The Blue Women

The day women manual scavengers from India walked the ramp in a New York fashion show

BETWA SHARMA

Once, Rani Athwal picked up human excrement in Alwar a city in India’s northern state of Rajasthan. She went from house to house scraping dry latrines, putting the nightsoil in a basket, which she carried away on her head. A societal pariah, people in the community treated her as an 'untouchable'.

This week she sashayed down the ramp in a New York City fashion show. “People would avoid looking at me and now the whole world is watching,” she said.

The road that took Athwal from the toilets in her city to the streets of NYC has been a long one. From the age of 11 Athwal worked as a “scavenger” going from house to house cleaning toilets. “Picking up filth all the time would cause a lot of scratching, vomiting and make me sick,” she recalled. “I couldn’t eat.”

Scavengers who have been performing this demeaning task for centuries are at the bottom of the informal caste system in India. Many Indians treat them as untouchables. “You never get used to how people behave,” said Athwal. “It always hurts when someone avoids touching you.” Untouchability is illegal in India but the practice widespread in many parts of the country.

Five years ago, Athwal, now 36, broke away from generations of humiliation when she joined Sulabh International Social Service Organisation, a non-profit organisation working for the social upliftment of scavengers. “Life went from hell to heaven,” she said.

This week 36 Sulabh women dressed in blue saris descended on the United Nations in NYC to raise awareness about the plight of scavengers in India and called for the improvement of sanitation facilities around the world. The United Nations has declared 2008 as the International Year of Sanitation.Before making it to NYC these women have gone through a long period of rehabilitation with Sulabh, which provides adult education and vocational training that enables them to change their occupation. “I can read, write, embroider, make pickles and candles,” said Athwal.

“They can operate bank accounts and are totally independent,” said Bindeshwar Pathak who founded the organization in 1970. So far Sulabh has rescued 60,000 out of approximately 700,000 scavenger women in India according to the United Nations Development Program. Pathak started a sanitary revolution in India after he developed the well-known Sulabh Shauchalya, a scavenging free eco-friendly toilet, which the inventor claims reduces global warming, saves water and turns human waste into fertiliser. Thirty years after his invention Pathak is building toilets around the world. “Today 2.6 billion people on this planet do not have access to safe and hygienic toilets,” he said, speaking at the UN.

Sulabh has developed 26 toilet designs, trained 19,000 masons to build low cost toilets, installed more than 1.4 million household toilets and it maintains more than 6, 500 public pay per use facilities in India. Now the organisation has joined with the UN to cut by half the number of people lacking access to basic sanitation by 2015. So far Sulabh has sold its technology in Afghanistan and 15 African countries. It also plans to build toilets in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Laos, Madagascar and Tajikistan.

This week Pathak got the Sulabh women to the UN to walk in a fashion show with India’s top models. “Our purpose is sanitation not fashion,” he said. “But to achieve that objective we have to combine scavengers with fashion models.”

The clothes were designed by an eminent New Delhi high-fashion designer Abdul Halder. “I just do the designing all the hard work and labor comes from the women,” he said. “They do the stitching, dying, embroidery, painting and tailoring.” In the fashion show held in the Delegates’ Dining Room at the UN on Tuesday, a Sulabh woman dressed in plain blue sari walked the ramp alongside a flamboyantly dressed model. They walked to a fusion of Indian and western music for a crowd of about 200 people.

The first line was vibrant satin saris with hand painting of scavenger women carrying human excrement and brooms. Next was a glittering line up of Indian bridal wear of chiffon and georgette.

“The wedding costumes were inspired by these women who told me it was their dream to get married in beautiful wedding clothes,” said Haider. And finally the models walked out in western white wedding gowns of net and taffeta silk. “We want them to learn western designs so that the clothes they make are globally accepted,” said the fashion designer.

Indian model, Sonalika Sahay, 27 has shared the ramp with the Sulabh women back home. “So far they’ve been cleaning up our dirt,” she said. “This is about celebrating their work and recognising them in society.” Athwal who walked the ramp for the third time loved the loud music and the NYC crowd. “I walk with the models who are wearing the clothes I made and we’re all making India proud,” she said. “My kids get so happy when I tell them.” A mother of four, Athwal is now earning enough from her work at Sulabh to put her children in school. She does not want them to lead her life. “I did what my parents did,” she said. “Now that I have stopped, my children won’t do it.”