By Emily Geminder
7 July 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: In Alwar, Rajasthan, even Laxmi Nanda’s shadow was known as unclean. If it fell on a fellow villager passing on the street, he would immediately rush home to scrub himself clean. A Dalit, branded as “untouchable” by birth, Nanda’s social status was compounded by her profession: transporting human waste.
Within the complex taxonomies of the caste system, of which there are thousands of sub-castes, those whose daily jobs bring them in contact with the impure, people such as cremators and latrine cleaners, are at the very lowest rung of one of the world’s oldest systems of social stratification. Latrine cleaners, who clean the waste out of non-flushing toilets, are known as Bhanghis – scavengers.
“On the second day of my marriage, my mother-in-law handed be a broom and told me to go clean out the neighbor’s toilet,” recalled Nanda in an interview with MediaGlobal. “When I refused and said it was dirty, my mother-in-law said, ‘What are you, some kind of queen?’” Nanda was 18 years old at the time.
It was the first day of a career marked by long days, scant wages, and the unremitting taint of the unclean. “Even when I’d washed myself, to others, I was always dirty,” Nanda said.
(Photo courtesy: Reuters)
Discrimination based on caste was officially banned by the Indian constitution in 1950. But it pervades almost every sector of life, from segregated housing to all but prescribed professions to healthcare and education systems that, for Dalits, are routinely denied. Its rigid boundaries are upheld by the tacit threat of violence, and government officials and police often turn a blind eye, even occasionally participating in violence against those who dare overstep their caste-stipulated roles.
In major cities, caste hierarchies are slowly beginning to break down, and Dalits can sometimes find reprieve from the entrenched stigmas of the countryside. But even in urban centers, caste remains a defining factor in determining who lives and works and socializes together. For the three-quarters of the Indian population that live in rural areas, like Nanda, the brand of caste is inescapable.
But Nanda’s trajectory took an uncharacteristic turn. Tonight, along with 33 other former latrine cleaners, she is dressed in a dizzyingly blue sari and readying to walk down a New York runway side by side with leading fashion models. Together with the Indian NGO Sulabh, the women have traveled halfway round the world to initiate the “Year of Sanitation” at the United Nations Headquarters.
“They walk like this,” Nanda remarked conspiratorially of the models, her hips ricocheting from side to side as she laughed. The bright blue sari is Nanda’s own creation, one she stitched and designed under the guidance of designer Abdul Halder who has worked with the likes of Michael Jackson. Now, Nanda and the women of Sulabh design and sell their creations. “Everyone wants to buy our things,” Nanda beamed. “People who wouldn’t touch us in the past now buy things made by our hands.”
Sulabh’s vice-president Anita Jah told MediaGlobal that the fashion show was not just about showcasing clothing. “It’s about showing the world – and the women themselves – that they are not untouchable. Here they are in a very public spotlight.”
Sulabh’s broader mission of affordable, democratic sanitation is also on display. Gandhi once called sanitation more important than independence, but for about a third of the word’s population, it is out of the reach. In its absence, water-borne diseases are rampant, killing an estimated five million people each year. Sulabh intends to radically change the landscape of India’s sanitation system, beginning with its toilets.
“We want to make basic flush toilets cheap and available across the country,” Jah said. Over ten million people across India now use Sulabh’s Twin Pit Composting Toilet, which effectively composts waste and renders the excess safe for manual disposal once every 18 months. It relies on neither a sewage system nor a septic tank.
Sulabh also intends to extend its toilets’ reach, implementing the model in developing countries such as Afghanistan, the country named by the 2007 State of the World’s Toilets report “the worst place in the world for sanitation”, with 92 percent of the population lacking access to basic sanitation. Already, one thousand Sulabh toilets have been built in Kabul.
“The toilets actually use a dual technology,” Sulabh founder Bindeshwar Pathak explained to MediaGlobal. “They turn waste into biogas, and we are working on then converting that biogas into electricity.” Pathak is already laying the groundwork to bring the system to Madagascar, the Dominican Republic, Angola, and Ethiopia.
“This technology is not patented because we want an exchange of technology to take place across borders,” Pathak added. “These are countries that can’t afford sewage systems, but our technology will allow them to reach their development goals without huge financial investment.”
Meanwhile, Sulabh continues to work with former latrine cleaners, providing vocational training, education, and futures free of stigma. The effects on Nanda’s life have already been profound. “My family is happy for me,” she said. “They say, ‘At least you got out of this life.’”
Though not all developments are quite so welcome. Nanda remarked, “Now, even the rickshaw drivers expect more from us. They say, ‘Hey, you’re such a big person now. You’re going to America. Can’t you pay five rupees more?’”
These days, Nanda writes poetry, and many of her poems deal with the experience of living with daily discrimination. In one poem, she asks, “Were we not humans? Why do they call us with so much contempt?” But she also reflects on the degree to which her life has changed. She writes, “Today, I wish I could touch the sky.”