Narendra Modi launched his ambitious Swachh Bharat Mission on Gandhi Jayanti in 2014. Aimed at making India scavenger-free by 2019, the Mission completely ignored the demands of the people who had been campaigning to urge the state to implement its own law, The Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act 1993. In Republic of Caste, Anand Teltumbde remarks that the beginning of Modi’s cleanliness drive from the Valmiki Colony as part of the Mission’s launch reinforced the association between Valmikis and scavenging, thereby preserving — instead of refuting — the network of caste in the conversation on cleanliness.
Focussed on the construction of toilets to discourage and prevent open defecation, the Mission arrogantly neglected how the cleanliness of toilets, old or new, was still delegated to contractors who employed manual scavengers on grossly low salaries.
Narendra Modi launched his ambitious Swachh Bharat Mission on Gandhi Jayanti in 2014. Aimed at making India scavenger-free by 2019, the Mission completely ignored the demands of the people who had been campaigning to urge the state to implement its own law, The Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act 1993. In Republic of Caste, Anand Teltumbde remarks that the beginning of Modi’s cleanliness drive from the Valmiki Colony as part of the Mission’s launch reinforced the association between Valmikis and scavenging, thereby preserving — instead of refuting — the network of caste in the conversation on cleanliness.
This year, the Modi-led BJP nominated Droupadi Murmu, an Adivasi woman, for the position of the President of India. She won the presidential elections on July 21. Murmu’s appointment appears to have impressed even seasoned critics of BJP’s policies and agendas. So has its announcement of Jagdeep Dhankar as NDA’s candidate for Vice President. The two developments are being viewed as the party’s attempt at fostering diversity and promoting inclusion, ideals that are not expected from another political party like, say, Congress, whose poster boy, Rahul Gandhi, continues to serve as a reminder of elitism in politics.
In endorsing Murmu’s nomination and her eventual appointment, many seem to have forgotten that BJP’s recent endeavours are superficial measures to garner publicity for its diversity rather than extend actual support to the Adivasi community. The Swachh Bharat Mission’s unwillingness and inability to accommodate the demands and concerns of the communities that are urgently impacted by sanitary practices reveals what is actually a pattern of disregard. BJP continues to perceive caste as a non-issue until it needs to exploit the language of inclusion to secure acclaim, as is precisely the case with its nomination of Murmu.
In October 2016, for instance, the police opened fire on tribal people in the Khunti district in BJP-led Jharkhand when they were on their way to join a protest against two ordinances in land and tenancy laws that they perceived as a measure aimed at their disenfranchisement. This was the third incident since August 2016, as pointed out by T.K. Rajalakshmi. When tribal people refused to cremate the body of the person who had died in the firing, clashes with the administration escalated, resulting in over 1500 people getting booked under several cases. Meanwhile, Modi inaugurated the first national tribal festival in Delhi in the same month.
In endorsing Murmu’s nomination and her eventual appointment, many seem to have forgotten that BJP’s recent endeavours are superficial measures to garner publicity for its diversity rather than extend actual support to the Adivasi community. The Swachh Bharat Mission’s unwillingness and inability to accommodate the demands and concerns of the communities that are urgently impacted by sanitary practices reveals what is actually a pattern of disregard. BJP continues to perceive caste as a non-issue until it needs to exploit the language of inclusion to secure acclaim, as is precisely the case with its nomination of Murmu.
The state’s assault on tribal people is now relatively well known. Published in My Seditious Heart, Arundhati Roy’s “Walking With The Comrades” exhibits how the state’s Hindutva drive changes the names of villages in land records and of people on voters’ lists. Massa Karma, for instance, became Mahendra Karma. Roy writes, “Those who did not come forward to join the Hindu fold were declared “Katwas” (by which they meant untouchables) who later became the natural constituency for the Maoists.”
But state response to tribal commu