Beneath the City’s Shining Facade, Discrimination and Death in yhe Sewers. An Analysis of India’s Right to Life Obligations to Eradicate the Caste-Based Practice of Hazardous Manual Sewer Cleaning
Beneath the City’s Shining Facade, Discrimination and Death in yhe Sewers. An Analysis of India’s Right to Life Obligations to Eradicate the Caste-Based Practice of Hazardous Manual Sewer Cleaning
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Date
2023
Authors
Kali, Yamuna
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Global Campus of Human Rights
Abstract
Loss of life resulting from manual sewer cleaning has been
a tragic constant in urban India for decades, and its connection
with caste and ‘untouchability’ has been an accepted fact, with the
victims overwhelmingly belonging to the most oppressed castes.
Still, there has been little progress towards addressing this issue,
with no reduction in the number of people losing their lives in this
way every year. Legislation and schemes aimed at ending the practice
of manual sewer cleaning have had little success. This thesis
approaches the issue as a violation of the right to life under article
6(1) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Such an analysis would be incomplete without an awareness of the
societal role of caste in the perpetuation of the problem. Therefore,
this thesis also attempts to address the discriminatory aspect
of the issue through an analysis of obligations under article 2(1) of
the Covenant. Through an interdisciplinary approach that draws
on historical and legal research methods, it is found that while
the Indian state has made several attempts to address the issue of
manual sewer cleaning, there is weight to the argument that India
is in fact violating article 6(1), by failing to end the occurrence
of death due to manual sewer cleaning, as well as article 2(1) in
conjunction with article 6(1), due to the caste-based nature of the
practice leading to a distinct violation of the right to life.
Description
Second semester University: Åbo Akademi University
Keywords
India,
right to life,
caste system,
urban areas,
discrimination