Is Swachh Bharat Abhiyan about caste pollution?

In 2012, Prime Minister, Narendra Modi pledged to clean ‘the filthiness all around us’.
Sanitation is an important aspect in promoting tourism industry in India which further leads to job promotion.

However, this idea’s implementation took a casteist approach thus promoting manual scavenging in the country. Its very easy to take ideas from the West but its difficult to get the task done in our own country.

The ‘Great Stink’ in 1858 in London lead the authorities to taking stringent actions by redrawing the sanitation lines and infrastructure in London by using the latest technology.
When Swach Bharat Campaign came to India it drew eyes when the celebrities were promoting it in various ways.

However, the municipal corporations began to employ contractual laborers mostly manual scavengers forced into the profession – by their caste-to remove waste.
The Swach Bharat campaign hardly addresses the reworking of the underground sewage system. This is a cause of grave concern, since many laborers have died recently while cleaning these jammed manholes.

Waste removal is not a profession like in the West in India but rather a stigma that is attached to pollution and caste, as the process of removal (scavenging) and the occupation (scavenger). Moreover, the places where is the waste is being disposed is also stigmatized.
The secular looking Swach Bharat Campaign is rather increasing the ‘filth’ in the nation .

Even if we secure the targets mentioned under this scheme it would have created by then the age old ‘filth’ of profession being linked with caste and also the era of manual scavenging back in the country.

Hence, Swach Bharat has to be there not just by cleaning the filth around us but also our minds and the higher authorities need to find better technology to deal withe the issue of manual scavengers to avoid casteist pollution in the nation.