Dying to breathe: Caste, law and the urban political ecology of manual scavenging in India

This paper explores the relationship between caste, law and the urban political ecology of manual scavenging in India. Manual scavenging, or working with human shit, is a caste occupation violently enforced onto Dalit bodies, imputing their worth as a human with their labour. This paper analyses the role of the Indian state and its institutions in producing caste-based labour for maintaining the urban metabolism of waste in Indian cities. Through an extensive literature review on caste, waste and urban political ecology I bring to bear the role of legal activism and legal enumeration surrounding the issue of manual scavenging. I unpack key legislation banning manual scavenging and public interest litigation cases in the supreme court of India to understand why the law has failed to stop the practise. I find this is because the law itself is shaped by caste as the Indian state is simultaneously the prosecutor, criminal perpetrator and employer of manual scavenging, responsible for caste death and violence. Undercounting, mislabelling of manual scavenging as ‘hazardous cleaning’, lack of data collection and contractualisation invisibilises manual scavenging labour in life. It also denies justice in their deaths in sewers, as they perform an essential function for the metabolism of the city.