Hell’s Angels
LESSER HUMANS
59 minutes
directed by K. Stalin
produced by Drishti Media Collective
There was once a man called Mahatma Gandhi. Among other things, he believed in cleaning his own toilet. But the land of his birth, Gujarat, still has thousands of 'scavengers'—an archaic Victorian term used mostly in India— who carry on their head night soil, the sanitized euphemism for human excreta.
The film Lesser Humans is about them, the Bhangis, who occupy the lowest position in the caste hierarchy, outcastes even among outcastes. The 59-minute documentary shocks, even as it investigates the caste, gender, economic and political factors responsible for the perpetuation of this noxious practice. It exposes in gut-wrenching detail the fate of people doomed from birth to a lifetime of sweeping human dung from the hell-holes they work in.
The film, shot in 1997, the 50th year of Indian Independence, effectively hammers home the unremitting misery of the Bhangis' existence with the clever use of a sequence of dates that mark the innumerable promises of amelioration. Year after year, politicians and governments pledge relief and resolve to end manual scavenging. Commission after commission conducts enquiries, prepares reports and makes recommendations. But for the Bhangis, life does not change. Not even after the enactment of the Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act of 1993, which makes employment of scavengers, and the construction of dry (non-flush) latrines, a crime punishable by imprisonment up to a year and/or a fine of INR 2000. (Dry latrines most often are no more than a small room in which a small hole on the floor opens into a container in a compartment below. The cleaner crawls into the compartment and empties out the container. In pit latrines, the faeces is usually collected in a jute bag, which is removed.)
In the rural areas of Gujarat where the film is shot, Bhangi women still carry baskets filled with 'night-soil' on their heads. Other than clearing latrines, a Bhangi's workload includes disposing of dead animals, carrying dead bodies for post-mortem, carrying the death notices (of the upper castes), and cleaning cowsheds. With 'inauspicious' jobs, a Bhangi woman or man is kept away from normal interaction with other members of society for fear of being 'polluted'.
One of the most moving images in the documentary is that of Bhangi schoolchildren being asked to sit apart in the classroom, and being abused and reviled. A young girl talks about her dream of becoming a doctor, and how she had to drop out of school and join her broom-wielding kin. There are no pretensions left when it is human excreta that earns somebody one roti a day or five rupees a month. There are 32,000 Bhangi families in the state of Gujarat.
Other than the Bhangis of Gujarat, Dalit manual scavengers exist under different names throughout India. They are called Chuhras in Punjab, Dumras in Rajasthan, Mehtar in Bihar, Bhuimalia in West Bengal, Pakhis in Andhra Pradesh and Thotis (also Sikkaliars) in Tamil Nadu. Their tools of work are a broom, a tin plate, a basket or a metal drum, in which they transport the faeces to the dumping grounds. In urban areas, they also clear the gutters, and are lowered with ropes into manholes, usually without any protective gear. In cities like Bombay, Baroda and Ahmedabad, there have been cases of cleaners dying of carbon monoxide poisoning. For their pains they are paid between INR 30 and 50 a day, that too, if they are employed by civic bodies. Those working privately may earn INR five to 15 a month per house.
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The case of Gujarati Bhangis is a curious one. Although the state government came up with repeated bans—in 1969, 1991, 1994 and 1995—scavenging is carried out under the authority of the local government bodies, such as the village panchayats and municipalities. And even more curiously, Gujarat is the only state to have adopted the 1993 Act, which makes the employing of scavengers punishable.
The film is interspersed with interviews by Martin Macwan, the presenter of the film, who is also the director of Naysarjan Trust, a voluntary organisation that works for the Bhangis' cause. In Macwan's view, "Manual scavenging cannot be looked at in isolation as an occupation. It is built in the caste system and is getting worse. Fifty years ago there was no technology but today we have it. But things remain the same. Technology again is caste-based. If you are on the wrong side of the fence, you hardly get exposed to it."
Not surprisingly, the film has made a strong impact wherever it has been screened, and has won several awards. But the fact is, Lesser Humans, was not made to garner the awards. Its purpose was to make a definitive statement against the inhumanity of the manual scavenging profession, and by doing that, to get the authorities to seriously address the issue. The producers of the documentary, Drishti Media Collective, consists of a group of young professionals working on issues of gender justice, human rights, and development in general. The director, K. Stalin, has to his credit other socially relevant documentaries like Aftermath of the Cyclone in Kutch, Patta Patta Akshar Hoax a (on the literacy campaign in a Bihar village) and The Self in Self-Rule (on gender sensitive governance).
Interestingly, Lesser Humans was not considered suitable for showing in the United States. While that certainly says something, of both the American audience and the profession of the Bhangi, the fact is that a film like this is made for, and should be seen by, South Asian audience everywhere. As long as the 'right' people see it and act upon it, there ought to be some hope for those whom society defiles everyday.