DISCRIMINATION AND EXPLOITATIVE FORMS OF LABOR

DISCRIMINATION AND EXPLOITATIVE FORMS OF LABOR

http://www.hrw. org/reports/ 1999/india/ India994- 09.htm#P1695_ 354939

Allocation of labor on the basis of caste is one of the fundamental tenets of the caste system. Within the caste system, Dalits have been assigned tasks and occupations that are deemed ritually polluting for other caste communities. Throughout this report, Human Rights Watch has documented the exploitation of agricultural laborers who work for a few kilograms of rice or Rs. 15 to Rs. 35 (US$0.38 to $0.88) a day. A sub-group of Dalits is condemned to labor even more exploitative. An estimated forty million people in India, among them fifteen million children, are bonded laborers. A majority of them are Dalits. According to government statistics, an estimated one million Dalits are manual scavengers who clean public latrines and dispose of dead animals; unofficial estimates are much higher. In India’s southern states, thousands of Dalit girls are forced into prostitution before reaching the age of puberty.

Bondage is passed on from one generation to another. Scavenging and prostitution are hereditary occupations of “untouchable” castes. Dalits face discrimination when seeking other forms of employment and are largely unable to escape their designated occupation even when the practice itself has been abolished by law. In violation of their basic human rights, they are physically abused and threatened with economic and social ostracism from the community for refusing to carry out various caste-based tasks.

Bonded Labor

“Bonded labor” refers to work in slave-like conditions in order to pay off a debt. Due to the high interest rates charged and the abysmally low wages paid, the debts are seldom settled. Bonded laborers are frequently low-caste, illiterate, and extremely poor, while the creditors/employers are usually higher-caste, literate, comparatively wealthy, and relatively more powerful members of the community.177 The Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976 abolishes all agreements and obligations arising out of the bonded labor system. It aims to release all laborers from bondage, cancel any outstanding debt, prohibit the creation of new bondage agreements, and order the economic rehabilitation offreed bonded laborers by the state.178 It also punishes attempts to compel persons into bondage with a maximum of three years in prison and a Rs. 2,000 (US$50) fine.179 However, the extent to which bonded laborers have been identified, released, and rehabilitated in the country is negligible.

Most agricultural laborers interviewed for this report were paid between Rs. 15 and Rs. 25 (US$0.38 to $0.63), or two to three kilograms of rice, per day, well below the minimum wage prescribed in their state.180 Women were consistently paid less than men. Many laborers owed debts to their employers or other moneylenders. Under the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976, payment of less than minimum wage for the purposes of working off a debt amounts to bondage. The act’s definition of the “bonded labour system” includes “any system of forced, or partly forced labour under which a debtor enters, or has, or is presumed to have, entered, into an agreement with the creditor to the effect that

(v) by reason of his birth in any particular caste or community, he would

(1) render, by himself or through any member of his family, or any person dependent on him, labour or service to the creditor, or for the benefit of the creditor, for a specified period or for an unspecified period, either without wages or for nominal wages....181

Nominal wages are defined as wages which are less than

(a) the minimum wages fixed by the Government, in relation to the same or similar labour, under any law for the time being in force; and
(b) where no such minimum wage has been fixed in relation to any form of labour, the wages that are normally paid, for the same or similar labour to the labourers working in the same locality.182

Caste and Employment Discrimination

In traditional Indian society, the fourfold varna theory describes a broad functional division of labor. Though the caste system has not prevented occupational mobility for caste Hindus, many “untouchable” communities have been forced to continue their occupations as leather workers, disposers of dead animals, or manual scavengers, and to perform other tasks deemed too ritually polluting for upper castes.

The constitutional abolition of “untouchability” meant that caste Hindus could no longer force Dalits to perform any “polluting” occupation. Yet sweeping, scavenging, and leatherwork are still the monopoly of the scheduled castes, whose members are threatened with physical abuse and social boycotts for refusing to perform demeaning tasks. Migration and the anonymity of the urban environment have in some cases resulted in upward occupational mobility among Dalits, but the majority continue to perform their traditional functions. A lack of training and education, as well as discrimination in seeking other forms of employment, have kept these traditions and their hereditary nature alive.183

Manual scavenging

Manual scavenging is a caste-based occupation. Dalit manual scavengers exist under different caste names throughout the country, such as the Bhangis in Gujarat, the Pakhis in Andhra Pradesh, and the Sikkaliars in Tamil Nadu. Members of these communities are invariably placed at the very bottom of the caste hierarchy, and even the hierarchy of Dalit sub-castes. Using little more than a broom, a tin plate, and a basket, they are made to clear feces from public and private latrines and carry them to dumping grounds and disposal sites. Though long outlawed, the practice of manual scavenging continues in most states.

Those working for urban municipalities are paid Rs. 30 - 40 a day (less than US$1), and those working privately are paid Rs. 5 (US$0.13) a month for each house they clean. Even those working for municipalities rarely get paid and are offered little health benefits for a job that entails many health hazards. In cities scavengers are actually lowered into filthy gutters in order to unclog them; they are fully immersed in human waste without any protective gear. In Bombay, children made to dive into manholes have died from carbon monoxide poisoning. In many communities, in exchange for leftover food, scavengers are also expected to remove dead animal carcasses and deliver messages of death to the relatives of their upper-caste neighbors. Their refusal to do so can result in physical abuse and ostracism from the community.

A social worker in the Dhandhuka taluk of Ahmedabad district, Gujarat, explained the relevance of caste to this work:

Bhangis are the section of Dalits that do this work. The funds come from the government. In villages, the cleaners and who they clean for are always divided by caste... At all levels, villages and municipalities, Bhangis are the workers and they always work for upper castes.184

In a 1997 report, the National Commission for Safai Karamcharis claimed that manual scavengers are “totally cut off from the mainstream of progress” and are “still subjected to the worst kind of oppression and indignities. What is more pathetic is the fact that manual scavenging is still largely a hereditary occupation. Safai karamcharis are no doubt the most oppressed and disadvantaged section of the population.”185 The commission is a statutory body set up pursuant to the National Commission for Safai Karamcharis Act, 1993. Safai karamcharis are defined as those persons engaged in, or employed for, manually carrying human excreta or any sanitation work.

Martin Macwan is founder-director of Navsarjan, an NGO that has led the campaign to abolish manual scavenging in the western state of Gujarat. In an interview with Human Rights Watch he claimed that when Navsarjan had attempted to rehabilitate scavengers it was difficult to find alternative employment for them, and even more difficult to convince scavengers that they were able to take on, or were “worthy of performing,” different occupations.186

Members of the Bhangi community in Gujarat are paid by state municipalities to clean the gutters, streets, and community dry latrines. In an article in Frontline, a safai karamchari of Paliyad village, Ahmedabad district, complained that in the rainy season, the “water mixes with the faeces that we carry in baskets on our heads, it drips onto our clothes, our faces_ When I return home, I find it difficult to eat food. The smell never leaves my clothes, my hair. But in the summer there is often no water to wash your hands before eating. It is difficult to say which [season] is worse.”187

AB – withheld62@yahoo. com

First They Came for the EXTREMIST, FUNDAMENTALIST & MODERATE Muslims. And I DIDN’T Speak Out Because I Wasn't An Extremist, Fundamentalist or a Moderate Muslim. Then FINALLY They Came for Me the NON-PRACTICING Muslim And NO Muslims Were Left to Speak Out for ME.