Other States - Rajasthan   

Journey from darkness to light

– Photo: Rohit Jain Paras

Social Change: Sulabh sanitation movement founder Bindeshwari Pathak with former manual scavenger women from Alwar and Tonk in Jaipur .

JAIPUR: For these “liberated” women the Capital of Rajasthan was perhaps the most appropriate place to end a meaningful journey they had undertaken to celebrate their new-found freedom -- from “untouchability”. It was symbolic that they reported to the city and the State their final arrival after fighting the social stigma of being carriers of night soil once.

More than 200 women from Rajasthan's Alwar and Tonk districts called on Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot at his official residence this weekend at the end of a journey that had taken them through some important pilgrim centres and the surviving bastions of caste hierarchy. Along with their mentor Bindeshwar Pathak, social reformer and founder of Sulabh Sanitation movement, they chatted with Mr. Gehlot with ease and proudly narrated their journey from “darkness to light”.

An appreciative Mr. Gehlot gifted them a sari each. He could see that the women—who included some who went to New York last year on a special invitation from the United Nations and those staged catwalks with top models there as well in Delhi and Mumbai—had totally cast behind their past. Prior to reaching the Pink City they had visited Pushkar and the Dargah of Khwaja Moinuddhin Chishty in Ajmer.

“With this they have declared that they are free from the bondage of untouchability and social discrimination. They have joined the mainstream of society,” said Dr. Pathak, who accompanied them from Varanasi, talking to media persons here. “These liberated scavenger women entered temples and performed rituals and took a bath in the Ganga,” he pointed out.

“In Benares we sat with the Brahmins and shared a meal. It gave us a good feeling,” said Guddi Atwal, one of the women interacting with journalists.

“They used to throw money to me so that there is no touching. Our family has been doing manual scavenging for generations till Dr. Pathak called me and others from Alwar to Delhi a few years ago. Now the pickles and papads I make are consumed by all,” a confident Usha Chaumhar of Alwar said. “I was invited to the wedding of the daughter in a Brahmin family and I sat with others to take food,” she said. Obviously the maximum satisfaction seems to come from the social recognition. “I used to accompany my parents when they carried out the door to door scavenging work. As a child I wanted to play with the children of those families but was never allowed to go near them,” this is how a young Dolly from Tonk district reflected on her past. “Recently the aunty from one of those households asked me whether I could teach her children sewing and when I reminded her of the past she told me--“we never had any problem with you. It was the work you did which made us keep a distance',” Dolly observed.

“This was a silent revolution. I did not ask them to burn the scriptures to reach this level. And in conformity with the prevailing social hierarchy I worked on them and brought them to the level of the upper castes,” Dr. Pathak asserted. “This had been an act of lighting a candle to show the way. In a manner in which Mahatma Gandhi wanted…” he said.

Rajasthan is one of the States in the country where manual scavenging – despite a specific law banning carrying of night soil passed in 1993 -- still exists. Most of the manual scavengers—as much as 95 per cent—happen to be women. Sulabh International's work in Alwar had started eight years back and now the organisation claims to have eliminated the practice from Alwar and Tonk districts. After relieving them from the demeaning practice Sulabh has rehabilitated 300, imparting to them education and vocational training.

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