165 manhole deaths in Gujarat, 62 in Ahmedabad; govt "refusing" to pay Rs 10 lakh compensation: Widows

Hansaben and Gitaben

By A Representative
Gitaben's husband, belonging to India's most marginalised Dalit community, Valmikis, died while cleaning up a gutter in Ahmedabad in 2006. Though she was given compensation of Rs 2 lakh and a job by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC), she has still not received the Rs 10 lakh compensation she should get on the basis of the March 27, 2014 Supreme Court order. Same is the case with Hansaben, whose husband died died in the year 2000.
The Supreme Court order requires payment of Rs 10 lakh compensation to each of the manual scavengers who died cleaning up gutters across India since 1993. However, the two widows alleged that they had "still not heard" from the state government on when will they be compensated, despite repeated representations.
The widows were participating in a public hearing of 200 marginalized women, belonging to Dalit, tribal and minority communities from across Gujarat at the Human Development and Research Centre (HDRC), St Xavier's College premises, Ahmedabad, on Tuesday.
Talking about the plight of not just these widows but also others, whose husbands have died cleaning up gitters since 1993, Parsottam Vaghela of the Manav Garima Trust told newspersons, "Between 1993 and till date as many as 165 persons have died due to asphyxiation in gutters. However, so far, only 11 widows have received the Rs 10 lakh compensation."
"Ironically", he continued, "Even the compensation to the 11 widows is not being paid in in the full. Earlier, they had received an amount of Rs 1.5 to 3 lakh as compensation when their husbands died. This amount was cut from the Rs 10 lakh, which has to be paid as compensation".
"Worse", he told Counterview, "The interest for the three year period after the Supreme Court order has not been paid, which is a clear violation of the apex court order", adding, "We hope, with polls round the corner, the government would act, taking Election Commission permission."
Of the 165 manhole workers who have died, 62 belong to Ahmedabad alone. Ironically, for 10 of them, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation has sought clarification from the state authorities whether their widows should be paid any compensation, as their kin had been given “mercy” jobs.
"In order to avoid giving any compensation various other explanations are being offered", said Vaghela. "Like, the Dahegam municipality, about 20 km from the state capital, Gandhinagar, says that since the two workers who died were contract workers, it is not the job of the government authorities to give any compensation".
" Then", he said, "Mansa municipal authorities say that since those the two persons who had died were working under the water supply department, it is not their job to give compensation. In Jamnagar, four boys died in manhole after they were asked to enter into the manhole in order to save the person, who had already entered in earlier, fainted in the gutter."
"Five years after the tragedy, the Jamnagar Municipal Corporation has said that while the person who died first would be given compensation, the other four who died while saving him would not be compensated. Queries are being raised for each of 165 cases on one pretext or the other in order to flout the Supreme Court order", he added.
During the public hearing, Jassuben, an illiterate Dalit woman, said, her son was killed seven years ago in Ahmedabad's Vatva area, yet no FIR was filed. Even the post mortem was not performed on his body.
And Manjulaben, another Dalit woman, pointed towards how she was suspended from the job of cook at the midday meal kitchen in Junagadh's Ghantiya village "because the principal of the school and the village elders did not want food to be served food by an untouchable."

Comments

Plastic burning in homes threatens food, water and air across Global South: Study

By Jag Jivan In a groundbreaking study spanning 26 countries across the Global South , researchers have uncovered the widespread and concerning practice of households burning plastic waste as a fuel for cooking, heating, and other domestic needs. The research, published in Nature Communications , reveals that this hazardous method of managing both waste and energy poverty is driven by systemic failures in municipal services and the unaffordability of clean alternatives, posing severe risks to human health and the environment.

Economic superpower’s social failure? Inequality, malnutrition and crisis of India's democracy

By Vikas Meshram India may be celebrated as one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, but a closer look at who benefits from that growth tells a starkly different story. The recently released World Inequality Report 2026 lays bare a country sharply divided by wealth, privilege and power. According to the report, nearly 65 percent of India’s total wealth is owned by the richest 10 percent of its population, while the bottom half of the country controls barely 6.4 percent. The top one percent—around 14 million people—holds more than 40 percent, the highest concentration since 1961. Meanwhile, the female labour force participation rate is a dismal 15.7 percent.

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

The greatest threat to our food system: The aggressive push for GM crops

By Bharat Dogra Thanks to the courageous resistance of several leading scientists who continue to speak the truth despite increasing pressures from the powerful GM crop and GM food lobby , the many-sided and in some contexts irreversible environmental and health impacts of GM foods and crops, as well as the highly disruptive effects of this technology on farmers, are widely known today.

History, culture and literature of Fatehpur, UP, from where Maulana Hasrat Mohani hailed

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* Maulana Hasrat Mohani was a member of the Constituent Assembly and an extremely important leader of our freedom movement. Born in Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh, Hasrat Mohani's relationship with nearby district of Fatehpur is interesting and not explored much by biographers and historians. Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri has written a book on Maulana Hasrat Mohani and Fatehpur. The book is in Urdu. He has just come out with another important book, 'Hindi kee Pratham Rachna: Chandayan' authored by Mulla Daud Dalmai.' During my recent visit to Fatehpur town, I had an opportunity to meet Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri and recorded a conversation with him on issues of history, culture and literature of Fatehpur. Sharing this conversation here with you. Kindly click this link. --- *Human rights defender. Facebook https://www.facebook.com/vbrawat , X @freetohumanity, Skype @vbrawat

Epic war against caste system is constitutional responsibility of elected government

Edited by well-known Gujarat Dalit rights leader Martin Macwan, the book, “Bhed-Bharat: An Account of Injustice and Atrocities on Dalits and Adivasis (2014-18)” (available in English and Gujarati*) is a selection of news articles on Dalits and Adivasis (2014-2018) published by Dalit Shakti Prakashan, Ahmedabad. Preface to the book, in which Macwan seeks to answer key questions on why the book is needed today: *** The thought of compiling a book on atrocities on Dalits and thus present an overall Indian picture had occurred to me a long time ago. Absence of such a comprehensive picture is a major reason for a weak social and political consciousness among Dalits as well as non-Dalits. But gradually the idea took a different form. I found that lay readers don’t understand numbers and don’t like to read well-researched articles. The best way to reach out to them was storytelling. As I started writing in Gujarati and sharing the idea of the book with my friends, it occurred to me that while...

Would breaking idols, burning books annihilate caste? Recalling a 1972 Dalit protest

By Rajiv Shah A few days ago, I received an email alert from a veteran human rights leader who has fought many battles in Gujarat for the Dalit cause — both through ground-level campaigns and courtroom struggles. The alert, sent in Gujarati by Valjibhai Patel, who heads the Council for Social Justice, stated: “In 1935, Babasaheb Ambedkar burnt the Manusmriti . In 1972, we broke the idol of Krishna , whom we regarded as the creator of the varna (caste) system.”

'Restructuring' Sahitya Akademi: Is the ‘Gujarat model’ reaching Delhi?

By Prakash N. Shah* A fortnight and a few days have slipped past that grim event. It was as if the wedding preparations were complete and the groom’s face was about to be unveiled behind the ceremonial tinsel. At 3 PM on December 18, a press conference was poised to announce the Sahitya Akademi Awards .

From colonial mercantilism to Hindutva: New book on the making of power in Gujarat

By Rajiv Shah Professor Ghanshyam Shah ’s latest book, “ Caste-Class Hegemony and State Power: A Study of Gujarat Politics ”, published by Routledge , is penned by one of Gujarat ’s most respected chroniclers, drawing on decades of fieldwork in the state. It seeks to dissect how caste and class factors overlap to perpetuate the hegemony of upper strata in an ostensibly democratic polity. The book probes the dominance of two main political parties in Gujarat—the Indian National Congress and the BJP—arguing that both have sustained capitalist growth while reinforcing Brahmanic hierarchies.

Search This Blog