Acting Away Oppression

Virendra Ganvir uses theatre as a medium to confront the societal inequalities associated with manual scavenging

- Barkha Mathur

“I feel we were born to do this job. There is no escape. Our Mehtar caste ensures that no other work will be offered to us. Every time I lower myself into a gutter, the stench and that liquid full of faeces enter my eyes, nostrils and my mouth. I know that I am risking my life. I have watched many of my folks faint and die due to the poisonous gases that emanate in these sewers. So, I consume a bottle of country liquor and use a bit of ganja (marijuana) to numb my senses. That is the only way I can bring myself to wade through the filth to unclog the gutters of this city.”

—A manual scavenger

“THIS is the only job which is caste-specific. Tell me if there is any other job which comes with a caste tag,” says Virendra Ganvir, a theatre artist in Nagpur and founder of Bahujan Rangbhoomi, a banner that presents plays based on the lives and issues of the underprivileged.

It is only those who hail from the Mehtar community, the lowest in the caste hierarchy of India, who are called upon to take up the task of manual scavenging. Though there is a ban on manual scavenging, the civic authorities and others continue to engage them for cleaning sewers. “Even if a person from the Mehtar or Valmiki caste is employed in some other work, he will be called upon to clean a clogged sewer, as his caste says that he is born to do this work,” observes Ganvir, who has researched their lives minutely and written a play, Gatar, based on the issue of manual scavenging and the suffering of those who are employed in this work.