THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: For digging up what is perhaps Tamil Nadu’s most stinking and nauseating truth, activist filmmaker Divya Bharathi has been made to virtually flee her state. She has been charged with insulting the Pallar community and inciting hatred among communities. And for speaking the truth about manual scavenging through her documentary, ‘Kakkoos’, she has also been charged with "endangering the sovereignty and integrity of the country". Cases have been registered against her in 14 police stations across Tamil Nadu. A law graduate, she has even been barred from enrolling in the court. As if all these were not enough, she is being subjected to the worst form of cyber bullying; police has ignored voluminous phone records and Facebook and Twitter screen shots she had submitted. DC met Divya a couple of hours before “Kakkoos’ was screened at Manaveeyam Veedhi here on Saturday. She was at the house of Vidhu Vincent, the filmmaker who had exposed the plight of manual scavengers in Kerala through ‘Manhole’.
No two filmmakers could have had contrasting destinies for having made the same kind of film. Vidhu’s feature was not just celebrated it had also inspired finance minister Dr T. M. Thomas Isaac to allot Rs 10 crore in his budget to mechanise the cleaning of manholes and septic tanks. Divya’s documentary, on the other hand, has provoked the Tamil Nadu government to such an extent that it is attempting to smother the 28-year-old by all means possible. The first screening of ‘Kakkoos’, on February 26 this year in Nagercoil, was blocked by the police. Reason given in writing: “Divya is an anti-social element with terrorist connections.” 40 more screenings planned in various parts of TN were blocked for the same reasons before the Left parties took up her case and started organising shows.
A combative Divya is now in Kerala to spread the truth. Soon she will be in Karnataka, then Andhra Pradesh and Telengana. The film has already been seen by more than 3 lakh people on YouTube. The making had introduced her to one shocking fact after the other. “Even I had failed to notice the existence of manual scavengers until two of them died in Madurai in 2015,” she said. Divya began shooting in October 2015 and wrapped up in December next year. During this period alone she said that there were 27 deaths of manual scavengers in the state, suffocation inside dingy noxious sewers the cause. Strangely, most of these deaths were recorded as “suspicious deaths” under CrPC section 174. This was the first hint that scavengers were treated more like animal corpse. Along with the filming, she fought to get FIRs registered under the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013.
She soon understood why Tamil Nadu government insisted that there were just 329 manual scavengers in the entire state.(13,000 was the number of sanitary workers under CITU in Chennai city alone.) “More than 90 percent of its labour force was recruited as contract labourers. This has allowed government agencies like Railways to technically claim that it has not employed manual scavengers,” Divya said. There were other insights that Divya gained. She discovered that 90 percent of sanitary workers were women. More shocking was the realisation that the families of sanitary workers were sold food waste from nearby hotels. “These women work two to three shifts and have little time left for cooking. Unscrupulous elements chanced upon an opportunity,” Divya said.
Perhaps what riled the state government most was Divya's expose that it was not just Arunthathiyars, as the government all along claimed, who are involved in this demeaning job. Her camera found people from innumerable castes and sub-castes collecting human excreta: Ottars, Pallars, Kattu Naickers, Christian Parayars, Kuravars, Chakilaiyars, Adi Dravidars, Parayars, Adi Andhras, Madhikas, Maalas, Maathikas, Maathari. Amid all these travails she also found support from unexpected quarters, from none other than the prince of Tamil cinema's new wave. "After seeing the trailer of my film, Vijay Sethuapthi called me and promised any kind of help," Divya said. Sethupathi has now paid up her loan of Rs 30,000.
