Manual Scavenging: A Mephitic Heredity of Social Stratum

The destructive and suffocative practice of manual scavenging prevails foremost in India and several parts of South Asia. The method involves “manually” or hand-operated removal of the excrements, feces, and sewerages from an unhygienic, and contaminated open place, pit, or toilet. Manual scavenging in India is fundamentally concerned as a caste and class-based differentiated and inherited profession. The practice, already been banned in India is still pervasively in execution till the present era covering most parts of India. The application of manual scavenging in the country is primarily a caste-based, age-old routine involving scavengers from a “particular community” people belonging to which are inherited the profession of such nature. The worsening conditions of scavengers day by day and unavailability of sufficient rights and recognitions from the law regulating the society is a worrisome and perturbing issue in today’s era which remains unaddressed. The perception of being an “untouched” community, the discrimination, the humiliation, the ill-treatment which people practicing the profession are facing has resulted in an unbalanced, biased, and exploited human society to live in which has no parallel in human history. The eradication of the practice can only be done by strengthening the legal pillars of the country while ensuring appropriate protection of the rights and lives of people involved in the concerned profession. This article aims to introduce and bring consciousness on the subject of roots, causes, and genesis of Manual Scavenging with diligent analysis, and promotes, recommends, and propounds advanced technological driven, socially as well as legally pertinent solutions to it.