A future for scavengers: what happens to those who only know shit?

A recent story from the Khaleej Times tells us that the Supreme Court in India has stepped up efforts to eliminate the practice of manual extraction and disposal of "night soil" [1] by people of India's lowest caste. India's Sulabh International (yes, the very organization Dave visited in August [2]) estimates the government's figure of 800,000 people employed in excavating poop from dry latrines is off by about 200,000. One million Indians make their livings removing other people's waste -- that is, digging it out of a pit, putting it in a tin, and carrying that tin on their head to the local dump dump.

While a law has been on the books since 1993 outlawing this practice, enforcement the ban and finding alternatives have not gone smoothly -- even though $120 million has been spent on the problem over the last ten years. This time, lawmakers hope regional governments will come up with a plan to address this issue and to set a timetable for eliminating the practice -- and provide training programs for these low caste members whose only skill is digging feces out of cesspools.

That sounds great. But Sulabh chairman Dr. Bindeshar Pathak (see him with Dave here [3]) didn't seem to optimistic. "These rulings come and go but nothing much seems to change. The judges should decide how to penalize the governments where this still happens. That might concentrate their minds a bit more."

While I applaud trying to fix this, the sheer number of people involved in the practice -- and the lack of plumbing and wealth in the areas this goes on -- leads me to believe little progress will be made. Just think of how difficult it is for our own society to find jobs when an auto plant closes or a large employer bankrupts. In India's situation, they are dealing with ONE MILLION of the third world's poorest and least educated people who are already shunned by the rest of society. For them, life really is shit.