Between Work and Respect: Dilemmas of a Manual Scavenging Community in Kashmir

Sheikh Community of Kashmir or Watals as they were earlier known as forms the scavenging community of Kashmir. Manual Scavenging is a caste-based occupation involving the removal of human excreta by bare hands. Previously, they cleaned dry toilets and sewage pits but with the building of modern toilets in place of dry toilets, their mode of work also changed. Currently they clean septic tanks, sewer lines, open drains or pits in addition to insanitary latrines. Due to the lack of specialized tools for sanitation works, manual scavenging puts Sheikh Community into grave danger of contacting life threatening diseases. The problem also lies with the fact that the continued dependence on manual scavenging as the only way to maintain a basic economic status contributes to a conscious protection of manual scavenging as an occupation exclusively for the community through an assertion of manual scavenging as their cultural right, despite the stigma attached to the occupation.