By Dhruv Pachauri
If you cannot modify something you have to destroy it completely and rebuild. We need to destroy the whole caste system – Bezwada Wilson
While scrolling through YouTube, a documentary made by Samdish Bhatia on Manual scavengers in Mumbai stunned me. Immediately, multiple questions were in front of me. What is manual scavenging & why is it still prevalent in India? Are we as a society sending people to gas chambers to die off? Why only people of certain castes have to risk their lives?
Let us start with understanding manual scavenging & manual scavengers. According to the Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act 1993, manual scavenging is the act where an individual has to carry human excreta manually. Individuals doing so are manual scavengers.