Dignity to the Ragpicker

31.3.10

The other day, 23.3 to be precise, I was travelling Mum Del by Garib Rath. Due to rush season, couldn't manage a berth and was traveling chair car. Half my compartment was full of lower middle class looking ladies and the placards stacked on the racks were a giveaway that this was a group headed for some kind of morcha in Delhi. It is only when some volunteers from an NGO which was organizing them turned up that we realized they were rag pickers heading for a national rally. Like this, there were more groups expected from all over the country.

The normal image associated with this community is shabby, unkempt persons ( mostly women ) rummaging through the smelly filth of dumping grounds/landfills.This lot in the train was quite clean and well turned out .The volunteers informed that most of them have either drunken husbands or are widowed due to death of spouse to drugs/alcohol or many of them are abandoned by their husbands. They single handedly raise their children. If the husband is around, more often than not, he has a parasitic role in their lives rather than being a help.

Interesting aside was that almost 1/3 rd of them were carrying mobile phones and were quite informed about charging/roaming etc. For identification on e tickets, many of them flashed PAN cards. Their average daily income varies from Rs100 to Rs 250 on a lucky day.

Illiteracy is rampant and skill sets so poor that they are not capable of taking up any other profession. Within their families, working as a housemaid, for which there should be perennial demand in places like Mumbai, is taboo. All of them want decent education for their children and do not want the next generation to take up the same profession.

Demographically, most ragpickers in Mumbai, who recycle almost 30%! of Mumbai's waste hail either from the Nasik region of Maharashtra or from Andhra and Tamil Nadu. The Maharashtrians tend to send their children to schools, but the South Indians let their children loiter or supplement income through begging at signals etc.

I am not very sure what the purpose of the rally was and what their demands are. They want recognition as a profession, government patronage for self help groups, sanitation facilities and potable water at the dumping grounds. They also want review of plans for mechanised waste management Hats off to the educated volunteers and social workers of the NGOs who are trying to give dignity to these people!