Valmiki caste category

Between the late 1940s and the 1970s, the sanitation labour castes of Lucknow radically altered their nominative practices, replacing Islamicate personal names with names in a Hindu style, and abandoning the caste title Lal Begi in favor of the surname Valmiki. Based on oral histories and ethnographic research with the Valmiki community in Lucknow, the article presents and evaluates evidence for how and why this transformation took place. Building on Nicolas Jaoul’s (2011: 280) insight into the ‘politically engineered’ nature of the consolidation of the sanitation labour castes under the sign of a Hindu sage, the article argues that Congress policy at the national level played a decisive role in the renaming of an entire swath of the Dalit population. At the same time, working with Ambedkar’s assessment of the Valmiki movement as ‘clandestine conversion’ and ‘undergoing protective discolouration,’ it is argued that the nominative Hinduization of the sanitation labour castes may not constitute the Hindu majoritarian triumph that it appears to be. • 1 All names of persons in Lucknow in this article have been changed—though the apparent ‘Hindu’ or ‘M ‘We were Lal Begis. Then when Congress came to power we became Valmiki’—Daulat Ram (son of Anwar). ‘The profit that accrued to us upon becoming Hindu [ Hindu ban karke], well, it was myriad: many kinds of benefits and schemes, as well as political gains and economic improvement’—Ratan Lal ‘Sadhu’ (son of Ali). 1 In 1947, members ...

National Seminar on ‘Outcastes Among the Outcastes: Valmiki Community in India’ (December 16-17, 2022) CONCEPT NOTE India is a caste-based society and therefore it not only categories communities based on culture and social customs but goes further and discriminates and marginalises certain communities based on varna-caste discriminatory mind-set and practices even today. The legacy of past continues even after 75 years of independence of India with a very progressive Constitution. The discriminative varna-caste system is so well established in the mindset of Indians that even education and exposure to other countries, societies and cultures have not erased the inhuman ideology and practice. Buddha, Phule, Pariyar, Ambedkar have tried to do away with the system and ideology in various ways and yet the varna-caste discrimination and hatred raises its head in various forms and ways and contexts. The Avarna or the outcastes or the Dalits and women among them are the most discriminated and excluded. The Valmiki among these communities are the worst exploited and excluded among the outcastes facing the brunt of the discrimination from other Indians who claim themselves Indians abiding by the Constitution. The varna-caste as a social system even today determines the nature and characteristic of socio-economic and political institutions in India, relations among them and dictates the role and responsibilities of the role holders in these institutions. Those who challenge the syst...

Just before 7am one morning in Mumbai, three men clearing a sewer pipe were Records show the bodies of the trio were rushed to an embalmer, where a certificate was issued declaring them safe for flying. Permissions were sought in their home state of Orissa. Within hours, a plane had taken off from Mumbai, bearing their remains, bound for the east Indian state. In a small office in central Delhi, a group of activists had been quietly tracking the bodies. One of their agents had watched the coffins being loaded onto the plane. An urgent message was sent to a member of their network in Orissa: get to the airport. Find those men. Chasing the remains of sewer cleaners across the country, and gathering post-mortem evidence to force their employers to pay compensation, has become regular work for the volunteers of the Safai Karmachari Andolan, or Sanitation Workers Movement. ‘Worse than slavery’ For the past three years, the organisation has been recording every sewer death they can, stretching back three decades, to build a database many Indian lawmakers would prefer not exist. They are revealing the toll of what Indians call “manual scavenging”, one of deadliest occupations in the world, and starkest examples of the continuing blight of caste on millions of lives. Hundreds of thousands of Indians are still thought to make their living as scavengers, emptying dry toilets by hand, or cleaning septic tanks and sewers without protection. They belong overwhelmingly to a single commu...

A new report has been released by NGO Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan looking at the caste inequities underpinning manual scavenging in India and the many Dalits dying while cleaning septic tanks and sewers with no proper equipment. The findings, outlined below, point to an urgent need for action to end this practice. Findings of the report: In complete violation of basic human rights and dignity, Dalits of India continue to be pushed to practise caste based occupations such as manual scavenging. This type of discrimination emanates from the notion of purity and pollution and untouchability, deeply rooted into the mindset of upholders of caste in the country. The prevalence of caste based occupations such as manual scavenging, is a prime example of how caste, as a social construct, continues to pervade economic activities and perpetuates discrimination, exclusion, ostracization and victimization. Dalits engaged in manual scavenging such as Valmiki, Mehtar, Dom, Bhangi, Har, Hadi, Ghasi, Olgana, Mukhiyar, Thoti, Hela and Halalkhor are compelled to perform the task of cleaning human excreta with bare hands or to clean sewer lines and septic tanks. This study is an attempt to understand and document the continued deaths of persons engaged in manual scavenging in sewers and septic tanks across India. Section 2 (1) p of The Prohibition of Employment of Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act 2013 defines Septic tank as “a water-tight settling tank or chamber, normally located u...