Open Access Research Article
DIGNITY BENEATH THE MANHOLE: CASTE, LAW AND MANUAL SCAVENGING IN INDIA
Abstract
India outlawed
untouchability in 1950 and banned manual scavenging twice, in 1993 and 2013.
Men still go down into sewers and septic tanks to clean them by hand, and some
of them die there. This paper asks why the law has done so little. It looks at
the constitutional guarantees, the 2013 statute and the Supreme Court’s
decisions, and compares what they promise with how sanitation work is actually
organised. The answer it reaches is that the statute leaves a gap in its own
definition of hazardous cleaning, that outsourcing leaves no employer to hold
responsible, and that caste still decides who does this work. The paper closes
with reforms aimed at each of these.
Keywords: manual scavenging; caste;
dignity; Article 17; sanitation workers; law in action.
Published Paper
Author Details
Authors: DEVYANI DIXITRegistration ID: 1013625 | Published Paper ID: IJLRA13625Approved ISSN: 2582-6433 | Country: Delhi, India
Article Information
DIGNITY BENEATH THE MANHOLE: CASTE, LAW AND MANUAL SCAVENGING IN INDIA
Authors: DEVYANI DIXIT
- Journal IJLRA
- ISSN 2582-6433
- Volume 3
- Issue 8
About Journal
International Journal for Legal Research and Analysis
- AbbreviationIJLRA
- ISSN2582-6433
- AccessOpen Access
- LicenseCC 4.0
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