Manual Scavenging in Mumbai: The Systems of Oppression

Manual scavenging is widely practiced in densely populated cities and not just villages in India. The country’s sanitation workers are dying in large numbers due to suffocation inside manholes while cleaning sewer waste. This article presents some of the concerns and conditions of manual scavengers in Mumbai, the most populated metropolitan city in India. While most studies and reports bring out statistics on the issue, the point of this study is to enter the worlds of manual scavengers and learn about their lived experiences and narratives. This is a qualitative exploration done among multiple communities of manual scavengers all over Mumbai. This article tells the story of how manual scavengers are exploited by their employers as the government and society look away, avoiding seeing, hearing, or coming in direct contact with manual scavengers while benefiting from their labor and exploitation. The lived experiences of manual scavengers in Mumbai illustrate the complementary play of caste and class in upholding the oppression and continuing the violence directed to manual scavengers.