Harijans face hard time as others take away jobs

The professional sweepers, widely known as Harijans, are facing hard times as city corporations and different government offices are replacing them with mainstream population depriving them of the only occupation they have done for more than one hundred years.
Highlighting the social discrimination against them at a press conference yesterday, Bangladesh Harijan Oikya Parishad President Krishna Lal said, “Cleaning dirt is the only livelihood that we’ve done for years. Without any other skills, we cannot move to alternative professions.”
About 5.5 million traditional sweepers also known as jaat sweepers are originally descendants of immigrants from Kanpur, Nagpur and Andhra Pradesh of India, brought by the British in 1830s to provide all sorts of menial services to the colonial rulers.
Their jobs include sweeping streets and offices, clearing sewerage lines, manholes, water reservoirs and hospital wastes and handling carcasses.
Krishna Lal pointed out that the recruitment guidelines of the city corporations mention that Harijans will get preference for cleaner posts. It is being violated regularly as the mainstream population is getting the jobs, often by bribing the authority, he alleged.
Citing some recent examples, he said, there were recruitment of cleaners in Dhaka Medical College, Chittagong police super’s office and Pirojpur civil surgeon’s office where Harijans were deprived.
“We keep the city clean and for that occupation we are considered as untouchable, which forces us to an isolated social status. For this isolation and lack of social security, we cannot go out of our community and join the mainstream workforce,” Krishna Lal added.
Moreover, with the increase of population and competition, thousands of able candidates from the community are sitting idle, he mentioned.
Nirmal Chandra Das, secretary general of the parishad, said most Harijans’ currently employed were never made permanent staff, which deprives them of festival bonus, maternity leave and some other benefits.
Das also said members of the Harijan community also live with a constant fear of eviction, as they do not have a home or a piece of land of their own. Majority of the community live in settlements provided by different municipalities.
The Harijans urged the government to preserve minimum 80 percent quota for them in cleaning jobs at the city corporations and different government offices. They also called for recruiting them as permanent staff and providing with permanent settlements.

Courtesy of The Daily Star