavy baskets. We that had to collect the feces, carry it on our head and our hip, and then go and throw it somewhere else. Because of that reason my baby miscarried. [58]

Neha, employed by the municipal corporation in Bharatpur city in Rajasthan to manually remove excrement flushed into open drains, told Human Rights Watch that her health has suffered as a result:

We don’t get anything from the government. No mask. No gloves. Nothing to prevent diseases when the excrement comes in contact with our hands and legs. Ten years ago before I started this work I was much healthier. Now I get sick often. [59]

Although Arti, from Batiagarh village in Damoh district, Madhya Pradesh, left manual scavenging in 2010, her health has not recovered. “Since that time, my whole body started getting itchy and also I developed boils over my whole body,” she said. “Now those boils have turned into big, big patches and they give me burning sensation. I have to take medicines every day.” [60]

II. Efforts to End Manual Scavenging

When I stopped manual scavenging, at first we had no food. It was hard to find work, but I did not go back. I could not. It was only after leaving the dirty work that I felt I belong to this society.

— Kiran, Dewas district, Madhya Pradesh, January 2013

India’s central government has made repeated attempts to end manual scavenging, with then-Prime Minister Manmohan Singh saying in May 2011 that his government was determined “to completely eradicate this abominable practice in a very short time.” [61] Jairam Ramesh, while rural development minister, deplored that some 300,000 families still clean around 2.7 million dry latrines: “Unless we get a sense of shame, anger and take it as an affront to our, not just the involved person’s, dignity, there can be no change in the existing practice.” [62]

India’s new prime minister, Narendra Modi, before taking office after his election in May 2014, said: “ My identity is of a Hindutvawadi [one who promotes the Hindu nationalism], but I say build toilets before you build temples.” [63] The statement suggested a commitment to develop modern sanitation systems, but his government should also demonstrate a willingness to support communities seeking to leave manual scavenging, including by intervening when communities seeking to do so face discrimination and violence.

Government intervention on behalf of manual scavenging communities is not only critical to addressing their longstanding social and economic exclusion, but will also provide impetus to households and local officials who rely upon manual scavenging rather than implementing existing government programs to modernize sanitation.

There have been various efforts by the government, civil society organizations, and the foreign donor community to end manual scavenging. However, as documented below, there are significant barriers to achieving lasting change. Overcoming them requires a serious commitment from the government to ensure adequate programs are in place and to hold officials at all levels accountable for implementing laws and policies aimed at ending manual scavenging.

Legislative Efforts

The Indian constitution abolishes “untouchability.” [64] It also prohibits caste-based discrimination in employment. [65] The specific prohibitions on untouchability are set out in the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955, [66] and the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. [67]

In 1949, soon after independence, the Indian government began appointing committees to address manual scavenging. [68] The 1955 Protection of Civil Rights Act made it an offense to compel any person to practice scavenging. [69] The 1993 Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act criminalized employment of manual scavengers to clean dry latrines. [70] Most recently, on September 6, 2013, Parliament passed The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act, 2013 (2013 Act). The 2013 Act outlaws all forms of manual scavenging, beyond just dry latrines, prescribes penalties for those who perpetuate the practice, protects those who actually engage in it, and obligates India to correct the historical injustice suffered by these communities by providing alternate livelihood and other assistance. [71]

At the time of writing, the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Ordinance, 2014, awaits enactment by parliament. Among other provisions designed to strengthen protection for Dalits and tribal groups, the ordinance makes it a crime to make, employ, or permit anyone to do manual scavenging. [72]

The Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, 1993

This law made employment of “scavengers” or construction of dry toilets punishable by imprisonment for up to one year and a fine of Rs.2000 [US$33] subject to increase by Rs.100 [US$1.70] each day for continuing violations. [73]

Despite these prohibitions, the law did not succeed in ending manual scavenging. This is in part due to the federal structure of governance in India. Implementation of most laws, once enacted in parliament, is the responsibility of the state governments. In the two decades since the law passed, it is widely accepted that states have not done enough to enforce the 1993 Act, or even to examine the scale of the problem.

In the face of widespread failure by state governments to adopt and implement the 1993 Act, Safai Karmachari Andolan and six other organizations filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court of India in 2003. [74] Arguing that manual scavenging was illegal and unconstitutional, the petitioners requested the court to direct the central and state governments to take time-bound steps to eliminate the practice. [75] According to Bezwada Wilson, founder of Safai Karmachari Andolan, this public interest litigation sought to require the central and state governments to account for the persistence of manual scavenging. [76]

In April 2005, a Supreme Court bench directed all state governments and all ministries and corporations of the central government to file affidavits within six months reporting the prevalence of manual scavenging, use of funds earmarked for ending manual scavenging, and progress toward rehabilitating manual scavengers. [77]

Nearly all of the affidavits received by the court six months later denied the existence of manual scavenging. [78] While the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment had previously reported that Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra had the highest number of manual scavengers in India, [79] the 2006 affidavit submitted by the Madhya Pradesh government claimed that all remaining dry toilets in the state had been converted to sanitary latrines, and rehabilitation of all remaining manual scavengers would be completed by 2007. [80] Similarly, the Maharashtra [81] and Gujarat [82] governments claimed that all dry latrines in their states had been converted into flush latrines or abandoned, and all manual scavengers had been rehabilitated. [83] While Rajasthan did not categorically deny that manual scavenging exists within the state, district-level reporting did not acknowledge the practice. [84]

On March 27, 2014, a decade after the initial filing, the Supreme Court decision in the case, Safai Karmachari Andolan v. Union of India, confirmed that manual scavenging remained widespread and directed that all people working as manual scavengers be rehabilitated. [85]

The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act, 2013

On September 6, 2013, due to significant efforts from former manual scavengers and Dalit rights activists, the Indian parliament enacted a new law to strengthen accountability mechanisms, widen the definition of manual scavenging, and shift the focus of initiatives to end manual scavenging beyond sanitation to protection of the dignity of communities engaged as manual scavengers. [86] The 2013 Act not only prohibits dry latrines, but also outlaws all manual cleaning of excrement as well as cleaning gutters, sewers, and septic tanks without protective gear. [87]

Whereas the 1993 Act aimed only to prohibit employment of manual scavengers and construction of dry latrines, the 2013 Act recognizes obligations to correct historical injustices suffered by manual scavengers and their families by providing alternate livelihood support and other assistance. [88] In particular, the 2013 Act entitles individuals who have been engaged as manual scavengers to one-time cash assistance, scholarships for their children, housing, alternative livelihood support, and other legal and programmatic assistance. [89]

Endorsing these rehabilitative elements, the 2014 Supreme Court Judgment in Safai Karmachari Andolan v. Union of India directs that all persons included in the final list of manual scavengers be rehabilitated “in accordance with these provisions.” [90]

As with the 1993 Act, however, the 2013 Act leaves rehabilitation to be implemented under existing central and state government schemes by local authorities—the same set of programs and authorities that, to date, have not succeeded in ending manual scavenging. [91]

Moreover, the implementing rules for the 2013 Act passed on December 12, 2013 does not contain provisions to implement critical aspects of the new legislation. [92] As explained by Ashif Shaikh, founder and convener of the Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan:

The 2013 Act expands the definition of manual scavenging and promises rehabilitation, but the rules are very limited and will not succeed in ending manual scavenging. The rules do not have even a single point on rehabilitation. The term rehabilitation does not even show up in the draft rules. People who left manual scavenging since it was outlawed in 1993 are not covered by the rules, and the rules have no clear provisions for enforcing the laws in government institutions. [93]

Government Programs

Legislative attempts to end manual scavenging have been accompanied by administrative programs, referred to as schemes, and policies directed at converting India’s sanitation system and at helping communities engaged in manual scavenging seek alternate livelihoods. The responsibility for implementing these schemes and policies rests with a number of different government departments, which often do not coordinate their efforts.

Sanitation Schemes

India has allocated resources to modernize sanitation. National sanitation schemes aimed at modernizing human waste management include the Integrated Development of Small and Medium Towns Scheme (1969), Sulabh Shauchalaya (simple latrines) Scheme (1974), the Integrated Low Cost Sanitation Scheme (1981), the Low Cost Sanitation for Liberation of Manual Scavengers Scheme, 1989, and the Total Sanitation Campaign, 1999, renamed Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India Campaign).

These sanitation schemes have not, however, succeeded in transforming India’s sewage disposal system. According to the latest data from WHO and UNICEF, India has over 792 million people without access to improved sanitation—nearly a third of the estimated 2.5 billion people without sanitation globally. [94] India also leads globally as home to over half of all the people in the world who practice open defecation, an estimated 597 million people. [95] Despite making good strides in increasing the number of people with improved access to water, India has lagged behind in meeting its Millennium Development Goal related to sanitation. [96] Parasitic diseases and infections like tuberculosis that are linked to poor sanitation, and particularly open defecation, moreover, contribute to stunting and cognitive deficits among children, and increase rates of child mortality. [97]

Implementation at the local level is a significant barrier to putting into effect existing sanitation schemes. As Makarduaj Maruti Meshram, who has worked for 21 years as a member of the panchayat in Dhule district, Maharashtra, explained:

There are many schemes on sanitation. If there are still dry toilets in a village, it must be because they have not applied to convert them. Corruption starts at the village level. A sarpanch [village headman] may not want to implement a scheme, but to only take the money for it. [98]

The continued practice of manual scavenging lessens the urgency in some communities of implementing these schemes. In fact, where people refuse manual scavenging work and are supported in doing so, households are forced to change their sanitation practices. For instance, after Umabai from Devgarh village in Dewas district, Madhya Pradesh, stopped cleaning toilets manually, she says that her former employers found alternatives. “In 2002, I left scavenging. The village people would come and ask me to come back and do my work. After two months they stopped coming. They made toilets or cleaned their own.” [99]

Leelabai, a Dalit Muslim from Aastha, a town in Sehore district, Madhya Pradesh, said that some of the households where she previously worked still have dry toilets, but people have learned to clean up themselves. “Now that I am not there, they use water and clean their own toilets.” [100]

Due to the absence of widespread political will to convert sanitation systems, people continue to defecate in the open and rely upon “insanitary latrines,” defined under The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Bill, 2013, as latrines that “requir[e] human excreta to be cleaned or otherwise handled manually” either from the toilet itself, or from “an open drain or pit into which the excreta is discharged.” [101] Manjula Pradeep explained:

Urbanization has increased open defecation that needs to be cleaned. Where people used to go to the fields, they now defecate in the roads. The drains have to be cleaned. The same community does this work. [102]

Thus without modern systems for disposing of excrement, manual cleaning persists. And even in the best cases, where sanitation workers are provided with proper cleaning equipment and protective wear, toilet conversion does not fully address entrenched caste-based views on who should be doing these jobs.

Rehabilitation Schemes

In 1991, the Indian government allocated almost US$ 325 million for “rehabilitating” communities engaged in manual scavenging. [103] Government policies for rehabilitation of manual scavengers include the National Scheme of Liberation of Scavengers and their Dependents, 1992, and the Scheme for Self Employment for Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers, which was most recently revised in 2013. [104]

The National Commission for Safai Karmacharis, [105] established in 1994, and the National Safai Karmacharis Finance and Development Corporation, [106] established in 1997, are mandated to monitor implementation of programs to end manual scavenging, and extend financial assistance to facilitate alternate employment for these communities. [107] The impact of the National Commission for Safai Karamcharis, however, has been circumscribed because the authority of the commission is limited to information gathering and advisory functions. [108]

Despite these efforts, in October 2010, the National Advisory Council (NAC), a panel of civil society advisors in India’s previous government, noted the continuing problems:

The National Advisory Council (NAC) is deeply distressed to observe that the shameful practice of manual scavenging persists in India, despite being outlawed . . . It is intolerable that this endures, and is the worst surviving symbol of untouchability. [109]

The NAC called for a fresh survey of dry latrines and people engaged as manual scavengers, high-level monitoring, and employment, education, and other support for communities practicing manual scavenging. [110]

As of July 2014, the Indian government has extended the time limit for ending manual scavenging eight times. [111] Yet, as Human Rights Watch details in this report, households, local government institutions, and municipal corporations continue to hire people to manually clean excrement, laws requiring conversion of dry toilets and prohibiting manual scavenging have not been enforced, and funds for rehabilitation do not reach communities bound to manual scavenging work.

Civil Society Initiatives

In contrast to government failure, the success of civil society organizations in empowering individuals to leave manual scavenging confirms that, with directed effort, it is possible to end the practice.

In 2002, Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan—a coalition of 30 community-based organizations from 13 Indian states—started a campaign to encourage manual scavengers to voluntarily leave the practice. At least 15,000 women “liberated” themselves from manual scavenging through this campaign. [112] Prembai from Amlataj village in Dewas district, Madhya Pradesh, explained that prior to this campaign, she practiced manual scavenging because she did not know there was any alternative:

I began cleaning dry toilets when I was 10 or 11 years old with my mother and four sisters. Then I was married and joined my mother-in-law for cleaning. I had never heard that there could be a life other than this. [113]

Activists identify manual scavenging as caste-based exploitation, educate communities about their rights under the law, and support them in taking collective decisions to leave the practice. Kiran, from Bhonrasa, in Dewas district, Madhya Pradesh, described how in 2002, together with 26 other women, she left manual scavenging:

We burned our baskets, held a rally, and announced to the community that we would no longer do this dirty work. The district collector and police came to the village, questioned the village council about why this work was continuing, and informed the people in the village that making us do this dirty work was against the law. [114]

In rural areas of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan, typically, only a few families are engaged in manual scavenging in each village. Thus, solidarity from liberated women from other villages and ongoing support from Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan has played an integral part in empowering women to stand up to upper caste pressure. Lalibai, from Piplia Rao Ji in Mandsaur district, Madhya Pradesh, explained, “It is easier for women to leave manual scavenging when they are able to leave with a group. ” [115]

According to Arti, from Batiagarh in Damoh district, Madhya Pradesh, knowing her legal rights has been critical to standing up against community pressure to return to manual scavenging. She said, “We told the community that there is a law that does not allow us to do manual scavenging work.” [116]

Dinesh, from Pahur Peth village in Jalgaon district, Maharashtra, was hired by the panchayat to manually clean dry toilets, drains, and septic tanks until 2012 when he learned manual scavenging is illegal:

I had no idea about the law or the campaign to leave manual scavenging. Then one and a half years ago, I learned all this and left. I work to end manual scavenging now. I speak to people, understand their problems, and then I speak to the officials and make them understand the law. [117]

Without effective government programs, civil society and community based organizations are working to generate livelihoods for individuals who leave manual scavenging. For instance, they have piloted gender and market sensitive vocational training. Successful programs include cell phone repair, driving, computer training, furniture construction, tailoring, fruit selling, and shoe making. [118]

These approaches, however, are not without their challenges. The Tamil Nadu-based Rights Education and Development Centre (READ), for instance, reports that former manual scavengers who sell fruits and other food items are often not able to sell in their local areas due to persistent untouchability practices, and instead have to travel to other communities in order to earn a livelihood. [119]

Navsarjan in Gujarat, which has been campaigning for the eradication of manual scavenging since 1995, has set up Dalit Shakti Kendra, an organization that provides vocational training and other skills to Dalits. [120] However, Manjula Pradeep, executive director of Navsarjan, emphasizes that success also requires confidence-building interventions in the community following the trainings:

Training must go beyond teaching skills and proficiency. The real barriers come after the training. They have to use the skill to find a job. People have difficulty when they go to get jobs, and they have difficulty believing they can get a job. They need to be guided through the process. [121]

Civil society organizations are also focusing on converting India’s sanitation systems. For instance, Sulabh International Social Service Organization emphasizes the construction of proper toilets and has pioneered the two-pit, pour-flush compost toilet, known as the Sulabh Shauchalaya , an affordable sanitation model that does not require manual cleaning. [122] These toilets have been installed in more than 1.2 million houses across India, and Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak, founder of Sulabh International, reports that this approach has been adopted by the Bihar government. [123]

Building on decades of community organizing initiatives, on November 30, 2012, 10,000 women who left manual scavenging with the support of the Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan began a march across India, calling upon communities working as manual scavengers nationwide to stand together to end the practice. After traveling for two months across 18 states and 200 districts, the National People’s March for Eradication of Manual Scavenging reached Delhi on January 21, 2013. Releasing the “Delhi Declaration for Eradication of Manual Scavenging,” they called upon the government to pass new legislation and act immediately to end manual scavenging.

According to Bezwada Wilson, founder of Safai Karmachari Andolan, the Indian government has responded positively to these initiatives by engaging in serious dialogue with civil society organizations. [124] These efforts offer strategies and good practices to translate India’s legislative commitments into effective action at the local level.

International Human Rights Efforts

In order to raise awareness of the impact of caste-based discrimination, Dalit rights activists have sought to generate international pressure on the Indian government. [125] Beginning in the early 1980s, Dalit activists have articulated caste-based discrimination and violence as human rights issues. [126] In 1996, despite vociferous opposition from the Indian government, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) recognized caste-based discrimination as a form of racial discrimination. [127] Linking race and caste-based discrimination has catalyzed further attention by the United Nations and facilitated ties with other populations worldwide suffering similar forms of discrimination. [128]

In March 2014 the Supreme Court ruled [129] that the practice of manual scavenging was prohibited in India under various international instruments, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), [130] the International Convention on Elimination of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), [131] and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). [132]

India is also a party to other international conventions that reinforce obligations to end manual scavenging, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). During India’s most recent review for compliance with the ICESCR, ICERD, and the CRC, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCR Committee), [133] Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD Committee), [134] and the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC Committee) [135] all issued concluding observations calling upon India to end manual scavenging.

Various other United Nations agencies and international human rights bodies have also addressed manual scavenging: UNICEF has approached manual scavenging as a water and sanitation issue; the World Health Organization (WHO) has taken up manual scavenging as a health issue; UNDP has a special task force on the issue of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes; UN Women addresses manual scavenging based upon that fact that 95 percent of manual scavengers who clean dry toilets and open defecation are women; and the ILO focuses on ending manual scavenging by supporting implementation of relevant government policies in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Gujarat. [136]

On January 31, 2013, the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights, Navi Pillay, appealed to the Indian government to take action to end manual scavenging:

The key to the new law will be effective accountability and enforcement. It is also crucial that adequate resources are provided to enable the comprehensive rehabilitation of liberated manual scavengers. This is the only way these grossly exploited people will be able to successfully reintegrate into a healthier and much more dignified work environment, and finally have a real opportunity to improve the quality of their own lives and those of their children and subsequent generations. [137]

III. Abuses that Perpetuate Manual Scavenging

I was not allowed to wear shoes when I walked in front of the homes of higher caste people in the village. I was made to wear a lugade [a half sari] so that everyone could tell that I did the dirt cleaning work.

—Nirmala, Mandsaur district, Madhya Pradesh, January 2014

The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, prohibits any person, local authority, or agency from “engaging or employing” a “manual scavenger.” [138] Under the act, “every person so engaged or employed shall stand discharged immediately from any obligation, express or implied, to do manual scavenging.” [139] As a result, any contract or agreement requiring a person to do manual scavenging is void. [140]

While the 2013 Act releases as a matter of law all people from manual scavenging, as a practical matter, active state intervention is needed to end the customary, caste-based practices, discrimination, and social exclusion that bind people to the work. As described below, not only do some local officials fail to intervene to end manual scavenging practices by private employers, but some local village governance councils and municipal corporations also perpetuate discriminatory caste-designated labor by recruiting people from manual scavenging communities as safai karmacharis —or health and sanitation workers—and requiring them to manually clean excrement from dry toilets, gutters, and open defecation areas. [141] The latter authorities are not only failing to enforce relevant laws but also themselves directly violating the law.

Understanding the involuntary and coercive nature of manual scavenging sheds light on the barriers individuals face in leaving this practice. [142] According to Coen Kompier, senior labor specialist for the International Labor Organization, manual scavenging can constitute forced labor because entry into this practice is entirely caste-designated, and because people who work as manual scavengers face a “menace of penalty” that prevents them from leaving this work. [143] Consequences for leaving manual scavenging include community threats of physical violence and displacement—and even threats and harassment by local officials mandated by law to end the practice, who instead withhold wages and threaten eviction from homes.

State Failure to Intervene to Stop Illegal Employment of Manual Scavengers by Local Households

Although the 2013 Act contains strict penalties for maintaining dry latrines, these require enforcement. The Indian government’s track record of imposing penalties upon those who perpetuate manual scavenging under the 1993 Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition Act) is extremely poor. In fact, according to the National Advisory Council, “almost no one has been punished under this law.” [144]

Not only are laws abolishing manual scavenging routinely ignored in practice, people who try to leave can suffer retribution, including community threats of physical violence and displacement.

Threats and Harassment from Community Employers

Women who practice manual scavenging told Human Rights Watch that since dry toilets are cleaned daily, they face pressure from the community if they miss even a day. Anita, who cleans dry toilets in Kasela village in Etah district, Uttar Pradesh, said there has been no intervention to stop manual scavenging, and dominant castes prevail in pressuring her to continue the practice:

I did not clean the toilets for just one day. They came to my house and told me, “If you do not come, we will throw you out of the village. You will have nowhere to go.” [145]

Many women said that they had no choice but to turn up to clean the toilets. In the 30 years she worked cleaning dry toilets in Devgarh village in Dewas district, Madhya Pradesh, Churajbai Fatrod said she did not miss even one day unless her sisters-in-law could cover for her:

I couldn’t go anywhere. I could never go to my home village. There was so much work to be done every day. If I did leave, people came looking for me. If I had to be gone for one day, someone in my family had to go in my place. [146]

The practical requirement that they do not miss a day prevents women from pursuing alternate occupations such as agricultural labor. And in the event that they are able to find the means and support to stop manual scavenging, women said they face extreme pressure from the community. For instance, in 2002, when Sushilabai stopped manual scavenging in Jeevajigarh village, in Dewas district, she said people started turning up at her house:

After I left, one by one people came and told me to come back to do my work. They told me, “If not you, we will take your husband. If not your husband, we will take your son— but someone from your house will do this work.” [147]

Across Madhya Pradesh, Human Rights Watch interviewed women who left manual scavenging between 2002 and 2009. Most reported that after they left people would come to their homes daily, harassing them and demanding that they resume the work. [148] Yashodabai, from Dharia Khedi village in Mandsaur district, Madhya Pradesh said, “For a year after I stopped doing this work, every day people would come to my home and demand that I clean their toilets.” [149]

For some women, this daily harassment lasted two or three months. For others it lasted longer. Leelabai, from Aastha, a town in Sehore district, Madhya Pradesh, said these relentless demands lasted for two years. “For two years, people from the community came to my house and told me to come and clean,” she said. “It took two years before they left me in peace.” [150]

Shakuntala Vaid from Siddique Ganj village, in Sehore district, Madhya Pradesh, said that her former employers warned that if she did not return to manual scavenging, she could not stay in the village. She told Human Rights Watch:

When we stopped doing the work, they told us, “We will not let you stay in the village if you don’t do this work. This is your work.” They would come to my house and tell me, “You cannot expect our daughters-in-law to do this dirty work.” [151]

The threat of being thrown out of the village initially prevented Badambai from leaving the practice:

In 2003, when I first stopped this work, the Rajputs [upper caste community] told me, “You cannot leave. ... If you stop doing this work, we will throw you out from the village and get other Bhangis to do the work.” This threat that I would be thrown out and replaced made me go back. [152]

Recognizing the coercive authority of such threats, The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Ordinance, 2014, pending enactment at the time of writing, makes it a crime to “wrongfully disposses[s] a member of a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe from [their] land or premises.” [153]

Denial of Access to Land-Based Resources

When people refuse to perform caste-based tasks, dominant caste groups may deny them access to community property and property belonging to upper caste landholders. This access is crucial: most people engaged as manual scavengers do not own land and require entry to community and privately owned land to graze livestock, collect firewood, or even defecate in the fields.

Women in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh who refused to practice manual scavenging said they sometimes lost access to land. Shardhabai, who lives in Siddique Ganj, in Sehore district, Madhya Pradesh, said that since she stopped manual scavenging in 2002, upper caste groups have blocked her access to land to graze animals or collect firewood:

When I stopped, people came to my house. They told me, “We will not let you use our jungles for food or for wood, or to feed your animals.” I am still not allowed to go to their jungles. [154]

Women who clean dry toilets in Kasela village, in Etah district, Uttar Pradesh, are not paid and do not own the land they live on. [155] On most days, Munnidevi receives roti in return for cleaning dry toilets in 12 houses. She relies upon being able to access fields belonging to upper caste landowners to graze buffalo and collect wood. This access depends, however, upon Munnidevi cleaning toilets daily—even when she is not given the expected food donations. She said:

They do not give money. Sometimes they give two rotis , sometimes just one. One house did not give me anything for two or three days. So I stopped going there. If they give me nothing, why should I go? I didn’t go for two or three days, then they came to threaten—“If you do not come, we will not let you on our land. Where will you get food for your animals?” Together, we own four buffaloes. I went back to clean. I had to. [156]

In Devgarh village, in Dewas district, 12 women left manual scavenging in 2002. Sunita, one of those women, says that the dominant caste responded by refusing grazing access and she had to sell her animals: “At that time, I owned one male and one female goat. For months I was not allowed to graze my goats on any land in the village. I had to sell my goats.” [157] Another woman, Rekhabai, said that former employers threatened violence if she tried to access their land, “When I left, one of the people I cleaned for warned me, ‘Now, if you come to my farm, I’ll cut off both of your legs.’” [158]

The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Ordinance, 2014, pending enactment at the time of writing, makes it illegal to “obstruct or prevent” a member of a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe from “using common property resources of an area.” [159] However, Rekhabai’s family still faces barriers when they graze their goats. She said, “My brother-in-law has 10 goats. I have four goats. My son went to graze our goats and ended up in a fight. He was told he was not allowed to enter the fields.” [160]

Difficulties in Accessing the Criminal Justice System

Due to pervasive discrimination, Dalits require significant assistance in accessing the criminal justice system when they are victims of crime. While people throughout India face police inaction and outright refusals to investigate their complaints, [161] these problems are exacerbated for people on the lower rungs of the economic and social ladders.

In rural India, to file a complaint, victims of crime must ordinarily identify and travel to the police station with jurisdiction to investigate. [162] Those who attempt to do so are often rebuffed. Victims who are poor and without legal counsel are vulnerable to police refusal to register and investigate complaints because they cannot afford to pay bribes, cover costs of investigation as the police typically demand, or call upon local influential figures to intervene with the police on their behalf. Traditional gender-bias means that women are particularly likely to be ignored. [163]

People from manual scavenging communities are susceptible to this type of treatment due to perpetuation of caste bias by police and local government officials. Activists and rights groups told Human Rights Watch that police routinely fail to register and investigate complaints of crimes against Dalits when the perpetrators are of a dominant caste. [164] In particular, police will not register cases under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act—a law crucial to protect people who work as manual scavengers. [165]

Fearing for their lives due to threats from local residents in their village in Uttar Pradesh after they stopped manual scavenging work, Jagrani, Sarojadevi, Guddidevi, and Meenadevi went to the police station five kilometers away to seek protection. © 2014 Digvijay Singh

Kranti, a lawyer for Jan Sahas Social Development Society, told Human Rights Watch that victims of violence and intimidation who come from communities that work as manual scavengers require support at every stage of the process: identifying which police station has jurisdiction in cases of violence and atrocities; collecting evidence in order to ensure police accountability in investigations; filing First Information Reports (FIRs) and registering complaints; requesting copies of FIRs to ensure charges have been registered appropriately; and—in cases where they reach the trial stage—preparing themselves for trial. [174]

Explicitly addressing these barriers, The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Ordinance, 2014, pending enactment at the time of writing, makes it a crime, punishable with imprisonment for six months to one year, for a public servant to “willfully neglect [their] duties” under the ordinance. [175] These enumerated duties include reading informants the information given orally and written before taking their signature, registering an FIR, providing a copy of the recorded information to the informant, recording the statements of victims of witnesses, and conducting investigations and filing charge sheets within 60 days. [176]

Illegal and Discriminatory Employment of Manual Scavengers by Local Governments

Descent-based practices are so deeply internalized that even state institutions such as village councils and municipal corporations perpetuate these practices. Many from the manual scavenging caste communities are denied any other jobs, leaving them dependent on manual scavenging for subsistence. Where the government itself employs manual scavengers, there is no hope for effective implementation of the 2013 Act and other laws aimed at ending manual scavenging.

Panchayat Employment in Maharashtra

In affidavits submitted to the Supreme Court, most recently in 2006, the Maharashtra government claimed that there were no dry latrines and manual scavenging had completely ended in the state. [177] As others have reported and as our interviews confirmed, not only does manual scavenging persist in Maharashtra state, but panchayats themselves hire men and women from communities that traditionally practice manual scavenging as safai karmacharis , or sanitation workers, to manually clean dry toilets and open defecation. [178] As Gita Anil Chaure, from Nhavi village, in Jalgaon district, Maharashtra explained:

They only ask us to clean toilets. The panchayat doesn’t give other jobs. They say, “You belong to this community so you have to do this work only.” I don’t want to do this work, but because of these circumstances, I am doing it. [179]

These government employees, paid to manually clean human waste, are hired, fill positions held by their parents, or are even brought in from other areas exclusively for manual scavenging, even when they are qualified for other jobs within the panchayat . In Maharashtra, in instances where locals have managed to break out of caste-bound employment, village councils have hired migrants. [180] Human Rights Watch found that many people hired to manually clean excrement in Maharashtra are from Valmiki, Hela, Lalbegi, and Mehatar communities that have migrated to Maharashtra from Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, and Delhi. [181]

These hiring practices replicate discriminatory caste-designated employment and reinforce the perception among people working as manual scavengers that they have no other options. Gopal Harilal Bohit from Nhavi village explained that manually cleaning human waste was the only work available to him:

My wife had family in Nhavi. They helped me get this job. It was not by application. We went to the panchayat members and said, please give us some work . . . The work they gave, my work, was to clean the gutter, clean excrement from roads, clean the toilets, clean the village, and remove garbage. I had nothing else so I agreed to whatever they said. It is our caste. They will not give us any better work to do. Nothing that would give us dignity. [182]

A 2013 survey conducted by the Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan in approximately 500 villages and five cities in Dhule district, Maharashtra—one of the 250 most backward districts in India [183] —found that in 31 villages and all 5 cities, a total of 162 women and 90 men are still hired by panchayats and municipal corporations to manually clean toilets and open defecation areas. [184]

In Maharashtra, panchayats hire married couples for village sanitation work, including manual scavenging. Three years ago, Anil Prakash Pandit, 27, moved to Kaparna village in Dhule district with his wife, Rina. Anil has studied until ninth grade and Rina has completed high school. Despite their education, manual scavenging jobs were the only ones the local government made available to the couple. [185] Anil told Human Rights Watch:

The panchayat hires people to work as water suppliers, peons [messengers], clerks, garbage collectors, and this work I do—cleaning toilets. You see, what happens here, if you are a Mehatar in caste, you have to do this work. You are not told this directly, but it is what you are hired to do and what is expected, even from the villagers. If there is excrement to clean, they will come and call us to do it. [186]

Raju Chaundale, from Adavad, a town in Jalgaon district, Maharashtra, has studied until tenth grade, but he too cleans open defecation and dry toilets. [187] According to Raju, education does not open up employment opportunities for his community: “They don’t give us any other opportunity. Two or three people applied in the employment office, but they haven’t been given the opportunity.” [188] Mayabai Ramesh Pawar, who has been doing manual scavenging work in Fagne village, in Dhule district, Maharashtra, said, “I do think I can do other work, but thinking doesn’t help because I cannot get any other work.” [189]

In 2007, the panchayat of Kusumba village in Dhule district, Maharashtra, was faced with a problem: almost the entire Lokhande family, which for several generations had cleaned dry toilets, open defecation, and drainage lines, left the village for better jobs. [190] Instead of implementing government schemes to replace the dry toilets, the village council solved their sanitation crisis by bringing Valmiki families from other parts of Maharashtra to do the work. In 2010, when they needed to fill these positions for a second time, they drove to Akkulkuwa in Nandurbar district, a tribal area of Maharashtra on the border of Gujarat. [191] Rajubai Karneya Salonki explained how she came to Kusumba in 2010:

The sarpanch , gram sevak , and members [of the village council]—in total five people—came to our village and said, “We will give you payment, a place to stay, clothes, everything, come with us.” Here, I clean the dry toilets, water toilets, wada toilets, and open defecation. I collect all the excreta and throw it elsewhere. [192]

Municipal Corporation Employment in Rajasthan

In 2000, Rajasthan state enacted the Rajasthan Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act. [193] Upon notification of the act in 2003, Rajasthan began the process of identifying and rehabilitating individuals engaged in manual scavenging. [194] According to a 2008 affidavit from the Rajasthan Secretary of the Department of Local Self Government, submitted to the Supreme Court in Safai Karmachari Andolan & Ors. v. Union of India, Rajasthan has appointed executive authorities and directed all deputy directors to furnish updated information on persistence of manual scavenging practices. [195]

This has not, however, led to actual monitoring or abolition of the practice. Human Rights Watch found that women and men from the Valmiki community continue to be engaged to manually clean human excrement, both directly by the government and through contractors. Neha, who has worked as a safai karmachari , or sanitation worker, for the municipal corporation in Bharatpur city, Rajasthan since 2004, explained her work:

I clean my area, these two lanes. I clean twice a day because it is so dirty. I sweep the roads and I clean the drains. It is extremely dirty because the houses here flush the excrement from the toilets directly into the drains. I have to pick out the excreta, along with any garbage from the drains. We don’t get anything from the government to protect us. No mask, no gloves, no shoes. [196]

Neha says that she knows this work is illegal and dangerous, but she has no choice but to do it if she wants to keep her job:

I do know that there is a law that I do not have to clean the excreta from the drains, but I have to do it. I have told my supervisor, I have told the sanitary inspector. They say they will make the change, but the government has not put in the sewer lines, so I have to pick it up this way. If I do not, I will lose my job. [197]

Sanjay, from Malipura, a village within the municipal area under the jurisdiction of the Bharatpur municipal corporation, is also employed as a sanitation worker by the Bharatpur municipal corporation, through a contractor. [198] He says his job includes manually cleaning excrement from drains and open defecation areas:

I am hired to clean drains and sweep roads in this village, Malipura. Even though there are toilets here, children always defecate on the road, near the drains. Even adults do sometimes. I clean that. I also clean the drains. [199]

Like Sanjay, Rohan is also hired as a sanitation worker in Malipura. [200] He told Human Rights Watch:

I clean the drains. I also have to pick up the excrement where children defecate. I knew when I took this job that I would have to pick up excreta, but this is my area, so I have to clean it. If I don’t clean it, I could lose my job. [201]

According to Rajkumar Jain, who together with his brother, Ashok Jain, holds all the municipal contracts in Bharatpur city, of the 500 cleaning “beats” for which they subcontract sanitation work, “between 75 and 100 beats require sanitation workers to manually clean open defecation and excrement from drains.” [202]

However, a senior official of the municipal corporation in Bharatpur city, Rajasthan, said she had no knowledge of whether manual cleaning of excrement took place in her jurisdiction and had no familiarity with laws prohibiting manual scavenging. “I have heard about the law,” she said, “but not read it.” [203] When presented with specific information on both the presence of dry latrines in certain areas in Bharatpur city and the widespread practice of requiring government employees to clean excrement from open drains documented by Human Rights Watch, she denied that any manual scavenging took place within her jurisdiction, saying “I am sure people are not doing this work.” [204]

She acknowledged, however, that neither the nature of the work nor the employment conditions of the government employees hired by subcontractors is overseen by the Bharatpur municipal corporation and is instead “left to the contractor.” [205] And it’s not a minor issue: 500 of the 820 sanitation workers hired by the municipality are hired by subcontractors. [206]

Kuldeep Ghanwari, Rajasthan coordinator for Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan, explained that handling human excrement is only one of the hazards faced by municipal corporation workers required to manually clean drains in the city. He said:

Some of the large drains can be three feet wide and five feet deep. People have to step into them to clean them. They have no equipment. Not even shoes. You should see what else is in the drains—near hospitals, you find medical waste, and people cut their feet on blades and broken glass. [207]

Caste-Based Discrimination in Local Government Hiring

While the 2013 Act releases anyone doing manual scavenging from any obligation to do this work, caste-based practices imposed by communities and replicated by state hiring practices have made this difficult to achieve.

Kailash Pokerji Kundare is from the Valmiki community and is college educated. In 1989, he moved to Nhavi village in Jalgaon district, Maharashtra, with his wife and daughter, after his brother-in-law said there was an opening for an office assistant in a school in Khiroda. However, when he reached Maharashtra, Kundare found there was no job. Desperate for employment, he joined his father-in-law in manual scavenging, working for the panchayat in Nhavi village. This was his first experience manually cleaning excrement. He said, “ I was given work to clean— a urination place and toilets. My father-in-law told me to do this work. I didn’t like it at all. I didn’t want to do this.” [208]

In 2002, Kundare was transferred by the sarpanch , the village headman, to the water supply department where he began working alongside two men from the Leva Patel caste. Although his position was changed, his salary was not increased. On the other hand, Kundare said that he was made to bear a disproportionate share of the work by the men he worked with. He also discovered from a friend that his colleagues had publicly challenged his appointment to the water supply department, because of his caste, at a panchaya t meeting. Kundare explained, “One of them said, ‘How can a Bhangi work with me and get the same payment?’ He said this in the panchayat monthly meeting.” [209]

Kundare approached the sarpanch directly to request a wage increase and to report that he was being made to do a disproportionate share of the work. But he was ignored. After five or six months, Kundare said he left the water supply position and returned to his previous job:

I did this work for five or six months, then I left. I understood they were oppressing me. I went directly to ask sarpanch about my wage increase. I said, “If you are not increasing my payment, give me my broom back. I will do that instead of working too hard for no increment.” I have not applied for any other work in the panchayat . They are doing injustice, so why would I even ask? [210]

Although India’s Equal Remuneration Act, 1976, amended by Act 49 of 1987, requires an employer to pay women and men equally for the same work or work of a similar nature, this protection does not extend to protecting workers from wage discrimination along caste lines. [211] India currently has no laws specifically outlawing caste-based wage discrimination.

In Bharatpur city, according to contractor Rajkumar Jain, only Valmikis hired directly by the municipal corporation are actually required to do sanitation work; non-Valmikis are given other work:

The non-Valmiki safai karmacharis hired by the municipal corporation in 2004 don’t really do sanitation work. They make adjustments through the system to get out of the work. They were hired as safai karmacharis , but they all have found other positions, working in offices, or as peons [messengers]. They promise to do sanitation work when they are hired, but they don’t actually do this work at all. [212]

Rohan, who was hired as a sanitation worker by the Bharatpur municipal corporation, said, “Only Valmikis are hired to do this work by the subcontractor.” [213] Jain, the contractor, confirmed that “all of our subcontracted workers are from the Valmiki community—no other community would do this work. It is just not possible. If there is excrement to pick up, they [Valmikis] have to pick it up.” [214]

Withheld Wages and Eviction Threats from Local Government Officials

Where families are employed by panchayats to clean dry toilets and open defecation, they are often given government-sponsored housing and wages, and officials sometimes use this as leverage to keep the families engaged in manual scavenging. Replicating customary exploitation, some panchayats deny or delay wages, and worse, threaten to withdraw housing if people no longer continue manual scavenging tasks. As Bika Juma Ral of Kingaon village, Jalgaon district, Maharashtra, said: “ We have a lot of problems. Our problems are housing and wages.” [215]

Rajubai was recruited and brought in for manual scavenging by the Kasumba village panchayat in 2010 from her home in Akkulkuwa, a town in Nandurbar district, a tribal area on the border of Maharashtra and Gujarat. She wanted to go home, but it would not be easy to do so. [216] The panchayat held back payment of her wages to keep her tied to manual scavenging. She said:

We actually want to go back. We don’t like it here… Because of this work, my health has declined. I eat very little food. It is very dirty work we have here. People are saying, the panchayat will not allow us to leave and that is why they are not giving the full payment. [217]

In Maharashtra, several people engaged in manual scavenging reported to Human Rights Watch that they do not receive wages properly. Shantabai Nemichal Kundare said that the Kingaon panchayat is erratic in paying wages. As of March 2014, she and the other women and men hired by the panchayat for manual scavenging were owed 10 months of wages. “They don’t give us payment,” she said. “I don’t know the reason. Every time it is delayed. … We have to go as a beggar to the panchayat and ask for our wages.” [218]

Without regular wages from their government-sponsored employment, she begs in the village for food:

Every week in the market, we go with our baskets and beg and everyone gives us a small portion. Then I also go to the houses in the village and ask for food. Since I came here 30 years back, I have been asking for food. If I got payment I would not have to do this. If my payment came on time, why would I ask? [219]

Mayabai Ramesh Pawar from Fagne village in Dhule district, Maharashtra, also does not get regular wages from the village council and goes door to door collecting rotis :

Every three to four months I get some payment [from the panchayat ]. It doesn’t come every month. In the money I get, I somehow adjust. In the village I go and beg for rotis . [220]

Even when they do not receive wages, some women and men said that they continue cleaning dry toilets and open defecation because they fear that they will be evicted from the government-sponsored houses where they live—and in many instances, where their families have lived for generations.

When the six families responsible for cleaning dry toilets and open defecation in Kingaon village in Maharashtra’s Jalgaon district went on strike to demand their wages, local government officials threatened them with eviction. Bika Juma Ral told Human Rights Watch, that within three days of going on strike, all six families received eviction notices from the panchayat :

When we went on strike, the panchayat told us to empty the house. Within two or three days of the strike, the notice was given. The notice said, “If you are on strike you have to leave the house and we will bring in someone else to do that work.” [221]

After eight days, the striking workers settled for three months of back pay and returned to work with assurances from the panchayat that they would receive regular payment going forward and the remainder of the wages owed. [222] However, since they returned to work, Jagdish Samparji Kundare said they have received no further compensation. “Since then, they are saying they will give the payment but we have yet to get the wages. Even two or three days back they said we will clear all your pending payments.” [223]

Bika Juma Ral says he would like to stop manual scavenging but the threat of eviction from the panchayat keeps him from doing so:

No one in Kingaon has been forced out of the house, but I think they will remove us because the house is not in our name. Where will we go with our family then? The place does not belong to us. When they gave us the notice, they did not make us leave—but if they are not giving payment, then that shows they will also throw us out. It is our helplessness that we continue to do the work. We don’t know a way out. We only want a house. Then we would just do farming. [224]

An employer’s obligation to provide remuneration to their employees is recognized under the ICESCR, to which India is a party, as well as other international legal standards. [225] India’s constitutional commitment to labor rights for all workers—“agricultural, industrial, or otherwise”—requires the state to secure “work, a living wage, [and] conditions of work ensuring a decent standard of life.” [226] This constitutional commitment is further articulated in the Payment of Wages Act, 1936, which makes every employer responsible for paying all required wages to people they employ, [227] and applies to work relating to water supply and generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity. [228] While water supply and electric workers hired by panchayats are covered by the Payment of Wages Act, people hired for sanitation work are not.

Families hired as sanitation workers say they have no recourse when wages are late. Unlike other government employees of the panchayat who are protected by the Payment of Wages Act, they are uniquely vulnerable to exploitation.

Nine men and women from five Mehatar families work as safai karmacharis in Nhavi village. They are responsible for sweeping the village, cleaning water toilets, and manually cleaning open defecation. [229] Families who do manual scavenging in Nhavi are allowed to live in houses provided by the panchayat . In November 2013, all five families went on strike to demand a wage increase, but the panchayat punished them by threatening to take away their houses, said Bimal Kundare.

When we were on strike, the panchayat members stopped the water in our houses. Then they stopped the electricity. They threatened, “If you are not working, then why are you staying here. If you are not working we will not let you stay.” [230]

Gita Anil Chaure said the panchayat threatened to physically remove them from the houses where they lived:

While we were on strike, they said, “We will give you notice. We will ask you to empty the house. Then, we will call the police and throw you and all of your belongings out from the house.” [231]

“If I had my own house, I would not go for scavenging work,” Bimal Kundare explained. Said Chaure, “If I had a house, within a second I would stop this work.” According to Gopal Harilal Bohit:

I am very ready to leave this work but the only thing is I would lose the house. They always threaten, “If you leave this work we will throw you out from the house.” If I had a house, I would leave scavenging and do any other hard work. I just need to be sure I can keep a roof over my head—for my son, my wife, and myself. [232]

While agricultural and labor work is available to the Mehatar community in Nhavi, Bimal explains that they do not go for this work due to fear of eviction:

In our village there is farming and labor work, but if I go for farming, I get threats from the panchayat that I must empty the house. The panchayat does not allow us to do other work. They say, “This is your work, stick to your job. Otherwise, leave.” [233]

The last time Bimal worked gathering peanuts, she was reprimanded by the sarpanch :

Two or three years ago, they saw us women going to harvest peanuts and they wrote in the register we were absent from cleaning. When they saw me farming— somebody saw, I don’t know who—they informed the sarpanch . The next day when I went for my cleaning work the sarpanch and panchayat members came and said “Why do you go there to do that work, you are not working properly here.” [234]

The sarpanch did not threaten eviction that day, but Bimal feared she would lose her home: “They did not say anything about the house that time, but I myself am scared. I fear if they remove me from this work, I will lose my house.” [235]

Like Bimal, her sister Gita would rather do any other work, but she does not leave scavenging because she fears losing the house where she has lived for 20 years:

I would do anything else instead—any business. I would sell vegetables. I could raise goats. I could do farming. I would prefer to do that but it is not easy. First of all, we will be asked to leave the house. We don’t have money, how will we pay rent? [236]

IV. Barriers to Ending Manual Scavenging

Government intervention is needed to end caste-based labor designations that bind women and men to manual scavenging. To overcome the entrenched obstacles discussed above, individuals need immediate access to alternate livelihoods and housing, and an effective government response when they face threats of violence.

The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, contains provisions aimed at rehabilitating people working as manual scavengers including one-time cash assistance, scholarships for their children, housing, alternative livelihood support, and other legal and programmatic assistance. [237] Endorsing these provisions, the Supreme Court in 2014 directed all manual scavengers to be rehabilitated accordingly. [238]

Under the 2013 Act, however, rehabilitation is left to be implemented under existing central and state government schemes— the same set of programs that, to date, have not succeeded in ending manual scavenging. [239] One important reason for past failures to end manual scavenging is that relevant government officials have not been held accountable.

Problems with Implementation and Accountability

Promising policy initiatives in India often falter due to poor implementation. Programs to rehabilitate manual scavenging communities are no exception. In their report on the 2013 Act, the Standing Committee on Social Justice and Empowerment noted, “successful implementation of the new Act would largely depend on how the Corporations, Municipalities and Other Local Bodies would be motivated and geared up for meeting the challenges to be thrown up by the new Act.” [240]

Effective implementation of the 2013 Act will require accountability at every stage of the process: in identifying people working as manual scavengers, intervening effectively when there are threats of violence, facilitating access to rehabilitation, and imposing penalties on officials who fail to take the prescribed measures to end manual scavenging.

Inadequate Surveys and Failure to Identify People Still Engaged in Manual Scavenging

Under the 2013 Act, one must be included on a government list of manual scavengers to be eligible for rehabilitation. [241] The Act provides two ways of identifying manual scavengers: local government surveys and individual self-identification. [242] The Act does not, however, require surveys, instead leaving decisions on whether to conduct surveys to the discretion of authorities.

According to the Supreme Court, government surveys have been ineffective. In particular, the court notes, the 2013 central government survey “has shown remarkably little progress” and has identified “only a miniscule proportion of the number of people engaged in manual scavenging.” [243] To illustrate the shortcomings in the survey, the Supreme Court compared data collected by the petitioners in Safai Karmachari Andolan and data collected by Rajasthan state. [244] The Rajasthan state report, which did not extend to the entire state and excluded rural areas where manual scavenging is prevalent, identified 46 people engaged in manual scavenging. [245] In the very same area, the petitioners identified 816 people engaged in the practice. [246] Recent government surveys, moreover, fail to include people who have voluntarily left manual scavenging since the 1993 Act, often risking threats and retribution.

Finally, while some surveys address only dry toilets, people are also employed as manual scavengers to clear open defecation areas and pour-flush toilets in public places, to provide sanitation in hospitals and nursing homes, and to clean sewers, septic tanks, drains, and railway tracks.

According to the National Advisory Council (NAC), an advisory body tasked with providing guidance in the formulation policy during the previous government, [247] discrepancies between community and government surveys reflect state denial:

The recurring experience of past official surveys of manual scavengers and dry latrines is that state governments are mostly in denial; having declared that manual scavenging has been eradicated, they reject community findings, even when backed by strong evidence. [248]

To address state denial, the NAC recommends that joint surveys be conducted by governments and community members. [249]

Obstacles to Local Government Implementation of Rehabilitation Schemes

Under the 2013 Act, rehabilitation is to be implemented under relevant government schemes by local authorities. [250] In rural areas, the 2013 Act assigns the responsibility for implementation to panchayats . [251]

Many members of manual scavenging communities, however, report significant challenges in accessing support through the panchayats , whether it is information about their rights, identification cards and other essential documents, or proper participation in panchayat meetings. [252] As Lalibai from Piplia Rao Ji village in Mandsaur district, Madhya Pradesh, said: “The sarpanch never helps us. There is no point in asking.” [253]

Due to low literacy levels, itself the product of systematic caste discrimination, many individuals engaged in manual scavenging lack information about social welfare schemes. [254] Without government initiative to inform people of their rights, they depend upon support from civil society organizations. Rekhabai from Devgarh village in Dewas district, Madhya Pradesh, a vocal leader in the Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan, relies upon a campaign by social workers to inform her of relevant schemes:

In the village, they don’t inform us about the schemes. Even the sarpanch doesn’t inform us. I want to go for those schemes so I try. I have been to the panchayat many times now. I have even had a fight. [255]

Challenges in accessing information and claiming benefits are heightened for these communities because they are excluded from participating in local governance and decision-making processes. [256] Most often they are not invited to panchayat meetings. Women such as Lalibai, from Piplia Rao Ji village in Mandsaur district, Madhya Pradesh, who insist on attending, say they have to put up with humiliation by panchayat and community members. For Lalibai, this is despite the fact that under the quota system for Dalits, her husband was a member of the panchayat :

From 2009-2013, my husband was a member of the panchayat , but he was never asked to any meetings. He was elected in a Dalit seat. When meetings came, he was not informed of the meeting. They did not want him to attend, sit on a chair, and drink from the water pot. Instead, he was just made to sign. He signed when they brought the paper because he was afraid of the sarpanch .… I don’t like to go to panchayat meetings because they make me feel ashamed. We have to cover our faces and drink with our hands. We are not allowed to drink from the cup. Sometimes I make an effort to go, but I make sure I don’t take water from there. [257]

When Lalibai and members of her family do attend panchayat meetings, local officials prohibit them from speaking. She said:

Whenever I speak, they stop me. They say, “Why are you speaking? You cannot speak here.” While I was attending a meeting, my brother-in-law raised a question and the sarpanch asked him to leave the meeting. When I was asking what happened, they asked me to shut up. My brother-in-law was asking questions about blocked water, the roads, and the work guarantee. [258]

Lack of Accountability for Failing to End Manual Scavenging

Under the 2013 Act, district magistrates and local authorities are responsible for ensuring that no person within the jurisdiction does manual scavenging, no insanitary latrines are constructed, and all manual scavengers are rehabilitated. In addition, the act contains provisions for state governments to appoint inspectors to examine premises for insanitary latrines and persons employed as manual scavengers. Finally, the act calls for central and state monitoring committees, and vigilance committees in each district. The National Commission for Safai Karamcharis is charged with monitoring and implementation.

The 2013 Act permits the state government to conduct special trials. Complaints have to be made before the court within three months of the offense. However, since the same district authority responsible for adjudicating offenses under the act may also be the authority responsible for implementing the law, in some cases, there is a potential conflict of interest.

For these provisions in the new law to be effectively implemented, it is crucial that sufficient resources and training are provided to activate these monitoring mechanisms in collaboration with manual scavenging communities, rights activists, and civil society organizations.

Lack of Alternative Employment Opportunities

People engaged in manual scavenging rely upon the daily food donations they receive for subsistence. In order to leave manual scavenging they must have immediate access to alternate employment. These communities, however, face significant barriers to entering the labor market, including social boycotts and economic boycotts [259] in retaliation for refusing to clean toilets in the village, gender- and caste-based discrimination in access to employment, and corruption, such as being asking to pay bribes in order to be appointed to reserved government positions. For many, these obstacles are exacerbated by low education levels and an absence of marketable skills.

While in rural Madhya Pradesh, many women who left manual scavenging have been able to find seasonal work [260] in the fields, [261] the availability of agricultural labor and other unskilled labor from private employers depends upon the willingness of landholders to hire women who have left manual scavenging. And, as discussed in the previous section, individuals who leave manual scavenging report facing social and economic boycotts that last for varying amounts of time.

Recognizing the need to facilitate access to alternate employment, the 2013 Act contains provisions aimed at securing income—namely, training in livelihood skills and access to loans to take up other occupations on a sustainable basis. While successful vocational training and loans may offer long-term livelihood options, they do not meet the immediate need for employment that households require for survival. Moreover, people from these communities report significant difficulties in accessing and benefiting from existing training and loan schemes.

While the rehabilitative provisions specified in the 2013 Act do not facilitate immediate access to employment, The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 (MGNREGA), a legislative enactment of India’s constitutional commitment to the right to work, [262] has the potential to provide immediate livelihood security. [263] This potential avenue, however, is not easily accessible to individuals who practice or previously practiced manual scavenging.

Irregular Implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 aims to provide immediate livelihood security in rural areas by guaranteeing 100 days of employment to every household. [264] Work projects permitted under MGNREGA include water conservation, drought proofing, flood protection, land development, and road construction. [265]

As explained by Subhalakshmi Nandi and Rebecca Reichmann Tavares from UN Women India:

MGNREGA also offers a “way out” for daily wage labourers from traditional feudal structures, which not only offer piecemeal wage rates but are intrinsically linked to class and caste-based discrimination; often “bonded” forms of labour. The law is particularly significant for women workers belonging to marginalized communities, who would otherwise have no access to just employment opportunities. [266]

People from manual scavenging communities, however, report challenges in accessing employment under the scheme including lack of information, inability to access formal processes, and discriminatory exclusion by the panchayat . [267]

Under MGNREGA, adult members of rural households willing to do unskilled manual work are entitled to work on demand. To obtain a job card, they need to register with the panchayat in writing or orally. [268] The card provides a time-bound work guarantee: employment must be provided within 15 days of application for work. [269] In instances when employment is not provided, applicants are entitled to daily unemployment allowance. [270] Under MGNREGA, work must be provided within a five-kilometer radius of the village, and wages are calculated according to minimum wages. [271]

Many in the manual scavenger community say that instead of the guaranteed employment provided by the law, they have to rely on the panchayat for access. For instance, in Kasela village, in Etah district, Uttar Pradesh, the Valmiki community cannot formally request work and instead must wait for the pradhan (village headman) to select and “call” them for work. Said Mukesh, “I want MGNREGA work but when we go to the pradhan and ask for work, he says there is no work. Whenever we ask the pradhan , he says that there is no work.” [272]

While MGNREGA should be requested and allocated through a formal panchayat process, when Mukesh asked to fill out forms requesting work on April 6, 2014, he was not given the form he requested. Mukesh says he was given work only twice in the last three years, for a total of 18 days [273] —far short of the 100 days of work legally guaranteed each year. He said:

I went to the pradhan’s house and asked, “Can I fill out the form?” He did not give me the form, but said, “In three or four days I’ll get you work.” I have done MGNREGA work four times. Each time, I have not filled the form. The pradhan just called me. [274]

Where the formal process for accessing MGNREGA work is not implemented, authorities can exclude eligible adults on the basis of gender and caste. While men from the Valmiki community are at times called to work in Kasela, women are effectively excluded. Mukesh said: “Women don’t get work because the pradhan doesn’t call them.” [275]

When formal MGNREGA processes are circumvented, people hired by panchayats to do manual scavenging work are left particularly vulnerable to exclusion. In Nhavi village in Maharashtra’s Jalgaon district, when Gita went to apply for MGNREGA through the panchayat , she was wrongly told that she is not eligible:

I went to apply for MGNREGA but the panchayat member said this does not apply to you. You already have a job. My husband filled the form and took it to the panchayat . They took the form and rejected it. They told him that we were not eligible. [276]

For rural women who lack formal training, there may be no alternate employment available, especially in areas where they are not hired for agricultural labor and cannot access MGNREGA. In Kasela village, in Etah district, Uttar Pradesh, for instance, where only men are hired to work in the fields, Munnidevi, says she cleans dry toilets because there is no other work she can do:

I have three daughters and three sons. If I do not work, how will they eat? There is no work for women here. Women don’t work in the fields. They only take men. Women can go with a man to help if the husband or son is hired, but they will not take just us. If the woman helps her husband, we don’t get paid. [277]

Corrupt Enforcement of Government Employment Quotas

Although there are quotas for Scheduled Castes in government positions, manual scavenging communities report being excluded from these jobs due to an inability to pay bribes. For communities engaged in manual scavenging and living below the poverty line, this is, in most cases, an insurmountable barrier.

Anil Prakash — employed by the panchayat for manual scavenging in Kaparna village, in Dhule district, Maharashtra— has applied for government positions reserved for Scheduled Castes but said he was unable to pay bribes required for selection.

He told Human Rights Watch:

I went to Dhule for the exam. Then I was called for an interview. At that time, the head of the department said—“Now you need to give money. Only then will you be selected.” I had no reply. What reply would I give? I had no money so I left. [278]

In Adavad, a town in Jalgaon district, Maharashtra, where 30 men and women from the Mehatar caste are hired by the panchayat for manual scavenging, such experiences are common. According to Raju Shankar Chaundale, people from his community are unable to secure jobs, regardless of their education level, because they are unable to pay bribes:

We have people who have studied more than the tenth [grade]. We even have graduates. They still don’t give us any other opportunity. Two or three people I know have applied in the employment office, but they are not given any jobs. The first reason is the bribe. Wherever we go, they ask for two to three lakhs [US$ 3,350-5,000]. The people who get their name on a list for a position, we hear from them that they gave the bribe. [279]

Inadequate Training Programs for Alternate Employment

In order to facilitate access to alternate employment, the 2013 Act entitles one adult member of the family to training in a livelihood skill. During the period of training, the enrolled individual is entitled to a monthly stipend. [280]

This is a crucial addition to the law since lack of marketable skills is a significant barrier to entering the labor market when people leave manual scavenging. In the course of our interviews with those formerly or presently employed in manual scavenging, none reported that they had received training. Many, like Rekhabai in Indore, expressed a need for training. “I am ready to do any work,” Rekhabai said. “But I don’t know how to do any other work. I need to have some training.” [281]

Unlike the provisions for access to education, housing, and loans, the 2013 Act does not designate an entity responsible for providing training. While there are training schemes directed at Dalits more broadly, there are currently no central government training schemes directed specifically at supporting individuals identified as manual scavengers who seek rehabilitation in accordance with the 2013 Act.

Between 1992 and 2005, the central government ran the National Scheme for Liberation and Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers (NSLRMS), which included training. [282] During this time, 770,000 people working as manual scavengers were identified, 400,000 were assisted in transitioning to alternate occupations, and 178,000 were given training. [283] A 2003 assessment of the scheme by the Comptroller and Auditor General, however, found that implementing agencies did not have reliable databases of targeted beneficiaries, and after a decade, 40 percent of targeted beneficiaries were not rehabilitated. [284] Moreover, no special curriculum was developed to train people working as manual scavengers. [285]

Sona, from Bharatpur city in Rajasthan state, said that her National Safai Karmachari Finance and Development Corporation (NSKFDC) sewing training in 2012 did not provide adequate training or follow-up support for her to earn a livelihood as a seamstress:

Three people came from Delhi and asked us to attend sewing training. They told us there would be three months of training. Then they trained us for two months. The classes started late each day. They didn’t have fabric for us to learn, so we learned to cut a blouse on newspaper. I didn’t learn how to stitch a blouse, only how to cut it. We took our own cloth when we could. We also complained and then got one meter of cloth each. When the training ended, we were supposed to get a loan to start our business. We filled out the forms but have not heard anything. This January, I filled the forms again, but it is June now and we have no more information. Each time I pay for the forms to send to the government but I still have no livelihood skill. [286]

While Sona has refused to return to manual scavenging after leaving the practice, her neighbors Bhuri and Babita, who also left manual scavenging to enroll in the sewing training in 2012 have since returned to the practice. Bhuri explained:

In 2012 I left my own jagiri to go for the sewing classes. The class ended after two months and I waited for two months for the loan to buy my sewing machine, and then I could not sit at home any more. I needed to work. So now, today, I clean the latrines. I get roti every day and Rs. 20 to30 [30 to 50 US cents] each month. We are all waiting to leave the work, but I have to have something else. [287]

According to an official at the Rajasthan Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Development Corporation, the Bharatpur sewing training was subcontracted in 2012 to a Delhi-based company. [288] According to him, the company did not fulfill its contract:

The MOU [Memorandum of Understanding] had a clear understanding that they would provide these women with training, prepare a letter certifying their training so they could receive loans from the National Safai Karmachari Finance and Development Corporation, and work with the women to become self-employed. In March 2013, a year after the training, the letters still had not been written. Since loans have not been received and women are not self-employed, the company has not been paid, at least we have not paid them. [289]

Currently, while the National Safai Karmachari Finance and Development Corporation (NSKFDC) [290] and the National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) [291] run skill development programs, they primarily target unemployed youth. The Ministry of Textiles, Integrated Skill Development Scheme (ISDS), aimed at developing skills in the textile and apparel sectors, also targets distinct beneficiaries. These programs do not address the needs of manual scavenging communities, which require significant support to break out. [292]

The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment does, however, provide grants to nongovernmental organizations and training institutions that support Dalits in attaining employment. [293] This is a potential existing avenue to develop training programs aimed at individuals who work as manual scavengers.

Challenges in Accessing Loans

The 2013 Act entitles at least one adult member of each eligible family to obtain a concessional loan to take up an alternative occupation on a sustainable basis. [294]

Previous efforts to provide loans, however, have not been properly implemented. In 2007, the central government launched The Self-Employment and Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers Scheme (SRMS) and budgeted Rs. 7,356 million (US$186 million). The objective was to rehabilitate 342,468 people working as manual scavengers who had not been assisted under the National Scheme for Liberation and Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers. SRMS ended in 2010, when the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, charged with implementing the scheme, wrongly reported that all eligible and willing manual scavengers had been rehabilitated. [295] The ministry claimed it had spent Rs. 1,870 million (US$47 million) to assist 78,941 manual scavengers. [296]

Among the more than 100 Human Rights Watch interviews with members of the manual scavenging community, only three reported applying for a loan under SRMS. [297] The experience of Lalibai in Madhya Pradesh is a good indication of the challenges our interviewees described:

I have applied to get a loan on SRMS many times—I don’t know exactly how many times, but I have the receipts. I have given the form. Each time it costs Rs. 1000 [US$17] to take the form, to get the documents. But I still haven’t received the loan. No one that I know has gotten the benefit from the rehabilitation scheme. [298]

A 2010-2011 study conducted in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh by the Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan and sponsored by the ILO revealed widespread misallocation of the resources disbursed under SRMS. For instance, 76 percent of all beneficiaries were not involved in manual scavenging; SRMS was not launched in 25 percent of districts due to false claims by states that manual scavenging did not exist in these districts; and 58 percent of benefits were given to men when 98 percent of people engaged in manual scavenging are women. [299]

Of those interviewed for the study, 85 percent reported problems in accessing benefits, including significant time investment, requests for bribes, difficulty producing required documents and completing processing requirements, and widespread manipulation of the process by middle-men or commission agents [300] resulting in confusion and misapprehension among beneficiaries about how much money had been borrowed in their names. [301] Kuldeep Ghanwari, Rajasthan coordinator for the Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan campaign explained that the Valmiki community is particularly vulnerable to manipulation from middle-men and commission agents:

Loans don’t get to the Valmiki community and loan schemes even cause harm. Middle-men know that this community is disempowered and lacks education and awareness, so they take advantage of this. People are asked to sign papers for loans they don’t understand. I have even seen cases where people did not know that loans for Rs. 25,000 (US$400) were taken in their names and they only find out when they have defaulted on the loan. [302]

Nirmala Gawre from Devgarh village, in Dewas district, Madhya Pradesh, left manual scavenging work in 2002. She and her husband, Dhanalalji, wanted a loan to sell soya beans so she applied for a loan under SRMS. [303] It took Gawre one month to prepare the paperwork to file for her loan. According to Gawre, the bank official told her that the loan was approved. But when she went to collect the money, she discovered that the funds had not, in fact, been allocated. She spent a year chasing the bank officials and then gave up. She told Human Rights Watch:

We thought this loan would give us a livelihood. For one month we collected all signatures, all photos. Everything was submitted. For one year, I went back and forth. Then I stopped. I was tired of not getting an answer. I was frustrated and I left it. It is difficult for us to keep going to look for the loan. [304]

Inability to Take Possession of Land Grants

While the new law does not include land grants as a rehabilitative entitlement, state initiatives have allotted land to landless Dalit families in the past. According to Martin Macwan, other Dalit communities besides the Valmiki community have been able to leave customary labor with the support of government land grants. [305]

However, in several cases, Human Rights Watch found that simply granting land to marginalized manual scavenging communities is not sufficient. Kuldeep Ghanwari said information is not properly shared:

Sometimes people are not even informed by the government that land has been given in their name. Or people aren’t told the location or even the measurements. This can be intentional if the person who is using the land has given a bribe to officials so they can continue to use the land undisturbed. [306]

Leelabai from Amlataj in Dewas district, Madhya Pradesh, who was given land by the Madhya Pradesh government in 2002, knows the boundaries and location of her land but she still has no access to it because it is occupied by another family. Not only has the state failed to assist her in securing her property, the village council failed to uphold her claims. She said:

I have land on paper, but we cannot use it because another family says it is their land. Though it is my land, the other family is using it. If I try and go, I am not allowed to enter. I went to the sarpanch and said, “It is in your hands, and you can decide this.” The sarpanch said, “The land belongs to that man—it is family land that the man has owned for generations.” Then I went and asked the patwari (land registrar) in Dewas district. The patwari said, “We have done our work, now it is your responsibility to take your land or not.” [307]

Badambai from Kukdeshwar village in Neemuch district, Madhya Pradesh, required police support to take possession of the land she was granted by the government. “Twenty-eight of us were given land,” Badambai explained, “but the land was really close to the Banjara community, and when we went to sow the seeds, they came after us with sticks.” [308] In response to harassment from the Banjara community, Badambai first went to the police station alone, but she was unable to make progress until she approached the police together with the other 27 women and support from Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan:

I went to the police station, but the police officer spoke very rudely to me. Then I learned that the Banjara community had given the police money. After that we collected all the women to create a women’s group and went to the police superintendent in Neemuch. He did not help us. Then we went to Ujjain to meet the inspector-general. [309]

With the support of the inspector-general, Badambai and the other women in the group were ultimately able to secure access to their land. “The police came in 30 jeeps and went to each house in the Banjara community and made them take an oath at the temple that they would allow us to farm on our land.” [310]

Recognizing these challenges in taking and maintaining possession of land for Dalit and Tribal communities, the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Ordinance, 2014, awaiting passage in both houses of the Indian parliament at the time of writing, makes it a crime to “wrongfully occup[y] or cultivat[e] any land, owned by, or in the possession of or allotted to, or notified by any competent authority to be allotted to, a member of a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe.” [311]

Barriers to Housing

Threats of eviction and displacement act as barriers for those attempting to leave manual scavenging. Access to housing is thus critical to ending the practice. Recognizing this, the 2013 Act, and the 2014 Supreme Court judgment in Safai Karmachari Andolan v. Union of India, include an entitlement to housing—both a residential plot and financial assistance for house construction. [312] As with the other rehabilitative entitlements under the 2013 Act, this housing provision is to be implemented as set forth in relevant central and state government schemes. [313]

Indira Awaas Yojana

Indira Awaas Yojana, a social welfare program operated by the Rural Development Ministry, aims to provide housing for the rural poor. [314] Started in 1985 as part of the Rural Landless Employment Guarantee Program, Indira Awaas Yojana provides housing for the rural poor through subsidies and cash assistance to construct independent houses. [315] People who work as manual scavengers—including Dalit Muslims who are not included in the list of Scheduled Castes—fall within the target group for this program. [316] Despite being targeted for the program, manual scavenging communities report very low levels of access to such housing. [317]

Where accessible, the housing program has been instrumental in overcoming threats of displacement and harassment faced by manual scavenging communities. However, the responsibility for selecting beneficiaries for this program lies with the panchayats . Without a process to appeal decisions, it creates the potential for panchayat officials to deliberately exclude people who work as manual scavengers from access to housing.

Makarduaj Maruti Meshram, who has worked for 21 years as a gram sevak ( panchayat secretary) in Dhule district, Maharashtra, said the panchayat is responsible for determining who receives government housing support:

How the Indira Awaas Yojana scheme runs is that everyone from the gram panchayat chooses the beneficiary and sends the name to the central government. Then, from the gram panchayat , the gram sevak contacts a person and tells them to get a bank account. When the account is established, money is transferred. [318]

Bimal, from the Mehatar community in Nhavi village in Jalgaon district, Maharashtra, has applied for independent housing through Indira Awaas Yojana, but her application has not been successful:

I do know about Indira Awaas Yojana, but they do not give it to us. I have applied for it. In every panchayat meeting, I ask the sarpanch about my application and he says, “Yes, your number will come.” We have submitted written applications many times, but our name has not come. [319]

Gita Chaure, hired by the Nhavi panchayat to manually clean open defecation, says that people from other caste groups in Nhavi have built homes through the Indira Awaas Yojana scheme . [320] However, she has no information on her application: “Two or three years ago, my husband gave the application. But whenever we go ask about our application, they say ‘There is no application from your side.’” [321]

Bimal was told by panchayat members that this is because she already has a house. However, Bimal says that they would prefer government housing so that her family cannot be held to ransom by the panchayat , which threatens to evict families when they say they want to stop manual scavenging. She said:

See, the panchayat has given us a house. So they say when we give our application, “We have already given you a house. Why do you need it?” I know that in the panchayat , the sarpanch and council members decide who gets Indira Awaas Yojana [housing]. Not one single person from our community has gotten a house. [322]

V. The Way Forward

To india’s central government.

Take steps for the effective implementation of The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act, 2013 (2013 Act), including:

Identify all individuals currently engaged in manual scavenging and those who have engaged in the practice since it was outlawed under the 1993 Act (so the latter are entitled to benefits under the 2013 Act)
Require local officials to take immediate, proactive steps to identify people engaged in the practice of manual scavenging, and those who have left the practice since 1993. This should include not only individuals who manually clean insanitary toilets, but also those who clean open defecation and excreta from open drains, pits, and any other area; and not only individuals who belong to Scheduled Castes, but also members of Muslim and Christian communities engaged in the practice.
Conduct surveys jointly with communities engaged in manual scavenging and civil society organizations.
Provide all identified individuals with a photo identification card and registration number granting them access to state and central schemes relevant to the rehabilitative entitlements outlined in the 2013 Act.
Establish a transparent, centralized, easy-to-use online database that all eligible individuals can access using their registration numbers to allow them to independently track the status of their applications for all relevant government schemes.
Ensure that rehabilitation entitlements under the 2013 Act—including financial assistance, scholarships, housing, alternative livelihood support, and other important legal and programmatic assistance—are available to manual scavenging communities
Immediately undertake a complete assessment and audit of all current schemes for ending manual scavenging and all schemes relevant to rehabilitating manual scavengers with attention to overcoming existing barriers to implementation.
Create a rehabilitation scheme in consultation with communities engaged in manual scavenging and civil society organizations that corresponds with the rehabilitative provisions under the 2013 Act. In particular, this scheme should provide for both immediate and long-term access to sustainable livelihoods.
Develop a comprehensive checklist to assess the health, financial, housing, and social empowerment needs of individuals who have left or seek to leave manual scavenging in order to provide targeted support.
Ensure that training programs are based upon up-to date market analysis so that training results in sustainable livelihoods, imparts marketable skills, and includes ongoing support to participants until they have secured a job or established a functioning business.
Train women from manual scavenging communities to work as liaisons between their communities and government systems, banks, and other relevant rehabilitation institutions.
Coordinate action between all concerned ministries and government stakeholders, including but not limited to the Ministries of Social Justice and Empowerment, Drinking Water and Sanitation, Rural Development, Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, Urban Development, Railways, Women and Child Development, Labor, and the Planning Commission.
Facilitate immediate and long-term access to livelihoods
Ensure that manual scavenging communities can access employment under MGNREGA. Recommendations from UN Women on facilitating women’s access to and participation in MGNREGA should be applied to women from communities that traditionally practice manual scavenging.
Ensure that livelihood training and support programs are gender sensitive because the majority of people who practice manual scavenging are women; all rehabilitative entitlement should be granted in the name of the woman or man previously engaged in this work.
Develop grant-based schemes in consultation with engaged civil society organizations in order to decrease the challenges of loan processes; implement recommendations from the National Advisory Council with respect to grant-based schemes.
Reserve employment in non-sanitation related positions for women and men who leave manual scavenging or who are willing to leave manual scavenging; where individuals were previously employed by municipal, government, semi government, or private companies, they should be hired by these employers in tasks not connected with scavenging.
Provide the one-time cash assistance provided for under the 2013 Act after proper identification. However, this cannot be considered a substitute for the livelihood support necessary to provide both immediate and long-term access to livelihoods.
Fairly distribute housing under the Indira Awaas Yojana program to families engaged in manual scavenging and to those who left since the practice was outlawed under The Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act 1993; families headed by single women should be granted particular priority.
Take immediate steps to ensure that officials effectively intervene to stop communities from being coerced to practice manual scavenging, including when members of such communities face threats and intimidation for attempting to leave manual scavenging. The steps should include holding officials accountable for properly enforcing relevant laws, including the 2013 Act and The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989
Instruct the Ministry of Home Affairs to take steps to ensure effective intervention in cases where communities face threats and intimidation for leaving manual scavenging.
Make the employment of people to manually clean excreta, including Dalit Christians and Dalit Muslims, an offense under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act, 1989.
Strictly enforce the law against local government officials who themselves employ manual scavengers .

To India’s State Governments

Comply with Supreme Court directives and central government initiatives and take immediate steps for the effective implementation of The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, and in particular:

Identify all individuals currently engaged in manual scavenging and those who have engaged in the practice since it was outlawed under the 1993 Act (so the latter are entitled to benefits under the 2013 Act) by establishing a state-level committee to supervise the work of identifying such people. This committee should include the chief secretary of the state, and representatives from the Scheduled Castes Commission, Scheduled Castes Welfare Department, Secretary of the Ministry of Social Justice, Health Ministry, and representatives of civil society organizations working with impacted communities.
Ensure accountability for implementing the 2013 Act
Investigate complaints of corruption in allocation of rehabilitative entitlements, and impose penalties and suitable administrative measures upon local officials in cases of delays in delivering rehabilitation benefits to manual scavengers.
Investigate all reports of failure to convert insanitary latrines by both individual households and panchayats , and impose penalties on individual households and local officials in cases of delays in converting insanitary latrines and constructing sanitary latrines.
Run a state-level help line to be used by individuals engaged or formerly engaged in manual scavenging to identify themselves for inclusion in the list, report coercion and threats from the community and within their families, and obtain assistance in accessing rehabilitative provisions.
Train district collectors, village councils, chief executive officers of municipal corporations, police officials, and any other local officials tasked with implementing The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, on the provisions of the 2013 Act and the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act, 1989. Establish a policy that under no circumstances should police refuse to register a complaint or dissuade or intimidate a complainant, with disciplinary consequences for those who do.
Initiate public health awareness campaigns on sanitation, including the health and human rights consequences of the persistence of manual scavenging and open defecation. Involve youth in clean and healthy village campaigns and recognize villages and districts for exemplary performance in changing sanitation habits and facilities.

To District and Village Authorities

Take steps for the effective implementation of The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act, 2013. These should include:

Establish block-level committees to monitor the survey process. These committees should include relevant department officials, women engaged in manual scavenging or those that have stopped manual scavenging, and representatives from civil society organizations working with communities that traditionally practice manual scavenging.
Establish a district-level committee to oversee the progress of the block-level committees appointed to monitor the survey process.
Accept applications for inclusion in the list of manual scavengers on an ongoing basis from individuals engaged or previously engaged as manual scavengers who have been excluded from initial surveys; these applications should be reviewed by the block-level committee responsible for monitoring the survey process.
Ensure the conversion of insanitary dry latrines
Take disciplinary action against local officials who fail to convert insanitary latrines in a timely manner, such as within 30 days of receiving a final notice.
File cases under The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, against heads of households that continue to hire people to work as manual scavengers following a formal oral or written warning.
Take proactive measures to ensure that rehabilitation entitlements under the 2013 Act are available to manual scavenging communities
Implement National Advisory Council recommendations to presumptively include manual scavengers in the Below Poverty Line list so that they have access to government schemes.
Investigate any complaints related to failures to identify and rehabilitate individuals currently or previously engaged in manual scavenging work.
Facilitate access to alternate livelihoods
Ensure that local officials employ people who work or have worked as manual scavengers in panchayats, municipalities, municipal corporations, and other local bodies including in jobs that break down untouchability practices.
Assist individuals from manual scavenging communities who have been awarded land to take possession.
Facilitate access to housing
Instruct local officials to give fair consideration in housing as granted under Indira Awaas Yojana to families engaged in manual scavenging, and those who have left since the practice was outlawed under The Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act 1993.
Implement the National Advisory Council recommendation that people from the manual scavenging community have the choice to access housing in a mixed colony in order to escape the permanent caste identification that persists with the effective ghettoization of manual scavenging communities.

To Donors, Aid Agencies, and Concerned Governments

Encourage the Indian government to uphold its commitments to end manual scavenging.
Ensure that all support for sanitation projects in India require an immediate end to manual scavenging and contain effective mechanisms for ongoing monitoring to ensure the practice is discontinued.
Support government initiatives and provide technical assistance to develop suitable livelihood programs, both immediate and long term, to assist manual scavenging communities. Livelihood programs should be gender sensitive and designed with the participation of manual scavenging communities and civil society organizations that work with such communities.
Support civil society initiatives to pilot holistic empowerment programs to support individuals who have left manual scavenging, seek to leave manual scavenging, and remain engaged in the practice. Such support should include comprehensive health, education, social empowerment, and livelihood support—including not only skills training but also ongoing support to ensure job placement or viable self employment. Programs should be gender sensitive, designed with the participation of manual scavenging communities, and based upon evidence-based practices that can be replicated and up-scaled.
Recognize caste-based discrimination as an ongoing human rights violation and endorse the UN Draft Guidelines on Discrimination Based on Work and Descent.

Acknowledgments

This report was researched and written by Shikha Silliman Bhattacharjee, a consultant for the Asia Division at Human Rights Watch. This report was edited by Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director. James Ross, legal and policy director, and Joseph Saunders, deputy program director, provided legal and program reviews. Amanda Klaising and Aruna Kashyap, Women’s Rights Division researchers, and Jayshree Bajoria, India researcher, provided additional inputs. Production assistance was provided by Shaivalini Parmar, associate with the Asia division; Kathy Mills, publications specialist; and Fitzroy Hepkins, administrative manager.

We would like to thank the Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan campaign social workers and activists for their support and contributions. We would also like to thank the many nongovernmental organizations, activists, and other partners in the fight to end manual scavenging who shared their insights and analysis with us or otherwise provided assistance. In particular, Human Rights Watch would like to thank: Ashif Shaikh from Jan Sahas Social Development Society; Manjula Pradeep from Navsarjan; Bezwada Wilson from Safai Karmachari Andolan; Coen Kompier and Sameer Taware from the International Labour Organization; Ashim Roy and Anannya Bhattacharjee from the New Trade Union Initiative; Suneeta Dhar; Dr. Sundhara Babu Nagappan; Smita Narula; Jael Silliman; and Kathy Sreedhar. We would also like to thank Vibhawari Kamble and Digvijay Singh for translation during interviews.

Above all, we would like to express our gratitude to the women and men who are still engaged in manual scavenging, and those who have left, who took the time to discuss their experiences with us. They did so in the hope that sharing the indignities they have suffered might help bring a long-awaited end to the practice of manual scavenging.

Appendix I: Efforts in India to End Manual Scavenging

[1] Government of India, Working Group on the “Empowerment of Scheduled Castes (SCs)” for the Eleventh Five-Year Plan (2007-2012), Report of Sub Group on Safai Karmacharis Submitted to the Chairman of the Working Group on the “Empowerment of Scheduled Castes (SCs) for the Eleventh Five-Year Plan (2007-2012),” http://safaikarmachariandolan.org/reports.php , (accessed July 22, 2014), p. 3.

[2] The Prohibition of Employment of Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act, No. 25 of 2013, chapter I (2)(1)(g).

[3] In addition to Valmiki, used widely in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan, these include Han and Hadi in Bengal, Balmiki Dhanuk , and Halalkhor in Uttar Pradesh, Mehar in Assam , Mehatar in Hyderabad and Maharashtra, Paki in coastal Andhra Pradesh, Thotti in Tamil Nadu , Mira, Lalbegi, Chura , and Balashahi in Punjab, and Balmiki, Mehatar, and Chuhra in Delhi. Gita Ramaswamy, India Stinking: Manual Scavengers in Andhra Pradesh and their work , (Delhi: Navayana Publishing, 2005), p. 3.

[4] The Ministry of Railways reports that they have 7,114 trains running daily where human excrement is directly discharged on the track. Standing Committee on Social Justice and Empowerment (2012-2013), “Report on The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Bill 2012,” Thirty Second Report, March 2013, http://www.prsindia.org/uploads/media/Manual%20Scavengers/SCR%20Manual%20Scavengers%20Bill.pdf (accessed August 3, 2014), para. 2.1.

[5] In India, the poverty rate for Dalits (65.8%) is almost twice the rate for the rest of the population (33.3%). This is a result of limitations on access to types of jobs, wage gaps when compared to other population groups, and distinctions between castes in educational attainment. International Labor Organization, Equality at work: The continuing challenge (Geneva: ILO, 2011), http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_norm/---declaration/documents/publication/wcms_166583.pdf (accessed August 3, 2014) paras. 24, 25, 170.

[6] Sukhadeo Thorat, Caste, Social Exclusion, & Poverty (New Delhi: Gautam Printers, 2013), pp. 6-7.

[7] Ghanshyam Shah, “Introduction: Caste and Democratic Politics,” in Shah, ed. Caste and Democratic Politics in India (Delhi: Permanent Black, 2002), p. 5, and Navsarjan Trust and The Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, “Understanding Untouchability: A Comprehensive Study of Practices and Conditions in 1589 Villages,” http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2009_2014/documents/droi/dv/201/201102/20110228_516untouchability_en.pdf (accessed May 9, 2014), p. 3.

[8] Uma Chakravarti, “From fathers to husbands: of love, death and marriage in North India,” in Hossain, ed. Honour: Crimes, Paradigms and Violence Against Women (London: Zed Books, 2005).

[9] Caste has distinct meanings for Hindus and non-Hindus. In both instances, caste largely determines occupation and socio-economic position, but for Hindus, this designation is further sanctioned by religion. Within Hinduism, caste designates social relationships based upon four principle caste categories: Brahmins (priests and teachers), Kshatriyas (rulers and soldiers), Vaisyas (merchants and traders), and Shudras (laborers and artisans). These are further divided into thousands of sub-castes or jatis, distinguished by occupation, sect, region, and language. Distinct from the varnas that fall within the caste system, a fifth category, is described as varna-sankara, or those who fall outside the varna system. People within this category, referred to as “Dalits,” are traditionally considered so inferior to other castes that they are deemed “polluting” and therefore “untouchable.” Human Rights Watch, India—Broken People: Caste Violence Against India’s Untouchables, March 1999 , http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/india/, p. 20-21.

[10] Ibid., p. 5.

[11] Clifford Bob, “’Dalit Rights are Human Rights’: Caste Discrimination, International Activism, and the Construction of a New Human Rights Issue,” Human Rights Quarterly , vol. 29 (2007), pp. 167,173.

[12] India’s Constitution in article 17, together with articles 14, 19, 21, 23, and 47 abolish the practice of “untouchability.”

[13] Scheduled Castes and The Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, No. 330 of 1989.

[14] Maseeh Rahman, “Indian leader likens caste system to apartheid regime,” The Guardian , December 28, 2006, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/dec/28/india.mainsection (accessed August 11, 2014).

[15] India has various schemes, including education, grants, subsidies, loans, and public sector quota systems aimed at improving the economic situation of scheduled castes and addressing discrimination. For instance, the 2007-2012 Five-Year Plan aims to eliminate discrimination based upon social origin, recognizes the role of legislation in protecting rights to education and employment, and considers the possibility of affirmative action in the private sector. International Labor Organization, Equality at work: The continuing challenge (Geneva: ILO, 2011), http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_norm/---declaration/documents/publication/wcms_166583.pdf (accessed August 3, 2014), para. 172.

[16] Vibhawari Kamble, “Steps Toward the Elimination and Eradication of Manual Scavenging Practice: Advocacy Manual for NGO’s, CBO’s and other related organizations,” idsn.org/uploads/media/Manual_for_advocacy_2.doc (accessed August 3, 2014).

[17] Manual scavenging and caste are intimately linked by ritualized avoidance of excrement that extends to designating “polluted” castes to handle human waste. Other tasks designated to manual scavengers include: disposing animal carcasses, cleaning blood and placenta during childbirth, massaging the stomachs of villagers with gas problems, making death announcements and informing villagers about death rites, removing the clothes and utensils of the deceased from cremation grounds, performing autopsies in primary health clinics and civic hospitals, beating drums in funeral and other ceremonial processions, cremating unclaimed corpses, castrating animals, cleaning drains, sweeping, cleaning and disposing of animal excrement, cleaning sewers and septic tanks, rearing pigs, cleaning in upper caste households prior to a wedding, and disposing leaf plates and clearing leftovers after a wedding feast. Gita Ramaswamy, India Stinking: Manual Scavengers in Andhra Pradesh and their work (Delhi: Navayana Publishing, 2005), p. 15, Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan, “Eradication of Inhuman Practice of Manual Scavenging and Comprehensive Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers in India,” January 1, 2011, http://www.mailamukti.org/reports%20and%20documents/Eradication%20of%20Inhuman%20Practice%20-%20Rashtriya%20Garima%20Abhiyan.pdf (accessed August 3, 2014), pp. 10-11, and Human Rights Watch interview with Suresh Jadav, Navsarjan Social Worker, Ahmadabad, Gujarat, July 15, 2014.

[18] National Conference on Promotion of Equality at Work in India: Manual Scavenging Project, “Background,” http://idsn.org/fileadmin/user_folder/pdf/New_files/Key_Issues/Manual_scavenging/2012/Background_note_on_ILO_conference.pdf (accessed August 3, 2014), and Gita Ramaswamy, India Stinking: Manual Scavengers in Andhra Pradesh and their work (Delhi: Navayana Publishing, 2005), p. 3.

[19] Jan Sahas Social Development Society, Ending Manual Scavenging: The Jan Sahas Garima Abhiyan (Dignity) Campaign , 2001-2012, unpublished internal report, April 2012, p. 12 (on file with Human Rights Watch); and National Conference on Promotion of Equality at Work in India: Manual Scavenging Project, “Background,” http://idsn.org/fileadmin/user_folder/pdf/New_files/Key_Issues/Manual_scavenging/2012/Background_note_on_ILO_conference.pdf (accessed August 3, 2014).

[20] Safai Karmachari Andolan & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors. , Supreme Court of India, Writ Petition (Civil) No 583 of 2003, judgment, March 27, 2014, para. 10.

[21] Ibid., para. 2(i).

[22] “Manual scavenging continues in India: Minister,” Times of India, August 5, 2014, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Manual-scavenging-continues-in-India-Minister/articleshow/39697023.cms (accessed August 10, 2014).

[23] A 2013 survey of 480 women from manual scavenging communities in nine districts in the Indian states of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh, undertaken by Jan Sahas Social Development Society with the support of UN Women, found that 70% of respondents across all three states became involved in manual scavenging after marriage while 30% entered the practice before marriage. By state, 60% of respondents in Bihar, 77% of respondents in Uttar Pradesh, and 76% of respondents in Madhya Pradesh started manual scavenging after marriage. Jan Sahas Social Development Society, “Socio Economic Status of Women Manual Scavengers: Baseline Study Report, 2014,” http://www.unwomensouthasia.org/assets/Baseline_-Jan-Sahas.pdf (accessed August 3, 2014), p. 4. For a discussion of the jajmani system, see Government of India, Ministry of Labour, “Bonded Labour, Chapter 8, Volume I: Report of the National Commission on Rural Labour,” in Kiran Kamal Prasad, ed. Understanding and Eradicating Bonded Labour in India (Bangalore: Jana Jagrati Prakashana, 2008), p. 1.

[24] A 2013 survey of 480 women from manual scavenging communities in the Indian states of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh, undertaken by Jan Sahas Social Development Society with the support of UN Women, found that most respondents earned less than Rs. 2000 [US$ 33] per month: 43% received less than Rs. 1000 [US$ 15] per month, 56% were paid between Rs. 1000 and Rs. 2000 [US$ 15- US$ 33] per month, and just 1% earned above Rs. 2000 [US$ 33] per month. Jan Sahas Social Development Society, “Socio Economic Status of Women Manual Scavengers: Baseline Study Report, 2014,” http://www.unwomensouthasia.org/assets/Baseline_-Jan-Sahas.pdf (accessed August 3, 2014), p. 5.

[25] Human Rights Watch interview with Rekhabai, Devgarh village, Dewas district, Madhya Pradesh, January 9, 2014.

[26] Jan Sahas Social Development Society, Ending Manual Scavenging: The Jan Sahas Garima Abhiyan (Dignity) Campaign , 2001-2012, unpublished internal document, April 2012, p. 12. On file with Human Rights Watch.

[27] Human Rights Watch interview with Kuldeep Ghanwari, Rajasthan state coordinator for Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan, Bharatpur city, Rajasthan, June 25, 2014.

[28] Human Rights Watch interview with Sevanti Fatrod, Bhonrasa, Dewas district, Madhya Pradesh, January 8, 2014.

[29] Human Rights Watch interview with Sona, Bharatpur city, Rajasthan, June 27, 2014.

[30] Human Rights Watch interview with Manjula Pradeep, executive director of Navsarjan, Ahmadabad, Gujarat, July 15, 2014.

[31] A 2013 survey of 480 women from manual scavenging communities, undertaken by Jan Sahas Social Development Society with the support of UN Women, in nine districts in the Indian states of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh found overall that 50% of manual scavenging families had no other source of income. In Uttar Pradesh, 83% of families relied on manual scavenging to meet their basic needs, while in Madhya Pradesh and Bihar 32% and 37% of families respectively relied exclusively on manual scavenging. Jan Sahas Social Development Society, “Socio Economic Status of Women Manual Scavengers: Baseline Study Report, 2014,” 2014, http://www.unwomensouthasia.org/assets/Baseline_-Jan-Sahas.pdf (accessed August 3, 2014), p. 4.

[32] Safai Karmachari Andolan & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors. , Supreme Court of India, Writ Petition (Civil) No 583 of 2003, judgment, March 27, 2014, para.1.

[33] See, for example, Human Rights Watch interview with Sevanti Fatrod, Bhonrasa, Dewas district, Madhya Pradesh, January 8, 2014. Sevanti told Human Rights Watch that she, her mother-in-law, and her two sisters-in-law cleaned toilets in 100 houses each day—allowing them to collect leftover food from the houses they cleaned.

[34] Human Rights Watch interview with Shanti, Nagla Khushal, Mainpuri district, Uttar Pradesh, January 20, 2014.

[35] Human Rights Watch interview with Munnidevi, Kasela, Etah district, Uttar Pradesh, January 19, 2014.

[36] Human Rights Watch interview with Rihanna, Tarana town, Ujjain district, Madhya Pradesh, January 11, 2014.

[37] Human Rights Watch interview with Kannijbi, Tarana town, Ujjain district, Madhya Pradesh, January 11, 2014.

[38] Human Rights Watch interview with Sushilabai, Gandharvpuri, Dewas district, Madhya Pradesh, January 8, 2014.

[39] Human Rights Watch interview with Bablu, Bharatpur city, Rajasthan, June 27, 2014.

[40] Human Rights Watch interview with member of the Valmiki community, Rudawal town, Bharatpur district, Rajasthan, June 27, 2014.

[41] The Protection of Civil Rights Act (1955), No. 22 of 1955, section 4(iv) (prohibiting any disability with regard to “the use of, or access to, any river, stream, spring, well, tank, cistern, water-tap or other watering place [or any bathing ghat, burial or cremation ground, any sanitary convenience, any road, or passage, or any other place of public resort which other members of the public, or [any section thereof], have a right to use or have access to]”).

[42] Human Rights Watch interview with Sunita, Devgarh village, Dewas district, Madhya Pradesh, January 9, 2014.

[43] Human Rights Watch interview with Shanti, Nagla Khushal village, Mainpuri district, Uttar Pradesh, January 20, 2014.

[44] A 2013 survey of 480 women from manual scavenging communities, undertaken by Jan Sahas Social Development Society with the support of UN Women, in nine districts in the Indian states of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh, found that in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, children of 62% of respondents, and in Madhya Pradesh children of 51% of respondents did not go to school. Jan Sahas Social Development Society, “Socio Economic Status of Women Manual Scavengers: Baseline Study Report, 2014,” http://www.unwomensouthasia.org/assets/Baseline_-Jan-Sahas.pdf (accessed August 3, 2014), p. 4.

[45] United Nations Development Programme and UN Solution Exchange (Gender Community of Practice), Report of National Round Table Discussion on Social Inclusion of Manual Scavengers , New Delhi, December 21, 2012, http://www.undp.org/content/dam/india/docs/pub-povertyreduction/Social-inclusion-of-Manual-Scavengers.pdf, (accessed August 3, 2014), para. 3.7.

[46] Human Rights Watch interview with Shanti, Nagla Khushal, Mainpuri district, Uttar Pradesh, January 20, 2014.

[47] Human Rights Watch interview with Rahul, Nagla Khushal, Mainpuri district, Uttar Pradesh, January 20, 2014.

[48] Human Rights Watch interview with Saiba, Tarana town, Ujjain district, Madhya Pradesh, January 11, 2014.

[49] Human Rights Watch interview with Navsarjan social worker for Surendranagar district, Ahmadabad, Gujarat, July 15, 2014.

[50] Human Rights Watch interview with Seema Gohlotre, Aastha town, Sehore district, Madhya Pradesh, January 10, 2014.

[51] Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan, “Violence Against Manual Scavengers: Dalit Women in India,” Report Submitted to UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women during her visit to India between April 22-May 1 2013, http://www.dalits.nl/pdf/violenceagainstmanualscavengers.pdf (accessed August 3, 2014), p. 3.

[52] A 2013 survey of 480 women from manual scavenging communities, undertaken by Jan Sahas Social Development Society with the support of UN Women, in nine districts in the Indian states of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh, found that only 25% of respondents from all three states had access to health services while 75% were deprived of this facility. Jan Sahas Social Development Society, “Socio Economic Status of Women Manual Scavengers: Baseline Study Report, 2014,” http://www.unwomensouthasia.org/assets/Baseline_-Jan-Sahas.pdf (accessed August 3, 2014), p. 4.

[53] Human Rights Watch interview with sanitation inspector for Bharatpur municipal corporation, Bharatpur city, Rajasthan, June 26, 2014.

[54] Human Rights Watch interview with Taslim, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, May 29, 2014.

[55] Human Rights Watch interview with Rihanna, Tarana town, Ujjain district, Madhya Pradesh, January 11, 2014.

[56] Human Rights Watch interview with Baby, Jharda, Ujjain district, Madhya Pradesh, January 11, 2014.

[57] Human Rights Watch interview with Rajubai Karneya Salonki, Kusumba, Dhule district, Maharashtra, March 20, 2014.

[58] Human Rights Watch interview with Kiran, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, May 29, 2014.

[59] Human Rights Watch interview with Neha [pseudonym], Bharatpur city, Rajasthan, June 27, 2014.

[60] Human Rights Watch interview with Arti, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, May 29, 2014.

[61] National Advisory Council, Note on Recommendations for Follow-up Measures to Eradicate Manual Scavenging, http://nac.nic.in/pdf/manual_scavenging.pdf (accessed August 3, 2014), para. 3.

[62] IANS, “Manual Scavenging still a reality in India: Jairam Ramesh,” December 10, 2012, http://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/article1374328.ece (accessed August 3, 2014).

[63] Sandeep Phukan, “Narendra Modi got his enlightenment 22 years late: Jairam Ramesh on 'toilets before temples' remark,” NDTV , October 3, 2013, http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/narendra-modi-got-his-enlightenment-22-years-late-jairam-ramesh-on-toilets-before-temples-remark-427419 (accessed August 3, 2014).

[64] The Constitution of India in article 17, together with articles 14, 19, 21, 23 and 47, abolish the practice of untouchability. Article 17 states: “Abolition of Untouchability: ‘Untouchability’ is abolished and its practice in any form is forbidden. The enforcement of any disability arising out of ‘Untouchability’ shall be an offence punishable in accordance with law.”

[65] Constitution of India, article 15(1) (“The State shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them”); article 16(1) (“There shall be equality of opportunity for all citizens in matters relating to employment or appointment to any office under the State”); article 19(1)(a) (“All citizens shall have the right to practice any profession, or to carry on any occupation, trade or business”).

[66] The Protection of Civil Rights Act, No. 22 of 1955, section 7A, added in 1976, provides that whoever compels any person on the ground of untouchability to do any scavenging shall be deemed to have enforced a disability arising out of untouchability that is punishable with imprisonment.

[67] The Scheduled Castes and The Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, No. 330 of 1989, article 3, lists specific untouchability practices outlawed as atrocities.

[68] The Scavengers’ Living Conditions Enquiry Committee, headed by V.N. Barve in 1949, submitted a report in 1952 calling for improvement in working conditions for manual scavengers; the Ministry of Home Affairs, Central Advisory Board of Harijan Welfare, Scavenging Conditions Inquiry Committee, led by N.R. Malkani in 1957, submitted a report in 1960 also calling for improved working conditions for manual scavengers; the Central Department of Social Welfare appointed a committee, also led by N.R. Malkani, to examine the potential abolition of the “customary rights” of manual scavengers; the Karnata I.P.D. Salappa Committee released a report in 1956, entitled the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions of Sweepers and Scavengers ; and the National Commission on Labour formed a committee in 1968 to study the working conditions of sweepers and scavengers. Gita Ramaswamy, India Stinking: Manual Scavengers in Andhra Pradesh and their work , (Delhi: Navayana Publishing, 2005), p. 22; and Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan, “Eradication of Inhuman Practice of Manual Scavenging and Comprehensive Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers in India,” January 1, 2011, http://www.mailamukti.org/reports%20and%20documents/Eradication%20of%20Inhuman%20Practice%20-%20Rashtriya%20Garima%20Abhiyan.pdf (accessed August 3, 2014).

[69] The Protection of Civil Rights Act, No. 22 of 1955, section 7a, added in 1976, provides that whoever compels any person on the ground of untouchability to do any scavenging shall be deemed to have enforced a disability arising out of untouchability that is punishable with imprisonment.

[70] The Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, No. 46 of 1993.

[71] The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act, No. 25 of 2013.

[72] The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities Ordinance) Amendment Ordinance, 2014, No. 1 of 2014, article 4(i)(j).

[73] The Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, No. 46 of 1993, chapter IV(14).

[74] The writ was filed by Safai Karmachari Andolan, Jan Sahas, Adharshila, Young Women’s Christian Association, Safai Kamgar Parivartan Sangh, Dalit Research Institute, and the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights.

[75] The Writ Petition filed submitted that the existence of dry latrines and manual scavenging was unconstitutional under articles 14, 17, 21, and 23 of the Indian Constitution. Copy on file with Human Rights Watch.

[76] Human Rights Watch interview with Bezwada Wilson, national convener of Safai Karmachari Andolan, Delhi, December 13, 2013.

[77] Safai Karmachari Andolan & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors. , Supreme Court of India, Writ Petition (Civil) No 583 of 2003, order, April 29, 2005. Copy on file with Human Rights Watch.

[78] Agrima Bhasin, “The Railways in Denial,” Infochange India , http://infochangeindia.org/human-rights/struggle-for-human-dignity/the-railways-in-denial.html (accessed August 3, 2014).

[79] In 2002-2003, Uttar Pradesh had 149,202 manual scavengers, Madhya Pradesh had 80,072 manual scavengers, and Maharashtra had 64,785 manual scavengers. Government of India Working Group on the “Empowerment of Scheduled Castes (SCs)” for the Eleventh Five-Year Plan (2007-2012), Report of Sub Group on Safai Karmacharis Submitted to the Chairman of The Working Group on the “Empowerment of Scheduled Castes (SCs) for the Eleventh Five-Year Plan (2007-2012),” undated, http://safaikarmachariandolan.org/reports.php (accessed August 3, 2014) p. 3.

[80] Safai Karmachari Andolan & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors. , Supreme Court of India, Writ Petition (Civil) No 583 of 2003, Additional Affidavit on Behalf of the State of M.P./Respondent No. 26, March 8, 2006, para. 4; Safai Karmachari Andolan & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors. , Supreme Court of India, Writ Petition (Civil) No 583 of 2003, Additional Affidavit on Behalf of the State of M.P./Respondent No. 26, July 10, 2006, para. 7. Copies on file with Human Rights Watch.

[81] Safai Karmachari Andolan & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors. , Supreme Court of India, Writ Petition (Civil) No 583 of 2003, Additional Affidavit in Reply on Behalf of Respondent No. 28/State of Maharashtra, February 23, 2006, para. 3. Copy on file with Human Rights Watch.

[82] Safai Karmachari Andolan & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors. , Supreme Court of India, Writ Petition (Civil) No 583 of 2003, Affidavit in Compliance on Behalf of the Panchayats , Rural Housing and Rural Development Department, State of Gujarat, July 25, 2007 and Safai Karmachari Andolan & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors. , Supreme Court of India, Writ Petition (Civil) No 583 of 2003, Affidavit in Compliance on Behalf of State of Gujarat, April 4, 2008. Copies on file with Human Rights Watch.

[83] Safai Karmachari Andolan & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors. , Supreme Court of India, Writ Petition (Civil) No 583 of 2003, Additional Affidavit in Reply on Behalf of Respondent No. 28/State of Maharashtra, February 23, 2006, para. 3. Copy on file with Human Rights Watch.

[84] Additional Affidavit on Behalf of the State of M.P./Respondent No. 26, March 8, 2006, para. 4 and Counter Affidavit on Behalf of Respondent No. 32 (State of Rajasthan) to the Special Leave Petition Filed by the Petitioner, August 25, 2004, in the matter of Annexure R. Copies on file with Human Rights Watch.

[85] Safai Karmachari Andolan & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors. , Supreme Court of India, Writ Petition (Civil) No 583 of 2003, judgment, March 27, 2014.

[86] Between 2010 and 2013, delegations of women who formerly worked as manual scavengers met with 64 members of parliament to present draft legislation and demand a new law rather than an amendment to the Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, 1993. Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan, “Liberated Manual Scavenger women met 64 Parliamentarians for new Legislation,” http://www.mailamukti.org/reports%20and%20documents/Advocacy%20Campaign%20with%20Parliamentarians%20-%20Rashtriya%20Garima%20Abhiyan.pdf (accessed August 3, 2014).

[87] The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, The Gazette of India, No. 25 of 2013, chapter I, section 2(g) specifies that “manual scavenger” means a person engaged or employed by an individual, local authority, agency, or contractor for “manually cleaning, carrying, disposing of, or otherwise handling in any manner, human excreta in an insanitary latrine or in an open drain or pit into which the human excreta from the insanitary latrine is disposed of, or on a railway track or in such other spaces or premises, as the Central Government or a State Government may notify.”

[88] The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, The Gazette of India, No. 25 of 2013, chapter IV. Under the act, this obligation is rooted in the fundamental right to live with dignity, and the state’s obligation to protect Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes from all forms of exploitation.

[89] The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, The Gazette of India, No. 25 of 2013, chapter IV, sections 11-12.

[90] Safai Karmachari Andolan & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors. , Supreme Court of India, Writ Petition (Civil) No 583 of 2003, judgment, March 27, 2014, para. 14(i).

[91] The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, The Gazette of India, No. 25 of 2013, chapter V, section 18: “The appropriate Government may confer such powers and impose such duties on local authority and District Magistrate as may be necessary to ensure that the provisions of this Act are properly carried out, and a local authority and the District Magistrate may, specify the subordinate officers, who shall exercise all or any of the powers, and to perform all or any of the duties, so conferred or imposed, and the local limits within which such powers or duties shall be carried out by the officer or officers so specified.”

[92] The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Rules, The Gazette of India , Notification No. D.L. 33004/99, December 12, 2013. On file with Human Rights Watch.

[93] Human Rights interview with Ashif Shaikh, founder and convener of Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan, Delhi, July 31, 2014.

[94] World Health Organization and UNICEF, “Progress on Drinking Water and Sanitation, 2014 Update,” 2014, http://www.wssinfo.org/fileadmin/user_upload/resources/JMP_report_2014_webENG.pdf (accessed August 3, 2014), p. 9.

[95] Ibid., p. 11.

[96] Ibid., p. 2.

[97] Gardiner Harris, “Poor Sanitation in India May Afflict Well-Fed Children With Malnutrition,” New York Times , July 13, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/15/world/asia/poor-sanitation-in-india-may-afflict-well-fed-children-with-malnutrition.html?_r=0 (accessed August 3, 2014).

[98] Human Rights Watch interview with Makarduaj Maruti Meshra, gram sevak [panchayat secretary], Fagne village, Dhule district, Maharashtra, March 20, 2014.

[99] Human Rights Watch interview with Umabai, Devgarh village, Dewas district, Madhya Pradesh, January 9, 2014.

[100] Human Rights Watch interview with Leelabai, Aastha town, Sehore district, Madhya Pradesh, January 10, 2014.

[101] The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, The Gazette of India, No. 25 of 2013, Chapter IV, Section 11-12.

[102] Human Rights Watch interview with Manjula Pradeep, executive director of Navsarjan, Ahmadabad, Gujarat, July 15, 2014.

[103] Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan, “Eradication of Inhuman Practice of Manual Scavenging and Comprehensive Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers in India,” January 1, 2011, http://www.mailamukti.org/reports%20and%20documents/Eradication%20of%20Inhuman%20Practice%20-%20Rashtriya%20Garima%20Abhiyan.pdf (accessed August 3, 2014).

[104] In 2012, The Comptroller Auditor General of India (CAG) concluded that the National Scheme for Liberation of Scavengers and Their Dependents, 1992, had failed to achieve its objectives after ten years of implementation. Comptroller Auditor General of India, “National Scheme of Liberation and Rehabilitation of Scavengers and Their Dependents,” http://cag.nic.in/html/reports/reports/civil/2003_3/chapter1.htm (accessed August 3, 2014). The Self Employment Scheme for Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers (SRMS) was most recently revised in November 2013. Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, “Self Employment Scheme for Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers,” http://socialjustice.nic.in/scavengers.php (accessed August 3, 2014).

[105] The function of the National Commission for Safai Karmacharis is to recommend specific programs, evaluate the implementation of programs and schemes related to social and economic rehabilitation of Safai Karmacharis, make recommendations to the central and state governments, investigate non-implementation of relevant laws, and consult with the central government on all major policy matters affecting Safai Karmacharis, including reporting annually to the Parliament. Government of India Working Group on the “Empowerment of Scheduled Castes (SCs)” for the Eleventh Five-Year Plan (2007-2012), Report of Sub Group on Safai Karmacharis Submitted to the Chairman, of the Working Group on the “Empowerment of Scheduled Castes (SCs) for the Eleventh Five-Year Plan (2007-2012),” http://safaikarmachariandolan.org/reports.php (accessed July 22, 2014), p. 15.

[106] The National Safai Karmachari Finance and Development Corporation (NSKDF) was established as a nonprofit company, fully owned by the central government, to provide loans and skill development training programs to support manual scavengers in securing alternate and self-employment. Press Information Bureau, Government of India, “Activities of National Safai Karamcharis Finance and Development Corporation to Review/To Eradicate Manual Scavenging Fresh Survey to be held—Shriwasnik/Consultative Committee of Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment Meets,” Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment press release, June 22, 2011, http:// pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=72810 (accessed August 3, 2014).

[107] NSKDFC has an authorized and paid capital of Rs. 3,000 million [US$ 49.05 million] and Rs. 2,990 million [US$ 48.88 million] respectively (conversion according to Rs./US$ rates on August 11, 2014). NSKDFC implements programs through State Channelizing Agencies (SCAs)(conversion . As of May 31, 2011, it had released Rs. 6,539 million [US$ 145 million] covering 226,000 beneficiaries, of which 118,000 beneficiaries (52 percent) are women (conversion according to Rs./US$ rates on May 31, 2011). The size of the target group is 50,000 manual scavengers. Ibid.

[108] Government of India Working Group on the “Empowerment of Scheduled Castes (SCs)” for the Eleventh Five-Year Plan (2007-2012), Report of Sub Group on Safai Karmacharis Submitted to the Chairman of The Working Group on the “Empowerment of Scheduled Castes (SCs) for the Eleventh Five-Year Plan (2007-2012),” http://safaikarmachariandolan.org/reports.php (accessed July 22, 2014), p. 15.

[109] Standing Committee on Social Justice and Empowerment (2012-2013), Report on The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Bill 2012, Thirty Second Report, March 2013, http://www.prsindia.org/uploads/media/Manual%20Scavengers/SCR%20Manual%20Scavengers%20Bill.pdf (accessed August 3, 2014) (citing National Advisory Council resolution dated October 23, 2010), para. 1.5.

[110] Ibid., para 1.5.

[111] Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan, “Violence Against Manual Scavengers: Dalit Women in India,” Report Submitted to UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women during her visit to India between April 22-May 1, 2013, http://www.dalits.nl/pdf/violenceagainstmanualscavengers.pdf (accessed August 3, 2014), p. 2.

[112] Human Rights Watch interview with Ashif Shaikh, founder and convener of the Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan, Delhi, May 6, 2014.

[113] Human Rights Watch interview with Prembai, Amlataj village, Dewas district, Madhya Pradesh, January 9, 2014.

[114] Human Rights Watch interview with Kiran, Bhonrasa, Dewas district, Madhya Pradesh, January 8, 2013.

[115] Human Rights Watch interview with Lalibai, co-convener of Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan, Dewas, Dewas district, Madhya Pradesh, February 9, 2014.

[116] Human Rights Watch interview with Arti, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, May 29, 2014.

[117] Human Rights Watch interview with Dinesh Sanskar, Jalgaon district social worker for Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan, Shripur, Maharashtra, March 19, 2014.

[118] Human Rights Watch interview with Pinky, Navsarjan community leader, Ahmadabad, Gujarat, July 15, 2014; United Nations Development Programme and UN Solution Exchange (Gender Community of Practice), Report of National Round Table Discussion on Social Inclusion of Manual Scavengers, New Delhi, December 21, 2012, http://www.undp.org/content/dam/india/docs/pub-povertyreduction/Social-inclusion-of-Manual-Scavengers.pdf, (accessed August 3, 2014), paras. 3.4, 3.5.

[119] United Nations Development Programme and UN Solution Exchange (Gender Community of Practice), Report of National Round Table Discussion on Social Inclusion of Manual Scavengers, New Delhi, December 21, 2012, http://www.undp.org/content/dam/india/docs/pub-povertyreduction/Social-inclusion-of-Manual-Scavengers.pdf, (accessed August 3, 2014), para. 3.6.

[120] Navsarjan, Dalit Shakti Kendra, http://navsarjan.org/dalitshaktikendra (accessed July 16, 2014).

[121] Human Rights Watch interview with Manjula Pradeep, executive director of Navsarjan, Ahmadabad, Gujarat, July 15, 2014.

[122] United Nations Development Programme and UN Solution Exchange (Gender Community of Practice), Report of National Round Table Discussion on Social Inclusion of Manual Scavengers, New Delhi, December 21, 2012, http://www.undp.org/content/dam/india/docs/pub-povertyreduction/Social-inclusion-of-Manual-Scavengers.pdf, (accessed August 3, 2014), para.3.4.

[123] Ibid.

[124] Human Rights Watch interview with Bezwada Wilson, national convener of Safai Karmachari Andolan, Delhi, December 13, 2013.

[125] Clifford Bob, “Dalit Rights are Human Rights”: Caste Discrimination, International Activism, and the Construction of a New Human Rights Issue,” Human Rights Quarterly , vol. 29 (2007), pp. 167, 175.

[126] In the 1980s and 1990s, activists presented their case before a variety of international bodies, including the United Nations Sub-commission on Human Rights (1982), the Osaka International Conference Against Discrimination (1982), the Nairobi World Conference on Religion and Peace (1984), the Vienna World Conference on Human Rights (1993), the Beijing World Conference on Women’s Rights; and regular meetings of the UN Commission on Human Rights, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, and the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations. Despite these efforts, prior to the late 1990s, no international conventions or human rights treaty bodies explicitly recognized caste-based discrimination as a human rights violation. Clifford Bob, “Dalit Rights are Human Rights”: Caste Discrimination, International Activism, and the Construction of a New Human Rights Issue,” Human Rights Quarterly , vol. 29 (2007), pp. 167, 168, 177.

[127] Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, “Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination: India,” CERD/C/304/Add.13., September 17, 1996, http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=CERD%2FC%2F304%2FAdd.13&Lang=en (accessed August 3, 2014), para. 14.

[128] India’s National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR) rose out of the planning process for the 1999 Human Rights Watch Report, Broken People: Caste Violence Against India’s “Untouchables . Launched in December 1998, NCDHR linked formerly isolated Dalit civil society organizations in 14 Indian states. Dalit activists held the First World Dalit Convention in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in October 1998, convening Dalit activists and other stakeholders from across South Asia and the South Asian diaspora. In March 2000, Dalit leaders and key overseas supporters formally established the International Dalit Solidarity Network (IDSN) to coordinate information sharing among organizations promoting Dalit rights internationally. For a full discussion of Indian and international NGO activity since the late 1990s, including a discussion of the role of Human Rights Watch, see Clifford Bob, “‘Dalit Rights are Human Rights’: Caste Discrimination, International Activism, and the Construction of a New Human Rights Issue,” Human Rights Quarterly , vol. 29 (2007), pp. 178-82.

[129] Safai Karmachari Andolan & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors., Supreme Court of India, Writ Petition (Civil) No 583 of 2003, March 27, 2014, para. 7. Copy on file with Human Rights Watch.

[130] Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted December 10, 1948, G.A. Res. 217A(III) U.N. Doc. A/810 at 71 (1948). While the Supreme Court explicitly recognized articles 1, 2(1) and 23 (3) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the following provisions of the declaration also provide guidelines relevant to protecting the human rights of communities that work as manual scavengers: Article 7: “All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination”; Article 8: “Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law”; Article 23: (1) “Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment”; (2) “Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work”; Article 25(1): “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.”

[131] International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), adopted December 21, 1965, G.A. Res. 2106, annex, 20 UN GAOR Supp. (No. 14) at 47, UN Doc A/6014 (1966), 660 U.N.T.S. 195, entry into force January 4, 1969. In particular, the Supreme Court cites ICERD, article 2(1)(c)-(d): “States parties condemn racial discrimination and undertake to pursue by all appropriate means and without delay a policy of eliminating racial discrimination in all its forms and promoting understanding among all races, and to this end: (c) each State party shall take effective measures to review governmental, national and local policies, and to amend, rescind or nullify any laws and regulations which have the effect of creating or perpetuation racial discrimination wherever it exists; (d) each State party shall prohibit and bring to an end, by all appropriate means, including legislation as required by circumstances, racial discrimination by any persons, group or organization.”

[132] Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), adopted December 18, 1979, G.A. res. 34/180, 34 UN GAOR Supp. (No. 46) at 193, UN Doc. A/34/46, entered into force September 3, 1981. In particular, the Supreme Court cites CEDAW, article 5(a): “State Parties shall take all appropriate measures (a) to modify the social and cultural patterns of conduct of men and women, with a view to achieving the elimination of prejudices and customary and all other practices which are based on the idea of the superiority of either of the sexes or on stereotyped roles for men and women.”

[133] India’s most recent review by the ESCR Committee was in 2008. At this time, the ESCR Committee considered the second to the fifth periodic report of India on the implementation of the ICESCR and issued the following concluding observation in relation to manual scavenging. Paragraph 19: “The Committee notes with concern, despite the legal prohibitions in place, including the 1993 Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, the 1976 Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act and the 1986 Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, the prevalence of bonded labour, the worst forms of child labour and other exploitative labour conditions in the State party. The Committee is concerned about the insufficient enforcement of existing labour legislation at the federal and the state levels, as well as the lack of awareness among employers on the existing rules and standards.” The ESCR Committee also issued additional concluding observations on Dalit rights in paragraphs 13, 14, 27, 31, 40, 50, 53. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, “Consideration of Reports Submitted by State Parties Under Articles 16 and 17 of the Covenant: Concluding Observations of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, India” E/C.12/IND/CO/5, May 2008, www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cescr/docs/co/E.C.12.IND.CO.5.doc (accessed August 12, 2014).

[134] India came up for review by the CERD Committee in March 2007. The committee released the following concluding observation on manual scavenging. Paragraph 23: “The Committee notes with concern that very large numbers of Dalits are forced to work as manual scavengers and child workers and are subject to extremely unhealthy working conditions and exploitative labour arrangements, including debt bondage. (art. 5 (e) (i) and (iv)). The Committee recommends that the State party effectively implement the Minimum Wages Act (1948), the Equal Remuneration Act (1976), the Bonded Labour (System) Abolition Act (1976), the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act (1986) and the Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act (1993). The State party should also adopt measures to enhance Dalits’ access to the labour market, e.g. by extending the reservation policy to the private sector and issuing job cards under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme to Dalit applicants, and report on the effects of the measures taken on the employment and working conditions of Dalits in its next periodic report.” The CERD Committee also issued additional concluding observations on the rights of Dalits, contained in paragraphs 8, 9, 10, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, “ Conclusions and recommendations of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, India, U.N. Doc. CERD/C/IND/CO/19, May 5, 2007, http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/country/india2007.html (accessed August 3, 2014).

[135] India came up for review by the Committee on the Rights of the Child in 2000 and 2004. Most recently, the Committee considered India’s second periodic report and released the following concluding observations on manual scavenging. Paragraph 28: “The Committee recommends that the State party, in accordance with article 17 of its Constitution and article 2 of the Convention, take all necessary steps to abolish the discriminatory practice of ‘untouchability’, prevent caste- and tribe-motivated abuse, and prosecute State and private actors who are responsible for such practices or abuses. Moreover, in compliance with article 46 of the Constitution, the State party is encouraged to implement, inter alia, special measures to advance and protect these groups. The Committee recommends the full implementation of the 1989 Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, the 1995 Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Rules (Prevention of Atrocities) and the Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, 1993. The Committee encourages the State party to continue its efforts to carry out comprehensive public education campaigns to prevent and combat caste-based discrimination with a view to changing social attitudes, by involving, inter alia , religious leaders.” The CRC Committee also issued additional concluding observations on the rights of Dalit children, contained in paragraphs 22, 25, 26, 27, 28, 31, 32, 65. Committee on the Rights of the Child, “Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, India, U.N. Doc. CRC/C/15/Add.228, February 26, 2004, http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/india2004.html (accessed August 3, 2014).

[136] United Nations Development Programme and UN Solution Exchange (Gender Community of Practice), “Report of National Round Table Discussion on Social Inclusion of Manual Scavengers,” December 21, 2012, http://www.undp.org/content/dam/india/docs/pub-povertyreduction/Social-inclusion-of-Manual-Scavengers.pdf, (accessed August 3, 2014), paras. 2.5.2-2.5.3.

[137] Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, “Pillay applauds Indian movement to eradicate manual scavenging,” UN press release, January 31, 2013, http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=12959&LangID=E (accessed August 3, 2014).

[138] The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, The Gazette of India, No. 25 of 2013, Chapter III, 5(1)(b).

[139] Ibid.

[140] The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, The Gazette of India, No. 25 of 2013, Chapter III, 6(1).

[141] Manual cleaning of open defecation sites decouples the persistence of scavenging work from the presence of dry latrines—significantly undermining the reliability of surveys by states like Maharashtra that estimate the prevalence of manual scavenging based upon the number of dry latrines.

[142] See ICCPR, art. 8(3)(a) (“No one shall be required to perform forced or compulsory labour”). The ILO Forced Labor Convention (1930) in article 2 defines forced or compulsory labor as “all work or service extracted from any person under the menace of any penalty for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily.” ILO Convention No. 29 concerning Forced or Compulsory Labour (Forced Labour Convention), adopted June 25, 1957, 320 U.N.T.S. 291, entered into force January 17, 1959.

[143] Human Rights Watch interviews with Coen Kompier, ILO senior specialist on labor standards, New Delhi, December 13, 2013 and February 18, 2014.

[144] Standing Committee on Social Justice and Empowerment (2012-2013), Report on The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Bill 2012, Thirty Second Report, March 2013, http://www.prsindia.org/uploads/media/Manual%20Scavengers/SCR%20Manual%20Scavengers%20Bill.pdf (accessed August 3, 2014)(citing National Advisory Council resolution dated October 23, 2010), para 1.5.

[145] Human Rights Watch interview with Anita, Kasela village, Etah district, Uttar Pradesh, January 19, 2014.

[146] Human Rights Watch interview with Churajbai Fatrod, Bhonrasa, Dewas district, Madhya Pradesh, January 8, 2014.

[147] Human Rights Watch interview with Sushilabai, Jeevajigarh village, Dewas district Madhya Pradesh, January 8, 2014.

[148] The villages and districts in Madhya Pradesh referenced here are Devgarh village, Dewas district; Dharia Khedi, and Piplia Rao Ji, Mandsaur district; and Aastha, and Siddique Ganj, Sehore district.

[149] Human Rights Watch interview with Yashodabai, Dharia Khedi, Mandsaur district, Madhya Pradesh, January 13, 2014.

[150] Human Rights Watch interview with Leelabai, Aastha town, Sehore district, Madhya Pradesh, January 10, 2014.

[151] Human Rights Watch interview with Shakuntala Vaid, Siddique Ganj village, Sehore district, Madhya Pradesh, January 10, 2014.

[152] Human Rights Watch interview with Badambai, Kukdeshwar village, Neemuch district, Madhya Pradesh, January 12, 2014.

[153] The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities Ordinance) Amendment Ordinance, 2014, No. 1 of 2014, 4(i)(g).

[154] Human Rights Watch interview with Shardhabai, Siddique Gani village, Sehore district, Madhya Pradesh, January 10, 2014.

[155] Government of India, Ministry of Labour, “Bonded Labour, Chapter 8, Volume I: Report of the National Commission on Rural Labour,” in Kiran Kamal Prasad, ed., Understanding and Eradicating Bonded Labour in India (Bangalore: Jana Jagrati Prakashana, 2008), p. 1.

[156] Human Rights Watch interview with Munnidevi, Kasela village, Etah district, Uttar Pradesh, January 19, 2014.

[157] Human Rights Watch interview with Sunita, Devgarh village, Dewas district, Madhya Pradesh, January 9, 2014.

[158] Human Rights Watch interview with Rekhabai, Devgarh village, Dewas district, Madhya Pradesh, January 9, 2014.

[159] The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities Ordinance) Amendment Ordinance, 2014, No. 1 of 2014, section 4(i)(za)(A).

[160] Human Rights Watch interview with Rekhabai, Indore, Madhya Pradesh, February 9, 2014.

[161] Human Rights Watch, India—Broken System : Dysfunction, Abuse, and Impunity in the Indian Police , August 2009, http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/india0809web.pdf (accessed August 3, 2014), p. 41.

[162] Ibid.

[163] Ibid., pp. 42, 47-48.

[164] Human Rights Watch, India—Broken System : Dysfunction, Abuse, and Impunity in the Indian Police , August 2009, http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/india0809web.pdf, p. 49.

[165] Ibid., p. 50.

[166] Human Rights Watch interview with Guddidevi, Parigama village, Mainpuri district, Uttar Pradesh, January 21, 2014.

[167] Ibid.

[168] Ibid.

[169] Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Ajit, social worker for Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan, April 4, 2014.

[170] Copy of complaint on file with Human Rights Watch.

[171] Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Ajit, social worker for Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan, April 4, 2014.

[172] Human Rights Watch interview with Gangashri, Parigama village, Mainpuri district, Uttar Pradesh, January 21, 2014.

[173] Ibid.

[174] Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Kranti, lawyer for Jan Sahas Social Development Society, April 9, 2014.

[175] The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities Ordinance) Amendment Ordinance, 2014, No. 1 of 2014, 4(i)(za)(A).

[176] Ibid., 5(2)(a)-(g).

[177] In 2004, the principal secretary of the Maharashtra Water Supply and Sanitation Department responded to the public interest litigation filed by Safai Karmachari Andolan by claiming that Maharashtra had eliminated all use of dry latrines and that all 109,495 dry latrines in the state had either been abandoned or converted. Safai Karmachari Andolan & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors. , Supreme Court of India, Writ Petition (Civil) No 583 of 2003, Affidavit in Reply on Behalf of Respondent No. 28/State of Maharashtra, September 2, 2004. Copy on file with Human Rights Watch.

Challenging these claims from the Maharashtra Water Supply and Sanitation Department, an independent survey conducted through the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), submitted to the Maharashtra government in 2005, identified 169 dry latrines, 55 people engaged in manual scavenging, and 94 dependents of people engaged in manual scavenging. Safai Karmachari Andolan & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors. , Supreme Court of India, Writ Petition (Civil) No 583 of 2003, Additional Affidavit in Reply on Behalf of Respondent No. 28/State of Maharashtra, October 17, 2005. Copy on file with Human Rights Watch.

Responding to directions from the apex court, in 2005 the Maharashtra Water Supply and Sanitation Department submitted an additional affidavit. On the basis of this report, the affidavit contends, the Maharashtra state subsequently took steps to convert these latrines and rehabilitate the people engaged in manual scavenging and their dependents. According to the Water Supply and Sanitation Department, district collectors in the concerned districts have verified that there were no more dry latrines in use, all manual scavenging had ceased, and all manual scavengers had been rehabilitated. Safai Karmachari Andolan & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors. , Supreme Court of India, Writ Petition (Civil) No 583 of 2003, Additional Affidavit in Reply on Behalf of Respondent No. 28/State of Maharashtra, October 17, 2005. Copy on file with Human Rights Watch. A final affidavit filed by the Principal Secretary of the Government of Maharashtra, Water Supply and Sanitation Department in 2006, asserted that there were no remaining dry latrines in existence and no manual scavenging in the state. Safai Karmachari Andolan & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors. , Supreme Court of India, Writ Petition (Civil) No 583 of 2003, Additional Affidavit in Reply on Behalf of Respondent No. 28/State of Maharashtra, February 23, 2006. Copy on file with Human Rights Watch.

[178] Manual cleaning of open defecation decouples the persistence of scavenging work from the presence of dry latrines and significantly undermines the reliability of Maharashtra state surveys that base the prevalence of manual scavenging in the state on the number of dry latrines.

[179] Human Rights Watch interview with Gita Anil Chaure, Shripur, Maharashtra, March 14, 2014.

[180] While some families migrated fifty-sixty years ago, others are more recent migrants. Human Rights Watch Interview with Vijay Bendwal, Maharashtra state coordinator for Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan, Shripur, Maharashtra, March 11, 2014.

[181] This demographic information was noted during Human Rights Watch interviews in Maharashtra, and confirmed by Vijay Bendwal, Maharashtra state coordinator for Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan. Ibid.

[182] Human Rights Watch interview with Gopal Harilal Bohit, Nhavi village, Jalgaon district, Maharashtra, March 14, 2014.

[183] National Institute of Rural Development, Ministry of Panchayati Raj, “A Note on the Backward Regions Grant Fund Programme,” September 8, 2009, http://www.nird.org.in/brgf/doc/brgf_BackgroundNote.pdf (accessed April 21, 2014).

[184] Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Shankar Solanki, social worker for Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan, March 31, 2014.

[185] In Maharashtra, the sentiment that panchayats would only hire them to do sanitation work, including manual scavenging, was widespread among individuals from communities that traditionally work as manual scavengers. Human Rights Watch interviews with Mayabai Ramesh Pawar, Fagne village, Dhule district, Maharashtra, March 20, 2014, Raju Shankar Chaundale, Adavad town, Jalgaon district, Maharashtra, March 21, 2014, Rajubai Karneya Salonki, Kusumba village, Dhule district, Maharashtra, March 20, 2014, and Anil Prakash Pandit, Kaparna village, Dhule district, Maharashtra, March 14, 2014.

[186] Human Rights Watch interview with Anil Prakash Pandit, Kaparna village, Dhule district, Maharashtra, March 14, 2014.

[187] Human Rights Watch interview with Raju Shankar Chaundale, Adavad town, Jalgaon district, Maharashtra, March 21, 2014.

[188] Ibid.

[189] Human Rights Watch interview with Mayabai Ramesh Pawar, Fagne village, Dhule district, Maharashtra, March 20, 2014.

[190] Human Rights Watch interview with Anuparna Bapu Lokhande, Kusumba village, Dhule district, Maharashtra, March 20, 2014.

[191] Human Rights Watch interview with Rajubai Karneya Salonki, Kusumba village, Dhule district, Maharashtra, March 20, 2014.

[192] Ibid.

[193] Safai Karmachari Andolan & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors. , Supreme Court of India, Writ Petition (Civil) No 583 of 2003, Affidavit in Reply on Behalf of State of Rajasthan, 2004. Copy on file with Human Rights Watch.

[194] Ibid.

[195] Safai Karmachari Andolan & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors. , Supreme Court of India, Writ Petition (Civil) No 583 of 2003, Affidavit in Reply on Behalf of State of Rajasthan, 2008. Copy on file with Human Rights Watch.

[196] Human Rights Watch interview with Neha [pseudonym], Bharatpur city, Rajasthan, June 27, 2014.

[197] Ibid.

[198] Human Rights Watch interview with Sanjay [pseudonym], Malipura village, Bharatpur municipal area, Rajasthan, June 26, 2014.

[199] Ibid.

[200] Human Rights Watch interview with Rohan [pseudonym], Malipura village, Bharatpur municipal area, Rajasthan, June 26, 2014.

[201] Ibid.

[202] Human Rights Watch interview with Rajkumar Jain, Bharatpur city, Rajasthan, June 26, 2014.

[203] Human Rights Watch interview with official of Bharatpur municipal corporation, name withheld, Bharatpur city, Rajasthan, June 26, 2014.

[204] Ibid.

[205] Ibid.

[206] Ibid.

[207] Human Rights Watch interview with Kuldeep Ghanwari, Rajasthan state coordinator for Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan, Bharatpur city, Rajasthan, June 25, 2014.

[208] Human Rights Watch interview with Kailash Pokerji Kundare, Nhavi village, Jalgaon district, Maharashtra, March 21, 2014.

[209] Ibid.

[210] Ibid.

[211] The Equal Remuneration Act, 1976 [Act 25 of 1976 amended by Act 49 of 1987], Chapter II, Section 4.

[212] Human Rights Watch interview with Rajkumar Jain, Bharatpur city, Rajasthan, June 26, 2014.

[213] Human Rights Watch interview with Rohan [pseudonym], Malipura village, Bharatpur municipal area, Rajasthan, June 26, 2014.

[214] Human Rights Watch interview with Rajkumar Jain, Bharatpur city, Rajasthan, June 26, 2014.

[215] Human Rights Watch interview with Bika Juma Ral, Shripur, Dhule district, Maharashtra, March 15, 2014.

[216] Human Rights Watch interview with Rajubai Karneya Salonki, Kusumba, Dhule district, Maharashtra, March 20, 2014.

[217] Ibid.

[218] Human Rights Watch interview with Shantabai Nemichal Kundare, Nhavi village, Dhule district, Maharashtra, March 19, 2014.

[219] Ibid.

[220] Human Rights Watch interview with Mayabai Ramesh Pawar, Fagne village, Dhule district, Maharashtra, March 20, 2014.

[221] Human Rights Watch interview with Bika Juma Ral, Shripur, Dhule district, Maharashtra, March 15, 2014. Copies of the eviction notices on file with Human Rights Watch.

[222] Ibid.

[223] Human Rights Watch interview with Jagdish Samparji Kundare, Shripur, Dhule district, Maharashtra, March 15, 2014.

[224] Human Rights Watch interview with Bika Juma Ral, Shripur, Dhule district, Maharashtra, March 15, 2014

[225] ICESCR, art. 7(a); see also ILO Convention No. 95 concerning the Protection of Wages, adopted July 1, 1949, entered into force September 24, 1952.

[226] Constitution of India, article 43.

[227] The Payment of Wages Act, No. 4 of 1936, section 3.

[228] Ibid., section 2(II)(g),

[229] Human Rights Watch interview with Bimal Kundare, Shripur, Dhule district, Maharashtra, March 14, 2014.

[230] Ibid.

[231] Human Rights Watch interview with Gita Anil Chaure, Shripur, Dhule district, Maharashtra, March 14, 2014.

[232] Human Rights Watch interview with Gopal Harilal Bohit, Shripur, Dhule district, Maharashtra, March 14, 2014.

[233] Human Rights Watch interview with Bimal Kundare, Shripur, Dhule district, Maharashtra, March 14, 2014.

[234] Ibid.

[235] Ibid.

[236] Human Rights Watch interview with Gita Anil Chaure, Shripur, Dhule district, Maharashtra, March 14, 2014.

[237] The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, The Gazette of India, No. 25 of 2013, Chapter IV, Section 13. Safai Karmachari Andolan & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors. , Supreme Court of India, Writ Petition (Civil) No 583 of 2003, judgment, March 27, 2014, para. 14(i).

[238] Safai Karmachari Andolan & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors. , Supreme Court of India, Writ Petition (Civil) No 583 of 2003, judgment, March 27, 2014, para. 14(i).

[239] The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, The Gazette of India, No. 25 of 2013, Chapter IV, Section 13 (1)-(2) and Chapter V, Section 18 (“The appropriate Government may confer such powers and impose such duties on local authority and District Magistrate as may be necessary to ensure that the provisions of this Act are properly carried out, and a local authority and the District Magistrate may, specify the subordinate officers, who shall exercise all or any of the powers, and to perform all or any of the duties, so conferred or imposed, and the local limits within which such powers or duties shall be carried out by the officer or officers so specified”).

[240] Lok Sabha Secretariat, Parliament Library and Reference, Research, Documentation, and Information Service, “Manual Scavengers: Welfare and Rehabilitation,” Reference Note No.18/RN/Ref./August/2013, http://164.100.47.134/intranet/Manual%20Scavengers%20welfare%20and%20Rehabilitation.pdf (accessed August 3, 2014).

[241] The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, The Gazette of India, No. 25 of 2013, Chapter IV, Section 13(1).

[242] Ibid., Chapter IV, Sections 11(1) and 12(1).

[243] Safai Karmachari Andolan & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors. , Supreme Court of India, Writ Petition (Civil) No 583 of 2003, judgment, March 27, 2014, para. 10.

[244] Ibid.

[245] Ibid.

[246] Ibid.

[247] Website of the Government of India National Advisory Council, http://www.nac.nic.in/ (accessed August 4, 2014).

[248] National Advisory Council, Note on Recommendations for Follow-up Measures to Eradicate Manual Scavenging, undated, http://nac.nic.in/pdf/manual_scavenging.pdf (accessed August 3, 2014), para. 4.1.

[249] Ibid., paras. 4.1-4.2.

[250] The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, The Gazette of India, No. 25 of 2013, chapter V, section 18 (“The appropriate Government may confer such powers and impose such duties on local authority and District Magistrate as may be necessary to ensure that the provisions of this Act are properly carried out, and a local authority and the District Magistrate may, specify the subordinate officers, who shall exercise all or any of the powers, and to perform all or any of the duties, so conferred or imposed, and the local limits within which such powers or duties shall be carried out by the officer or officers so specified.”)

[251] The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, The Gazette of India, No. 25 of 2013, Chapter IV, Section 16.

[252] Required documents include Below Poverty Line (BPL) identity cards required to procure subsidized food grains, and caste and other certificates.

[253] Human Rights Watch interview with Lalibai, Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan co-convener, Dewas, Madhya Pradesh, February 9, 2014.

[254] A 2013 survey of 480 women from manual scavenging communities in nine districts in the three Indian states of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh, undertaken by Jan Sahas Social Development Society with the support of UN Women, found that 12% of all survey respondents were educated until the primary level, 5% received education until the middle school level. Just 1% of respondents studied till the high school and beyond. Bihar had 98% of illiterates, which is the highest, compared to Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh which is 60% and 30% respectively. Jan Sahas Social Development Society, “Socio Economic Status of Women Manual Scavengers: Baseline Study Report, 2014,” http://www.unwomensouthasia.org/assets/Baseline_-Jan-Sahas.pdf (accessed August 3, 2014), p. 4.

[255] Human Rights Watch interview with Rekhabai, Indore, Madhya Pradesh, February 9, 2014.

[256] Sukhadeo Thorat, Caste, Social Exclusion, & Poverty (New Delhi: Gautam Printers, 2013), p. 10.

[257] Human Rights Watch interview with Lalibai, Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan co-convener, Dewas, Madhya Pradesh, February 9, 2014.

[258] Ibid.

[259] The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Ordinance, 2014, awaiting passage in both houses of the Indian parliament at the time of writing, defines economic boycott as “ (i) refusal to deal with, work for hire or do business with another person; or (ii) to deny opportunities including access to services or contractual opportunities for rendering service for consideration; or (iii) to refuse to do anything on the terms on which things would be commonly done in the ordinary course of business; or (iv) to abstain from the professional or business relations that one would maintain with another person.” The 2014 Amendment Ordinance defines social boycott as “a refusal to permit a person to render to other person or receive from him any customary service or to abstain from social relations that one would maintain with [the] other person or to isolate him from others.” The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities Ordinance) Amendment Ordinance, 2014, No. 1 of 2014, 3(i)(bc) and (ii)(eb).

[260] Women who work as agricultural laborers in Madhya Pradesh cannot rely upon regular work. As explained by Prembai, “My ability to work depends upon what crops are in season. Sometimes I can work for a whole month. Sometimes I will have no work at all.” Human Rights Watch interview with Prembai, Amlataj village, Dewas district, Madhya Pradesh, January 9, 2014.

[261] In Madhya Pradesh, Human Rights Watch interviewed 48 women who left manual scavenging between 2002 and 2009 with the support of the Garima Abhiyan Campaign. Twenty-three of these women worked as agricultural laborers. Those who did not work as agricultural laborers either reported being physically unable to do agricultural work due to age or physical disability, or reported alternate sources of employment. Alternate employment included continuing to do traditional caste-designated labor (excluding manual cleaning of excrement, but including cleaning blood after childbirths, sweeping, and removing garbage and dead animals) due to reliance upon the jajmani system to meet their basic needs; working in slate mines and brick kilns; and selling fruit, eggs, and papad within their communities. Two women joined their husbands doing skilled labor (one worked in a tailor shop and one worked in a welding shop); and two women had secured positions working in the village anganwadi center.

[262] Constitution of India, article 41 (“The State shall, within the limits of its economic capacity and development, make effective provision for securing the right to work, to education and to public assistance in cases of unemployment, old age, sickness and disablement, and in other cases of undeserved want”).

[263] The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005,The Gazette of India, No. 42 of 2005. MGNREGA employment may not be a feasible alternative for all individuals working as manual scavengers, and cannot, therefore, be viewed as a comprehensive immediate alternate livelihood option. Although not a comprehensive solution, ensuring that MGNREGA is accessible would provide at least one channel to immediate livelihood security for manual scavenging communities.

[264] Ibid.

[265] Ibid., Schedule I.

[266] Subhalakshmi Nandi and Rebecca Reichmann Tavares, “Making the NREGA more Gender Responsive: Reflections from the Field,” Policy in Focus: Protagonist Women, No. 27, March 2014, pp. 16-19.

[267] While some of these obstacles are not unique to communities that traditionally work as manual scavengers, they nonetheless undermine the current viability of MGNREGA as an avenue for securing the immediate access to alternate employment. A 2013 survey of 480 women from manual scavenging communities, undertaken by Jan Sahas Social Development Society with the support of UN Women, in nine districts in the Indian states of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh found that just 17% of respondents in all three states had someone from their family employed under MGNREGA. Jan Sahas Social Development Society, “Socio Economic Status of Women Manual Scavengers: Baseline Study Report, 2014,” http://www.unwomensouthasia.org/assets/Baseline_-Jan-Sahas.pdf (accessed August 3, 2014), p. 4.

[268] A job card is a basic legal document that enables registered households to demand guaranteed employment. A job card must be issued to a registered household within 15 days and is valid for five years. A household job card contains photographs, names, and details of each registered adult member of the household on it. Job cards are to be entered into a job card register in the panchayat and the actual card is to remain in custody of the registered household. NREGA, “ National Rural Employment Guarantee Act,” presentation from National Level Monitors Workshop, May 7, 2008, http://nrega.nic.in/presentations/nlm_workshop_07.05.08.pps (accessed August 3, 2014).

[269] In order to demand work, an applicant must submit form 6. Form 6 can be requested from the panchayat as well as from anganwadi centers and can be completed by up to five people at one time. Human Rights Watch interview with Digvijay Singh, Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan field worker, Delhi, April 9, 2014.

[270] NREGA, “ National Rural Employment Guarantee Act,” presentation from National Level Monitors Workshop, May 7, 2008, http://nrega.nic.in/presentations/nlm_workshop_07.05.08.pps (accessed August 3, 2014).

[271] Ibid.

[272] Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Mukesh, April 7, 2014.

[273] Mukesh worked for eight days in December 2013 and ten days in February 2014. Ibid.

[274] Ibid.

[275] Ibid.

[276] Human Rights Watch interview with Gita Anil Chaure, Shripur, Maharashtra, March 14, 2014.

[277] Human Rights Watch interview with Munnidevi, Kasela village, Etah district, Uttar Pradesh, January 19, 2014.

[278] Human Rights Watch interview with Anil Prakash Pandit, Kaparna village, Dhule district, Maharashtra, March 14, 2014.

[279] Human Rights Watch interview with Raju Shankar Chaundale, Adavad town, Jalgaon district, Maharashtra, March 21, 2014.

[280] The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, The Gazette of India, No. 25 of 2013, Chapter IV, Section 13(d) directs that people identified as manual scavengers be rehabilitated in the following manner: “he or at least one adult member of his family, shall be given, subject to eligibility and willingness, training in a livelihood skill, and shall be paid a monthly stipend of not less than three thousand rupees, during the period of such training.”

[281] Human Rights Watch interview with Rekhabai, Indore, Madhya Pradesh, February 9, 2014.

[282] Key elements of NSLRMS included time-bound programs to identify manual scavengers and their dependents, training in identified trades at local training institutions run by state and central government organizations, rehabilitation in trades and occupations through subsidy margin loans and bank loans, and rehabilitation of people working as manual scavengers for municipalities or local government bodies. Under NSLRMS, the government of India also issued guidelines to all states and their Special Central Assistance (SCAs) to form groups of 5-25 manual scavengers to run commercial service centers for large-scale conversion of dry latrines, called “Sanitary Marts.” Sameer Taware, “Report on Overview and Comparative Analysis of Legislation and Schemes for Eradication of Manual Scavenging Practice in India,” report prepared for the ILO Project on Promotion of Equality at Work, (unpublished document), p. 10. On file with Human Rights Watch.

[283] Ibid.

[284] While 350,000 eligible manual scavengers and their dependents were targeted for training from 1992-1997, less than 200,000 were provided with training by March 2002. The total shortfall in training during the Ninth Plan period (1997-2002) was nearly 77 percent. Ibid., p. 11.

[285] Ibid.

[286] Human Rights Watch interview with Sona, Bharatpur city, Rajasthan, June 25, 2014.

[287] Human Rights Watch interview with Bhuri, Bharatpur city, Rajasthan, June 25, 2014.

[288] Human Rights Watch interview with Harishchand Sharma, Bharatpur city, Rajasthan, June 26, 2014.

[289] Ibid.

[290] Through state channeling agencies, NSKFDC sponsors “skill development training programs” for educated unemployed youth in emerging areas, including garment technology, computer technology, electronic test engineering, mobile phone repair, BPO call center service, and automobile repair. These programs are conducted by government and autonomous institutions. Beneficiaries are provided free training, a stipend during the training period, and placement, assistance, and entrepreneurial guidance to start their own ventures. Sundara Babu Nagappan, Social Security Schemes for Sanitation Workers and Workers Engaged in Manual Scavenging: Resource Guide for Civil Society Organizations and Trade Unions , resource guide prepared by the ILO (publication pending), p. 28. On file with Human Rights Watch.

[291] The Ministry of Rural Development runs Special Projects for Placement Linked Skill Development of Rural Youth under Aajeevika or the National Rural Livelihoods Mission. Under this Scheme, rural BPL youth are provided training and placed in the organized sector. Training, which is typically less than three months, is entrusted to private sector Project Implementing Agencies. Funds for this program are disbursed from the central government and state Rural Livelihoods Missions are responsible for implementation. Ibid., p. 30.

[292] Government of India Ministry of Textiles, Integrated Skill Development Scheme (ISDS), http://www.isds-mot.com/ (accessed August 5, 2014).

[293] Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Scheme of Grant-in-aid to Voluntary and other Organizations Working for Scheduled Castes, http://socialjustice.nic.in/ngosch1.php (accessed August 3, 2014).

[294] The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, The Gazette of India, No. 25 of 2013, Chapter IV, Section 13(e) directs that people identified as manual scavengers be rehabilitated in the following manner: “he or at least one adult member of his family, shall be given, subject to eligibility and willingness, subsidy and concessional loan for taking up an alternative occupation on a sustainable basis, in such a manner as may be stipulated in the relevant scheme of the Central Government or the State Government or the concerned local authority.”

[295] Standing Committee on Social Justice and Empowerment (2012-2013), Report on The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Bill 2012, Thirty Second Report, March 2013, http://www.prsindia.org/uploads/media/Manual%20Scavengers/SCR%20Manual%20Scavengers%20Bill.pdf (accessed May 9, 2014), para. 1.5.

[296] Sameer Taware, “Report on Overview and Comparative Analysis of Legislation and Schemes for Eradication of Manual Scavenging Practice in India,” report prepared for the ILO Project on Promotion of Equality at Work, (unpublished document), p. 12. On file with Human Rights Watch.

[297] Human Rights Watch interviews with Lalibai, co-convener of Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan, Dewas, Madhya Pradesh, February 9, 2014, Mehroom, Jharda, Ujjain district, Madhya Pradesh, January 11, 2014, Nirmala Gawre, Dewas, Madhya Pradesh, February 8, 2014.

[298] Human Rights Watch interview with Lalibai, co-convener of Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan, Dewas, Madhya Pradesh, February 9, 2014.

[299] Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan, “Violence Against Manual Scavengers: Dalit Women in India,” Report Submitted to UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women during her visit to India between April 22-May 1 2013, http://www.dalits.nl/pdf/violenceagainstmanualscavengers.pdf (accessed August 3, 2014).

[300] This was 68 percent of all people interviewed in Madhya Pradesh, 62 in Rajasthan, and 63 in Uttar Pradesh.

[301] Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan, “Violence Against Manual Scavengers: Dalit Women in India,” Report Submitted to UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women during her visit to India between April 22-May 1 2013, http://www.dalits.nl/pdf/violenceagainstmanualscavengers.pdf (accessed August 3, 2014).

[302] Human Rights Watch interview with Kuldeep Ghanwari, Rajasthan state coordinator for Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan, Bharatpur city, Rajasthan, June 25, 2014.

[303] Human Rights Watch interview with Nirmala Gawre, Dewas, Madhya Pradesh, February 8, 2014.

[304] Ibid.

[305] United Nations Development Programme and UN Solution Exchange (Gender Community of Practice), Report of National Round Table Discussion on Social Inclusion of Manual Scavengers, New Delhi, December 21, 2012, http://www.undp.org/content/dam/india/docs/pub-povertyreduction/Social-inclusion-of-Manual-Scavengers.pdf, (accessed August 3, 2014), para. 3.7.

[306] Human Rights Watch interview with Kuldeep Ghanwari, Rajasthan state coordinator for Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan, Bharatpur city, Rajasthan, June 25, 2014.

[307] Human Rights Watch interview with Leelabai, Dewas, Madhya Pradesh, February 8, 2014.

[308] Human Rights Watch interview with Badambai, Dewas, Madhya Pradesh, February 6, 2014.

[309] Ibid.

[310] Ibid.

[311] The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Ordinance, 2014, No. 1 of 2014, 4(i)(za)(A).

[312] Safai Karmachari Andolan & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors. , Supreme Court of India, Writ Petition (Civil) No 583 of 2003, judgment, March 27, 2014, paragraph 14(i).

[313] The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, The Gazette of India, No. 25 of 2013, Chapter IV, Section 13 (1)-(2) and Chapter V, Section 18 (“The appropriate Government may confer such powers and impose such duties on local authority and District Magistrate as may be necessary to ensure that the provisions of this Act are properly carried out, and a local authority and the District Magistrate may, specify the subordinate officers, who shall exercise all or any of the powers, and to perform all or any of the duties, so conferred or imposed, and the local limits within which such powers or duties shall be carried out by the officer or officers so specified”).

[314] Government of India, Ministry of Rural Development, “Indira Awaas Yojana (IAY) Guidelines,” June 2013, http://iay.nic.in/netiay/IAY%20revised%20guidelines%20july%202013.pdf (accessed August 3, 2014).

[315] Government of India Ministry of Rural Development, “Addition of New Beneficiaries,” undated, http://iay.nic.in/netiay/new_initatives.htm (accessed August 3, 2014).

[316] Government of India Ministry of Rural Development, “Addition of New Beneficiaries,” undated, http://iay.nic.in/netiay/new_initatives.htm (accessed August 3, 2014).

[317] A 2013 survey of 480 women from manual scavenging communities, undertaken by Jan Sahas Social Development Society with the support of UN Women, in nine districts in the Indian states of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh found that only 4% of respondents were assisted to construct houses under IAY. Data by state revealed that only 2% of respondents in Madhya Pradesh, 4% in Bihar and 7% in Uttar Pradesh got financial support from the government for building houses under IAY. Jan Sahas Social Development Society, “Socio Economic Status of Women Manual Scavengers: Baseline Study Report, 2014,” http://www.unwomensouthasia.org/assets/Baseline_-Jan-Sahas.pdf (accessed August 3, 2014), p. 4.

[318] Human Rights Watch interview with Makarduaj Maruti, Fagne village, Dhule district, Maharashtra, March 20, 2014.

[319] Human Rights Watch interview with Bimal Kundare, Shripur, Maharashtra, March 14, 2014.

[320] Human Rights Watch interview with Gita Anil Chaure, Shripur, Maharashtra, March 14, 2014.

[321] Ibid.

[322] Human Rights Watch interview with Bimal Kundare, Shripur, Maharashtra, March 14, 2014.

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Caste Discrimination in India: A study of NCRB data (Part IV)

The recent gruesome report of the beheading of a Dalit minor girl in Tamil Nadu for rejecting the advances of an upper caste male once again throws the issue of caste discrimination into sharp focus. Women from Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) are particularly vulnerable to discrimination and violence due to the intersection of caste and gender. Despite this, we note that crimes against SC and ST women are viewed as either caste based crimes or sex based crimes.

The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) reports which publishes data on crimes in India, only publishes data on crimes against SCs and STs which we have analysed in our previous posts I , II and III , and does not publish disaggregated data on crimes against SC and ST women. However, based on the sex specific nature of certain offences recorded by the NCRB reports, we can estimate the extent of atrocities committed against SC and ST women. In this final post, we undertake a cross-state comparison of crimes against women in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, between 2014 and 2016.

The report on 20 Years of the Prevention of the Atrocities Act noted that the number of registered cases of rape against SC and ST women have outnumbered other offences such as murder, kidnapping, arson, robbery and dacoity. On undertaking a similar analysis between 2014 and 2016, we find that the same holds true and in fact, the instances of rape outnumbers even the cumulative of all these offences between (Table 1). Further, while there is no discernible trend with respect to the incidence of other offences, the number of reported instances of rape has steadily increased over the three years.

Dalit women identify their gender – caste – class status to be the primary reason for the high incidence of violence, that also manifest in other socio-economic forms such as refusing access to common resources like water, public spaces etc. The gender – caste – class bias is evident from the share of crimes against SC and ST women as a percentage of the total crimes against SCs and STs. To calculate the share of crimes against SC and ST women, we have considered rape, attempt to rape, insult to modesty, assault (total) and kidnapping and abduction of women to compel her for marriage.

In 2016, nearly 16% of the total atrocities against SCs constituted offences against SC women. This figure was double, almost 30%, with respect to ST women. Of the four Southern States, the proportion of crimes against SC (29.8%) and ST (60.9%) women in the overall crimes was highest in Kerala, against the national average of 15.9% and 41.7% respectively. The proportion of offences against ST women is half the total number of offences in Kerala which has consistently recorded extremely high incidence of crimes against ST women, in keeping with the overall large number of offences against STs.

Tamil Nadu has reported the lowest proportion of offences against SC and ST women, between 5-8% among the four States between 2014 and 2016. While Andhra Pradesh also reported similar numbers as Tamil Nadu in 2014 and 2015, the crimes against SC (19%) and ST (20.4%) women as a proportion of overall crimes spiked in 2016.

If we consider the registered cases of rape alone, out of a total of 36,657 registered offences of rape committed against women in 2016 and registered under the IPC, 2,536 registered cases of rape were committed against SC women (6.9%) and 972 registered cases of rape were committed against ST women (2.6%). Kerala has consistently recorded the highest number of registered cases of rape against ST women, clocking crime rates of 8.7, 9.7 and 9.7 in 2014, 2015 and 2016 respectively. Tamil Nadu, on the other hand, has recorded better figures, with a total of 319 registered cases of rape against women in 2016, of which 40 cases were offences of rape committed against SC women and 1 case of rape against an ST woman.

With regard to the responses of police and courts to offences against SC and ST women, unfortunately the data from 2014 to 2016 could not be compared as the NCRB has used a different methodology to calculate the total cases for investigation, total cases before courts and the pendency of cases. Further, the 2014 and 2015 reports do not provide State wise data on how the police and courts have addressed crimes against SC and ST women.

– This post was authored by Deekshitha Ganesan, Research Associate

TAGS: atrocities , caste discrimination , data , NCRB , prevention of atrocities act , rape , SCs , STs , violence , women

Deekshitha Ganesan

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Caste Matters: Perceived Discrimination among Women in Rural India

Jasmine khubchandani.

a University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester

Nisha Fahey

Nitin raithatha.

b Pramukhswami Medical College, Karamsad, India

Anusha Prabhakaran

Nancy byatt, tiffany a moore simas, ajay phatak, milagros rosal, somashekhar nimbalkar, jeroan j allison.

To examine the relationship of caste and class with perceived discrimination among pregnant women from rural western India.

A cross-sectional survey was administered to 170 pregnant women in rural Gujarat, India, who were enrolled in a longitudinal cohort study. The Everyday Discrimination Scale and the Experiences of Discrimination questionnaires were used to assess perceived discrimination and response to discrimination. Based on self-report caste, women were classified into three categories with increasing historical disadvantage: General, Other Backward Castes (OBC), and Scheduled Caste or Tribes (SC/ST). Socioeconomic class was determined using the standardized Kuppuswamy scale. Regression models for count and binomial data were used to examine association of caste and class with experience of discrimination and response to discrimination.

68% of women experienced discrimination. After adjusting for confounders, there was a consistent trend and association of discrimination with caste but not class. In comparison to General Caste, lower caste (OBC, SC/ST) women were more likely to 1) experience discrimination (OBC OR: 2.2, SC/ST: 4.1; p-trend: 0.01), 2) have a greater perceived discrimination score (OBC IRR: 1.3, SC/ST: 1.5; p-trend: 0.07), 3) accept discrimination (OBC OR: 6.4, SC/ST: 7.6; p-trend: < 0.01), and 4) keep to herself about discrimination (OBC OR: 2.7, SC/ST: 3.6; p-trend: 0.04).

The differential experience of discrimination by lower caste pregnant women in comparison to upper caste pregnant women and their response to such experiences highlight the importance of studying discrimination to understand the root causes of existing caste-based disparities.

Introduction

Discrimination is unequal treatment based on social structures that allow one group to maintain power and privileges over others ( Krieger 1999 ). Perceived discrimination refers to distinct stressful life experiences of unfair treatment based on personal attributes such as race ( Banks et al. 2006 ). The impact of perceived discrimination has been studied extensively in the U.S., where racial and ethnic minorities experience greater discrimination and adverse health outcomes ( Pascoe and Smart Richman 2009 ; Williams and Mohammed 2009 ; Dolezsar et al. 2014 ; Schmitt et al. 2014 ). Similar to the U.S., where race significantly impacts socioeconomic status and health ( Kochhar and Fry 2014 ; CDC 2016 ), caste may be an important determinant of discrimination and health in India.

Caste in modern India is considerably different from its origins and is the basis for the current affirmative action program, called the Reservation system. An understanding of India’s caste system and its evolution over time is necessary for the examination of caste-based discrimination. Historically, an individual’s jati was determined by the occupation of the family into which he/she was born; it could, albeit rarely, change over time ( Vaid 2014 ). The term caste was introduced by a British ethnographer in 1901; while conducting a census of India, he consolidated more than 3,000 jatis into 7 castes and limited this classification to Hindus ( Risley, Herbert Hope 1901 ). Caste classification in post-colonial India includes religious minorities, is considered to be rigid except through marriage, and has four categories, in the order of increasing social disadvantage: General Caste, Other Backward Caste (OBC), Scheduled Caste (SC), and Scheduled Tribe (ST). SC and ST castes are comprised of Dalit and Adivasi people, respectively ( Thomas et al. 2013 ; Lancet 2014 ). Dalit s were considered to be impure in ancient-Indian societies because their occupation involved butchering animals and disposing human waste. Dalits were prohibited from participating in Indian social life and were not to be touched, seen, or approached ( Chalam 2007 ). Adivasis are the indigenous population of India. Unlike Dalits , who lived in the vicinity of other people, Adivasis typically resided in forests and rarely interacted with other groups. The third disadvantaged caste, OBC, was established to classify groups that were socially, economically, and educationally disadvantaged ( Vaid 2014 ). Since its formation in 1955, OBC classification has further expanded to include additional disadvantaged castes in India ( Vaid 2014 ). General Caste includes all people who do not belong to any of the other three castes ( Deshpande 2003 ). 30.8% of India’s population belong to the General caste, 41.1% to OBC, and 28.2% to SC/ST ( Directorate of Census Operations Gujarat 2014 ).

Caste relations in India and race relations in the U.S., while not interchangeable, share similarities ( Slate 2011 ; Reddy 2016 ). Historically, Black Americans and SC are marginalized identities who are subjected to discriminative social norms ( Haynes and Alagaraja 2016 ). While discrimination based on caste is outlawed in India, 93% of people across Northern India, including law makers, reported that they believed atrocities were still committed on SC members ( Naval 2004 ). Of 565 villages studied across 11 states, 33% of villages have public health workers who refuse to enter SC people homes, 25% forbid SC milk buying, 73% do not allow SC to enter homes of other castes, and in 37.8% the children of SC families must sit separately in public schools ( Thomas et al. 2013 ). Moreover, education rates are much lower in SC communities and life expectancy is 4 years less than non- Dalits ( Thomas et al. 2013 ).

While the link between caste and poor health outcomes in India has been studied in the past, a PubMed search in July, 2017, using keywords “perceived discrimination” and “India” produced only six results. Of these, only two were based on research in India ( Kuhlmann et al. 2014 ; Zieger et al. 2016 ), and none investigated the relationship of caste and discrimination. Existing literature indicates that caste is one of the strongest determinants of reproductive and child health outcomes ( Sanneving et al. 2013 ). In rural India, the highest infant mortality is in SC and OBC communities ( Singh et al. 2013 ). Although the cause of such caste health disparities can be multifactorial, perceived discrimination may play a role. Results from discrimination research conducted outside of India have found that discrimination is associated with preterm birth and low birth weight ( Lauderdale 2006 ; Giurgescu et al. 2011 ; Earnshaw et al. 2013 ; Mendez et al. 2014 ). Further, a recent study found that women reporting experiencing perceived discrimination had higher late pregnancy evening cortisol and poorer self-rated health, and their infants had higher stress reactivity at six weeks old ( Thayer and Kuzawa 2015 ).

Considering the paucity of literature on perceived discrimination in India and the significant role caste plays in health and socioeconomic inequality in India, we sought to measure perceived discrimination among pregnant women from rural India. We focused on pregnant women because pregnancy is a time of increased medical care. Understanding the experiences of low caste women during this critical period may provide insight into caste-based disparities in maternal and child healthcare and outcomes. We hypothesized that lower caste women would experience greater perceived discrimination than women of upper caste regardless of socioeconomic class.

Setting and Study Design

Included data are a subset from a prospective cohort study conducted in Anand, Gujarat, India, studying the peripartum experience of rural Indian women and examine the association of their child’s growth with psychosocial, biomedical, and sociocultural factors (n = 220)( Soni et al. 2014 ). Gujarat is located in the western most region of India and Anand district is located in the center of Gujarat state. More than two-thirds (69.7%) of Anand’s population resides in rural villages ( Directorate of Census Operations Gujarat 2014 ).

Participant

Participants were recruited between July 1, 2013 and June 30, 2014 in one of two ways. First, all patients seen at the OB/Gyn outpatient clinic at the tertiary care Shree Krishna Hospital (SKH), for an initial obstetric visit were approached by research coordinators and screened for eligibility. Second, government-sponsored Accredited Social Health Activists, who are responsible for developing and maintaining a census of all pregnancies in rural India, referred all newly pregnant women from their villages to the research staff at SKH. Eligibility criteria included: age between18–40 years, fetal estimated gestational age between 10w0d – 13w6d, understand Gujarati language, and have no plan to move from Anand for two years. Exclusions were: multiple gestation, surrogate carrier, conceived using assisted reproductive technologies, and chronic health conditions. Of the 220 women enrolled in the cohort study, 170 women responded to the discrimination questionnaire (details in Figure 1 ) and were included in this analysis.

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Participant flowchart for the prepartum timepoints of the prospective cohort study (right) and subsample for the discrimation study (left)

Data Sources

Standardized questionnaires, developed and validated by other studies were translated to Gujarati through professional translating services, and were administered by trained female research coordinators during the participant’s prenatal visits. Because these questionnaires were developed in markedly different communities than the study setting, we performed comprehensive cognitive response testing ( Sousa and Rojjanasrirat 2011 ), a process in which all questionnaires were administered to three volunteers from the community who were in the SKH waiting areas. Volunteers were asked to describe their understanding of each question and to note aspects that were difficult to follow or made them feel uncomfortable. Two bilingual investigators reviewed the feedback from the volunteers and made edits to the Gujarati forms to improve the cultural appropriateness and understandability, while maintaining the intent of the questions.

In our study, caste data was self-reported. We asked “What was your caste at birth?” The options given were General, OBC, SC, ST or other. Participants who reported their caste as ‘Other’, were asked to specify.

Socioeconomic class

We used the validated composite Kuppuswamy scale for classifying socioeconomic class by considering education level, household income, and husband’s occupation ( Sharma 2012 ). Based on the univariate distribution, upper and upper-middle class were combined into one category, lower middle class remained distinct, and upper-lower and lower class were combined into one category thus yielding a three category variable.

Perceived discrimination

The nine-item Everyday Discrimination Scale (EDS) ( Williams et al. 1997 ) was used to quantify perceived discrimination. Response options included 0: Seldom (never/less than once a year), 1: Sometimes (a few times a year/a few times in a month), and 2: Often (at least once a week/almost everyday). Scores could range from 0 to 18 with a higher score representing greater perceived discrimination. The reliability of EDS measured using Cronbach’s α yielded a scale reliability coefficient of 0.93 in the study sample.

Response to experiences of perceived discrimination

Two questions from the Experience of Discrimination (EOD) questionnaire assessed participants’ response to unfair treatment ( Krieger et al. 2005 ). The first question asked if the respondent accepts unfair treatment as a fact of life or tries to do something about it. The second question asked whether the respondent, after being treated unfairly, talks to others about it or keeps the experience to herself.

Potential Confounders

Based on our a priori knowledge of factors affecting women’s experiences in rural Indian settings, we considered participants’ age, employment status, religion, and age difference of 5+ years with their spouse as potential confounders for the relationship of perceived discrimination with caste and socioeconomic class. These variables influence the frequency and scope of interactions for rural Indian women outside of their homes ( Jejeebhoy and Sathar 2001 ).

Statistical Analyses

Descriptive analyses were performed to evaluate differences in the distribution of age and socio-economic status characteristics of the participants across the three caste categories. Cuzick’s test for trends was used to assess statistically significant differences across the ordered groups ( Cuzick 1985 ). The association of perceived discrimination and caste and class were evaluated using zero inflated negative binomial regression on the aggregate everyday discrimination score. Zero inflated negative binomial modeling was chosen over Poisson and negative binomial regression methods, because empirical distribution of the outcome data demonstrated over-dispersion and over-representation of zero. This modeling approach yields two separate effect estimates in the form of exponentiated beta coefficients with 95% confidence intervals: 1) odds ratio of reporting zero as an outcome and 2) incidence rate ratio, which are interpreted as count multipliers for the odds of reporting an increasing number of discrimination score. We built three separate models to examine the association of discrimination with caste and class: first model only included caste as an explanatory variable, second model only included class as an explanatory variable, and the third model included caste, class, and analytically selected confounders i.e. age and age difference with spouse. The confounders for third models were included if they produced a 10% or greater change in the effect estimates of any categories of caste and class. The association of caste and class with responses to discrimination was assessed using logistical regression models. Odds ratio with 95% confidence interval was calculated for two separate models for caste and class, and for a third multivariable model that included both caste and class in addition to other confounders. In addition to 95% confidence intervals, statistical significance was assessed for trends across all models by using an observation-weighted linear polynomial test ( Mitchell 2012 ). We were unable to test statistical interactions due to sparse data issues in certain interaction terms such as SC/ST participants in upper class and vice-versa.

Of the 170 participants included in the analyses, 50 (29.4%) were of General Caste, 99 (58.2%) were of OBC, and 21 (12.4%) self-reported their caste as SC/ST ( Table 1 ). On average, participants from lower castes were younger than General Caste women. Nearly an equal number of participants belonged to the three categories of class. Caste was closely associated with class, as well as education, income, and occupation. There was no discernible association between caste and working status, religion, or five years or greater age difference with spouse.

Characteristics of Indian Women Who Responded to Discrimination Questionnaire at Shree Krishna Hospital in 2014

OBC: Other Backward Caste; SC: Scheduled Caste; ST: Scheduled Tribe; Pro.: Professional; NS: not significant (> 0.05)

115 (67.6%) participants reported experiencing at least some level of discrimination on the EDS. The average discrimination score was 1.5 (SD: 2.7) for General Caste women, 3.2 (SD: 3.4) for OBC women, and 4.3 (SD: 3.9) for SC/ST women (p < 0.001). Results from zero-inflated negative binomial regression models are reported in Table 2 . After adjusting for confounders, OBC women were twice as likely and SC/ST women were four times more likely than women of General Caste to report ever experiencing discrimination (p-value for trend = 0.01). By contrast there was no significant trend for increased odds of experiencing discrimination by women of lower socioeconomic class compared to those of upper socioeconomic class. Lower caste women had a 30% (OBC) and 50% (SC/ST) higher discrimination score in comparison to women of General Caste (p = 0.07). No discernible associations or trends were observed across different socioeconomic class categories with the sole exception of lower class women experiencing a 2.2 times greater odds of experiencing discrimination (95% confidence interval: 0.9 to 4.9).

Zero-Inflated Negative Binomial Regression Models for the Association between Perceived Discrimination and Caste and Class.

Table 3 reports results from unadjusted and adjusted logistic regression models that examined the association between caste, socioeconomic class, and responding to experiences of discrimination. After accounting for confounders, women of lower castes were consistently more likely to accept unfair treatment as a fact of life (p-trend < 0.01) and keep to themselves about it (p-trend= 0.04), compared to women of General Caste. Although lower class women were twice as likely to accept unfair treatment as fact of life (unadjusted OR: 2.4; 95% confidence interval: 1.1 to 5.3) than upper class women, this association disappeared after accounting for caste and other confounders. Similarly, there are no consistent trends across the socio-economic status categories for response to experiencing discrimination.

Results of Logistic Regression Models for Responses of Pregnant Women at Shree Krishna Hospital to Experience of Discrimination Questions: “If you have been treated unfairly do you usually:”

In our study, we found nearly two of three participants had experienced discrimination. We found a strong association between caste with ever experiencing discrimination and the intensity of discrimination. We also found that women of disadvantaged castes were substantially more likely to accept unfair treatment as a fact of life and keep to themselves about unfair treatment. These findings persisted even after accounting for socio-economic status and other possible confounders. By contrast, we did not find a strong or consistent link between socioeconomic class and perceived discrimination or response to unfair treatment. These findings underscore the significant role caste continues to play in the day-to-day lives and interpersonal interactions of Indian women regardless of their socioeconomic class.

The complex sociocultural construct of the caste system in India plays a crucial role in discrimination. ( Deshpande 2003 ; Borooah 2005 ). As our results indicate, lower caste women are not only more likely to experience discrimination, but they are more likely to accept unequal treatment as a fact of life. Therefore, the lower caste women in our study appear to experience discrimination that is unacknowledged. This response to experiences of caste-related discrimination can be understood by learned helplessness theory, a process by which people exposed to uncontrollable situations learn that the outcomes of the situation are independent of their actions ( Abramson et al. 1978 ). Such individuals believe that either they inherently lack the ability to control external circumstances (personal helplessness) or that the circumstances simply cannot be changed (universal helplessness). Those with personal helplessness have internal attribution and tend to fair worse in difficult situations, as they believe their actions will not make a difference. This apathy can lead to self-destructive thoughts and further impact maternal and child health ( Tsirigotis et al. 2013 , 2014 ). Our finding that SC/ST women were nearly eight times more likely to accept unequal treatment and three times more likely to not discuss their unfair experiences with others suggests that they may be at higher risk for developing attribution styles that further limit their ability to respond to discrimination. More studies are needed to understand how the development of attribution styles among low caste people is affected by their lifelong experience of being underprivileged and its related psychological and mental health cost.

Our finding that perceived discrimination is associated with caste but not socioeconomic class has important implications for the study of health inequalities in India at a broader level. Our results challenge the commonly made assumption that caste is a proxy for socioeconomic class and poverty when investigating health outcomes ( Nayar 2007 ; Fenske et al. 2013 ). Although caste is closely linked with socioeconomic class, assuming that caste and socioeconomic class are interchangeable conflates these two important determinants of health and may masquerade the unique short and long-term risks experienced by lower caste people. Specifically, unlike class, which can change over a person’s lifetime if not across generations, caste is intransigent and therefore carries a lifelong burden of being underprivileged and its related psychological and mental health cost. Another important consideration for disentangling the differential association of caste and class with perceived discrimination is its implications for our understanding of the role caste plays in modern India. According to the Indian government, the sole purpose of caste classification in India is to accommodate the administration of the Reservation system, wherein education, employment, and social services are reserved in a predetermined quota for low-caste people ( Vaid 2014 ). Our results suggests that caste based discrimination continues to persist in India and caste is a construct that may have a prominent role in the social fabric of modern India.

Our findings are based on a sample of pregnant women from a rural western Indian community and generalizations for the broader population should be made with caution. Our strategy to leverage local health workers’ presence in the community to recruit all newly pregnant women from the surrounding villages and providing free healthcare helps overcome barriers faced by lower caste and social class women. During pregnancy, women receive increased support and enjoy societal privileges compared to non-pregnant times. Therefore, it is possible that our findings underreport the extent of discrimination faced by rural Indian women who are not pregnant. If underreporting occurred, women of lower caste, who tend to be less likely to vocalize their complaints due to a more stringent upbringing, are more likely to underreport than upper caste women ( Inman et al. 2015 ). Therefore, our results may underestimate the association of caste and discrimination. Nevertheless, this approach allows us to better understand the circumstances of a specific population at high risk for adverse health outcomes. EDS aggregate scores do not support analysis of the separate types of experiences that may lead to discrimination. Small sample size limits point estimate precision and precluded our ability to examine interaction terms. Future studies should investigate how intensities of discriminatory experiences varies for people of different caste and class and whether or not there is differential amounts discrimination experienced by people who are of low caste and upper class in comparison this to those of low caste and lower caste.

In conclusion, caste but not socioeconomic class is closely linked with perceived discrimination among pregnant women in rural India and their responses to unfair treatment. Given that 1) India’s maternal and child health outcomes are among the world’s worst, 2) India has one of the largest gender gaps globally, and 3) these pitfalls disproportionately impact those of lower caste, it is necessary to understand the experiences of low caste, pregnant women and identify opportunities for empowering low caste women to more effectively deal with unfair treatment as well as sensitize healthcare providers, particularly those who care for mothers and children, to the discriminatory experiences of low-caste women.

Acknowledgments

We are thankful to Dr. Deborah Plummer for her thoughtful comments on understanding discrimination within the context of historically disenfranchised populations.

Funding: This study was supported by 2013 University of Massachusetts Medical School Office of Global Health Pilot Project Grant. Contribution by co-authors was partially supported by TL1-TR001454 (to A.S.) and KL2TR000160 (to N.B.) from National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, P60-MD006912-05 (to J.A.) from National Institute on Minority Health and Disparities, and Joy McCann Endowment (to T.M.S.). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institute if Health.

Ethical approval:

Consent for participation was obtained by trained interviewers prior to enrollment. Interviewers read the consent to participants in Gujarati, shared a single-page fact sheet about the study with them, and answered questions. Willing participants were asked to sign a separate consent form and a copy of the form was provided to the participants. Human Research Ethics Committee of HM Patel Center for Medical Care and Education at SKH reviewed the study and approved it. University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS) Institutional Review Board reviewed the study and exempted it because of the approval by a local ethics committee in India and the absence of interaction of UMMS researchers with study participants or their identified data. All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Conflict of Interest

Jasmine Khubchandani, Apurv Soni, Nisha Fahey, Nitin Raithatha, Anusha Prabhakaran, Nancy Byatt, Tiffany A Moore Simas, Ajay Phatak, Milagros Rosal, Somashekhar Nimbalkar, and Jeroan J Allison report no conflict of interest.

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A ‘Life of Contradictions’

June 20, 2024 issue

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B.R. Ambedkar, Delhi, India, May 1946; photograph by Margaret Bourke-White

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A Part Apart: The Life and Thought of B.R. Ambedkar

B.R. Ambedkar: The Man Who Gave Hope to India’s Dispossessed

The Evolution of Pragmatism in India: Ambedkar, Dewey, and the Rhetoric of Reconstruction

On January 17, 2016, Rohith Vemula took his own life. A twenty-six-year-old Ph.D. student at the University of Hyderabad, he was a Dalit (the caste formerly called “untouchables”) and a member of the Ambedkar Students’ Association, which combats caste discrimination. The university had suspended his stipend following a complaint by the leader of the student wing of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party ( BJP ) that Rohith had physically assaulted him. The suspension made him despondent and unable to make ends meet, leading to his death. Rohith left a poignant suicide note in which he wrote of his dashed hopes of becoming a science writer like Carl Sagan. But he also called his birth a fatal accident, a reminder that the caste system had determined his status as a Dalit for life.

The word “caste” ( jati in Hindi) is derived from casta , used by the Portuguese centuries ago to describe the divisions in Hindu society according to varna (literally translated as “color” but meaning “quality” or “value”). Ancient Sanskrit texts prescribed a four-varna social order: Brahmins (priests) at the top, followed by Kshatriyas (warriors), Vaishyas (merchants and artisans), and Sudras (agricultural classes) in descending order of ritual purity. Hindu society actually consists of thousands of castes, each with its place in this hierarchy. There is also a fifth group, which is viewed as so impure as to be outside the varna order. These are the “untouchable” castes—Dalits, as we call them now. They perform jobs, such as manual scavenging and the disposal of dead animals, considered so unclean that the very sight of them is deemed polluting. 1

This ordering system is hereditary. Hindus are born into a caste and remain in it until death. Some castes belonging to the varna order have historically achieved mobility and moved to a higher varna by adopting “Sanskritizing” practices, like vegetarianism. But even this limited mobility is closed to “untouchable” castes, which remain stigmatized for generation after generation and find the doors of economic and social mobility shut tight.

Rohith’s suicide note sparked debates across India. How was such social inequality still practiced in the world’s largest democracy seventy years after independence from British rule? Attention turned to B.R. Ambedkar, not just because Rohith belonged to an organization bearing his name but also because Ambedkar, who died in 1956, has been increasingly recognized for his writings about caste as an entrenched instrument of social, economic, and religious domination in India. As he famously said in 1948, “Democracy in India is only a top-dressing on an Indian soil, which is essentially undemocratic.”

Now popularly addressed with the honorific Babasaheb, Ambedkar has long been known as a political leader of Dalits. He popularized the use of “Dalit”—meaning broken or scattered, first used in the nineteenth century by an anticaste reformer—as a term of dignity for “untouchables.” He is lauded as the chief draftsperson of the Indian constitution, which legally abolished untouchability. But few recognized him as a major thinker on the relationship between social and political democracy. This changed with the 1990s anticaste movement and the introduction of reserved slots for “backward castes”—the intermediate castes belonging to the Sudra varna—in public service jobs and universities. Political activists and academics turned to Ambedkar’s work to explain everyday discrimination against the lower castes, such as their relegation to menial jobs, humiliation in workplaces and housing, denial of entry into temples, separate wells in villages, and segregation from upper- and intermediate-caste neighborhoods. 2 His rediscovery as a political philosopher led to the publication in 2014 of a new edition of his book Annihilation of Caste (1936), with an introduction by Arundhati Roy. It dwelled on his clash with Mahatma Gandhi, who opposed his argument that caste was the social bedrock of Hinduism.

Caste remains a contentious subject, and scholars disagree on the institution’s nature and history. British colonialists interpreted it as evidence of Indian society’s basis in religion and its lack of a proper political sphere, which was filled by the colonial state. Marx adopted this view, writing that the subcontinent knew no real history until its conquest by Britain, only a succession of wars and emperors ruling over an unchanging and unresisting society. Colonial writing and practice drew on Brahminical texts to understand and rule India as a society organized by its predominant Hindu religion.

The French anthropologist Louis Dumont’s Homo Hierarchicus (1966) gave this understanding the imprimatur of scholarship by arguing that Homo hierarchicus , rather than the Western Homo aequalis , undergirded Indian society. Following Dumont, anthropologists studied castes and their hierarchical ordering according to the Brahminical principles of purity and pollution. It was not until 2001 that Nicholas Dirks persuasively argued that the British were crucial in institutionalizing caste as the essence of Indian society—though they did not invent it, they shaped caste as we know it today. 3 In place of a range of precolonial social orders based on a variety of factors, including political and economic power, society across India became defined by castes, with Brahmins at the top and Dalits at the bottom. 4

As a system of inequality, caste has met with criticism and protests for centuries. Today activists demanding the dismantling of caste privileges in employment, education, housing, economic mobility, and social respect come up against the Hindu nationalist BJP government led by Narendra Modi, which advocates ignoring caste difference in the interest of Hindu unity. The BJP is the political arm of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh ( RSS ), a paramilitary Hindu cultural organization that since its founding in 1925 has campaigned for an organicist Hindu unity, expressing admiration for the national unity model advanced by fascism and Nazism. 5 The RSS calls for reforming the most extreme aspects of caste, such as the practice of untouchability, but like most reformers, including Gandhi, does not challenge the four-varna order, regarding it as a divine organization of society in accordance with Hindu ideals. For the RSS , focusing on the differences in caste access to wealth and social status fractures the unity of Hindus; it instead calls upon castes to unite for a nation-state that guarantees Hindu supremacy. Accordingly the Modi government has systematically persecuted minority and Dalit activists as antinational elements. Hindu nationalist mobs have also assaulted and lynched Muslims, Christians, and Dalits.

Against this background of threats to democracy, Ambedkar acquires a new significance. The Indian politician Shashi Tharoor’s lucid biography is addressed to a general audience. But to appreciate the depth, complexity, nuances, and changes in the Dalit leader’s thought and politics, one should read A Part Apart by the journalist Ashok Gopal. He has pored over Ambedkar’s writings and speeches in English and Marathi, and the result is a stunning, comprehensive, and thoughtful account of Ambedkar and his times. The title is drawn from a comment Ambedkar made in 1939: “I am not a part of the whole, I am a part apart.”

What emerges in A Part Apart is a portrait of a minoritarian intellectual committed to building a society based on the principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity. This entailed resolving the gap between the political principles set forth in the Indian constitution drafted and introduced in 1950 under his leadership, and the reality of social inequality. In an often-quoted speech before the Constituent Assembly on November 25, 1949, he said:

On the 26th of January 1950, we are going to enter into a life of contradictions. In politics we will have equality and in social and economic life we will have inequality. In politics we will be recognizing the principle of one man one vote and one vote one value. In our social and economic life, we shall, by reason of our social and economic structure, continue to deny the principle of one man one value. How long shall we continue to live this life of contradictions?

Gopal’s account meticulously charts Ambedkar’s attempts to grapple with this “life of contradictions.” First, he confronted anticolonial nationalism and clashed with Gandhi on whether caste inequality was intrinsically connected to Hinduism. Second, he engaged with constitutional democracy and developed his view of politics as an instrument of social change. Third, his concern with establishing the equality of all human beings is observable in his approach to religion and his eventual turn to Buddhism.

Ambedkar was born in 1891 in the British colonial cantonment town of Mhow, now in Madhya Pradesh in central India. He was the fourteenth and last child of a family belonging to the Dalit Mahar caste. The Mahars were not allowed to draw water from public wells; upper-caste Hindus considered even their shadow polluting. The British colonial army in which his father had served recognized military rank but not the practice of untouchability. This perhaps explains why Ambedkar did not have an entirely negative view of British rule. For him self-rule was not intrinsically better than foreign rule; what mattered more than freedom from colonial domination was freedom from upper-caste domination.

The colonial army offered a modern education to soldiers, even training and recruiting them as teachers. Ambedkar recalled that his father developed a zeal for education, ensuring that all his children learned to read and write. In 1904 the family moved to a two-room tenement in a working-class Mumbai neighborhood where Ambedkar continued his education. He graduated from Bombay University in 1912 and left the next year for Columbia University, supported by a scholarship from the ruler of the princely state of Baroda.

At Columbia, he studied economics, sociology, history, philosophy, and anthropology. In 1915 he wrote a thesis for his MA in economics. While still working on his Columbia doctoral dissertation, he enrolled at the London School of Economics in 1916 for another MA in preparation for a second doctoral degree. He also enrolled in Gray’s Inn to become a barrister. He left for Mumbai a year later when his scholarship ran out, returning to London in 1920 to obtain an MS c (in economics) in 1921. He was called to the bar in 1922. A year later he submitted his dissertation and received a doctoral degree from the LSE . In 1927 he obtained his second doctorate in economics from Columbia.

By any standard, Ambedkar’s education was extraordinary, and even more so because of his stringent financial circumstances. In the years between his return to India and his Columbia doctorate, he started journals that launched his career as a public figure while teaching at a Mumbai college to support his family. In Gopal’s book he emerges as an intellectual intent on transforming Indian public discourse. This commitment came out of experiencing caste bigotry while growing up, such as being told to sit at the back of classrooms and being denied access to the water faucet unless a school employee opened it for him. Even his considerable academic achievements did not exempt him later from several humiliations, including being denied accommodations. In this respect, his time in the US and the UK provided a welcome relief.

New York also introduced Ambedkar to pragmatism, the philosophy of his teacher at Columbia, John Dewey. Several scholars have noted Dewey’s influence on his ideas on democracy and equality, 6 as did Ambedkar himself. (He was hoping to meet with his former teacher in 1952 when Columbia invited him to New York to accept an honorary degree, but Dewey died two days before his arrival.) The philosopher Scott R. Stroud’s The Evolution of Pragmatism in India is a magnificent study of Ambedkar’s complex engagement with Dewey’s ideas, which he reworked to address India’s specific political and social conditions. Stroud calls this creative use of Dewey’s philosophy Navayana pragmatism, named after Ambedkar’s Navayana, or “new vehicle” Buddhism.

Pragmatism’s impact on Ambedkar is evident in his 1919 memorandum to the Southborough Committee, appointed by the British government to consider the implementation of constitutional reforms. Ambedkar rejected the claim that Indians formed a community, which was the basis of the nationalist demand for political reforms. He cited a passage from Dewey’s Democracy and Education that the existence of a community required its members to be like-minded, with aims, aspirations, and beliefs in common. But while Dewey suggested that like-mindedness was fostered by communication, Ambedkar argued that in India it came from belonging to a single social group. And India had a multitude of these groups—castes—isolated from one another. With no communication or intermingling, Hindus formed a community only in relation to non-Hindus. Among themselves, caste-mindedness was more important than like-mindedness. Divided between “touchables” and “untouchables,” they could become one community only if they were thrown together into “associated living,” a concept from Dewey.

Above all, Ambedkar’s memorandum demanded an end to caste inequality. In 1924 he established an organization to represent and advocate for all Dalit castes with the slogan “Educate, Agitate and Organise,” which he drew from British socialists. This advocacy took on a sharper tone by 1927, when his organization arranged two conferences that catalyzed what came to be known as the Ambedkari chalval (Ambedkarite movement). The actions it took included Ambedkar and other Dalits drinking water from a public tank and symbolically burning the Manusmriti (the Hindu scripture authorizing caste hierarchy). The reaction of upper-caste Hindus was ferocious. Dalits were assaulted, and rituals to “purify” the “defiled” spaces were performed.

Ambedkar compared the second of these conferences to the French National Assembly in 1789 and their symbolic actions to the fall of the Bastille. For him the deliberate violation of caste taboos was an assertion of civil rights. He still spoke of Dalits as belonging to Hindu society but warned that if savarnas (castes belonging to the four varna s ) opposed change, Dalits would become non-Hindus. What angered him the most was the purification ceremonies, which he saw as an attack on the humanity and sanctity of the Dalit physical body.

Ambedkar’s demand for social justice put him at odds with the nationalist movement and eventually with Gandhi. In a 1920 editorial he acknowledged that Indians were denied self-development under the British Raj, but that the same could be said of Dalits under the “Brahmin raj.” He wrote that they had every right to ask, “What have you done to throw open the path of self-development for six crore [60 million] Untouchables in the country?” He described the Gandhi-led Indian National Congress as “political radicals and social Tories” whose “delicate gentility will neither bear the Englishman as superior nor will it brook the Untouchables as equal.”

Clearly the disagreements were deep. Gandhi, like other nationalists, believed that freedom from British rule was the primary goal and that Hindu society could address untouchability after independence had been achieved. Ambedkar, drawing on Dewey’s ideas on associated life, argued that India was not yet a nation and could not become one without addressing caste injustice. The purpose of politics, in his view, was to enact social change that Hindu society was too caste-ridden to accomplish on its own.

The conflict between the two men came to a head at the Round Table Conferences ( RTC ) in London, organized by the British to discuss political devolution. Several Congress Party leaders had denounced Ambedkar as a government puppet when he was appointed in 1927 as a nonelected representative of Dalits (whom the British called Depressed Classes) in the Bombay Legislative Council. Their criticism escalated at the second RTC when Ambedkar demanded that Dalits be granted separate constituencies to elect their own representatives to provincial legislatures. The Congress saw this as falling for the classic colonial ploy of divide and rule. It was willing to concede separate electorates for Muslims but not for Dalits. Gandhi was especially opposed to Ambedkar’s stand because he saw the Dalits, unlike Muslims, as part of Hindu society. He went on a fast to oppose the 1932 Communal Award, an electoral scheme announced by the British government that accepted separate representation for both Muslims and Dalits.

The standoff was resolved only after Ambedkar, Gandhi, and upper-caste leaders signed the Poona Pact that September. Ambedkar dropped his demand for separate electorates and accepted the principle of reserved seats for Dalits elected by joint electorates. From later writings by Ambedkar, in particular Annihilation of Caste and What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables (1945), the Poona Pact appears to have been a breaking point between the two men, a view that historians have accepted. But Gopal shows that the picture was more complicated in 1932.

Gandhi saw himself as a champion of Dalits, whom he called Harijans (“children of God”). He was loath to concede that they were outside Hinduism, like Muslims, and required separate representation. He wanted savarnas to abandon the practice of untouchability by a change of heart. Though Ambedkar appreciated Gandhi’s efforts, he wanted separate electorates because joint electorates for reserved seats meant that only those candidates acceptable to savarnas would win. But he signed the Poona Pact and accepted the outcome, even if it amounted to a concession.

This, Gopal argues, indicates that the Poona Pact was not a moment of irremediable split. With meticulous research, he shows that Ambedkar was satisfied with it. Though his attitude changed in his later writings, Gopal conclusively demonstrates that he initially regarded the pact’s achievements as substantial. He also believed that Gandhi’s commitment to eliminating untouchability was genuine, even as he disagreed with his methods. He wrote, “Gandhiji should be now called ‘our man,’ because he is now speaking our language and our thoughts.” This is at odds with Tharoor’s contention that ungenerosity toward Gandhi was one of Ambedkar’s flaws. If anything, it was Ambedkar who showed generosity and political flexibility.

But this amity barely lasted a year. There was a fundamental difference in their respective understandings of caste and its relationship to Hinduism. Gandhi regarded untouchability as an ugly corruption of a basically benign varna system. He called himself a “Harijan by choice” and turned his attention to uplifting Dalits rather than to the elimination of untouchability or any fundamental change in Hinduism. Ambedkar intensely disliked the “Harijan” moniker, believing it concealed the real cause of oppression, which was the Hindu varna system. At a conference in 1935 Ambedkar declared that though he was born a Hindu, he would not die as one. A year later he published Annihilation of Caste , the text of an undelivered speech, which argued that caste, along with social hierarchy and untouchability, was essential to Hinduism as a religion.

It was a stinging critique, one that Gandhi did not accept. Tharoor, who also wrote Why I Am a Hindu (2018), regards it as too sweeping, ignoring the religion’s plural traditions and closing the possibility of any rapprochement. But Tharoor fails to appreciate Ambedkar’s aim, which was to force Hindus to confront what their religion had wrought. Ambedkar wrote that Hindus treated Dalits horribly not because of some malice in their hearts but because they were religious and were simply following their scriptures. The problem was deep-rooted. At least slaves could hope for emancipation. But there was no hope for Dalits: it was the fatal accident of their birth.

If this religiously sanctioned system of inequality was resistant to emancipatory change, what could be done? This question opens the second theme in Ambedkar’s preoccupation with a “life of contradictions”: constitutional democracy and the use of politics to achieve social change. From the start of his public activities, he had used constitutional methods, submitting memoranda to various British committees to recommend reforms and participating in the RTC . Mindful of his standing as a Dalit leader, the Congress Party chose Ambedkar as the chair of the committee to draft the constitution of independent India, which affirmed equality irrespective of caste, religion, language, or birthplace. 7 Untouchability was abolished, and seats in the Parliament were reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (the official name for historically disadvantaged groups since 1935). Inspired by the Irish constitution, the Indian constitution also included a section called Directive Principles of State Policy, which outlined broad measures of social welfare. But these did not establish legally enforceable rights; the expectation was that constitutional guidance would result in policies that would realize the goals of equality and fraternity.

Ambedkar observed in 1949 that adopting constitutional democracy meant that “we must abandon the bloody methods of revolution.” Liberty, equality, and fraternity were to be instituted through constitutional means. Although he had used these tactics himself in the past, he now showed little patience for the “stampede” of civil disobedience, which he called a “grammar of anarchy.” Gopal does not provide any explanation for this apparent contradiction. We are left to conclude that Ambedkar was so convinced of Hindu society’s resistance to equality that he could place his faith only in the state to transform power relations.

Tharoor criticizes him for this “statism,” but it was born of Ambedkar’s experience of upper-caste resistance to fundamental change. Accordingly, he drafted a constitution that equipped the state with vast powers to carry out an expansive social project. The constitution granted fundamental rights, but it also included provisions under which the state could circumscribe them, unencumbered by substantive judicial scrutiny. 8 Ambedkar and other framers of the constitution had hoped that “constitutional morality” would guide state leaders in the future to use these provisions sparingly. But Indira Gandhi used them in 1975 to impose a national Emergency and suspend basic rights, and today the Modi government systematically deploys them to pursue critics and activists it calls “anti-national.”

Ambedkar was invited by Jawaharlal Nehru in 1950 to join his government as law minister, and he accepted. As minister, he introduced the Hindu Code Bill, which included women’s marriage and inheritance rights. The RSS and the Congress Party savarnas opposed it bitterly, especially as a Dalit was proposing a law involving Hindu women. Nehru dithered, the bill stalled, and Ambedkar resigned. He dabbled in politics for a time, though not very successfully. His last years were increasingly devoted to establishing colleges for Dalits, writing, and promoting Buddhism.

His interest in Buddhism developed out of his conviction that religion provided the “social conscience” without which any rights provided by law remained dead letters. Hinduism could not do this because of its commitment to caste. In his interpretation of Buddhism, called Navayana or Neo-Buddhism, Ambedkar believed he had found a religion for the modern age for three reasons: it upheld reason and experience over the divine word; its moral code recognized liberty, equality, and fraternity; and it refused to ennoble or sanctify poverty as a blessed state. Unlike traditional religions that were concerned with God, the soul, and rituals, Buddhism had no concept of God or the soul, and the Buddha shunned rituals, advocating an inclusive path of righteous and moral living. Ambedkar expressed these ideas in Buddha and His Dhamma , a posthumously published treatise on Buddha’s life and philosophy. On October 15, 1956, he took the oath to accept Buddhism in a public meeting with a mass of his followers. He died two months later on December 6, having fulfilled the pledge made in 1935 that he would not die a Hindu.

Although many Dalits did convert to Buddhism, most did not. In any case Ambedkar never clarified how conversion would address conditions of material deprivation and oppression by savarnas. Most Dalits remain poor. They work as agricultural laborers, perform menial jobs, and are housed in settlements separated from savarnas. The political theorist Gopal Guru, quoting V.S. Naipaul, suggests that Dalits continue to be treated as “walking carrion.” But Ambedkar did help raise Dalits’ consciousness of their rights. Thanks to Ambedkar, the overt practice of untouchability in public life is frowned upon. The constitutional abolition of untouchability and the provision for reserving positions have changed the political landscape. Democracy has helped members of intermediate and lower castes, including Dalits, climb the ladders of power in government. In many states, particularly in the south, this has resulted in more inclusive governance and welfare. But the Dalits’ share of wealth and access to professional careers remain minimal, and the experience of social indignity and humiliation persists.

Ambedkar’s ambition for achieving democracy as a daily practice of equality remains a distant goal, but these books establish the depth and ambition of his ideas and their global relevance. Theorists of democracy and those worried about its crisis around the world could learn from his idea of it as something that goes beyond procedural norms, as a dedication to the free and equal association of all human beings. His frequent invocation of the principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity was not formulaic but purposeful. To realize this ambitious ideal, he wished to mobilize the combined forces of law, politics, the state, and religion as morality. Despite their differences, Ambedkar and Gandhi shared an understanding of the importance of conscience in effecting social change—realizing in practice what is written in law.

But there is little hope of this occurring under Modi, whose Hindu nationalist rhetoric has been amplified in the six-week national elections that end on June 1. Modi’s vitriolic anti-Muslim demagoguery hopes to unite Hindus as a solid voting bloc, but he maintains a deafening silence on Dalit demands for equality. To ensure victory, he imprisons opposition leaders. Political rivals are coerced into joining the BJP following raids on their homes by tax authorities. The BJP ’s election coffers are flush with corporate donations. Television networks and newspapers, controlled by friendly owners, regularly sing Modi’s praises and attack the opposition. Critical journalism has been forced to operate precariously on YouTube, in the face of government censorship and the BJP ’s army of social media bots.

Modi is leaving nothing to chance. The election results, to be announced on June 4, will determine if his government, in power since 2014, will secure a third term. Opposing the BJP is an alliance headed by the Congress Party, which led India to independence and ruled it for nearly sixty-five years. In its election manifesto it warns the country that the BJP is a danger to democracy and promises that it will undertake a caste census to determine the magnitude of economic and social inequality and introduce ameliorative policies. It thereby hopes to overcome Modi’s appeal to Hindu unity.

India’s democracy and Ambedkar’s vision of social equality are at stake as Indians vote. Meanwhile Rohith Vermula’s mother continues fighting to hold the authorities legally accountable for his death. 9 The election will have a significant impact on whether she will get a measure of justice for the young man who fought for Dalit rights and wrote poignantly about the “fatal accident” of his birth.

—May 23, 2024

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An earlier version of this article referred to the wrong book by Meera Nanda in footnote 6.

Gyan Prakash is the Dayton-Stockton Professor of History at Princeton, where he teaches the history of modern South Asia, colonialism, and postcolonial thought. His latest book is Emergency Chronicles: Indira Gandhi and Democracy’s Turning Point. (June 2024)

See Ratik Asokan, “The Long Struggle of India’s Sanitation Workers,” nybooks.com, August 24, 2023. ↩

See, for example, Gopal Guru and Sundar Sarukkai, The Cracked Mirror: An Indian Debate on Experience and Theory (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2012) and Experience, Caste, and the Everyday Social (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2019). ↩

Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India (Princeton University Press, 2001). ↩

Divya Cherian’s Merchants of Virtue: Hindus, Muslims, and Untouchables in Eighteenth-Century South Asia (University of California Press, 2022) shows that a caste order that regarded both Dalits and Muslims as “untouchables” was taking shape even prior to British rule in an eighteenth-century regional state. ↩

See Christophe Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics, 1925 to the 1990s (London: C. Hurst, 1996), pp. 32–33, 50–52. ↩

See, among others, Meera Nanda, Breaking the Spell of Dharma and Other Essays (New Delhi: Three Essays Collective, 2007); Eleanor Zelliot, Ambedkar’s World: The Making of Babasaheb and the Dalit Movement (New Delhi: Navayana, 2013); and Anand Teltumbde, Republic of Caste: Thinking Equality in the Time of Neoliberal Hindutva (New Delhi: Navayana, 2018). ↩

Aakash Singh Rathore’s Ambedkar’s Preamble: A Secret History of the Constitution of India (New Delhi: Vintage, 2020) suggests that Ambedkar was responsible for inserting justice, liberty, equality, and fraternity in the constitution’s preamble. ↩

On Ambedkar’s involvement in and approach to constitution framing, see my Emergency Chronicles: Indira Gandhi and Democracy’s Turning Point (Princeton University Press, 2019), pp. 38–74, 377–378. ↩

Deepa Dhanraj’s We Have Not Come Here to Die (2018) is a riveting documentary on the movement sparked by Rohith Vermula’s suicide and provides a poignant account of his mother’s fight for justice. ↩

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Religion in India: Tolerance and Segregation

1. Religious freedom, discrimination and communal relations

The dimensions of Hindu nationalism in India
India’s Muslims express pride in being Indian while identifying communal tensions, desiring segregation
Muslims, Hindus diverge over legacy of Partition
Religious conversion in India
Religion very important across India’s religious groups
Near-universal belief in God, but wide variation in how God is perceived
Across India’s religious groups, widespread sharing of beliefs, practices, values
Religious identity in India: Hindus divided on whether belief in God is required to be a Hindu, but most say eating beef is disqualifying
Sikhs are proud to be Punjabi and Indian
2. Diversity and pluralism
3. Religious segregation
4. Attitudes about caste
5. Religious identity
6. Nationalism and politics
7. Religious practices
8. Religion, family and children
9. Religious clothing and personal appearance
10. Religion and food
11. Religious beliefs
12. Beliefs about God
Acknowledgments
Appendix A: Methodology
Appendix B: Index of religious segregation

Indians generally see high levels of religious freedom in their country. Overwhelming majorities of people in each major religious group, as well as in the overall public, say they are “very free” to practice their religion. Smaller shares, though still majorities within each religious community, say people of other religions also are very free to practice their religion. Relatively few Indians – including members of religious minority communities – perceive religious discrimination as widespread.

At the same time, perceptions of discrimination vary a great deal by region. For example, Muslims in the Central region of the country are generally less likely than Muslims elsewhere to say there is a lot of religious discrimination in India. And Muslims in the North and Northeast are much more likely than Muslims in other regions to report that they, personally, have experienced recent discrimination.

Indians also widely consider communal violence to be an issue of national concern (along with other problems, such as unemployment and corruption). Most people across different religious backgrounds, education levels and age groups say communal violence is a very big problem in India.

The partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947 remains a subject of disagreement. Overall, the survey finds mixed views on whether the establishment of Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan alleviated communal tensions or stoked them. On balance, Muslims tend to see Partition as a “bad thing” for Hindu-Muslim relations, while Hindus lean slightly toward viewing it as a “good thing.”

Most Indians say they and others are very free to practice their religion

Indians nearly universally say they are very free to practice their religion; fewer say people of other religions very free

The vast majority of Indians say they are very free today to practice their religion (91%), and all of India’s major religious groups share this sentiment: Roughly nine-in-ten Buddhists (93%), Hindus (91%), Muslims (89%) and Christians (89%) say they are very free to practice their religion, as do 85% of Jains and 82% of Sikhs.

Broadly speaking, Indians are more likely to view themselves as having a high degree of religious freedom than to say that people of other religions are very free to practice their faiths. Still, 79% of the overall public – and about two-thirds or more of the members of each of the country’s major religious communities – say that people belonging to other religions are very free to practice their faiths in India today.

Generally, these attitudes do not vary substantially among Indians of different ages, educational backgrounds or geographic regions. Indians in the Northeast are somewhat less likely than those elsewhere to see widespread religious freedom for people of other faiths – yet even in the Northeast, a solid majority (60%) say there is a high level of religious freedom for other religious communities in India.

Most people do not see evidence of widespread religious discrimination in India

Relatively small shares across different age groups, educational backgrounds say there is a lot of religious discrimination in India

Most people in India do not see a lot of religious discrimination against any of the country’s six major religious groups. In general, Hindus, Muslims and Christians are slightly more likely to say there is a lot of discrimination against their own religious community than to say there is a lot of discrimination against people of other faiths. Still, no more than about one-quarter of the followers of any of the country’s major faiths say they face widespread discrimination.

Generally, Indians’ opinions about religious discrimination do not vary substantially by gender, age or educational background. For example, among college graduates, 19% say there is a lot of discrimination against Hindus, compared with 21% among adults with less education.

Within religious groups as well, people of different ages, as well as both men and women, tend to have similar opinions on religious discrimination.

Regional variations in Muslims’ perception of discrimination

However, there are large regional variations in perceptions of religious discrimination. For example, among Muslims who live in the Central part of the country, just one-in-ten say there is widespread discrimination against Muslims in India, compared with about one-third of those who live in the North (35%) and Northeast (31%). (For more information on measures of religious discrimination in the Northeast, see “ In Northeast India, people perceive more religious discrimination ” below.)

Among Muslims, perceptions of discrimination against their community can vary somewhat based on their level of religious observance. For instance, about a quarter of Muslims across the country who pray daily say there is a lot of discrimination against Muslims (26%), compared with 19% of Muslims nationwide who pray less often. This difference by observance is pronounced in the North, where 39% of Muslims who pray every day say there is a lot of discrimination against Muslims in India, roughly twice the share among those in the same region who pray less often (20%).

Most Indians report no recent discrimination based on their religion

Religious minorities generally no more likely than Hindus to report recent discrimination

The survey also asked respondents about their personal experiences with discrimination. In all, 17% of Indians report facing recent discrimination based on their religion. Roughly one-in-five Muslims (21%) and 17% of Hindus say that in the last 12 months they themselves have faced discrimination because of their religion, as do 18% of Sikhs. By contrast, Christians are less likely to say they have felt discriminated against because of their religion (10%), and similar shares of Buddhists and Jains (13% each) fall into this category.

Nationally, men and women and people belonging to different age groups do not differ significantly from each other in their experiences with religious discrimination. People who have a college degree, however, are somewhat less likely than those with less formal schooling to say they have experienced religious discrimination in the past year.

Within religious groups, experiences with discrimination vary based on region of residence and other factors. Among Muslims, for instance, 40% of those living in Northern India and 36% in the Northeast say they have faced recent religious discrimination, compared with no more than one-in-five in the Southern, Central, Eastern and Western regions.

Muslims in North, Northeast most likely to say they have experienced religious discrimination

Experiences with religious discrimination also are more common among Muslims who are more religious and those who report recent financial hardship (that is, they have not been able to afford food, housing or medical care for themselves or their families in the last year).

Muslims who have a favorable view of the Indian National Congress party (INC) are more likely than Muslims with an unfavorable view of the party to say they have experienced religious discrimination (26% vs. 15%). Among Northern Muslims, those who have a favorable view of the INC are much more likely than those who don’t approve of the INC to say they have experienced discrimination (45% vs. 23%). (Muslims in the country, and especially Muslims in the North, tend to say they voted for the Congress party in the 2019 election. See Chapter 6 .)

Hindus with less education and those who have recently experienced poverty also are more likely to say they have experienced religious discrimination.

In Northeast India, people perceive more religious discrimination

Less than 5% of India’s population lives in the eight isolated states of the country’s Northeastern region. This region broadly lags behind the country in economic development indicators. And this small segment of the population has a linguistic and religious makeup that differs drastically from the rest of the country.

According to the 2011 census of India, Hindus are still the majority religious group (58%), but they are less prevalent in the Northeast than elsewhere (81% nationally). The smaller proportion of Hindus there is offset by the highest shares of Christians (16% vs. 2% nationally) and Muslims (22% vs. 13% nationally) in any region. And based on the survey, the region also has a higher share of Scheduled Tribes than any other region in the country (25% vs. 9% nationally), and half of Scheduled Tribe members in the Northeast are Christians.

Highest perceptions of discrimination in the Northeast

Indians in the Northeast are more likely than those elsewhere to perceive high levels of religious discrimination. For example, roughly four-in-ten in the region say there is a lot of discrimination against Muslims in India, about twice the share of North Indians who say the same thing (41% vs. 22%).

Much of the Northeast’s perception of high religious discrimination is driven by Hindus in the region. A slim majority of Northeastern Hindus (55%) say there is widespread discrimination against Hindus in India, while almost as many (53%) say Muslims face a lot of discrimination. Substantial shares of Hindus in the Northeast say other religious communities also face such mistreatment.

The region’s other religious communities are less likely to say there is religious discrimination in India. For example, while 44% of Northeastern Hindus say Christians face a lot of discrimination, only one-in-five Christians in the Northeast perceive this level of discrimination against their own group. By contrast, at the national level, Christians are more likely than Hindus to see a lot of discrimination against Christians (18% vs. 10%).

People in the Northeast also are more likely to report experiencing religious discrimination. While 17% of individuals nationally say they personally have felt religious discrimination in the last 12 months, one-third of those surveyed in the Northeast say they have had such an experience. Northeastern Hindus, in particular, are much more likely than Hindus elsewhere to report recent religious discrimination (37% vs. 17% nationally).

Most Indians see communal violence as a very big problem in the country

Unemployment tops list of national concerns, but most in India see communal violence as a major issue

Most Indians (65%) say communal violence – a term broadly used to describe violence between religious groups – is a “very big problem” in their country (the term was not defined for respondents). This includes identical shares of Hindus and Muslims (65% each) who say this.

But even larger majorities identify several other national problems. Unemployment tops the list of national concerns, with 84% of Indians saying this is a very big problem. And roughly three-quarters of Indian adults see corruption (76%), crime (76%) and violence against women (75%) as very big national issues. (The survey was designed and mostly conducted before the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic.)

Indians across nearly every religious group, caste category and region consistently rank unemployment as the top national concern. Buddhists, who overwhelmingly belong to disadvantaged castes, widely rank unemployment as a major concern (86%), while just a slim majority see communal violence as a very big problem (56%).

Sikhs are more likely than other major religious groups in India to say communal violence is a major issue (78%). This concern is especially pronounced among college-educated Sikhs (87%).

Among Hindus, those who are more religious are more likely to see communal violence as a major issue: Fully 67% of Hindus who say religion is very important in their lives consider communal violence a major issue, compared with 58% among those who say religion is less important to them.

Indians in different regions of the country also differ in their concern about communal violence: Three-quarters of Indians in the Northeast say communal violence is a very big problem, compared with 59% in the West. Concerns about communal violence are widespread in the national capital of Delhi, where 78% of people say this is a major issue. During fieldwork for this study, major protests broke out in New Delhi (and elsewhere) following the BJP-led government’s passing of a new bill, which creates an expedited path to citizenship for immigrants from some neighboring countries – but not Muslims.

Indians divided on the legacy of Partition for Hindu-Muslim relations

Mixed views on whether Partition was a good or bad thing for Hindu-Muslim relations

The end of Britain’s colonial rule in India, in 1947, was accompanied by the separation of Hindu-majority India from Muslim-majority Pakistan and massive migration in both directions. Nearly three-quarters of a century later, Indians are divided over the legacy of Partition.

About four-in-ten (41%) say the partition of India and Pakistan was a good thing for Hindu-Muslim relations, while a similar share (39%) say it was a bad thing. The rest of the population (20%) does not provide a clear answer, saying Partition was neither a good thing nor a bad thing, that it depends, or that they don’t know or cannot answer the question. There are no clear patterns by age, gender, education or party preference on opinions on this question.

Among Muslims, the predominant view is that Partition was a bad thing (48%) for Hindu-Muslim relations. Fewer see it as a good thing (30%). Hindus are more likely than Muslims to say Partition was a good thing for Hindu-Muslim relations (43%) and less likely to say it was a bad thing (37%).

Of the country’s six major religious groups, Sikhs have the most negative view of the role Partition played in Hindu-Muslim relations: Nearly two-thirds (66%) say it was a bad thing.

Most Indian Sikhs live in Punjab, along the border with Pakistan. The broader Northern region (especially Punjab) was strongly impacted by the partition of the subcontinent, and Northern Indians as a whole lean toward the position that Partition was a bad thing for Hindu-Muslim relations (48%) rather than a good thing (39%).

Most Muslims in the North, West say Partition was a bad thing for Hindu-Muslim relations

The South is the furthest region from the borders affected by Partition, and Southern Indians are about twice as likely to say that Partition was good as to say that it was bad for Hindu-Muslim relations (50% vs. 26%).

Attitudes toward Partition also vary considerably by region within specific religious groups. Among Muslims in the North and West, most say Partition was a bad thing for Hindu-Muslim relations (55% of Muslims in both regions). In the Eastern and Central parts of the country as well, Muslim public opinion leans toward the view that Partition was a bad thing for communal relations. By contrast, Muslims in the South and Northeast tend to see Partition as good for Hindu-Muslim relations.

Among Hindus, meanwhile, those in the North are closely divided on the issue, with 44% saying Partition was a good thing and 42% saying it was a bad thing. But in the West and South, Hindus tend to see Partition as a good thing for communal relations.

Poorer Hindus – that is, those who say they have been unable to afford basic necessities like food, housing and medical care in the last year – tend to say Partition was a good thing. But opinions are more divided among Hindus who have not recently experienced poverty (39% say it was a good thing, while 40% say it was a bad thing). Muslims who have not experienced recent financial hardship, however, are especially likely to see Partition as a bad thing: Roughly half (51%) say Partition was a bad thing for Hindu-Muslim relations, while only about a quarter (24%) see it as a good thing.

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Opinion: I was born into India’s lowest caste. But nothing will stop me from embracing my joy

Editor’s Note: Shreeja Rao is a law student and journalist whose writing has appeared in The Guardian and The Times of India among other media outlets. She is also an incoming participant in the US Department of State’s Madeleine K. Albright Young Women Leaders Program. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. Read more opinion at CNN.

I come from India’s Dalit community of some 200 million people, a community that suffers the worst health outcomes , lacks access to clean water and sanitation and has been deprived of educational and occupational opportunities for centuries. Dalits were once contemptuously dismissed as “untouchables,” a term which today is understood to be a slur.

My community of Dalit women are doubly oppressed by caste and gender. Women in my community are the most vulnerable to sexual violence in India, for example. But to say that we are only limited by our misfortunes would be misguided, and far too reductive. The Dalit woman’s experience is unique. In our daily lives, and in myriad ways, we also embrace joy.

Our reality is far more complex and encompasses much more than the casteist gaze that fetishizes our pain and reduces our culture to our oppression. Dalit women like me are bound together by a sense of sisterhood woven with each other for as long as anyone can remember, and long before that. While cruelties continue to be perpetrated on us as part of India’s age-old hierarchy, we refuse to be defined by pain and oppression alone.

“You don’t look Dalit” is something that I and many accomplished women from my background have heard at least once in their lives, a clueless statement fueled by the caste-influenced thinking that Dalit women are defined — even in how we look — by an eternal state of oppression. Too often, social media and news stories focus only on violent atrocities against my community. Dalit women’s achievements, success and joy are achingly sidelined.

Yes, there are tragic stories about Dalits, but there are other stories about us that deserve to be told — stories about Dalit women becoming lawyers , journalists , policy analysts , engineers , athletes , fashion models , writers , civil service officers and musicians . These stories have changed my life as a young woman by offering examples of a way up and a path out, in the process altering my own trajectory.

I think of my mentor, Beena Pallical , who made history by becoming the first Dalit woman to address the UN General Assembly. She has long been a role model and inspiration. Pallical is the foremost policy expert on gender equity and caste justice in India. She once told me she feels joy when she hears about the impact of her work not just on big stages like the UN.

She also deepens her bonds within the community by welcoming the occasional supporter — perhaps a new mother who may stop by her office, baby in tow — or by taking a Dalit protegee like me under her wing. She is a consummate example of how Dalit women lean on each other and the mutual care and support that we give each other and take from each other to keep moving forward. And she is a reminder to me of something else a Dalit woman can be — a world beater and achiever, not just a victim of our identity.

While cruelties continue to be perpetrated on us as part of India’s age-old hierarchy, my community refuses to be defined by pain and oppression alone. Although gaining the constitutional right to equal education and employment has led to significant victories and more freedom than ever before in India’s caste-tainted history. Despite harsh realities faced by the people in my community, many have defied the odds and have overcome their struggles.

I cannot help thinking, as India wraps up its general election, about the ways that we’ve gained via the political process, through anti-discrimination laws that have opened up new possibilities in work and education. But even these victories have come at a significant cost. The ignorant debates that continue to be spewed against affirmative action label us as undeserving. But these advances have led Dalit women to significant victories and more freedom than ever before in India’s caste-tainted history.

After centuries of oppression and subjugation, such inroads will never be enough. Maybe there have been some promises that have been fulfilled by politicians seeking our votes. At least as often, there have been promises broken, a reminder that in the end, as we have always done, we need to fend for ourselves and lean on each other.

Without the accomplishments of other Dalit women exemplars, I would not have dared believe that I could achieve what I have early in my career, getting into law school, becoming an activist, journalist, a perhaps a future diplomat . Maybe one day, a Dalit girl or woman will take heart from my example and find the strength to keep pushing forward in her goals too.

Here’s what leaning into joy as a Dalit woman looks like: Sitting in my grandmother’s lap as a child, as she moved mountains with her storytelling. Seeing the only Dalit woman hockey player score a hat-trick at the Olympics, becoming the first Indian woman to do so.

Joy is ranking number one in my exams toward the dream of becoming the first lawyer in my family. Joy is also going to the Buddha Vihara to give thanks the day my best friend gets a job. It is dancing in a sea of blue, with a crowd of women I have never met before, on Ambedkar Jayanti , the holiday celebrating the birthday of India’s revered Dalit constitutionalist leader. Joy is also singing Bhim Geet , the folk songs of praise for our leader on the way there.

And there is joy in seeing the women of my community represent us on global stages and being inspired by their courage, because who I am today would never be a reality without the sisterhood I inherited from my community.

Dalit women insist on moving past the societal conditioning that defines my community only by our suffering. We want to be seen as multifaceted individuals with a full palette of human experience and emotion, heard for our struggles, but also celebrated for our achievements. Watching the women of my community find their joy in this makes all the difference.

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Inside the movement to ban caste discrimination across the US

California leaders are debating a bill to ban caste discrimination statewide.

Some South Asians, many miles away from their homes, say they are suffering from experiences with discrimination that dates back to thousands of years.

From job rejections to unsupported marriages, they claim that severe harassment from the caste system crossed over into America and has gone unchecked.

"When we talk about our personal experience, people don't believe me," Prem Paariyar, a Nepalese immigrant who said he was discriminated against because of his caste both back home and in the U.S., told ABC News Live. "Not just my experience, our experience."

PHOTO: Prem Paariyar, an anti-caste activist, speaks with ABC News.

But state and local leaders on the West Coast are seeking to address the issue with legislation that anti-caste advocates say could help curb this inequality.

MORE: Video Movement to add caste as a protected class in US anti-discrimination laws

The caste system started as a social construct created over 3,000 years ago in South Asia. People are born into distinct groups, that came with their own social hierarchy and political and economic status, according to Anupama Rao, a history professor at Columbia University.

Brahmins, or ritual specialists on top are considered the top caste, followed by the Kshatriyas, the warrior caste, then the Waishyas, which was the caste that represented farmers, traders or merchants, and finally the Shudras, who are also known as the "untouchables."

Rao told ABC News that members of Shudras were forced to do the worst kind of jobs including hauling carcasses and excrement. She said they are sometimes referred to as Dalit, which is a term of militant self-identification, that means ground down, broken, crushed.

PHOTO: Anupama Rao, a professor of history at Columbia University, has studied caste discrimination in the U.S.

"Caste operates as an engine of social hierarchy and as a form of political and economic inequality," she said.

Although the Indian government banned caste discrimination in 1948, it has still existed culturally, according to Rao.

"The ways in which caste operates is subtle and not so subtle," she said. "People trying to figure out what your caste is through your last name, people being very interested in knowing about your cultural and social practices, all trying to get a sense of ways in which you can cut into somebody's caste identity."

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Alok Kumbhare said he has faced discrimination all of his life because of his name and caste. He remembered a music teacher in India discouraged him from learning music after learning his name as a child.

Kumbhare held back tears recalling a former landlord in India who harassed him over his caste and told him, " You stink up the toilet too much, I should’ve made you clean and that's what you're good for."

"This implicit notion of superiority and inferiority creeps in all the time," the married father of one told ABC News Live.

PHOTO: Alok Kumbhare, an anti-caste activist, speaks with ABC News.

Paariyar said his family was brutally attacked in Nepal by members of a dominant caste and he fled to the U.S. seeking political asylum.

When he arrived in America, however, Paariyar said that his harassment didn't go away.

After getting a job at a restaurant, Paariyar said he was denied housing that those workers typically used because they were all part of the dominant caste.

"After a month, I was homeless…I was in a van," he said.

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Pariyar would eventually graduate from California State University with a degree in social work, and spearheaded efforts to end caste discrimination on campus.

PHOTO: Thenmozhi Soundararajan, a South Asian-American activist, and the executive director of Equality Labs, speaks with ABC News.

Some South Asian Americans said that the discrimination is strong even in bigger organizations and groups.

Thenmozhi Soundararajan, a South Asian-American activist, and the executive director of Equality Labs, told ABC News that she was originally invited to speak at Google about caste bias but her invitation was rescinded after some employees complained.

"I had a Google V.P. news manager tell me, 'Well, you know, caste is not a protected category,' and that's just me as a speaker imagining what they're telling to workers," Soundararajan said.

She said that after the incident, she had to live in a safe house because of threats.

Google claimed in a statement to ABC News, "In this instance, there was specific conduct, and internal posts, that made employees feel targeted and retaliated against for raising concerns about a proposed talk. We made the decision not to move forward."

"Caste discrimination has no place in our workplace and it’s prohibited in our policies. We have long hosted a variety of constructive conversations with external guests on these sorts of topics," the company said in a statement.

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Soundararajan and other anti-caste advocates have long been calling on the government to address the issue and recently local leaders have been pushing legislation that bans caste discrimination.

In February, Seattle became the first major city outside of South Asia to ban caste discrimination .

On May 11, the California state Senate passed SB 403 which would make caste a protected category in California's anti-discrimination laws. The law is working its way through the state Assembly.

PHOTO: California State Sen. Aisha Wahab proposes SB 403, a bill which adds caste as a protected category in the state's anti-discrimination laws, in Sacramento, Calif., March 22, 2023.

"As our state becomes more diverse, our laws need to go further and deeper in communities and tackle the issues that matter to them," State Sen. Aisha Wahab, the lead sponsor of the bill, told ABC News Live.

The bill, however, was met with resistance from some South Asians who contend that caste discrimination isn't as prevalent as some others claim.

Puspita Prasad, a member of the group The Coalition of Hindus of North America which has opposed SB 403 and Seattle's law, told ABC News Live, the nature of the legislation is discriminatory

"We object to this word caste. The word caste is in the Western lexicon. It's a Hindu phobic term. It is not a neutral term," Prasad said.

Rao acknowledged that most people associate the term caste with the Hindu religion but said "caste and caste-like differences and exclusions are also in evidence in Muslim and Christian communities across South Asia."

PHOTO: Alok Kumbhare spends time with his family.

Alok and other anti-caste advocates say the Seattle and California movements are positive signs that people are becoming cognizant of the issue and are willing to make change to end the cycle of discrimination.

"This ordinance is all about hope," he said of the Seattle legislation. "It will create this ripple effect [that] can create a more inclusive environment," he said.

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School guide
Social Science Notes
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Social Science Solutions
English Grammar
Science Solution
Biology Solutions
Mathematics Solutions
R.D.Sharma Solutions
NCERT Solutions For Class 10 Political Science (Civics) Chapter 4: Gender, Religion and Caste
Gender, Religion and Caste Class 10 Notes Chapter 4 Civics
NCERT History Solutions for Class 8: Chapter 7 – Women, Caste, and Reform
NCERT Solutions For Class 10 Geography Chapter 4 Agriculture
NCERT Solutions Class 9 History Chapter 1 French Revolution
NCERT Solutions Class 10 Social Science Civics Chapter 2 : Federalism
NCERT Solutions for Class 12 Chapter 2 Human Reproduction
NCERT Solutions for Class 10 Science Chapter 8 Heredity
Chapter 3: Parliament and Making of Laws - NCERT Solutions For Class 8
NCERT Solutions of Chapter 4: Judiciary For Class-8
NCERT Solutions for Class 8 Science Chapter 1 - Crop Production and Management
Chapter 3 Democracy and Diversity - NCERT Solution Class 10 Social Science
NCERT Solutions Class 9 Civics Social Science Chapter 5: Democratic Rights
Democracy and Diversity Class 10 Notes Civics Chapter 3
NCERT Solutions Class 9 Civics Social Science Chapter 3: Electoral Politics
NCERT Solutions Class 9 Civics Chapter 2 Constitutional Design
NCERT History Solutions for Class 8: Chapter 5 – When People Rebel – 1857 and After
NCERT Solutions for Class 10 Political Science Chapter 8 : Challenges to Democracy
NCERT Solutions for Class 10 Maths: Chapter Wise PDF

NCERT Solutions for Class-10 Civic Chapter-3: Gender, Religion, and Caste

Gender, Religion, and Caste – Class 10 NCERT Solution discusses the power relations between various social groupings and the levels of government. You will learn the significance of power-sharing for democracy in this chapter. Students can learn more about gender equality in society as well as other important topics including inequality, societal divides, and much more from this chapter. Also, students can learn a little bit about how the government fills in all the blanks left by the constitutional requirements. There are questions about caste inequality, gender and religious differences, etc. in the end of the chapter. Our Top Social Science Experts prepare these NCERT Solutions to take care of all Important Topics that might be asked in the upcoming examination 2024-2025. So, Students can refer to these solutions for their final Examination preparation.

These Class-10 Political Science Chapter – 3 Gender, Religion, and Caste NCERT Solutions are carefully developed using easy-to-understand language while adhering to the guidelines for solving NCERT Solutions for Class 10. Working through these solutions can be highly beneficial for students in their board exams and preparing for future competitive Exams.

NCERT Solutions Class – 10 Political Science Chapter – 3: Gender, Religion, and Caste

Exercises pages no 44, 45, q1. mention different aspects of life in which women are discriminated against or disadvantaged in india..

Women in India face discrimination and disadvantages in various aspects of life, including: Education: Girls often receive less access to education compared to boys, leading to lower literacy rates and limited career opportunities. Employment: Women frequently encounter wage gaps, limited job opportunities, and workplace discrimination, restricting their economic independence. Health: Women have less access to healthcare services and face higher mortality rates due to inadequate medical care, especially in rural areas. Political Representation: Women’s representation in political positions is low, limiting their influence in decision-making processes. Social Norms : Cultural and societal norms often prioritize men, leading to practices like dowry, child marriage, and female infanticide.

Q2. State different forms of communal politics with one example each.

Different forms of communal politics include:

Communalism as a Majoritarian Dominance: Example: In Sri Lanka, the Sinhala-majority government implemented policies that favored Sinhala over Tamil, leading to ethnic tensions and civil conflict. Communalism through Political Mobilization: Example : During elections in India, some political parties appeal to specific religious communities to garner votes, often leading to divisive rhetoric and social polarization. Communal Riots and Violence: Example: The Gujarat riots of 2002 in India, where communal tensions between Hindus and Muslims escalated into large-scale violence, resulting in significant loss of life and property. Ghettoization and Segregation: Example: In some urban areas of India, religious communities tend to live in segregated neighborhoods, such as Muslim-majority areas in cities like Mumbai and Ahmedabad, often due to social and economic marginalization. Use of Religious Symbols and Slogans in Politics: Example : The use of religious symbols and slogans by political parties, such as the BJP’s use of the Ram Mandir issue to rally Hindu support in India, leading to increased communal sentiments.

Q3. State how caste inequalities are still continuing in India.

Caste inequalities persist in India through various forms. Social discrimination remains prevalent, with Dalits often excluded from temples and community events. Economically, many lower castes are confined to low-paying jobs and face limited opportunities, perpetuating poverty. Educational disparities are evident as lower caste students frequently attend underfunded schools, resulting in lower academic achievements. Politically, despite quotas, representation of lower castes in high offices remains limited, affecting their policy influence. Violence against lower castes, such as honor killings and assaults, continues to occur. Access to resources like clean water, land, and housing is often controlled by upper castes, while healthcare disparities result in poorer health outcomes for lower caste individuals.

Q4. State two reasons to say that caste alone cannot determine election results in India.

Two reasons why caste alone cannot determine election results in India are: Voters consider a range of issues beyond caste, such as economic policies, development programs, governance quality, and candidate performance. Political parties also appeal to voters on the basis of broader issues like national security, economic development, and social welfare, which can outweigh caste considerations. Indian society is characterized by overlapping identities, including religion, language, region, and class. These identities often intersect with caste, leading to a more complex voting behavior. Additionally, coalition politics and alliances between different caste groups dilute the influence of any single caste on election outcomes.

Q5. What is the status of women’s representation in India’s legislative bodies?

The status of women’s representation in India’s legislative bodies remains low. Despite various efforts to enhance their participation, women constitute a small percentage of the total seats in Parliament and state legislatures. For example, as of the latest data, women hold about 14% of the seats in the Lok Sabha (the lower house of Parliament) and around 11% in the Rajya Sabha (the upper house of Parliament). In state legislative assemblies, the proportion of women representatives varies but generally remains below 10%. Although there have been discussions and proposals for reserving 33% of seats for women in legislative bodies, these measures have yet to be implemented fully.

Q6. Mention any two constitutional provisions that make India a secular state.

Two constitutional provisions that make India a secular state are:

Article 25: This article guarantees freedom of conscience and the right to freely profess, practice, and propagate any religion, ensuring that individuals can follow and express their religious beliefs without state interference.
Article 28: This article prohibits religious instruction in any educational institution wholly funded by the state, ensuring that government-funded schools remain secular and do not promote any particular religion.

Q7. When we speak of gender divisions, we usually refer to:

(a) biological difference between men and women, (b) unequal roles assigned by the society to men and women, (c) unequal child sex ratio, (d) absence of voting rights for women in democracies.

When we speak of gender divisions, we usually refer to: (b) Unequal roles assigned by the society to men and women.

Q8. In India seats are reserved for women in

(a) lok sabha, (b) state legislative assemblies, (c) cabinets, (d) panchayati raj bodies.

In India, seats are reserved for women in: (d) Panchayati Raj bodies.

Q9. Consider the following statements on the meaning of communal politics. Communal politics is based on the belief that:

A. one religion is superior to that of others., b. people belonging to different religions can live together happily as equal citizens., c. followers of a particular religion constitute one community., d. state power cannot be used to establish the domination of one religious group over others., which of the statements are correct, (a) a, b, c, and d (b) a, b, and d (c) a and c (d) b and d.

The correct statements about the meaning of communal politics are: (b) A and C

Q10. Which among the following statements about India’s Constitution is wrong? It

(a) prohibits discrimination on grounds of religion., (b) gives official status to one religion., (c) provides to all individuals freedom to profess any religion., (d) ensures equality of citizens within religious communities..

The wrong statement about India’s Constitution is: (c) gives official status to one religion.

Q11. Social divisions based on _________ are peculiar to India.

Social divisions based on caste are peculiar to India.

Q12. Match List I with List II and select the correct answer using the codes given below the Lists:

Summary – ncert solutions for class 10 political science chapter 3: gender, religion, and caste.

In conclusion, NCERT Solutions for Class 10 Political Science Chapter 3: Gender, Religion, and Caste provide valuable information about the complexities of social divisions in India. Through detailed explanations and examples, students gain a deeper understanding of the interplay between gender, religion, and caste in influencing the country’s socio-political scenario. By exploring the challenges and inequalities faced by various groups, the chapter encourages critical thinking and reflection on the principles of equality and inclusion. Overall, these solutions serve as a comprehensive resource for students to understand and analyze the diverse nature of social divisions in India’s diverse society.

Also Check: Power Sharing Class 10 Civics Notes Chapter 1 Federalism Class 10 Notes Civics Chapter 2 Gender, Religion and Caste: Class-10 Chapter-3 Civics Notes

FAQs on NCERT Solutions for Class 10 Political Science Chapter 3: Gender, Religion, and Caste

What are ncert solutions for class 10 political science chapter 3.

NCERT Solutions offer detailed explanations and answers to questions from the textbook, aiding students in understanding the concepts of gender, religion, and caste in Indian society.

How can NCERT Solutions for Chapter 3 benefit students?

These solutions provide information about the complexities of gender, religion, and caste, helping students grasp the socio-political dynamics and their impact on Indian society.

Are NCERT Solutions for Chapter 3 easily accessible?

Yes, they are available at the top of the article. Also, they are widely available online and in bookstores, ensuring students have convenient access to study materials for exam preparation.

Do NCERT Solutions cover all the topics comprehensively in Chapter 3?

Yes, they cover all key concepts discussed in the chapter, offering thorough explanations and solutions to questions to aid in better understanding.

Can NCERT Solutions for Chapter 3 assist in critical analysis of gender, religion, and caste dynamics?

Absolutely, they encourage critical thinking and reflection on the complexities of social divisions, providing a platform for deeper analysis and understanding.

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India election results: Did ‘secular’ parties let Muslims down too?

Scared of the BJP describing them as pro-Muslim, these parties distanced themselves from the community, analysts say.

A Muslim voter shows her index finger marked with an indelible ink after casting her vote

As Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi addressed journalists after election results demonstrated a dramatic setback for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), he held up a pocket-sized version of India’s Constitution.

“It was a fight to save the constitution. I would like to thank everybody who has participated in this election. I am proud of the people who resisted the onslaught on this constitution,” Gandhi said on Tuesday evening.

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“It’s the poor and marginalised people who came out to save the constitution. Workers, farmers, Dalits, adivasis [Indigenous] and backwards have helped saved this constitution.

“This constitution is the voice of the people. We stand with you and fulfil the promises.”

Missing from the list of people Gandhi thanked were India’s 200 million Muslims, the country’s largest religious minority. Muslims are believed to have overwhelmingly voted for Gandhi’s INDIA alliance, which won 232 seats in the elections for the Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament — below the halfway mark of 272 but significantly more than exit polls had predicted. Modi’s BJP won 240 seats, falling short of a majority on its own and leaving it dependent on allies to form a government for the first time since Modi came to power in 2014.

Muslims stand in queues to cast their votes in the seventh and final phase of national elections

Gandhi’s omission was no one-off. It was part of a pattern, say analysts, observers and many Indian Muslims – one that has seen opposition parties demonstrate seeming reluctance to even mention Muslims.

“They know that a large part of India’s [predominantly Hindu] middle class is radicalised to the extent that taking the name of Muslims might harm the fortunes of political parties,” Mohammed Ali, an award-winning journalist based in New Delhi, said, speaking of Gandhi’s Indian National Congress party and other opposition groups.

As India’s multiphase national elections drew to a close with the declaration of results, the curtains also came down on a campaign that turned increasingly vitriolic towards Muslims. Modi himself faced a warning from the Election Commission after a series of speeches that critics said represented hate speech. He referred to Muslims as “infiltrators” and “ those who have more children ”. And he referenced a series of Islamophobic tropes that have been widely debunked.

A Muslim youth who asked to remain anonymous said the elections were like a nightmare. “It was six weeks of nonstop anti-Muslim dog whistles. We do not feel part of this process,” he said.

Yet, through it all, many Indian Muslims say they also felt let down by the country’s so-called secular opposition parties, many of whom refused to even refer to their fears and concerns. That is reflected in a parliamentary landscape that, on its surface, appears contradictory.

The BJP with its Hindu majoritarian ideology has lost seats while avowedly secular opposition parties have gained ground. But the incoming parliament will have one of the lowest number of Muslim MPs – 22 – since independence.

Opposition avoids using word ‘Muslim’

The leaders of the opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) did criticise Modi for bringing religion into his campaign. But analysts and many within the Muslim community point out that the opposition largely avoided raising Muslim concerns.

Dozens of Muslims have been lynched over accusations of cow smuggling as their food choices and public prayers have come under attack from vigilantes. Governments in several BJP-ruled states have enacted laws to prevent interfaith marriage – pandering to the conspiracy theory of “love jihad”, which suggests, without evidence, that Muslim men try to marry non-Muslim women to convert them to Islam.

And in 2020, India’s capital, New Delhi, witnessed riots in which at least 53 people were killed, most of them Muslim.

The Congress party and its alliance partner the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which governs Delhi, were silent on justice for the victims of those riots during the campaign – a sore point for people like Nisar Ahmad, a resident of Mustafabad in East Delhi.

The 50-year-old ran a thriving garment business before the riots, but that was shut down due to threats from his Hindu neighbours, and he was forced to sell his house in East Delhi’s Bhagirathivihar because he was worried about his safety there after the riots.

“In the election campaign, no one cared to talk about the victims of the Delhi riots and justice for them,” Nisar told Al Jazeera.

Ahmad, who is one of the witnesses in court cases related to the Delhi riots, said he cannot forget how his neighbours were beaten, stripped and killed. “For me, everything has changed since the riots. I still feel unsafe in my own country,” he said.

“No one is talking about Muslims. The politicians fear if they use the word Muslim in their campaigns, it might hurt their vote bank,” Nisar said, referring to the opposition’s reluctance to discuss issues important to Muslims in campaign speeches. “I have voted and still hope somewhere that things might change.”

Others echoed his sentiments in Jamia Nagar, another Muslim neighbourhood in South Delhi.

“In previous elections, many politicians visited the area, and we would feel there is an election vibe,” Muhammad Shakir told Al Jazeera. This time, though, he said, “There has been no talk about our issues and local problems.

“It feels like everyone is ignoring Muslims deliberately,” he said.

Muslims portrayed as a threat

Irfan Ahmed, a professor of anthropology at Ibn Haldun University in Istanbul, questioned the often touted description of India’s elections as the largest festival of democracy. “For those denied justice and dignity, it may look like the world’s biggest circus,” he said.

“Since 2014, this electoral circus has passionately been staging Muslims as a threat against which people are asked to vote,” Irfan told Al Jazeera. “While the BJP issues the threat openly, the non-BJP parties do implicitly: That is by remaining silent.”

No party, he said, “has the courage to talk about the violence done to the Muslims”.

Al Jazeera spoke to several Muslims across India who shared the same sentiment.

Experts say non-BJP parties have been reluctant to even say the word “Muslim” because the BJP has created a perception that secular parties have favoured the minority community.

“Should your hard-earned money be given to infiltrators?” Modi asked a crowd in April in the state of Rajasthan as his party alleged – without basis – that the opposition was planning to take wealth from unprivileged caste Hindus and give it to Muslims.

All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) President Asaduddin Owaisi

Guru Prakash Paswan, a spokesperson for the BJP, denied his party was against minorities. Instead, he accused the opposition of playing “divisive politics.”

“As far as the BJP is concerned, we never distinguish or discriminate on the name of religion. We follow the principles of non-discrimination guaranteed under the constitution. Like our PM says, ‘Sab ka sath, sab ka vikas, sab ka Vishwas’ [‘Everyone’s support, everyone’s development, everyone’s trust’] is our motive,” he told Al Jazeera.

But the reality feels very different for many Indian Muslims. And it is not just the BJP that they blame.

Dwindling Muslim representation

Parties belonging to the INDIA alliance gave fewer tickets to Muslim candidates this time than they did in 2019 at a time when Muslim representation in parliament was already at its lowest since independence in 1947.

Non-BJP parties gave 115 tickets to Muslims in 2019, but the newly formed INDIA alliance fielded only 78 Muslims this year. The Lok Sabha has 543 seats.

In Maharashtra state with a population of 10 million Muslims, non-BJP parties did not give a single ticket to Muslims while in Uttar Pradesh state, home to 40 million Muslims, the state’s main opposition Samajwadi Party (SP) fielded just four Muslims. The SP has long counted Muslims among its core voters.

The Bahujan Samaj Party, a pro-Dalit party, fielded 35 Muslims across India, including 17 in Uttar Pradesh.

In Bihar state, the Rashtriya Janata Dal, part of the INDIA alliance, gave tickets to two Muslims. The state has 20 million Muslims while four out of 20 of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) candidates in Kerala were Muslims. One-fourth of the state’s population is Muslim.

The Trinamool Congress party, which governs West Bengal state in eastern India, fielded six Muslims, including five in West Bengal. One-third of the state’s nearly 100 people are Muslims.

Most of Muslims won from constituencies with substantial Muslim populations.

Historically, Muslim representation in the legislature has been low, but it has declined since the rise of the BJP in the 1990s. In the outgoing parliament, 27 MPs were Muslims.

“Addressing the question of representation is a bit complicated in a country which has one of the largest clusters of billionaires while at the same time is home to the largest numbers of poor people in the world,” said a professor of political science at New Delhi-based Jamia Millia Islamia University who wished to remain anonymous.

“You have economically and socially marginalized groups vying for the limited resources, so giving any concession to one group faces resistance from other vulnerable social groups,” he told Al Jazeera.

“And it was this fear that the BJP exploited by hammering out the message that the Congress party was planning to snatch reservations from unprivileged caste Hindus and give them to Muslims.”

Averting Hindu consolidation

The BJP fielded just one Muslim candidate this year, and none of its 302 members in the outgoing parliament is Muslim.

Paswan, the BJP spokesman, defended his party, saying it works for all communities.

The BJP party has done “unparalleled welfare work for minority communities” in the past 10 years, he told Al Jazeera. He said the party has nominated Muslims to the upper house of parliament.

Experts say non-BJP parties avoid giving many tickets to Muslims to avert a consolidation of Hindu voters behind the BJP. All of that underscores a deeper issue with the way so-called secular parties view Muslims, Professor Irfan said: only as voters, not as leaders.

While the INDIA alliance has been cool towards Muslim parties such as the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), based in the southern city of Hyderabad, and the All India United Democratic party, based in the northeastern state of Assam, it has not hesitated to include outright Hindu parties.

The Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), based in Maharashtra, is led by the son of Balasaheb Thackeray, who was accused – though never formally charged – with instigating anti-Muslim violence in Mumbai in the early 1990s. Today, the party is a part of the INDIA alliance although it still has a Hindu majoritarian agenda.

Shama Mohamed, a Congress spokesperson, defended the party’s stand on minorities.

“We will ensure that the minorities receive their fair share of opportunities in education, healthcare, public employment, public works contracts, skill development, sports and cultural activities without discrimination.

“We will respect and uphold the fundamental right to practise one’s faith and the rights guaranteed to religious minorities under … the constitution.”

‘Muslim’ missing from manifestos

An analysis of the manifesto of the Congress party, Samajwadi Party, Rashtriya Janata Dal, Trinamool Congress party, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and Communist Party of India (Marxist) – all major opposition parties – shows that most of them did not use the word Muslim and stayed away from issues facing the community.

The Samajwadi Party coined a new catchline for the campaign: Pichhda, Dalit and Alpasankhyak (Backward, Dalit and minorities) in an attempt to get rid of its pro-Muslim image.

The party manifesto as well as the speeches of its top leader, Akhilesh Yadav, steered clear of topics concerning Muslims such as extrajudicial killings and the use of bulldozers to demolish Muslim homes and businesses.

In neighbouring Bihar state, the regional Rashtriya Janata Dal party also tried to change its pro-Muslim image. It coined a new catchphrase to expand its base beyond the Muslim and Yadavs, an unprivileged caste Hindu group. The party’s main leader, Tejasvi Yadav, tried to underplay the Muslim connection, pointing out that his party stood for all young people in one of the poorest states in India. Youth employment was his biggest election focus.

The Congress party, which leads the INDIA alliance, also avoided using the word Muslim in its manifesto. Its focus has been social equity and representation of unprivileged caste Hindus in jobs and other government institutions.

In 2018, former party leader Sonia Gandhi said Congress needed to shed the notion that it was a pro-Muslim party.

In its manifesto, the party also did not mention the government’s repeal under Modi of Indian-administered Kashmir’s semiautonomous status in 2019 and stayed silent about attacks against Muslims.

Meanwhile, the Aam Aadmi Party launched a website AAPKaRamRajya.com before the elections to showcase its work – in effect mirroring the BJP’s longstanding promise to turn India, officially a secular nation, into Ram Rajya (kingdom of Lord Ram).

In West Bengal, the ruling Trinamool Congress party promised in its manifesto to abolish a citizenship law that was enacted in 2019 and that many critics say discriminates against Muslims. The Trinamool Congress also committed to not implementing a uniform civil code, a policy pushed by the BJP that would end personal laws that allow Muslims and other communities to follow their traditional customs and practices when it comes to marriage inheritance and other civil matters. Still, the party manifesto did not mention the word “Muslim”.

Analysts say the BJP’s Hindu majoritarian push has made Muslim issues disappear from public discourse.

Mohammad Reyaz, an assistant professor at Aliah University in the eastern city of Kolkata, said the silence of so-called secular parties on Muslims, while disappointing, is not surprising – in part because they knew the community would not vote for the BJP in any case.

“Muslims will still vote for secular parties despite their marginalization. They have little choice available,” Mohammad said.

Supporters of India's opposition parties, Indian National Congress (INC) and Communist Party of India

Not all are silent

To be sure, not all political parties have been silent.

The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), which governs the southern state of Tamil Nadu, and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPM), which has been in power in neighbouring Kerala since 2016, mentioned Muslims in their manifestos.

The DMK promised to repeal the contentious citizenship law and grant job reservations to Muslims. The party also criticised the revocation of Kashmir’s special status. The CPM is also committed to restoring Kashmir’s special status, Mariam Alexander Baby, a party leader, said.

The CPM’s manifesto specifically talked about attacks against Muslims and promised to ban vigilante groups. It talked about compensation to Muslims who have been wrongfully jailed under a series of laws, including “anti-terror” laws.

But what about other parties?

Irfan, who is also the author of The Algebra of Warfare-Welfare, which analysed the 2014 elections, said that at the end of the day, many parties use language similar to that of the BJP.

“Rahul Gandhi, the so-called secular leader of the Congress party, eloquently speaks about Dalits, adivasis and so on, but he lacks the courage to even mention the word Muslim, let alone highlight their plight demonstrated by many research and reports,” Irfan said.

“In that sense, the difference between Gandhi and Modi is only technical. Both favour an ethnic populist democracy though their respective styles are not identical.”

Rifat Fareed contributed reporting from New Delhi

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