Shanta’s day begins at eight every day. She brushes her
teeth, applies make up, and waits for her vehicle to arrive. She is one of the
many contract workers employed by the BMC, and the vehicle awaited is a
mini-garbage collector driven by Babloo, another worker contracted by the BMC
to clean up Mumbai.
The small truck seats two; but as PolitInc discovered in the course of following this story, with a
little adjustment, upto four individuals can be accommodated. Babloo and Shanta
begin their round by stopping at the small green garbage cans placed outside
colonies. The big garbage cans are the domain of the bigger trucks, and contain
what is termed as ‘wet waste’. Shanta is concerned with the dry waste that, by
law, every household and institution is required to segregate at the micro
level. Lack of implementation, however, ensures that Shanta is forced to reach
into these dustbins, with her bare hands, and segregate the rotten vegetables
from paper cartons. Not only is this method unhygienic and inhumane, it also
exposes her to cuts and jabs from pieces of broken glass, used syringes and
corrugated tins. Diseases like malaria and cholera are fairly common in her
profession.
Why does the BMC not provide protection against this? Well,
on paper, they do. Every worker is issued a coat, an ID card, and a pair of
gloves. The problem with these provisions, however, lie in their very
conceptualisation. ”We don’t wear the coat because it is too hot and makes it
difficult for us to work”, says Shanta, as she sifts through the garbage in one
part of Parsi Colony. The only time it is worn is when they know an inspection
is scheduled by the BMC. The gloves, too, are an impediment, as they are too
big and heavy to be of any use. “The gloves fall every time we reach into the
dustbin, and the thickness makes it difficult to grasp things,” she says.
Garbage is, ironically, gold for Shanta and the nine women
who work with her organisation, Stree
Mukti Sangathna. Their daily meal depends upon the amount of dry waste they
can collect, segregate and sell to various buyers of paper and plastic. The
stark inequalities of society are laid bare as the Shanta sifts through the refuse
of the upper and middle classes. Cardboard cases of expensive alcohol and perfumes
lie side by side with the remains of take-away food from restaurants, none of
which will probably ever feature in her life. Shanta is lucky if she earns
eighty to hundred rupees a day.
Life as a contracted garbage worker is tough. There is
little job security, and the pay is uncertain. There are no days off. A day of
work missed, for reasons of health or otherwise, in most cases translate into a
day without food. There is no medical benefit to speak of, for the government
hospitals are too overcrowded for people like Shanta to waste time on. Even if
they do happen to go to one, it is only the consultation that is made free of
cost. Most medication is expensive and non-reimbursable. The formation of
associations leads to a marginal difference. The head of Shanta’s organisation,
for instance, is able to use her power to influence certain areas of the city
to comply by Municipal Laws. She can offer Shanta and her co-workers a degree
of support, but at the end of the day, the workers themselves are powerless to
use any stronger means to improve their working and living conditions.
Shanta doesn’t even demand that much. She is very clear that
the only way she can go on rummaging through garbage cans is if she reconciles
herself to the smell and the dirt. And if that means plunging your hand into
muck with a smile on your face, then that is how she conditions herself. “This
is my rozgar”, she says. “All we want
is more garbage. Our Madam has the power to negotiate new routes, but she
chooses not to do so.”
Choice. We like to believe we live in an age of free will
and multiple choices. What we often forget, is that people like Shanta form a
part of the system that allows us to live the way we do, and in the process,
lose their right to choose.
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This write-up is four years old, written as an assignment. It was supposed to be a feature piece. It isn't fictitious (well, except for the part where I pretend I write for a publication called PolitInc), though, this is one small glimpse I had of the garbage collection system in Mumbai.
