Sewerage's reproduction of caste: The politics of coprology in Ahmedabad, India

Radical History Review

Volumn , Issue 116, 2013, Pages 5-30

  Tam, Stephanie ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 84877151606     PISSN: 01636545     EISSN: 15341453     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1215/01636545-1965675     Document Type: Article

References (117)

1. Susan E. Chaplin, "Cities, Sewers, and Poverty: India's Politics of Sanitation," Environment and Urbanization 11, no. 1 (1999): 146.
2. Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., s.v. "coprology."
3. Louis Dumont's description of caste in terms of purity and pollution in Louis Dumont, Homo Hierarchicus: An Essay on the Caste System, trans. Mark Sainsbury (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970) dominated the Western understanding of caste throughout the 1970s and 1980s.
4. Examples include C. J. Fuller, "Gods, Priests, and Purity: On the Relation Between Hinduism and the Caste System," Man (New Series) 14 no. 3 (1971): 459-76
5. Frédérique Marglin, "Types of Oppositions in Hindu Culture," in Purity and Auspiciousness in Indian Society, ed. John B. Carman and Frédérique Marglin (Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1985), 65
6. Murray Milner, "Dirt and Development in India," Virginia Quarterly Review 63 no. 1 (1987): 54-71
7. Michael Moffat, An Untouchable Community in South India: Structure and Consensus (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979).
8. Dumont's approach was countered in Arjun Appadurai, "Is Homo Hierarchicus?" (review of Fluid Signs: Being a Person the Tamil Way
9. E. Valentine Daniel, The Untouchable as Himself: Ideology, Identity and Pragmatism among the Lucknow Chamars
10. Ravindra S. Khare, and The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self under Colonialism
11. Ashis Nandy, American Ethnologist 13, no. 4 (1986), 745-61
12. Declan Quigley, The Interpretation of Caste (Michigan: Clarendon, 1993)
13. Mary Searle-Chatterjee and Ursula Sharma, Contextualizing Caste: Post-{Eth}umontian Approaches (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994), among others.
14. However, the causal connection between dirt and untouchability has remained engrained in contemporary human rights initiatives. Human rights activists strive to counter untouchable atrocities by eliminating the need for manual scavenging in rural areas through sanitation technology (see the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's 2006 ecological sanitation initiative in Paliyad, headed by Balakrishnan Rajagopal, and Fiona Baker, Natalie Cartwright, Elena Esposito, and Katha Kartiki's 2008 total sanitation campaign in Moradabad).
15. Kenneth Gillion, Ahmedabad: A Study in Indian Urban History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968), 121.
16. Memorandum by Ranchhodlal Chhotalal, December 1, 1885, in The Life of Rao Bahadur Ranchorelal Chhotalal, C.I.E., ed. Bhagwanlal R. Badshah (Bombay: "Times of India" Steam Press, 1899), 39.
17. Theodore C. Hope, reply to Chhotalal's letter seeking Hope's opinion on water supply and drainage in Ahmedabad, October 25, 1886, in Badshah, ed., Ranchorelal Chhotalal, 63.
18. Ibid., 72.
19. Chhotalal to Blaney, January 22, 1886, in Badshah, Ranchorelal Chhotalal, 40.
20. S. M. Edwardes, A Memoir of Rao Bahadur Ranchhodlal Chhotalal, C.I.E. (Exeter, UK: William Pollard, 1920), 29.
21. Hope TC, Reply to Chhotalal's letter seeking Hope's opinion on water supply and drainage in Ahmedabad, October 25, 1886, in Badshah, Ranchorelal Chhotalal, 68, 72.
22. Helen Campbell, "Social Settlements and the Civic Sense," Arena 20, no. 5 (1898): 596.
23. Following the terminology used by Mari Marcel Thekaekara, Vijay Prashad, Fernando Franco, Jyotsna Macwan, and Suguna Ramanathan, This essay uses Bhangi to refer to untouchable sweepers despite its derogatory connotations. While other names define caste through religious beliefs (Balmiki, or Valmiki) and general oppression (Dalit), Bhangi is associated to sweeping and is therefore the most specific term for describing this community.
24. Vijay Prashad, Untouchable Freedom: A Social History of a Dalit Community (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 3-5.
25. Prashad describes Delhi's sweepers, but Ahmedabad's sweepers must have been in the same situation given Chhotalal's proposal to centralize night-soil collection and gain municipal revenue from it.
26. Memorandum by Ranchhodlal Chhotalal, November 1, 1886, in Badshah, Ranchorelal Chhotalal, 83.
27. Prashad V, Untouchable Freedom, xvii.
28. B. R. Ambedkar, Annihilation of Caste (Bombay: Government Central Press, 1979), 47.
29. Hope TC, Reply to Chhotalal's letter seeking Hope's opinion on water supply and drainage in Ahmedabad, October 25, 1886, in Badshah, Ranchorelal Chhotalal, 70.
30. Ibid., 70.
31. Gillion, October 25 Ahmedabad, 136.
32. Edwardes SM, Ranchhodlal Chhotalal, 35.
33. Ibid., 33.
34. Richard L. Schoenwald, "Training Urban Man: A Hypothesis about the Sanitary Movement," in The Victorian City: Images and Realities, ed. H. J. Dyos and Michael Wolff (London: Routledge, 1973), 2:682.
35. Gillion K, Ahmedabad, 132.
36. Chhotalal R, memorandum, November 1, 1886, 81.
37. Gillion K, Ahmedabad, 132.
38. Prashad V, Untouchable Freedom, 119.
39. See, e.g., Omprakash Valmiki, Joothan, trans. Arun Prabha Mukherjee (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003).
40. Mari Marcel Thekaekara, Endless Filth: The Saga of the Bhangis (London: Zed Books, 1999), 3.
41. Prashad V, Untouchable Freedom, 23.
42. Gillion K, Ahmedabad, 138.
43. Edwardes SM, Ranchhodlal Chhotalal, 38-3
44. Schoenwald RL, "Training Urban Man," 677.
45. Ibid., 677.
46. Chhotalal, memorandum, November 1, 1886, 81.
47. Hope TC, reply, October 25, 1886, 72.
48. Chhotalal, memorandum, December 1, 1885, 40
49. Howard Spodek, Ahmedabad: Shock City of Twentieth-Century India (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011), 133.
50. Gillion K, Ahmedabad, 133.
51. Chhotalal R, memorandum, November 1, 1886, 86.
52. Prashad V, Untouchable Freedom, xvii.
53. Ibid., 45.
54. Prajabundhu, September 17, 1911, and September 24, 1911, quoted in Journeys to Freedom: Dalit Narratives, Fernando Franco, Jyotsna Macwan, and Suguna Ramanathan (Kolkata: Samya, 2004), 359-6
55. Spodek H, Ahmedabad, 59.
56. Prashad V, Untouchable Freedom, 145.
57. Ducat to Chhotalal, March 19, 1886, in Badshah, Ranchorelal Chhotalal, 47.
58. Baldwin Latham, Sanitary Engineering: A Guide to the Construction of Works of Sewerage and House Drainage (New York: Engineering News Publishing, 1884), 7.
59. Ibid., 45.
60. Blaney to Chhotalal, January 25, 1886, in Badshah, Ranchorelal Chhotalal, 45.
61. Latham B, Sanitary Engineering, 7.
62. Henry Mayhew, London Labor and the London Poor (London: Griffin, Bohn, 1861), 2:451.
63. Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation Drainage Department and Multi Media Consultants, "Map of Existing and Proposed Ahmedabad Sewerage Network" (Ahmedabad, 2007), digital file in author's possession.
64. Latham B, Sanitary Engineering, 45.
65. Human body dimensions are from Donald Watson, Michael J. Crosbie, and John Hancock Callender, eds., Time-Saver Standards for Architectural Design Data, 7th ed. (Madison, CT: McGraw-Hill,1997), AP-3.
66. Blaney to Chhotalal, January 25, 1886, 45.
67. Hope TC, reply to Chhotalal's letter seeking Hope's opinion on water supply and drainage in Ahmedabad, October 25, 1886 in Badshah, Ranchorelal Chhotalal, 68.
68. Edwardes SM, Ranchhodlal Chhotalal, 39.
69. P. R. Shah, "Background Papers," Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, Town Development Department, 142, quoted in Spodek, Ahmedabad, 133.
70. Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, Town Development Department, draft revised development plan, 1975, 1:178, quoted in Spodek, Ahmedabad, 133.
71. Ibid., 1:177, quoted in Spodek, Ahmedabad, 133-3
72. Manjula Pradeep (executive director of the Navsarjan Trust), interview with author, June 24, 2010, Ahmedabad.
73. Prashad V, Untouchable Freedom, 4.
74. Anonymous Delhi colonial official quoted in Prashad V, Untouchable Freedom, 4.
75. T. V. Ramachandra and Shruthi Bachamanda, "Environmental Audit of Municipal Solid Waste Management," technical report no. 118 (Bangalore: Center for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, June 2006), www.ces.iisc.ernet.in/biodiversity/pubs/ces_tr/TR118_SPoonancha/Index.htm.
76. Spodek H, Ahmedabad, 134; Pradeep, interview.
77. Prashad V, Untouchable Freedom, 82-8
78. Pradeep M, interview.
79. Spodek H, Ahmedabad, 71.
80. Ibid., 204.
81. Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, "East Ahmedabad Sewerage Project Phase II" (Ahmedabad, 2007), document copy in author's possession.
82. Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, Ahmedabad Urban Development Authority, and the Center for Environmental Planning and Technology (CEPT) University, Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission: City Development Plan Ahmedabad 2006-2012(2006), www.auda.org.in/library/auda_cdp.pdf.
83. Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation and Multi Media Consultants, "Tender Documents for Construction of Motera Sewage Pumping Station alongwith [sic] Mechanical and Electrical Installation and Allied Works Including Testing, Commissioning, and O & M [Operations and Maintenance] for Two Years of Sewage Pumping Station under Jn-NURM [Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission] Programme," www.egovamc.com/tenders/DOCS/2525/V_II.pdf, November 2009, 9.
84. Ruturaj Jadav, "AMC [Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation], AUDA [Ahmedabad Urban Development Authority] to Give City Asia's Biggest Sewage Plants," Ahmedabad Mirror, August 2, 2009, www.ahmedabadmirror.com/index.aspx?page=article§id=3&contentid=2009080220090802030135218cfdaf&51§xslt=&pageno=1.
85. Chaplin SE, "Cities, Sewers, and Poverty," 153. Manual scavenging is a term that presumes an old system of sanitation, but it is just as applicable to newly serviced areas where workers are manually clearing out sewer blockages.
86. Mukesh Shah and Jatin Mehta (former heads of Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation Drainage Department), interview with author, July 13, 2010, Ahmedabad.
87. Ashish Mishra (director of Kamdar Swasthiya Suraksha Mandal [a nonprofit organization that fights for worker rights not only in the workplace but also in their everyday living conditions]), interview with author, June 28, 2010, Ahmedabad.
88. Shaileshkumar Darokar and H. Beck, Study on Practice of Manual Scavenging in the State of Gujarat (Mumbai: Tata Institute of Social Sciences, 2006).
89. Prashad V, Untouchable Freedom, 21-2
90. Shyamlal, The Bhangi: A Sweeper Caste, Its Socio-economic Portraits; With Special Reference to Jodhpur City (Mumbai: Popular Prakashan, 1992), 23.
91. Howard Spodek, "Struggle and Development: A History of Coping with Poverty," in Poverty and Vulnerability in a Globalising Metropolis: Ahmedabad, ed. Amitabh Kundu and Darshini Mahadevia (New Delhi: Manak Publications, 2002), 225.
92. Although there are examples of upward mobility among non-Gujarati Bhangis in the 1970s (see Valmiki, Joothan), most Ahmedabad Bhangis did not have the resources to emancipate themselves from degrading employment. Alcoholism and other addictions that enabled sewer workers to cope with their situation kept them in financial straits and weakened their health. Compounded by hazardous work conditions, many fell ill and pulled their children out of school to replace them in the sewers, leaving their children with little opportunity to pursue alternative occupations. Pradeep, interview; Mishra, interview.
93. Franco, Macwan, and Ramanathan S, Journeys to Freedom, 360.
94. Ibid., 348
95. Spodek H, Ahmedabad, 109.
96. Franco, Macwan, and Ramanathan S, Journeys to Freedom, 348.
97. Spodek H, Ahmedabad, 104.
98. Ibid., 108.
99. Mishra A, interview.
100. S. Anand, "Life inside a Black Hole," Tehelka Magazine 4, no. 47 (2007), www.tehelka.com/story_main36.asp?filename=Ne081207LIFE_INSIDE.asp.
101. Prashad V, Untouchable Freedom, 119.
102. Ibid., 118-1
103. Franco, Macwan, and Ramanathan S, Journeys to Freedom, 346.
104. Shah PR and Mehta J, interview.
105. "Dying to Keep Sewers Clean," Economic and Political Weekly 23, no. 40 (1988): 2046-4
106. Schoenwald RL, "Training Urban Man."
107. Apurva Parikh (director of Multi Media Consultants), interview with author, July 5, 2010, Ahmedabad.
108. Chaplin, "Cities, Sewers, and Poverty," 155
109. Prashad V, Untouchable Freedom, 155.
110. Spodek H, "Struggle and Development," 135.
111. Spodek H, Ahmedabad, 54, 71.
112. Ibid., 71.
113. Quoted in ibid.
114. B. N. Srivastava, Manual Scavenging in India: A Disgrace to the Country (New Delhi: Ashok Kumar Mittal, 1997), 107.
115. Darokar S and Beck H, Manual Scavenging.
116. Prashad V, Untouchable Freedom, 148.
117. Blaney to Chhotalal, January 25, 1886, 46.