Indian society is riddled with many evil practices. One such practice is the manual scavenging. This practice was banned in 1993. Official lapses and apathy apart, the surveys by the activists working against this practice show that even now over 14 lakhs of scavengers are still suffering ignominy and nearly 95% of them are women. These scavengers are the untouchable section of Dalits. For the last many decades social movements have been forcing the State authorities to abolish this practice and rehabilitate the scavengers. As usual the State response has been half baked. Enough is enough, this atrocity on a section of our society has to be stopped forthwith; they need to be rehabilitated to the life of dignity, come what may.
Mohd Ziyaullah Khan
Nagpur, M’rashtra