Extraordinary Indians: Bezwada Wilson's March for Dignity and Self-Respect

In 1982, then just a teenager, Bezwada Wilson saw a woman manual scavenger at work in his village in Karnataka. His parents were both manual scavengers too, but the grim reality of the work had never hit him so explicitly. “I was completely shocked,” says the 59-year-old. “I knew I had to do something.”

A centuries-old, caste-bound, discriminatory practice in India, manual scavenging is the act of cleaning dry toilets, open drains, or sewers, by hand and rudimentary tools—a task historically assigned to Dalit communities, placed at the bottom of India’s social hierarchy. 

The Safai Karamchari Andolan (SKA), a movement Wilson founded in 1993, has since led the fight to end this dehumanising practice. Their protests, advocacy and data-driven work have influenced law and policy, forcing governments to act and society to take note. In 2016, Wilson, its national convenor, received a Ramon Magsaysay award for ‘his moral energy and prodigious skill in leading a grassroots movement’ and ‘reclaiming for Dalits the human dignity that is their natural birthright.’

Wilson’s recognition of his own identity as Dalit came at school where he was the subject of playground slurs. “That was the first time I realized that I was different,” he says. When the children laughed at him, Wilson cluelessly laughed along. “They said, you shouldn’t be laughing—we are making fun of you.”

For generations Wilson’s forebears and family members, who moved from Andhra Pradesh to Karnataka, had done this work. But his mother insisted that Wilson study. When he finished primary school in Kolar, there were no nearby Telugu-medium secondary schools so he decided to help his parents with work, but they were adamant. “My mother literally carried me to the school 28 km away,” he recalls.A bitter experience at an employment exchange followed after graduating—he was told he could only work as a sanitation worker because of his caste. That spurred him to return home and start organizing. “But I didn’t know how to begin. I started by saying we cannot be doing this kind of work,” he recalls.

At first, workers, mostly Dalit, were sceptical of his efforts. “Traditional occupations are linked with livelihoods,” he explains. “Defiance would make it very difficult to survive.”

Although the Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, 1993, outlawed scavenging in many states, implementation was ineffective. SKA began by collecting data on dry latrines, then approached local authorities and protested to highlight the government’s failure to implement the law.

As his activism grew Wilson began to study the links between caste and subsistence. “The fact is, I never chosen to be a scavenger, the system made me one. Why should I feel ashamed about it? So then I started owning it: ‘Yes, I am the son of a scavenger. So what? That’s not my problem. It’s yours.’”

In 2003, SKA, along with others filed a public interest litigation (PIL) in the Supreme Court stating that scavenging violated fundamental rights and that the illegal practice persisted. In the following years, SKA continued to agitate for stricter laws and better rehabilitation measures through the country, including mass mobilizations.

Following sustained campaigning, the government passed the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, that expanded the definition of manual scavenging and included measures for rehabilitation. A year later, the Supreme Court delivered a landmark judgement on the 2003 PIL, laying out detailed directions for ending the practice, compensation for those who died on the job and providing alternative livelihoods.

Although manual scavenging has significantly reduced, deaths from sewage work and septic-tank cleaning continue and are on the rise. “We need to prevent these on a war footing,” says Wilson. “And (work on) the mechanization and modernization of sanitation.”

Wilson credits “the courage of women workers” and civil society for sustaining the cause. “This movement is not against any individual,” says Wilson. “It’s an idea: How do we respect the self-respect and dignity of others?

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