Unread History of an Erstwhile Manual Scavenging Community: From Being an Urban to a Marginalized

Abstract

The article is based on an ethnography of community who had been historically manual scavengers in the Bengal Province later even in the state of Bihar and continued until the parliament enacted a law prohibiting this practice. The history of manual scavengers are well written in the context of their rehabilitation and occupational engagements but one community that merely got any attention was Hadi jati (caste), who have been doing the menial job for generations in the Jharkhand region. Off beat, they are referred as Safai Karamchari on the roll of municipal administration for technical purposes but the people living in the town popularly refer them as Hadis. This article is an attempt to bring the historical existence of Hadis in the region who served in the kingdom, royal and feudal families and later, in the independent India, continues in the contemporary urban settlements. An inquiry into the historicity of Hadis brings a sociological insights to a neglected and marginalized section of the urban India and shows the tyranny and continuation of caste-based traditional in a town that could see the earliest public sector steel conglomerate established in 1968. In view of this background, there is a humble attempt to examine the process of marginalization of Hadis in the historical and contemporary social structure.