Bone scavenging. Most people have not even heard of the term, let alone knowing of what it is all about. A joint research study by the World Sanitation Workers’ Alliance, the South Asian Sanitation Labour Network (SASLN) and the Safai Karmachari Ekta Manch, West Bengal, has revealed that 178 manual scavengers have been employed as bone scavengers in the graveyards of West Bengal’s Birbhum, Siliguri and Cooch Behar districts, illegally gathering and selling human bones to earn the money they need to feed themselves and their families.
According to the survey, the bones they collect are sold to traders who, in turn, sell them to calcium manufacturing factories and small units that produce cosmetics. In some cases, the bone scavengers themselves trade directly with those who require these resources.
A study, titled, Toilet Stories of India, released last month shows that West Bengal has the highest number of manual scavengers employed as bone scavengers in the country, followed by Odisha with 65 and Rajasthan with 61. Kolkata has the highest number of sanitation workers employed by illegal bone traders, gathering bones from graveyards for as little as Rs 200 per transaction.
Thus, bone scavenging has emerged as a kind of livelihood for many of India’s manual scavengers who struggle even to survive. Manual scavenging is, in any case, banned work, according to the Prohibition of Employment of Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation (PEMSR) Act, 2013. However, the continued presence of dry latrines (toilets without water supply) in the country means that the need for people to clean these toilets persists.
On the other hand, bone scavenging has existed for the past two decades and there has been a 90% increase in the number of bone scavengers in West Bengal since the coronavirus pandemic broke out two years ago. When the nationwide lockdown was imposed in March 2020, manual scavengers lost their jobs, and hunger and poverty forced them to gather bones from mass cremation sites and pre-dug burial spots to earn a living.
After the lockdown was lifted and life began returning to normal, many of them continued to scavenge for bones in addition to their ordinary work because it fetched them more money. The fact that they work after dark and have access to landfills and dumping grounds makes it easy for them to find places to hide the bones they gather and sell them to the traders later.
Interestingly, within a year of the continued practice of bone scavenging, bigger bone smugglers developed this illegal bone trading supply chain into “a network of underground and small-scale business models”, according to the Toilet Stories of India study. This is a growing racket and will continue to flourish till the government finds a suitable livelihood alternative for manual scavengers.
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