CHENNAI: The documentary Kakkoos one which showed in great detail the extent to which manual scavenging continues to be practised across the state despite the laws against it had a successful run for six months. It was then that Divya Bharathi, its maker, was faced with the first case against it; what followed was, of course, threats, abuses and a taxing legal battle.
This was in 2017. A year later, all it took was a three minute and thirty-second trailer to her second documentary, Orutharum Varela, one that delved into the poor crisis management after the Okhi cyclone and the larger picture of India’s SagarMala project and the dangers it brought in its wake. The first film had garnered the indignation of a Puthiya Tamilagam party man who took offence to the representation of Devendra Kula Vellalars as manual scavengers; not the manual scavenging part that the film was trying to raise awareness about. The second, given the way the investigation was handled, seemed to have earned the wrath of the government itself, keeping the movie from ever reaching any audience.
In the second edition of Prajnya’s Equality Colloquium Series, Divya Bharathi was set to talk about Gender and Caste on the Silver Screen; from the point of view of a documentary filmmaker. She chose to dive into the learnings and disturbing reality that had come her way in the years of activism, participation in Communist politics and documentary filmmaking and share insights from the ground. When it comes down to one of the primary forms of untouchability that is still being practised often by government bodies themselves in the face of special laws that insist on its erasure and promises rehabilitation for those affected by, where do you begin? By questioning everything, says Divya.
It was only in 2016, during an ad-hoc visit to the Madurai government hospital, that she felt the urge to question it. “Two sanitary workers had died after getting into a septic tank to clean. The people who had sent them there were higher officials in the Madurai Corporation. Comrades from Dalit and leftist organisations had gathered there to protest it. And someone asked me to write a police complaint on the issue. And I had no idea how to. After five years of law school, my place in the party, views on Dalit activism and experience of working among the people got me nowhere.
I didn’t know that the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act could be invoked here; didn’t know much about the law against manual scavenging because I had never had to think about it,” she narrates. She reached out to a senior lawyer for help. Yet, the bodies of the two workers were unceremoniously cremated without any of these provisions making it to the case. They were not even accorded dignity in death, for it took a day’s protest even to get their bodies stored in the freezer.
As extreme as it sounds, it is the reality of a system that unabashedly banks on the lower castes being there to clean up after it, she suggests. “If you were to see how sewage cleaning happens abroad, you’ll know. It’s in the underground sewage system that chasing scenes happen. Trucks will ply in these pipes. People being sent in will wear hazmat suits like the astronauts we send into space. Namma oorla jetti ah mattum pottu yarakki viduvanga,” she surmises.
At the intersection of caste and gender, female sanitary workers face their own hoard of problems. Working with acid and bleach all day, numerous women have reported problems in their vagina, uterus and urinary tracts. This is apart from the host of skin and other damage that comes with handling human excreta, blood and medical waste with bare hands, she details. Sexual abuse is so common that it doesn’t get talked about. It is more so with transgender women, says Divya.
While the law does the bare minimum in the fight against manual scavenging, even that does not translate into execution, says Divya. “Picking up used sanitary napkins by hand does not count as manual scavenging; nor does picking up shit with gloved hands. This is the law. Manual Scavenging Act is supposed to rehabilitative. But, how many families have been rehabilitated? The eight-year-old daughter of a man who died of manual scavenging (documented in Kakkoos) is also cleaning toilets. When I ask for her name, she instinctively answered “kakoos” before giving me her real name. Oore senthu vecha patta peru athu; ava pera marakka vechu irukom. This was in 2018,” she shares.
Divya’s next documentary is titled Chaatla, delving into the lives of transgender women, outlining their realities. And how it has found ways to break down the regressions of patriarchy and casteism. She talks about how three years of travelling along with some of them allowed her a glimpse into their world where very few caste lines remain and patriarchal norms have no place. It remains to be seen if this documentary will fetch her more trouble, but until then, there’s much to think about, isn’t there?