On February 12, scores of sanitation workers under the banner of SKU started a protest demonstration against the IGDTUW authorities for transferring two workers. The protesting sanitation workers, all of whom are Dalits, accused the university of casteist discrimination.
Suchitra | TwoCircles.net
NEW DELHI — Sanitation workers at Indira Gandhi Delhi Technical University for Women (IGDTUW) campus in New Delhi protested for four straight days against the transfer of two women workers, who they alleged were transferred by the university “without any notice” on February 7, 2022.
According to the protesting workers, the two women had been working at the premises as sanitation workers for nearly fifteen years. The protesting workers alleged that the women were transferred without any reason and called it an act of “casteist discrimination.”
On February 15, Safai Kamgar Union (SKU), which works for the welfare of sanitation workers in New Delhi and was spearheading the protest, tweeted that the university administration had accepted their demands. “Following the workers’ demonstration, they have been given attendance for the previous days. The admin has sent a written order for reinstating the 2 workers who were being transferred. We have been assured that the 3 removed workers’ issue will be considered sympathetically,” SKU tweeted.
Following the workers' demonstration, they have been given attendance for the previous days. The admin has sent a written order for reinstating the 2 workers who were being transferred. We have been assured that the 3 removed workers' issue will be considered sympathetically. pic.twitter.com/JhfEjOriWZ
— सफाई कामगार यूनियन (@SafaiKamgarEkta) February 15, 2022
Why were they protesting?
On February 12, scores of sanitation workers under the banner of SKU started a protest demonstration against the IGDTUW authorities for transferring two workers. The protesting sanitation workers, all of whom are Dalits, accused the university of casteist discrimination.
There are around 35 sanitation workers working at IGDTUW, comprising both men and women, said Harish Gautam, representative of SKU. For the last few months, these sanitation workers are struggling to get justice against instances of “casteist harassment” by their contractor and IGDTUW’s hostel warden. Sanitation workers are usually underpaid and struggle to make a living. Universities, apartment complexes, offices, etc usually hire contractors and agencies for sanitation work and they employ these workers.
A Dalit woman Sangita Devi (37), who was a sanitation worker at the premises, was transferred without prior notice, along with another worker Pinky (26) when they complained and voiced their concerns against the administration. The workers allege that the contractual company’s supervisor and hostel warden objected to female workers cleaning themselves at the university campus, before going home. “They did not want the workers to change clothes after completing their work in the premises,” the protesting workers said.
Devi has been working on this premises as a sanitation worker for a long time, even before IGDTUW was established in 2013. Devi was working as a sanitation worker in the college that existed before the university.
“The contractor and supervisor used casteist slurs against us, they called us ‘gande log (dirty people)’, ‘neech’ and ‘bhangi’, and didn’t allow us to change clothes after the shift. We have been protesting against this. The hostel warden has also been harassing us,” a sanitation worker said, requesting anonymity.
The university administration has reportedly said that the transfer was due to ‘administrative reasons’ but the workers are alleging that speaking out against malpractices and mistreatment at the university is the reason for these transfers.
In September 2021, the IGDTUW was mired in controversy when some workers alleged that they had been removed without any notice. Following a month-long protest, they were reinstated, and the university promised that sanitation staff will not be removed without prior notice and will be promised the “continuation of employment until capability to work.”
What does Budget 22-23 say about sanitation workers in India
Sanitation work in India is intergenerational and is disproportionately performed by members of scheduled castes, scheduled tribes. Sanitation employees are people who work in any part of the sanitation chain—be it cleaning toilets, emptying pits and septic tanks, cleaning sewers and manholes and operating pumping stations and remedy plants and so forth.
Sanitation workers have repeatedly been protesting across India over the irregularisation of their work, and against the unpredictable nature of their contract work. India is home to 5 million sanitation workers engaged in 9 categories of sanitation work ranging from simple maintenance to hazardous manual scavenging, according to a study by WaterAid.
An analysis of the budget 2022-23 by the National Campaign against Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR) paints a grim picture regarding the relief for sanitation workers. The Department of Social Justice and Empowerment introduced the Self Employment Scheme for Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers (SRMS) in 2007 to aid the rehabilitation of ‘former’ manual scavengers transitioning to other occupations. However, in the financial year 2021-22, the NCDHR report notes that “there were zero allocations of funds for the rehabilitation of manual scavengers citing under-utilization of funds in the previous financial year. This came as a rude shock to sanitation workers who were at the forefront.” The government claimed last year that sanitation workers were at par with other frontline workers, but given their vulnerability to the infection and their crucial role, this allocation seems apathetic.
“The budgetary allocations this year for sanitation workers have been inadequate. Budgetary allocations are the first step to their safety net, implementation of budget and access to resources is already flawed. When the government fails in the first step itself, one cannot expect the sanitation workers to access other forms of relief,” said Anjali Rai, Communications Officer at NCDHR.
Jasoda Devi, the senior-most sanitation worker employed at IGDTUW, is distressed with the apathy of the university administration towards the plight of workers. She broke down while talking to TwoCircles.net, saying. “These people don’t listen to us, they call us ‘neech’. We just want to work in peace.”
Another worker is seen on video, saying, “The administration does not listen to our complaints, they say “you are “neechi jaati (lower castes)”, we will not speak to you.”
Rai said that “the nature of sanitation work is such that it is largely contractual and irregular.”
“This means workers are constantly exploited and exposed to vulnerabilities with no coping mechanisms. When the government denies them education by adding no allocation for the “post-matric scholarship of those children whose parents are engaged in unclean occupations and prone to health hazards” scheme in the latest 2022-23 Budget, it means they are condemning them to the same inter-generational cycle,” she said.
Doubly exploited during pandemic
The Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated their exclusion and vulnerabilities. Among the staff at the three Municipal Corporation of Delhi (North, South and East), out of the 94 deaths among corporation employees due to Covid, 49 were sanitation workers.
India’s graveyards and crematoriums were overwhelmed with deaths from Covid-19 during the second wave. Crematorium workers are Dalits who are underpaid and exploited socio-economically, while the workload during the second wave was four times than usual. Most of them complained that they were not provided with any sort of protective gear.
A sanitation worker said that in the absence of safety nets in the form of policies, “such instances (of casteist slurs and harassment) are bound to continue.”
Suchitra is an independent journalist working on social justice, focusing primarily on gender justice. She tweets at @Suchitrawrites