If you want to look at a law and the government’s state intention flouted flagrantly by elected bodies across India, look no further than the continuing scourge of manual cleaning of sewers. Between 2019 and 2023, 377 Indians died cleaning sewers and septic tanks. Even when Bezwada Wilson, national convener of Safai Karmachari Andolan, was recently protesting in Delhi about 41 worker deaths in just 80 days of 2026, he reported two more deaths in Kanpur. This is despite a ban on the practice more than a decade ago and the Supreme Court’s direction to implement it strictly in Indian cities. The only way to implement it is to reserve the strictest punishment for the public officials who give out such work and those who look the other way.