Inhuman work. Early deaths.

TERESA REHMAN on the plight of migrant Dalits who clean biomedical waste in the Northeast

HE IS one of the privileged few who works with a mask and a pair of gloves. He is posted in the Orthopaedic Operation Theatre at the Gauhati Medical College Hospital (GMCH), a premier referral centre in the Northeast. “I will tell you under what circumstances we work but I will never reveal my name. After all, I have to keep my job. I have been working as a daily-wager for the past 17 years and am yet to be made permanent.”

His father had emigrated to Assam at a very young age from Sardar Seher village in Churu district of Rajasthan and started working in the GMCH since the time of its founding. His father and his brother, both in the same profession, died young due to various ailments. “I am lucky as I handle fresh waste products. Not everyone is as fortunate. We have to handle many grimy biomedical and human wastes, which are sometimes three to four days old, without any safety gear. Therefore, we are prone to infections and our life-span is short,” he adds.

He cites the example of Om Prakash Valmiki, a senior safai karamchari of GMCH who is responsible for handling the dirtiest jobs, including the disposal of dead bodies, body parts and foetuses. Barely able to walk, Valmiki says, “We have to officially wait for three days for the legal guardians to claim any body. If they don’t turn up, we dispose the body. Of course, the stench has taken a toll on my health. I have lost my appetite and can hardly eat nowadays.”

There are allegations that these workers die early since they consume alcohol. SK Pawar, state president of the Rashtriya Safai Mazdoor Congress argues, “Do you think a sane person can do such a dirty job, that too without taking any precautions?” With not even a deep freeze or a proper morgue, the dead bodies are dumped in a room. After a few days, when five to six bodies accumulate, they are disposed. Foetuses and other body parts are piled into plastic drums for a few days and then buried.

Pawar adds, “In most cases, worms eat into these human parts and our safai karamcharis have to handle them with bare hands. Needles prick their hands; they suffer and die of undiagnosed infections. The life of a safai karamchari is very cheap.” In the last five years, there have been 12 deaths in the workers colony in the 35-40 year age group.

Their home, the GMCH colony in Ananda Nagar, wears a deserted look during the day as all the inmates including women and children go and perform “private jobs” — cleaning lavatories and other janitorial jobs at private homes — a source of extra income. One has to step over a dirty drain to climb the stairs leading to their hillside
colony.

As young, unemployed boys stand in the paan shop, a stench emanates from the entire colony inhabited by Dalit migrant workers from Punjab, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and even parts of South India who came and settled in various parts of the Northeast since the pre-independence days. Of late, the inmates of this colony have been living without electricity or water — the supply of both have been cut off due to non-payment of bills by the hospital authorities.

Pawar points out that the safai karamcharis in the Northeast are more backward compared to the rest of the country as they lack social consciousness. Most of the children drop out of schools as teachers do not pay them any attention. He cites the example of the Harijan Sishu Vidyalaya at the GMCH colony which a few years ago switched from Hindi to Assamese medium forcing the children of safai karamcharis to drop out.

The safai karamcharis comprise around 10 lakh people, and nearly six lakh are in government service. Yet they do not even get Permanent Resident Certificates though their names figure in the voters list. “They ask for 30 to 40- year-old land patta which none of us possesses. People feel if we settle down at some place we will spoil the environment. We have no place to go after retirement. We don’t belong anywhere, we cannot even go back to our native lands as we have nothing there,” says Pawar.

Meanwhile, there’s a new trend in GMCH where even these jobs are allotted to the locals, who in turn sub-contract the same. The person appointed to the job enjoys all the benefits but does not do the work. He pays about Rs 500 to a safai karamchari to do the job. And young boys like Babloo Valmiki, a school dropout, cannot even hope to inherit his father’s government job after his retirement or premature death. “I do private jobs, cleaning lavatories,” he says. As Pawar see it: “We live in the present as we have no future.”

From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 4, Issue 50, Dated Dec 29, 2007