At least 77% of India's 38,000 sewer and septic workers are from the Dalit community, according to data from India's National Action for Mechanized Sanitation Ecosystem, or NAMASTE.

Dalits are a historically marginalized group, comprising the lowest level of India's centuries-old discriminatory caste hierarchy.

NAMASTE is an organization aiming to protect sanitation workers, while promoting the use of mechanized cleaning machines and securing subsidies to reduce manual labor.

In 2020, the Indian government announced measures to end the hazardous practice of manual scavenging — the removal of human excrement from toilets, septic tanks and sewers by hand — by August 2021. 

The initiatives were part of the "Clean India Initiative" launched by the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi that aimed to enforce laws banning manual scavenging.

Dalits 'trapped' in cleaning jobs

However, despite the ban, this dirty work goes on, largely carried out by Dalits. 

Despite their efforts to obtain other municipal jobs for which they are qualified, many Dalits say they have been denied other work, effectively trapping them in cleaning roles.

"The government refuses to acknowledge the social reality that India is fundamentally a caste-based society," said Bezwada Wilson from Safai Karmachari Andolan, a advocacy group in India seeking an end to manual scavenging. 

"What they claim is less about facts and more about their own opinion," Wilson told DW. 

"Telling manual scavengers to buy machines themselves under the NAMASTE scheme is a cruel form of 'rehabilitation,'" he added.

"Instead of ending caste-based hiring, it simply repackages it under a modern name — NAMASTE is caste discrimination disguised as progress."

Caste and exclusion

Dalits are usually given the most menial and hazardous jobs, which are deemed "impure" by religious and social standards. These jobs are passed down through generations, trapping families into a cycle of social exclusion and economic deprivation.

Even among the Dalits, the Valmiki sub-caste, historically faces harsher sociopolitical and economic exclusion, suppression and violence.

"Caste is seen as a result of one's past deeds, condemning scavengers to a life of cleaning others' waste," Vivek Kumar, a sociology professor of at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, told DW. 

"Patronizing it by calling it a 'spiritual duty' or 'noble service to society' masks the harsh reality of discrimination," he added. 

Moving past discriminatory caste system

Dalits often experience segregation in housing, education and social interaction. The association between caste and sanitation work limits Dalits from moving up the social ladder — forbidding their access to other jobs and opportunities.

Kumar said caste has not withered away with modernity or urbanization. Instead, it has spread into urban centers and entered modern institutions, such as industry, civil society, polity and bureaucracy.

Kumar believes that "dignity of labor" must be taught from primary to higher education to move past the outdated belief of scavenging work being tied to one's birth.

"Once the connection between caste and scavenging is broken and the job is fairly paid, we'll see other communities stepping in these jobs," Kumar concluded.

Edited by: Keith Walker