We want a PM who protects our freedom: Bezwada Wilson

Interview with 2016 Magsaysay award winner and National Convenor, Safai Karamchari Andolan

Bezwada Wilson, Magsaysay award winner for 2016 and national convenor of the Safai Karamchari Andolan, speaks to Nitin Sethi and Kumar Akash on the visible Dalit anger in India today and his own struggle to end manual scavenging in India. Excerpts:

Why do we see the Dalit protests and anger in Gujarat today? Dalit oppression is not a new phenomenon.
 

We were always oppressed by this majoritarian caste-imposing society but we found some safety in the State. But in Gujarat and in other places we find now both the State and this society have become one and are acting in cahoots against us. For us, particularly Dalits and the minorities, we always have one hope – we can go to the police stations – the State. I agree, police stations are not poor-friendly. But if we check our options, compare with the landlord or the oppressing upper castes and their musclemen and goons, a police station is safer for us. We know of the lock up deaths and other problems. But, we believe that the mobs and the madness of fundamentalism cannot operate inside a police station so we go there seeking refuge, seeking respite. It’s like in the case of a woman who is being beaten by a man. She knows she shall face the same once she comes out, yet for some safety and respite she shall go to the police station.

But today, we are finding even the police stations are not safe for us. Take the Akhlaq case of Uttar Pradesh or the people returning from the rally in Una, Gujarat. The State has joined hands with the mob. We are panicking. Where do we go now for safety? 

 

It is not as if we are fighting or retaliating back against the atrocities. We have always merely tried to escape to safety, find temporary shelter. We are unarmed, vulnerable and when these mobs and goons come for us the best we could do was rush to safety somewhere – the police stations. Now, these shelters are also not available. We have no options left. 

We are aware, in the long run, no political party really supports us. But we have always believed the State would provide some welfare, some liberty and safety. We saw welfare eroded over past decades. Liberty people have stopped talking of. But for us now the State is not providing safety even safety is gone. 

Is this a reaction then?
 

With State and these private actors operating together we have become helpless. So what we are saying is, this is enough. No more. It is an act of compulsion. It is not a reaction. If it was a reaction or a revolution then many sad things would happen and it would become a state of civil war. But right now we are only acting out of compulsion. 

What are we saying? We are saying we will not clean your feces, your sewer lines and your toilets anymore. We will not pick your dead cows anymore. We are not saying we have washed your shit for centuries and now you wash ours. Dalits are not asking for justice. They are merely saying you can’t exploit us any further.  

We are not making a demand on anyone are we? You make a demand when you ask someone to do something. We are merely saying we shall not do this anymore. They expect us to continue doing this and then also beat us up freely.

You are referring to the gau-rakshaks?
 

There is a cow. They decide to call it gau mata (mother cow). Then they decide to call it their mother. How? I have no clue. We didn’t decide so. It is their belief. Well, let them take care of their belief. All we are saying is if they are your mothers please take care of them. 

But, see they like to keep these desi (local) breeds which give little milk and not the hybrid varieties. Why? Hybrid varieties give more milk but you have to take care of them like a child of the family. They are very susceptible to illness etc. You have to stall feed them. But they like to let the local varieties go forage on their own. They like the cows that take care of themselves while they can claim they are gau mata? So, all we are saying is if you believe it’s your gau mata, pray to it if you want, take care of it while it is alive. And, also when it is dead. We are not telling them not to not do prayers for the cow. We are not throwing our dead animals before them are we? We are asking them to take care of their revered ones and not throw their burdens on us.

This notion of holy cow is totally irrational and unscientific. Is a donkey, which is used to carry so much of weight, is less than any other animal? Is the bull and the ox, the mainstay of Indian agriculture are less than any other animal? There is sheer illogic in this. Just like the sheer irrationality behind this caste system and patriarchy in our country. It’s the same.  

But why this sharp reaction, particularly in Gujarat?
 

This is my assessment. See, elsewhere some people could still have some expectations from this government that it shall bring some development. But in Gujarat, where Dalits are in a minority, have seen this so called Gujarat-model fail them entirely. They have long lost any hope from so called Vibrant Gujarat. Now with the central and state government being of the same party, the society and the State are all ganged up together. You cannot run to the centre for rescue if the state government is not functioning. They are practically the same governments. Today, we are not only expected to continue to do their dirty work, suffer and be treated as second grade but also beaten up and abused freely. There is desperation on part of Dalit people in the state. What you are seeing is this desperation. Especially the new generation of Dalits is not ready to accept this nonsense anymore. There is a desire to live with pride, dignity and self-respect or die for it. We have reached that stage. 

20,000 people gathering is not small. That too from poor Dalits. I hear some people make statements: oh this political party or that party is supporting this from the back, it has become tourism; people are coming from other parts of the country to Una. Why are they not going to non-BJP states? 

My point is, address the atrocities in Gujarat. Don’t divert and ask why protests here and not there. Don’t tell me we can’t have politics. Don’t they have politics to attain power? Of course ours is a political cause to achieve something. It’s not a social movement or a religious organisation. It is a political and democratic movement asking for the State to restore its function and provide the changes. This political movement is making demands of the State not the society. I cannot live by your whim and fancy and differential rules that you set. But, they snigger while raising doubts (about the political motives behind Una) in Parliament. Don’t we see they do not take us and our anger seriously even today? If they do not respond to the demand of these citizens with dignity these gatherings will only increase. We shall take back our freedom. 

It can’t be so in this era, that on August 15, as the Indian flag rises up, Dalits are sent down by them into the sewers to die and beaten up on the streets for cleaning their dirt.

More than 1,200 have died in the past two years cleaning the sewers and septic tanks. Four died on August 13. We are yet to get our freedom. Our freedom struggle never ended. We need freedom from patriarchy and caste. It is only when both end that we can burn the baskets to say we won’t carry your shit anymore.  

It is not as if the Dalit have gained much under previous Congress governments?
 

We know all political parties are almost the same for us in their apathy. The Congress, when it is out of power it’s the same - just like others when it comes to issues of Dalits. But when in power, they have some kind of shame and concern and the State doesn’t always partner with the mobs and this oppression against us. If I go to the police station I would find at least some attempt to protect us temporarily from the atrocities. Nothing much else. 

And then you must remember there are too many Congress. There is no one Congress. There are all kind of factions in it, some better than others. Some will make you feel for a moment that everything is perfect (laughs).There are some who have done little for our protection. There are others who care little. In that we find some spaces. But in BJP right now there is a monolith backed by the RSS and the solidity of caste hierarchy in operation through the society and the State.They treat their belief as an impregnable fort, no one can argue with it or breach it is imposing being imposed on everyone. 

Has the Left been any better?
 

You must remember this is the Indian left, it also comes out of the same Indian society. It’s not Marx’s left. If they have not been able to do away with patriarchy and caste in their own systems how can one expect more. Yet, I must say it is with the left and its ideology that we find solidarity. They are, over time, realising their follies I think and looking at correctives.  They accuse the right-wing groups of appropriating our leaders, appropriating Babasaheb Ambedkar. But I wonder did they do anything to accommodate the views of the Ambedkarites? Not really.  But now I see them correcting themselves. This monolithic push of the State and the caste oppressors is bringing many together. 

Is it logical to expect more from the State when the society continues to believe in caste?
 

State always reflects the society, its flow of ideas, narratives and direction. But when it comes to the constitution, the State has to change. It cannot merely follow whims and ideas, even if they are of a majority. It has to follow the framework given by our Constitution. That is what every minister, MLA and MP takes an oath on. But they are forgetting that today. We are reminding them to follow the constitutional order and not orders of the dominant social order. Recently, the State is following a society and moving away from their constitutional mandate – what they are supposed to do. Dalits of this country and other marginalised such as tribals are fighting for their democratic and constitutional rights. If Irom

??Sharmila is seen as against the State for going on hunger strike then what kind of State is this? All she asked for was that the repression end. All these people are just demanding that the State come back to govern as per the constitution.  It is because the State is moving away from the constitution that someone can boldly tell others: don’t eat that, don’t wear this, don’t say that or its sedition. 

I can understand the British applied the law of sedition. But here people are asking for the application of constitution, they may believe in a different ideology or hold a different idea of what a better State should be. But what do you do? You throw sedition at them or let the goons go after them.  

So explain to us the key thrusts of the Dalit upsurge that we see at the moment?
 

If you see really all we are saying is practice democracy that the framers of our constitution and our freedom fighters wanted us to. We are asking for democracy and rule of law.  We cannot let our democracy, rule of law and the State be so weak. The Prime Minister says don’t shoot them, shoot me. What is this! 

Is he and the State so weak today? Isn’t he and the State powerful enough to say, if you attack them the law shall deal with you strictly and you shall be punished. Isn’t the State there to do so? Can’t he enforce the rule of the law? These are theatrics. We don’t want a sevak (servant), pradhan (chief) or not. This language of being an Ambedkar bhakt and sevak is all reinforcing the hierarchies of caste and appropriating us in the caste system. We have been your servants long enough to not want servants. We want a prime minister and a State that functions and protects our freedom. You know, the Dalits, after centuries of oppression have forgotten the welfare State. In the past two three decades our welfare concerns have receded further. Today we are merely asking for basic protection and that shall come from the State functioning as it’s supposed to, not as co-partners of the mobs and the idea of a majoritarian society.

What do you mean that the welfare state has receded over the past two-three decades for the Dalit?
 

See my father in 1976 had a permanent job in the Kolar gold mines. He got paid a handsome sum of Rs 6,000 a month then, whatever the work. That’s how we got educated. Now those jobs have turned into contractual labour and pay far less. My elder brother’s son is getting Rs 3,500 or so from a municipality today on a contractual basis for similar work. Government jobs have shrunk. Government jobs today are only 20 percent. Out of this we are able to access only 16%. We don’t get employed in the private sector. Discrimination is rampant and there is no reservation in the private sector. The Dalits and marginal have been the worst hit by liberalisation with the receding State. Our common spaces and our opportunities both have shrunk. 

You often mention patriarchy in the same breath as caste as the two evils. Can you explain?
 

Both are as illogical and unscientific. Sadly Dalit men too do not understand this but we are riding the same boat. I don’t think the caste can be broken without breaking patriarchy. Even among those who do manual scavenging, more than 85% of the less paying jobs are with women and the more paying and secure ones, say in railways is with men. The level of violence is intolerable. But who else can understand the position of a woman in a patriarchal society better than a Dalit in the caste system. In both cases the powerful have built structural and social devices to retain an irrational and immoral power over the other. 

Can you tell us a little about the efforts to end manual scavenging in the country?

There has always been an attempt to not admit to our (manual scavengers’) existence and make us disappear. Make us the un-seen. When the chief secretaries of the state filed affidavits in our case (before the Supreme Court) saying there is no manual scavenging, I was shocked to see such high officers also lying. It broke our trust. We had to go and do surveys on our own. Then they tried to discredit our surveys saying these are old and played dirty bureaucratic tricks to hide the reality. The case in the Supreme Court went on for years. 

Once the court passed some orders it said go back to all the high court to get them implemented. We could have given up. But we went to each of the high courts. None of the court registries accepted our petitions. We came back to the Supreme Court and asked for a final judgement which we got in 2014. But has manual scavenging ended? No. The court ordered Rs 10 lakh compensation for anyone who gets killed cleaning the sewers. But states refuse to pay even today. Tamil Nadu went to Supreme Court saying they should not pay but private parties should. Their plea was thrown out yet they put an order out saying that the state government shall pay only Rs 3 lakh and the private parties shall pay the rest. A clearly illegal order. We will soon go to court against it now. There are still 1.8 lakh people working in manual scavenging.  

You ran a campaign in 2010 to break the illegal dry toilets. What was the response?
 

We tried but we couldn't entirely. We did break many symbolically. Even media asked us this question: you guys said you are going to end this inhumane practice in India but haven’t you failed? I can say this, we never gave up. We fail only when we give up. It's a long journey and it'll take time to completely flushed-out this inhumane practice from our society. The reasons are many. It will take time and it's tough to give a deadline when the states are not cooperating with us. We are going to start a campaign in this October again. We shall go break them wherever they are. 

But what do you do when the government has decided to instead make 12 crore more toilets in a hurry without sewer lines and connectivity under the Swachh Bharat Mission. Without the sewer lines, the system and technology to treat the sewage it only means the government expects more of us to go down to clean the septic tanks. Each toilet shall mean another septic tank for a Dalit to clean. Where is the investment and technology to end this horrendous practice?

You won’t believe even the rehabilitation fund for the manual scavengers has shrunk. Two years ago it was Rs 570 crore. Today, it is only Rs 10 crore. 

Then the SBM is setting up pay-for public toilets for the poor now. Do you really want the poor in the country to pay even to shit? The water anyway costs them proportionately more than it costs the rich. Now they shall have also spend from the little they earn to excrete! Let the President, Prime Minister and all those who sit in the Parliament pay proportionate to their income each time they use a toilet. We cannot let this country be a place where the poor pay to shit. That is inhuman and unacceptable. But it is in this ecosystem that we all at the Safai Karamchari Abhiyan are working to end the curse of manual scavenging in India. It requires more than just breaking toilets. It requires breaking the mindset.