A Critical Analysis of Manual Scavenging Laws and Practice in India
Keywords:
Manual scavenging, scavengers, human rights, exploitation, legislative remedies, judicial approachAbstract
The development of the society is measured in two units, one the technological development and two growths in ethical or moral standards. Laws are formed to protect the society and avail equality to the people. And there are a few laws which ensures, that equality prevails irrespective of geo-political, sociocultural differences. They are known as human rights. There are a few categories of the society, who suffer losses owing to the above-mentioned differences. These are termed as the vulnerable groups. With the vast and variant geographical and cultural differences, in a country such as India, categorising the vulnerable
groups and defining their human rights is not an easy task. And while checking down the pages of history one can notice that many names were not added due to the socio-political conditions then. One such group which is considered but not categorised under the vulnerable, are the manual scavengers. Manual Scavengers are those who are employed to handle human waste from insanitary latrines, railway lines, etc. Though sad and shocking it is a hard truth that one need to know that these practices are yet prevailing when the nation is focused on graphing up the budget lines and making scientific achievements. This research is an attempt to scrutinize the sustainability of practice in the technically developing nation and also an effort made to search for lawfull solutions for the mentioned problem.
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