At first glance, Jamna Nanda appears an ordinary woman. But beneath the placid surface lies a painful story of humiliation, poverty and exploitation. Jamna belongs to that category of people who have bore the brunt of social discrimination and exploitation for many centuries. Called manual scavengers, these people carry human excreta on their heads and still labelled as untouchables in the society. Though no longer a scavenger, Jamna still shudders at the thought of her past life. Born in Lalkhan Akhipura village of Alwar, she had relatively happy childhood. “Ours was not a traditional scavenging family. My father was servant in army and my mother worked at local landlord’s house.” She lived a carefree life in typical pastoral surroundings without realizing what lay ahead.

Her ordeal started after she was married at the age of fifteen in a family of traditional scavengers. Her dream of starting a new life was shattered when her in-laws pushed her to take up their traditional work. “At first, I flatly refused. After all, I did not belong to a scavenging family and never had done such a work before. But my mother in law and sister in law insisted that I must accompany them on their daily rounds. Initially I just stared from a distance unable to even venture near them while they were cleaning the dry toilet.” But slowly the pressure mounted from other members of the family to join them in their work and, at last defeated, Jamna also began to carry night soil. “First few months were total nightmare. The very idea of carrying excreta was revolting. I slipped into severe depression and lost considerable weight as I couldn’t eat anything after doing such disgusting work. Not matter how hard I tried, it was impossible to get accustomed to this degrading life.” But mental barriers were easy to overcome compared to social barriers. Manual scavengers were placed at the bottom of the caste ladder in traditional Indian society. Even among lower castes they were considered lowliest hence they remained the most downtrodden and exploited people of society. Even today when dynamics of caste system have undergone tremendous change, scavengers retain their traditional status of untouchables in society. They are left on the fringes of the society living in worst social and financial conditions. Jamna faced similar social exile when she started carrying human excreta. “People did not allow us to enter their houses or touch any household items. They did not hand us things directly but either flung them from a distance or placed at their doorsteps from where we collected them later. I did not have any choice hence resigned to my fate.” Every morning Jamna set out to collect night soil from 30 households in different localities of Alwar. “I spread little mud on excreta and shoveled it into a container without looking in that direction. But situation got worse during rainy season when no mud was available to cover the excreta. Then we had no option and directly shoveled fresh excreta.” Jamna managed to earn around150-170 rupees per month, barely enough for sustenance. “People usually paid anything between 10 to 30 rupees and sometimes they gave us small meal which wasn’t sufficient to support my family of eight.”

Just when she had lost all hope, there glimmered a light at the end of the tunnel. Sulabh International started an experimental project called Nai Disha in which they recruited 28 scavenging ladies and imparted entrepreneurial training to these women so that they could have an alternate sustainable source of livelihood. The women were trained in dress designing, tailoring, beauty care and food packaging. The idea behind this project was to turn these women into small entrepreneurs so that they could easily start and operate their own business even from their households. Thus they didn’t have to hunt for jobs after the completion of the training and at the same time did not revert back to their old work of carrying night soil. Jamna was one of the earliest members who got the backing of Sulabh International. Her life has changed drastically as not only she has got rid of that degrading work but also attained financial independence and self confidence. “Now I have understood my worth, the feeling of self-pity and resignation is gone. Now I look forward to future with new hope and want to improve my children’s lives.”

Jamna Nanda has started smiling again. With a dignified source of livelihood, she no longer faces social discrimination and can hope for a better future for her children. Jamna is one of the lucky few who have managed to abandon her previous work of cleaning and carrying human excreta but there are still more than 600,000 manual scavengers in India. The practice continues despite a uniform law prohibiting the employment of scavengers and construction of dry latrines. Most of the state governments deny the existence of manual scavengers but Andhra Pradesh based Safai Karamchari Andolan estimates their number at around 13 lakhs. About 95% scavengers are women who everyday clean human excreta with their bare hands and carry it on their heads for dumping on the outskirts. But everyone is not lucky as Jamna. Most scavenging families live in dilapidated houses in isolated ghettos called harijan bastis. These people have continued to live in shambles for centuries and society is least bothered about their social condition. Some of them make concerted efforts to get out of this situation but society refuses to accept them in its fold; some have resigned to fate and given up all the hope of a better life; some don’t want to come out of their situation feeling that this is the work of their ancestors and they should continue with it. Amidst all this apathy and fatalism, shines the story of Jamna who never gave up hope and lapped up the opportunity of improving her life. Her story is an inspiration not only for those who are trapped in similar conditions but also for the people who conveniently choose to ignore this whole issue of manual scavenging.