Former scavengers making vermicelli

Report By
Marie Naudascher
In the wee hours, Baby, a 30 years old scavenging women from Alwar begins her walk through the latrines of the city. She is in charge of a dozen of houses. She has to snake in and out the small path made for scavengers between houses to clean night soil. ‘Night soil’ is an understatement for the smelly excreta Baby has to scour everyday. She has been doing this obnoxious and demeaning drudgery for a mere monthly wage of Rs 500.

With bare hands, she sweeps the dejections and carries them in a bucket on her head. Of course, she has never got used to the stench of human excreta and hates this menial job. Very often, she fells sick. “The stench forces scavengers to hold their breath, so they get affected with respiratory problem and coughs later on”, explains Santosh, from Sulabh International.

Like Baby, there are about 340, 000 million toilet cleaners working in Indian villages, report the union social welfare department. The figure could be up to one million, according to the activists. The sanitary condition in the country is appalling. More than 500 million people have no access to toilets that is to say one out of two Indians. Around 700 million people defecate in open air, says Dr Bindeshwar Pathak, the founder of Sulabh Inernational. As a result the soil is polluted and around 500,000 children die every year due to diarrhoea and dehydration. This lack of hygiene also results in a tremendous inequity between men and women. The latter have to go far from their house, often when it is dark to relieve themselves far from men’s view.

Most of the scavengers are Dalits, they belong to the lower cast, the Banghis, and 80 per cent of them are women. Though manual scavenging was banned in 1993, the country’s toilet system still relies on scavenging. The Indian constitution made the term ‘Untouchable’ illegal in 1950, but scavenging is still their fate.

NGO Sulabh International has been working for more than thirty years to eradicate scavenging. Dr Bindeshwar Pathak, a visionary Gandhian, could not stand the fate of scavengers. He decided to dedicate his whole life to this cause.

In Alwar, a Sulabh vocational training centre named ‘Nai Disha’ gathers former female scavengers. A few years ago, they were compelled to clean night soil. Today, they proudly speak for themselves. They also get training for alternative jobs. They learn how to make vermicelli. They are proud because they know people will buy and enjoy what they are preparing. On the packaging, there is no such word as ‘scavenger’, of course. It only says “made and prepared by women groups working for their emancipation”. They are also making candles for a temple, where they were once banned from entering. They learn stitching and sewing. There are English classes also

For Dr Pathak, it is very important to show the world that these women do not deserve to be treated as the scum of society. In July 2008, thirty former scavenger women took part in a fashion show for the International Year of sanitation at the United Nation in New York.
They had been stitching clothes for international models and they walked down the ramp with them as more than 150 officials from different countries applauded. Lalita, a former scavenger recalls this experience with gleaming eyes, “We never even dreamt that something of that magnitude would happen to us. We had never even seen Delhi. We enjoyed the attention given to us”.

Thirty years ago, the first task for Dr Pathak was to create toilets that would not need scavenging. He did create a two pit system toilets. Then, he had to convince people that these toilets were cleaner for the household. He went door to door to meet and discuss with people. As a sociologist, Dr Pathak studies people’s habit concerning toilet and hygiene in order to change their mindsets.

Today, Sulabh International is among the few successful organisations that were able to make a difference. But the team remains very humble. The only thing they boast about is to have transformed former waste collectors into independent, proud and free “turquoise ladies”.

Dr Bindeshwar Pathak

Dr Bindeshwar Pathak has dedicated his whole life to eradicate scavenging in India and implement proper sanitation in the country. There is still lot of work to do, but in Alwar, Rajhastan, there will be no scavengers by the end of the year. Marie Naudascher interviewed this down to earth and ambitious gandhian in the Sulabh center, New Delhi.

How did the idea to eradicate scavenging in India come to your mind ?

I have always been deeply inspired by Mahatma Gandhi’s ideas. From October 2nd 1968, the date anniversary of his birth, I took the vow to fulfill Gandhi’s ideal to restore human dignity of the Untouchables who were cleaning night soil. In 1915, Gandhi settled in India after a long stay in South Africa with a strong will to liberate the Untouchables. He wanted to clean India first, then to get the independance. He once said "I may not be born again, but if it happens I would like to be born a scavenger".

As a sociologist, you have been living with scavengers to know how they live and work before starting the Sulabh movement.

Yes, I have been living three months among the scavengers of Jagjevam Ram colony, in Bihar. I lived there as a scavenger so I could see how to help them the most. I come from a Brahmin family. When I was a child, around 6 years old, I touched an Untouchable, just to know what would happen. I was then forced to swallow cow dung, cow urine and water from Ganga to be purified. It was a huge scandal in my family. But this issue kept bothering me ever since. Why Untouchables ? What have they been doing to deserve such a humiliating fate ?

Have you faced any problems from your relatives or family for leading such a movement ?

Of course, my father-in-law was very angry with me. I told him I had started turning over a page of history. I did not know if it would be successful, but I had to give it a try. Today, some people are jealous of our success. People think I am wealthy, which is wrong. We have taken loans from the bank. And all political parties are supporting Sulabh.

Have you always followed Gandhi’s path in your work ?

Yes, it is very important as an NGO not to criticise anyone. We have never had confrontations with anyone or the government. Through peacefull means, I saw the problem, then worked on an alternative solution. First, I developped the two-pit system technology myself. Then I went from house to house to discuss with people and try to convince them, little by little. They were reluctant at first, but I was able to make them listen to me. I explained the toilets they had stinks, bring mosquitoes… in 1973, someone in Bihar accepted to have my toilets, then people began to trust me.

What are you the most proud of ?

I think we succedded in changing the way people see the sanitary issues and the Untouchables.

In India, economic prosperity can be achieved but changing the mind of people is very hard. Now, people talk about toilets and this is just the beginning. Liberating all the scavengers has been made possible thanks to the technology.

From where do you get your strengh ?

First, you have to be thoroughly interested and passionate about your subject. Moreover, I believe in all the religions, I go through all the holy books. I believe in humanity. Jésus said that if you look at the downtrodden, you are closer to Go

By Marie Naudascher
Here is a radio feature about the Delhi based rock band, Half Step Down.
Interviews with Shiv Lumba the pianist and Karan Dutta the guitarist and backing vocals.

By
Marie Naudascher
Photo:Gargi

“I thought everyone would speak English in India”, regrets Saskia, 21, a Dutch student who worked for Khushii, an Indian NGO based in Delhi. “I came to help, but in the fieldwork, there is nothing but Hindi, so I recommend to every foreigner to know a bit of Hindi”.

But is Hindi an easy language to learn? “I can speak English French and German, but Hindi is really difficult” explains Cecilia, a Swiss student who took Hindi classes at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) last year. It took her almost three months to know the alphabets properly. Later, it helped her in her work with a foreign firm in India. Over the phone, she knew how to ask Hindi speaking people to put her through someone who could speak English. But she confesses she had to repeat it several times because of her mispronunciation.

Kapel Sharma, a private Hindi teacher in Delhi says that most of his foreign students cannot pronounce his name properly. “They either call me “Kaapel” or “Kapeel”. My name is Kapel”, he insists. “Phonetics is the most difficult thing in Hindi. Usually, foreigners don’t know the difference between “g” and “gh”, “k” and “kh”, “f” and “fh”. So, it is difficult for them to be understood. According to him, “it takes at least 6 months to be fluent”.

Francis Wacziarg, a businessman who left France forty years ago says “Hindi is a very difficult language, but similar to the European languages. For example, the verb is always at the end of the sentence, like in German”. Mr Wacziarg who was keen to learn Hindi took classes in Mumbai for three years. Then, he worked for many years with the locals in Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkota and Delhi. Today, he can speak Hindi fluently. His daughterAude Pryia Engel, who is an opera singer in India, could read boards in the street after three lessons.

It is always better to learn Hindi in India rather than in some foreign country. Alissa Upakara, 22, a Thai social worker in Delhi, knew that speaking Hindi would help, so three years back, she had taken a short term Hindi course in Silpakorn University, Bangkok. After 50 hours, she got a Basic Hindi certificate. But when she began to work in Delhi, she realized she could not speak Hindi at all. In Thailand, she did not practice, though she could understand 60 % of a conversation.

Contrary to Alissa, Helene Ferrarini, a French student of 20, took a full two years Hindi course in Paris. It proved to be a productive exercise. She is now living in Delhi and she can buy vegetables by herself, bargain and communicate spontaneously with her Indian roommate.

For foreign students, learning Hindi is both vital and advantageous. The world's second most spoken language is not taught a lot outside India, as Spanish, English or German in Europe. Thus, Hindi has become an asset for foreigners, even outside India, because on a resume, it can make the difference.

So if you are a foreign student, along with the VISA, the vaccines and mosquito coils, you better take a Hindi conversation book… and courage!