The Week when Ranchi Stank

This collage of pictures uploaded from Srinivas Channappa's post in facebook, disturbing and depressing as they are, starkly reveal the true face and character of our society. However, be assured, I am not going to regurgitate the usual cliches and comments on the evils of Manual Scavanging and how it is still being perpetuated by the society; because it is extremely depressing and; because I do realise that the plight of these unsung heroes is not going to change for better by my writing a Blog Post.

I simply want to tell about a situation that prevailed in Ranchi town for a short period in the early sixties of the last century.

Our ancestral house, of mud walls and tiled roof, stood on the fringe of the town - where the town ended and village fields began. It was, however, situated in the municipal area. The plot of land on which our house stood was quite large; the latrine was situated more than a hundred feet from the house proper. It was the era of 'bucket latrines'; which were emptied everyday by human scavangers, men and women, who carried the buckets of 'night soil' on their heads to be emptied either in tankers or in the dump pits created for the purpose and called 'Khad Garha' (meaning 'fertiliser pit').

One fine morning the woman who used to come to collect the 'night-soil' did not turn up. The next morning too the latrine remained un-emptied. Then the news came that these particular employees of Ranchi Municipality are on strike. From the third day of the strike, the town began to emanate stink. Latrines' buckets were overflowing.

My father, civil engineer by profession and an enlightened person, suggested that we should try to empty the bucket of our latrine. It was easier said than done. First we, father and I, dug a big hole in our vacant land; took a long and strong wooden pole; covered our nose and mouth with scarves; went with that pole to the back of the latrine from where the bucket is removed to be emptied; somehow pulled the bucket out and using the pole carried it to the dug hole and emptied into it; covered the hole with soil and ash. This we repeated several times during the time the strike continued. Ours was probably the only latrine, in whole of the town, that remained clean. Of course, it helped that we had vacant land at our disposal.

The strike ended after a few days. Massive operation was carried out to clear the mess, particularly in the congested areas of the town. People learnt a lesson and earnestly emabrked on replacing bucket latrines with "Latrines with septic tanks". The 'Khad Gurha' was covered. On top of it was built the intra-state bus terminal.

The woman who used to clean our latrine had always been treated with respect by us. My mother had opened a home school for the children of neighbouring unpriviged families. That woman's child studied at that school. In one of the annual days of the school, she (the ex-scavanger woman) was the chief guest. She came to the function smartly dressed; gave a short speech and; gave away prizes to children.