In 1986, Bezwada began his fight to end
manual scavenging. The first hurdle in his fight was at home; his parents and relatives said he should not focus his life on something that always existed. It was over years that they came to accept that he was dedicating his life to helping eradicate manual scavenging. Too many people within the community were ashamed to even admit manual scavenging existed or that they did it. Bezwada began breaking the silence. Bezwada also began a letter-writing campaign, contacting the KGF authorities, the minister, and chief minister of Karnataka, the prime minister, and newspapers, but they remained largely unacknowledged. In 1993, the
Parliament enacted the ‘Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act in 1993', which banned the construction of dry latrines and outlawed the practice of manual scavenging. Despite the ban, the practice of manual scavenging continues across India. Bezwada took photographs of dry latrines and manual scavenging in KGF and sent it to P.A.K. Shettigar, the then managing director of KGF, threatening action under the Act. An emergency meeting was called to convert dry latrines into water-seal latrines and transfer all scavengers to non-scavenging jobs. However, it was only when photographs were published in a 1994 article in the
Deccan Herald, resulting in embarrassing questions in Parliament, that the Karnataka government was forced to acknowledge that
manual scavenging continued to be a problem. Bezwada then worked for two years to organize manual scavengers in Karnataka. A platform, the Campaign Against Manual Scavenging (CAMS), was formed. This oversaw the conversion of dry latrines into flush toilets and rehabilitation of those who were engaged in manual scavenging. Wilson moved to
Andhra Pradesh and began working with
Paul Diwakar, a leading
Dalit activist, and
S. R. Sankaran, a retired
Indian Administrative Officer. In 2001 the Andhra Pradesh government agreed to a total survey of the state to identify manual scavengers and dry latrines for liberation and rehabilitation. Bezwada prepared the survey format, where volunteers photographed and documented each manual scavenger and dry latrine.
Safai Karmachari Andolan In 1994, Bezwada helped found Safai Karmachari Andolan (SKA) along with S. R. Sankaran and Paul Diwakar. SKA's goal is to end the practice of manual scavenging and help those engaged in it find dignified work. SKA trains teams to work towards the elimination of manual scavenging in various Indian states. SKA initially worked on the state level, until 2003 when Bezwada and four other team members moved to
Delhi to launch the Safai Karmachari Andolan nationwide. In 2003, Bezwada and the SKA initiated the filing of a
Public Interest Litigation in the
Supreme Court of India. SKA and 18 other civil society organizations, manual scavengers, and individuals signed the affidavit as litigants naming all states and government departments of Railways, Defence, Judiciary, and Education as violators of the Manual Scavenging Prohibition Act. The PIL was a major step in the efforts to abolish
manual scavenging. All the
states and central ministries were forced to address the issue of
manual scavenging. The Supreme Court gave strict orders that the Chief Secretaries of States and Heads of Departments of the central ministries should appear before the court for the case hearings. To date, there have been 23 hearings and in the state of
Haryana, for the first time, in 2010 the act was enforced and 16 members were taken into custody for violating the law and employing manual scavengers. By 2007, the SKA felt the struggle was going too slow. The legal process had put the onus on the victims to prove manual scavenging existed. So they launched Action 2010, by which they vowed to end manual scavenging by 2010 by simply asking those engaged in the practice to leave the practice and find alternative work. The liberation of
safai karmacharis became an important issue during the planning of the 12th
Five Year Plan of India in 2010. Bezwada met with parliamentarians, ministers, and national advisory members during this time and submitted systematic documentation of
manual scavenging across the country. In 2009, Bezwada was elected an
Ashoka Senior Fellow for human rights. In October 2010, the head of the
National Advisory Council,
Sonia Gandhi, wrote to the Prime Minister's office declaring manual scavenging as a national shame and to address its abolition with the utmost urgency and priority. The NAC resolved to see that manual scavenging was over by 2012. Task forces were formed by the government of India for a new survey of the entire country, rehabilitation, amendment of the law to make it stricter, and demolition of dry latrines. The Planning Commission of India constituted a sub-group on safai karmacharis with Bezwada as its convenor. The sub-group has submitted its report. ==References==