Spatial Apartheid and Caste Labour in Bangalore: Social Work Imperatives for Sanitation Justice

Abstract

The study exposes the nexus of caste-based labour, neoliberal urban governance, and spatial apartheid, perpetuating sanitation injustice in Bangalore, India. Through spatial ethnography across 4 Scheduled Caste colonies, GIS mapping of 42 manual scavenging fatalities (2008 to 2023), and critical policy analysis, we demonstrate how municipal outsourcing contracts under the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagar Palika (BBMP) systematically assigned hazardous sanitation work, including septic tank cleaning and handling untreated biomedical waste, all these sanitation workers are predominantly Madiga caste, SC communities, while denying safety gears, fair wages, and legal protections. GIS reveals 68% of deaths cluster in affluent areas with privatised sanitation, linking fatalities to luxury developments. Bengaluru Smart City Limited’s (BSCL) fiscal priorities exacerbate this injustice, for example, ₹17.3 crore allocated to sensor-enabled means contracts with ₹0 for sewer mechanisation, enabling contractors' exploitation and state-sanctioned caste discrimination. Workers endure embodied stigma, restricted mobility, and intergenerational trauma, with women facing acute health crises due to inaccessible sanitation. Grassroots resistance (e.g., Pourakarmika Parivartan Sangha) highlights community agency but underscores institutional betrayal, including an enforced anti-scavenging law and data invisibilisation. We propose an Ambedkarite social work praxis for transformative justice, centred on: ‘evidence-based advocacy’ using GIS death maps to litigate state-corporate collision; ‘technology co-design’ with SC unions developing mechanised tools owned/maintained by cooperatives; and ‘radical rehabilitation’ via a municipal-funded trauma centre scheme in SC colonies. A three-phase road map, co-created monitoring, participatory prototyping, and integrated support hubs which prioritise worker agency, municipal accountability, and structural equity. By dismantling spatial casteism through data, design, and healing, social work can forge a sanitation system where no life is expendable.