Dalit History Month | 'They Never Wanted This Job': How 'Warsa Hakka' Forces Women into Safai Karamcharis in Maharashtra

Mumbai- Every morning, while the city is still asleep, a woman ties her hair, picks up her long-handled broom, and steps out to clean the very streets that others will walk on their way to offices. She is a safai karamchari, a government employee of the municipal corporation and yet, she is almost invisible to the very world she cleans.

A research study conducted across Mumbai, Nagpur, and Kalyan has brought the stories of these women into the public domain. The study, conducted recently among 115 women employed in municipal sanitation services, found that these women aged between 19 and 46 years, simultaneously face caste discrimination, gender inequality, severe health disorders, and economic uncertainty.

Titled "Intersectionality of Caste, Gender and Occupation: A Study of Safai Karamchari Women in Maharashtra," this research has been authored by Hemangi Kadlak, Pradeep S. Salve, and Payal Karwade.

Lead researcher Hemangi Kadlak has shared this study with 'The Mooknayak' as a special report for Dalit History Month.

The study notes that the problems of safai karamcharis are among the least discussed and most neglected areas in academia. Within this gap, issues specific to women safai karamcharis remain particularly unattended, receiving less coverage than those of their male counterparts even in popular media. This study was undertaken to fill that gap by highlighting the problems women safai karamcharis face, the coping mechanisms they use, and by critically examining government policies made for them.

Almost three-quarters of the women surveyed entered the occupation through the Preferential Treatment (PT) case locally known as Warsa Hakka, meaning hereditary right. Under this system, a safai karamchari can nominate a wife, son, daughter, sister or other dependent to take over the post after retirement, death or permanent disability. The study found that the majority of women in Mumbai and Nagpur municipal corporations were widows recruited under this system following the death of the male safai karamchari and key earning member of the family.

Direct recruitment in Mumbai municipal corporation has been closed since 1989, with current recruitment mostly based on PT. Male safai karamcharis are replaced by female workers when no male relative is available or when male members are below official working age. Among those recruited directly, caste was the decisive factor, almost all women came from Scheduled Caste backgrounds, with castes such as Rukhi, Mehtar, Valmiki, Mahar and Matang most predominant. The majority of women studied were second or third generation in this occupation.

The study also found that most women entered sanitation work after marriage, as their parents had discouraged them from doing so beforehand. The researchers recorded an age of marriage below 18 years among most respondents. The researchers observed cases where female karamcharis were forced by family members to enter sanitation work under unfavourable financial conditions, and some women also stated they agreed because of the job security of a government post.

Women safai karamcharis are vulnerable to a range of serious health conditions including chronic cough, headaches, respiratory infections, skin disease, anaemia, diarrhoea, musculoskeletal disorders and mental disorders. They also suffer from reproductive health problems and gynaecological issues. The study found musculoskeletal disorders to be particularly prevalent, attributed to the dual burden of heavy physical activity at work and daily household chores.

About 88 percent of respondents at Nagpur municipal corporation and 72 percent at Mumbai reported joint or musculoskeletal pain. A high percentage of women also reported mental distress due to work burden and working schedules. Women karamcharis wake between 3 and 4 am, prepare food for their families, and begin work at 6:30 am, continuing until 2 pm without any scheduled break. This schedule results in inadequate sleep and daily health issues including headache, acidity, nausea, blood pressure fluctuations, hypertension and menstrual problems.

The study observed that women do not seek treatment in the primary phase of illness unless it becomes intolerable, preferring home remedies first. Despite being entitled to medical claims as government employees, the ground observations showed that women were not provided with medical insurance in Nagpur and Kalyan. In Mumbai, women reported recently receiving medical insurance of around ₹2,50,000, and were demanding its extension to family members with coverage up to ₹5,00,000. Whatever treatment expenditure occurs, women pay out of pocket through family savings, borrowing from friends or relatives, or mortgaging household assets.

In Nagpur, women reported that workplaces lacked even basic amenities such as toilets, drinking water, sitting arrangements and first-aid boxes. Women in Nagpur also reported not being provided protective gear for a long time. A similar situation was observed in Kalyan. The situation in Mumbai was found to be better, with women reporting basic facilities and protective measures at reporting places. Across all cities, women had no changing room at their reporting stations

Health problems and discrimination at the workplace were found to be common and most of the time neglected. In Mumbai and Nagpur, women reported teasing problems from male counterparts. In Kalyan, exploitation by the mukadam (supervisor) was documented. The study describes a case in which a hearing-impaired woman was given no rest time by her supervisor; the situation was only resolved after her son confronted the mukadam directly, after which she was shifted to another area.

The study found that supervisors often give work instructions by shouting, and scold workers when work is not completed. Favouritism among female employees by supervisors was reported to create excessive burden on some women. Women stated they mostly keep quiet when facing challenges at home and at work and sometimes discuss issues with female colleagues. In critical situations, married women seek help from their husbands and widows from sons or other male relatives.

The study found more than 50 big and small trade unions in Mumbai municipal corporation, but women's participation in these unions was found to be invisible, none of the women were found in high positions. Men never took up issues related to women. Union representatives came to women asking for donations and money for worker welfare, but none of the unions were found to be useful to the women. Women reported not going against the municipal corporation due to high levels of illiteracy, lack of support from colleagues, fear of losing jobs, harassment and demands of bribes from higher-position staff. Several women expressed the desire for a separate union where they could raise their own issues.

Although women safai karamcharis are the breadwinners of their families, the study found they do not enjoy decision-making powers. Important decisions including their children's marriages , are taken by in-laws or male members of the family, whether women live in nuclear or joint families. The study observed that how money is spent and where it is spent is not in the women's hands.

Women in joint families receive help from other women in the household. Those in nuclear families rely on their daughters for household chores, which the study found leads to girls losing interest in studies and gradually dropping out of school. At the workplace, women face mental and sexual harassment, abusive words and taunts from male supervisors and colleagues.

The study also noted that the situation of contract safai karamchari women is worse than that of regular workers. Contract women workers receive approximately ₹150 to ₹200 as daily wages, with no protective measures such as gloves or masks made available to them. Municipal corporations address contract safai karamcharis as liabilities and deny them workers' rights.

What the study recommends

The researchers conclude that women safai karamcharis are directed by two kinds of authority: the authority of the family, where being a woman she is compelled to do any kind of dirty work; and social authority caste and socio-cultural norms which dictate the type of work women perform without question. Despite their vulnerability, there are no target-oriented policies for them.

The study calls for a women-centric approach to make the workplace more comfortable, changes in society's approach towards women safai karamcharis, and a strong bridge between workers and the academicians and policymakers who form welfare programmes, so that the workers' real conditions and needs are understood before policies are designed.

The researchers close with Dr. Ambedkar's words: "I measure the progress of the community by the degree of progress which women have achieved."

The Researchers

Hemangi Kadlak is a researcher affiliated with the School of Social Work at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai. Her work focuses on Dalit communities, caste-based labour, and social exclusion.

Pradeep S. Salve works at the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), Mumbai, where he conducts research on occupational health, caste, and sanitation workers.

Payal Karwade is affiliated with the School of Social Work, TISS, Mumbai, and is engaged in research on Dalit studies and social policy.

Disclaimer: The data and findings presented in this article are based on research conducted between 2014 and 2016. Over time, official figures, working conditions, and government policies may have changed. Readers are advised to refer to current and authoritative sources for the latest updates.