The World’s Worst Job?

Fresh -

Please tell me you didn't just say there are millions of people in India irrespective of their caste who would love to have that job.

It's good to know that people from the Valmiki community have a job, even if its the worst job in the world. There are millions of people in India irrespective of their caste who would love to have that job. West has been using this Caste bogey to destroy Indian society for a long time and make it turn upon itself.

Parul,
If the Indian Government is not making equipment and safety gear available to sewage workers of the Valmiki tribe, then the Government is doing a crappy (pun intended) job of integrating the lower strata. The Government may legislate against class predjudice, but remember: Talk is cheap. Actions make change. Nobody's asking for hand holding. But it's clear that India is rife with discrimination and hatred of lower classes. I've seen it with my own eyes in India. You can call it politically explosive if you want, but the fact remains that such actions, or inactions, are evil and wrong and deserve to be exposed.

While I understand and empathize with the sentiment behind this article, I wonder where Ms. Hemlata Kansotia draws her conclusions from with the following comment: "If you see the engineers and officers, they are all from the upper castes of Indian society.??? What Services are you talking of? The Indian Government has done a great job of integrating the lower strata of society into the Government Services and as far as the engineers/ doctors etc. are concerned, a substantial chunk of seats in all of the Universities (including the IIT) has been reserved for the same lower castes. Please check your facts before making such comments in the media. Don???t get me wrong, I do empathize with the plight of the Valmiki tribe, but they do have the governmental support to make something of themselves. Are we to hold their hands and guide them through every step of their lives? Instead of focusing on the responsible parties i.e. the officers in charge of operations, regulatory bodies, etc. it is easy to move the focus to politically explosive topics.

Test

I have been to India several times and have family there. Typical Indian response to reality, just ignoring it and not working on a solution to lift india out of poverty and filth.Indians are their worst enemies!

Anand1972, Newsweek is a reputable publication and it is unfortunate that people as ignorant and intolerant as yourself would post such a baseless and disrespectful comment. As an individual who has actually travelled to India I take great umbrage with respect to your comments and can only surmise that you have little to no education.

This story saddened me - because this is what my company does here in the States. It's painful to think of workers crawling around inside the sewer pipes. My company, JWC Environmental, makes a line of sewage grinders and fine screens so people don???t do this by hand. Our Muffin Monster product line of shredders and screens handles the trash in order to avoid back-ups, breakdowns and spills which Rakesh and his coworkers do this with their hands, picks and shovels. In the 1970s Congress put an incredible amount of funding into building America???s wastewater treatment plants. In due time India will also invest in wastewater infrastructure to protect their people and their environment. We can???t wait until the day JWC starts putting Muffin Monsters (the name of our sewage shredder) into India???s sewage system and Rakesh and his coworkers can come out and be wastewater treatment plant operators in the safety of a control room. That will be the day.

From my personal experience with high-caste-rank Indians living in the US, they were pretty much crooks, trying to take advantage of other people without much regards to ethics. My experience comes mainly from corporate experience. One guy made lies and false accusations blantantly, and he claimed that he is a Brahman(?) and his people are most respected in India. I am not surprised that these high-rank-caste people try to rip off their fellow Indians in India.

From my personal experience with high-caste-rank Indians living in the US, they were pretty much crooks, trying to take advantage of other people without much regards to ethics. My experience comes mainly from corporate experience. One guy made lies and false accusations blantantly, and he claimed that he is a Brahman(?) and his people are most respected in India. I am not surprised that these high-rank-caste people try to rip off their fellow Indians in India.

What do you call progress when 700 million of your people are being forced to breate and eat and die sewage in order to put food on their families plate. The development and progress doesn't count until you treat your fellow countryman as equals.

It is unfortunate that articles like this take away from all of the progress and development which has occurred in India in the past 10 years. There is no doubt that the country must invest to create a stronger and more efficient infrastucture, however many forget that India is still very much a young Democracy and just like the other great democracies of the world, India will overcome these obstacles.

Good to see India's caste system is alive and well - given all the other "progress" it's been making.

Good to see India's caste system is alive and well, given all the other progress it's making.