HARIJANS

                           Sons of the God

    They pick up our garbage, sweep our streets, clean our gutters, load and unload the garbage trucks. They are achuta, or untouchable; member of a particular caste that sits at the very bottom of traditional Hindu community.

    In India, Mahatma Gandhi gave the name ‘Harijan’ or ‘the son of God’ to this community of untouchable people who work as sweepers and cleaners to our public place clean. In 1853, after the Great Indian Peninsula Rail Company established the first railway system through Indian continent, the British colonial authority lured these untouchables of having better job and facilities in railway stations and provincial government offices in all over the continent.

    But eventually they were made to do same thing as before as sweeping garbage. In Bangladesh, there untouchable people have been engaged in cleaning profession by birth. Though, despise their profession, most of them have no other way except being a sweeper as are politically, socially, economically and mentally isolated from the mainstream community. For instance, they cannot eat in restaurants of general people, nor perform rituals with rest of the society and their children are neglected and harassed in school.