As Dalit skinners continue to toil, government looks the other way

The Dalit community in Gujarat caters to a leather industry that runs into thousands of crores of rupees. They, however, work in the most inhuman conditions for skinning carcasses of dead cattle. They store their hides in privately-owned godowns but possess no license of any sort from the local or state governments which can enable them to legally carry out their work.

The incident involving flogging of Dalit skinners in Una of Gir Somnath district in Gujarat was not the first case of harassment, the community members say. While they have been involved in skinning dead animals since many generations, they have regularly complained of being troubled at the hands of the local governments and 'Gau Rakshaks.'

In spite of multiple appeals to the government since 2004, Dalits in Rajkot, have no space of their own to skin dead cattle. In broad daylight, they encroach upon the Rajkot Municipal Corporation's (RMC) dumping ground to carry out their work. The environs are laden with dead carcasses and raise an unbearable stink. There is often competition between RMC-appointed contractors and Dalits to pick up the dead carcasses. "RMC has refused to recognise the skinning job carried out by us. Our demands for regularising the business by providing us licenses have fallen on deaf ears. On the contrary, they shoo us away time and again from the dumping ground. They bury the bones we leave out to dry in the open, into deep pits. Our livelihood thus takes a hit," said Navin Rathod, 38, a member of cattle skinning community.

RMC has contracted out the work of disposing dead cattle through burial to a proprietorship-based firm. As per tender requirements, the firm has two closed trucks and six workers that operate from 7 am to 11 pm. RMC workers visit citizens who complain of the dead carcasses of cattle, pick them up and dump them in Sokhda grounds. Ideally, they are supposed to dig twenty or twenty five feet deep pits to enable the 'deep burial,' method of disposal. Most carcasses though are left out in open, for Dalits to skin. Also, many 'gaushalas,' or herdsmen, directly call Dalits to pick up dead cattle.

"There is an assigned call centre at RMC that receives calls for picking up dead cattle which are then forwarded to the contracting agency," said NK Parmar, environment engineer, RMC. "We have no process of issuing licenses to the Dalits for skinning the cattle. This has not been considered by the corporation," said NK Parmar, Environment Engineer, RMC.

"We receive 35-40 calls from across the city everyday to pick up dead cattle. We pay Rs5,800 every day to the contractor irrespective of the amount of work done though as per the contract," said Gaurav Dave, Assistant Engineer, Solid Waste Management, RMC.

Ramesh Sagathiya, 40, and fellow members of the community, who had been sounded off by the RMC officials saying that it is illegal to skin cattle in the open, have appealed to the municipal commissioner, the collector, and the police commissioner multiple times since 2004, to legally recognise their business. Sagathiya's godown where he stores cattle hides and bones goes by the name, 'Rohidas Leather Traders.'Close to forty hides have been stacked since a month and a half here. Fleas hover around in abundance. Cattle bones are rotting on the other end. "I manage to lay my hands on at least two cattle per day to skin. I make close to Rs15,000 per month by selling these off to traders,"said Ramesh. His godown has not been registered by the local corporation or the state government. In 2009, he had written an application to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, then Chief Minister of Gujarat, to allot a part of the Sokhda dumping ground land for the purpose of skinning.

dna accessed a copy of the appeal, which states that Sagathiya who has been involved in the trade since the past four generations, are being harassed by officials of Rajkot Municipal Corporation (RMC). "RMC officials shoo us away from the plot. They bury the bones that we have left for drying after the skinning of the cattle that we had picked up. If regularised, the leather trade can be very lucrative. The hides that we skin yield many varieties of products that we knowingly or unknowingly use in our daily lives," said Sagathiya.

On the Sokhda dumping ground, nearly forty to fifty cattle carcasses each weighing close to 200 - 300 kilos are dumped every day. Twenty-five years ago, there was a presence of thousands of vultures in the dumping ground at Sokhda, recounts Valji Ramji Sagathiya, 68. "The carcasses of close to forty cattle could be cleaned in under half an hour by the vultures. These days you do not see a single vulture hovering around the grounds. The absence of vultures increases contamination of rotting carcasses manifold. This is a threat to our health," he says.

Of the ten acres of land at Sokhda, the skinners are demanding that the RMC allot 5,000 square meters of demarcated boundary-wall lined plot to go about their business peacefully. Sagathiya argues, "When persons from other states are encouraged to come to Gujarat and do business, why is there a stepmotherly treatment towards us, the sons of the soil?"

The Collector's office in Rajkot has denied allocation of any land to the skinners outright. "Also we have no procedure for issuing the skinners any licenses at the moment. The RMC has not contemplated so as how to regularise the business of retrieving and using hides or bones of dead cattle,"said Parmar.

The Una incident was not the first one and neither will it be the last, fear the Dalit skinners in Gujarat. "A few years ago, 'Gau Rakshaks' had intercepted a Matador truck filled with cow bones owned by Mohan Hamirbhai Bedwa of village Bhalgam and set it on fire. Later, the forensic sciences laboratory concluded that the vehicle was carrying bones of dead cows," said Valji. "We are being attacked time and again. Is this the price we pay for doing our job?"