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Unseen: The Truth About India's Manual Scavengers
In many parts of the country, the inhuman practice of manual scavenging continues to thrive in spite of a law banning it. Moreover, the people forced to carry out this degrading work remain invisible to the rest of us, pushed to the margins of society without any recourse to help or hope. Now, for the first time, award-winning journalist Bhasha Singh turns the spotlight on this ignored community. In Unseen, based on over a decade of research, she unveils the horrific plight of manual scavengers across eleven states in the country while also recording their ongoing struggle for self-empowerment. Previously published in Hindi to both critical and commercial success, this is an explosive work of reportage on a burning issue.
- GenresIndiaNonfiction
280 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 18, 2023
According to recent data from the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, there are around 43,797 people engaged in manual scavenging, of which over 42,500 belong to the Scheduled Castes. Around 98 percent of those engaging in manual scavenging are from the SCs, and 1% from the STs and BCs respectively. Despite a law banning it, the inhuman practice of picking up human excreta with bare hands continues to thrive across India.
The micro minority residing in urban India loves to paint rural India’s lack of sanitation as a mere economic problem. However, renowned scholar Dean Spears in his book “Where India Goes: Abandoned Toilets, Stunted Development and the Costs of Caste” researched the overlooked reality of the rural perspective on feces and toilets, and how the social hierarchy in India, that places scavenging and other menial jobs traditionally to the caste groups customarily relegated to the bottom of the caste hierarchy have led to the creation of a feudal hesitation among rural inhabitants to refrain from using toilets.
Even among those who use toilets, the dry latrines, unlike flush toilets are not connected to a sewer system or septic tank, where the excreta is collected in a pit and has to be cleaned every once in a while. Unfortunately, the burden of performing this inhumane task falls on to a segment of society, who have been doing this work for many generations, without even realizing the hazard and indignity associated with it. However, the Safai Karmachari Andolan movement has been organizing the people to fight for the lost dignity.
In this regard, Basha Singh also explores the two diametrically opposite views held by Gandhi and Ambedkar. While Gandhi, like Prime Minister Modi, believed that the job of manual scavenging is a spiritual service bestowed on the selected few by God, Ambedkar puts bluntly, “In India, a man is not a scavenger because of his work. He is a scavenger because of his birth irrespective of the question of whether he does scavenging or not.” While some have internalized this caste element of manual scavenging and have been passing it on to their generations, especially to the daughters-in-law, this book covers the stories of manual scavengers across India, who have raised against all odds to change their profession and those who are still fighting their battles against this quagmire.
Women who do this job are under constant tobacco chewing and so are the men who intoxicate themselves with a drug to escape the malodor. Birth defects are predominant among the children born to these women, due to their prolonged exposure to infectious agents from sewage. Disgusted by their own body, food, and life, sometimes the nightmares of feces, the member of the manual scavenging community seeks redressal and rehabilitation different from the usual bank loans for small business. Faced with rampant untouchability, social stigma, and ghettoization, manual scavengers find it difficult to seek alternate employment and inclusion in mainstream society.
Despite the Employment of Manual Scavenging and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act of 1993, and the Prohibition of Employment of Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act of 2013, the sewer deaths and the plight of manual scavengers have remained the same. Every story presented in the book exposes the blatant inability and the willful ignorance of civil society, administration, and political parties to address this national issue that puts the lives of thousands of women at stake.
The micro minority residing in urban India loves to paint rural India’s lack of sanitation as a mere economic problem. However, renowned scholar Dean Spears in his book “Where India Goes: Abandoned Toilets, Stunted Development and the Costs of Caste” researched the overlooked reality of the rural perspective on feces and toilets, and how the social hierarchy in India, that places scavenging and other menial jobs traditionally to the caste groups customarily relegated to the bottom of the caste hierarchy have led to the creation of a feudal hesitation among rural inhabitants to refrain from using toilets.
Even among those who use toilets, the dry latrines, unlike flush toilets are not connected to a sewer system or septic tank, where the excreta is collected in a pit and has to be cleaned every once in a while. Unfortunately, the burden of performing this inhumane task falls on to a segment of society, who have been doing this work for many generations, without even realizing the hazard and indignity associated with it. However, the Safai Karmachari Andolan movement has been organizing the people to fight for the lost dignity.
In this regard, Basha Singh also explores the two diametrically opposite views held by Gandhi and Ambedkar. While Gandhi, like Prime Minister Modi, believed that the job of manual scavenging is a spiritual service bestowed on the selected few by God, Ambedkar puts bluntly, “In India, a man is not a scavenger because of his work. He is a scavenger because of his birth irrespective of the question of whether he does scavenging or not.” While some have internalized this caste element of manual scavenging and have been passing it on to their generations, especially to the daughters-in-law, this book covers the stories of manual scavengers across India, who have raised against all odds to change their profession and those who are still fighting their battles against this quagmire.
Women who do this job are under constant tobacco chewing and so are the men who intoxicate themselves with a drug to escape the malodor. Birth defects are predominant among the children born to these women, due to their prolonged exposure to infectious agents from sewage. Disgusted by their own body, food, and life, sometimes the nightmares of feces, the member of the manual scavenging community seeks redressal and rehabilitation different from the usual bank loans for small business. Faced with rampant untouchability, social stigma, and ghettoization, manual scavengers find it difficult to seek alternate employment and inclusion in mainstream society.
Despite the Employment of Manual Scavenging and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act of 1993, and the Prohibition of Employment of Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act of 2013, the sewer deaths and the plight of manual scavengers have remained the same. Every story presented in the book exposes the blatant inability and the willful ignorance of civil society, administration, and political parties to address this national issue that puts the lives of thousands of women at stake.
November 18, 2020
I had to put this aside for a few days after I started it, during which time I worked up the courage to read it. Not an easy read - so you can imagine how insane it must be to actually do the work for manual scavenging. Literally, cleaning the shit of other human beings using your own hands. Most of the time the people doing it don't even have gloves. Thanks to Bhasha Singh for bearing witness to these incredible women (they're almost all women -- who are "the Dalits among Dalits").
I don't know how much things have since improved since this was published about 6 years ago, but many of the women in this book were angry and they were revolting against the system, which made me actually feel a bit optimistic. On the basis of communities coming together from the group up only.
The fucking caste system is a disease.
I don't know how much things have since improved since this was published about 6 years ago, but many of the women in this book were angry and they were revolting against the system, which made me actually feel a bit optimistic. On the basis of communities coming together from the group up only.
The fucking caste system is a disease.
April 28, 2016
The book directly takes me so deep in to the ppl who have been ignored by the society for centuries. Irrespective of religion the caste system is expanded its devil face on all over India.The author also captured actual interest of Indian bureaucrats in this matters.
This book would definitely shake everyone while reading and definitely it would staple a sharp nail.
This book would definitely shake everyone while reading and definitely it would staple a sharp nail.
October 20, 2025
I read Joothan by Omprakash Valmiki while in college, and it left me shattered. In Joothan, the author writes of a childhood where he was made to sit on the classroom floor, clean the school toilets and sweep the school premises, because he belonged to a community that was engaged in manual scavenging. School that is supposed to be a liberating space becomes a site of oppression. In Unseen by Bhasha Singh, you come across many children who meet with the same fate at school - forced to sit separately in classrooms and during meals, to clean classrooms and toilets, and to drag away dead animals from the street, while not even allowed to use the drinking water facility at school. In her book published in 2013, Bhasha Singh documents the persistence of manual scavenging across states decades after its official prohibition. She brings to light the agony, torture, and indignity that this practice puts living, breathing human beings through.
In this book, you come across numerous women forced by caste, patriarchy and abject poverty into the dangerous and degrading job of manual scavenging for nothing but a few rotis and a pittance in wages. You come across manual scavengers employed by municipalities despite it being legally banned since 1993. You come across mothers-in-law who proudly pass on the jagirdari (hereditary right) of manual scavenging to their daughters-in-law. You come across women who vehemently withstand the pressure to leave behind this dehumanising job because the caste system not just exploits but also conditions the mind to accept exploitation as destiny. In what is truly an act of moral and journalistic courage, Bhasha Singh exposes the institutional apathy and complicity, that has legitimised and sustained this inhuman practice across centuries, well into the modern "civilised" India.
In 2025, much may have changed but I know, for one, that still the failures and shortcomings of our sanitation infrastructure are compensated by the forced, invisible and stigmatized labour of Dalits; that the rights of our sanitation workers are among the lowest priorities of our governments, even as they continue to romanticize and glorify sanitation work. Much may have changed - the trains may have biotoilets and the dry latrines may have gone, but the work of manual scavenging endures in disguised forms - behind contracts and subcontracts - easily escaping the narrow legal definition and ban set out in the 2013 Act. And Dalit labourers who clean septic tanks, drains, and sewers without protective gear or safety training continue to die “accidental deaths”, never “manual scavenging deaths” and their families continue to be denied rightful compensation and rehabilitation.
In this book, you come across numerous women forced by caste, patriarchy and abject poverty into the dangerous and degrading job of manual scavenging for nothing but a few rotis and a pittance in wages. You come across manual scavengers employed by municipalities despite it being legally banned since 1993. You come across mothers-in-law who proudly pass on the jagirdari (hereditary right) of manual scavenging to their daughters-in-law. You come across women who vehemently withstand the pressure to leave behind this dehumanising job because the caste system not just exploits but also conditions the mind to accept exploitation as destiny. In what is truly an act of moral and journalistic courage, Bhasha Singh exposes the institutional apathy and complicity, that has legitimised and sustained this inhuman practice across centuries, well into the modern "civilised" India.
In 2025, much may have changed but I know, for one, that still the failures and shortcomings of our sanitation infrastructure are compensated by the forced, invisible and stigmatized labour of Dalits; that the rights of our sanitation workers are among the lowest priorities of our governments, even as they continue to romanticize and glorify sanitation work. Much may have changed - the trains may have biotoilets and the dry latrines may have gone, but the work of manual scavenging endures in disguised forms - behind contracts and subcontracts - easily escaping the narrow legal definition and ban set out in the 2013 Act. And Dalit labourers who clean septic tanks, drains, and sewers without protective gear or safety training continue to die “accidental deaths”, never “manual scavenging deaths” and their families continue to be denied rightful compensation and rehabilitation.
April 15, 2014
The book is a collection of stories that came out of author's visit to different parts of the country. The author is a journalist and not a novelist and hence the book does not talk about the rustling of leaves or the colour reflected by blah blah blah. The stories are straight forward and expose the apathy of the government and society towards manual scavengers.
I read the whole book with wet eyes. If one thinks of "12 years a slave" as a great movie, I would say, the way manual scavengers are treated even today makes you writhe inside!
I am reading the book in Hindi too, so as to appreciate author's original words.
I read the whole book with wet eyes. If one thinks of "12 years a slave" as a great movie, I would say, the way manual scavengers are treated even today makes you writhe inside!
I am reading the book in Hindi too, so as to appreciate author's original words.
September 22, 2016
Easy and quick read. The book deals with the research work the author did on manual scavengers. From Various parts of India - Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, UP, MP, Rajasthan, Kashmir, Gujarat and West Bengal. A very detailed report dealing with the plight of manual scavengers - despite the law that banned the manual scavenging and need for the rehabilitation what is the real scenario.
November 23, 2016
Great one to understand cast discrimination in India
July 19, 2025
UNSEEN by Bhasha Singh
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"On Wednesday, a 47-year-old man asphyxiated to death while cleaning a septic tank at an apartment building in Karapakkam,Chennai." (I saw this news just yesterday & the place of incident is nearby :( )
Seeing death news like this and seeing the manual scavengers in public, in broad day light, from time to time in my life made me pick up this book to know more about it. Honestly I can't agree more with the book's backcover review that says, "Heartrending...(this book) will deeply unsettle those who value equality and respect for human beings".
I cant believe there is a complete world "unseen" in our country scattered across many cities, villages, maybe even nearby the place you live right now. It is shocking, disgusting and I'm sure the effects of this book won't leave you easily, maybe for life long.
Just full of raw emotions and challenges of women manual scavengers all over India.
In some books, sometimes you wish the pictures in it are printed in color instead of B&W, but with this one you would feel glad the pictures ain't colored. Once you read, whatever news you may watch tomorrow on TV on India's achievements in Science&Technology, you won't feel that proud. I imagine like this book would just throw a bucket full of human shit on those news.
Lot of takeaways from this book. Highly recommended!!
---
"On Wednesday, a 47-year-old man asphyxiated to death while cleaning a septic tank at an apartment building in Karapakkam,Chennai." (I saw this news just yesterday & the place of incident is nearby :( )
Seeing death news like this and seeing the manual scavengers in public, in broad day light, from time to time in my life made me pick up this book to know more about it. Honestly I can't agree more with the book's backcover review that says, "Heartrending...(this book) will deeply unsettle those who value equality and respect for human beings".
I cant believe there is a complete world "unseen" in our country scattered across many cities, villages, maybe even nearby the place you live right now. It is shocking, disgusting and I'm sure the effects of this book won't leave you easily, maybe for life long.
Just full of raw emotions and challenges of women manual scavengers all over India.
In some books, sometimes you wish the pictures in it are printed in color instead of B&W, but with this one you would feel glad the pictures ain't colored. Once you read, whatever news you may watch tomorrow on TV on India's achievements in Science&Technology, you won't feel that proud. I imagine like this book would just throw a bucket full of human shit on those news.
Lot of takeaways from this book. Highly recommended!!
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews