I  have just finished reading an old post  of 27^th January, 2007 of my friend Dilip Krishnan (http://myownboswell.rediffiland.com) . It is titled, “The paradox that is India” and you can find it under the category “Issues of the times”. While Dilip pondered over this paradox,  in the course of a metro ride from the centre of the city  to the crowded lanes of Chandni Chowk in old Delhi,  a  recent news item reported in Delhi’s edition of all the major dailies , is what again underlined for me , this sad but true state of affairs.

http://www.thehindu.com/2008/07/11/stories/2008071153700400.htm

http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/Delhi-govt-trains-manual-scavengers-to-leave-their-old-profession-for-good/334105/

          India is indeed a paradox . What can be more ironic than the fact that  in the capital city of a nation that is so “happening”, the Government is now “boasting” that it will wipe out manual scavenging by 2009!!

        Crores of rupees are going into getting Delhi  ready for the Commonwealth games. Crores have been spent every year , for the past sixty long years in developing the city and yet, the Government has not really been interested in improving the lives of those miserable citizens who have been condemned to  either clean the drains carrying shit or empty the containers of night soil.

      According to a study conducted by Pamela Singla, a lecturer at the Department of Social Work, Delhi University, the main pockets of residence  and place of work of people engaged in the removal of night soil, are in areas like Karawal Nagar, Old Seelampur, Gandhi Nagar, Nand Nagri, Shahdra and Baburpur in Northeast Delhi.

http://www.thehindu.com/2008/05/18/stories/2008051853440400.htm

    Dr. Singla, had conducted a similar study in 2003, ten years after the Act, prohibiting Manual scavenging, had come into effect. The number  of manual scavengers in Delhi then  was 8000, which she says ,  has now been reduced to around 1282 . The Times of India report quotes the  official figures to be 3.42 lakh nationwide, out of which 15,000 are in Delhi!

      The Delhi Government has now launched a number of training programmes to rehabilitate manual scavengers . Better late than never, I suppose. Nevertheless, the apathy of the powers that be, towards those living on the fringes, is truly astounding. All that the Government had to do, was to spend some money to convert the dry latrines into wet latrines ( loans could have been provided to the houseowners having dry latrines)and put in place a rehabilitation programme. (Manual scavenging and construction of dry latrines had been prohibited by an Act of the Parliament in 1993)

     Those of us who hold the view that it is for the individual to try and come out of the morass, it  must also be perhaps understood, that it is not easy for  the illiterate poor , who sometimes for generations , have occupied the lowest rungs , to get beyond the ennui that envelops their lives . Their minds are so dulled by the mere fact of  surviving from day to day that it is well near impossible for them to take any kind of initiative on their own, particularly when living in a society like ours, where the social hierarchy is so deeply etched . The government definitely has a very pivotal role to play . We, the general public too are guilty, when we choose not to see the ugly side and live in a state of euphoria .