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Case History - Sabhapati Manji

Name: Sabhapati Manji

Occupation: Safaimitra

Address: Nala Par Musahri Digha Patna

Family:
Father Name - Late Bal Kisuan Manji
Wife’s Name - Marchi Devi
Child - One Boy

Introduction
I am Sabhapati Manji,By birth ,I am a Harijan,the lowest in the caste hierarchy. I am youngest in my two brothers and four sisters. My father and mother were involved in waste collection hence I automatically joined them and also because of other community members and brother and sister involved in rag-picking (waste Collection) it worked as peer group pressure at time and we felt it as lucrative as any other work. In an early period of my life, I joined my family, traditional work of rag-picking. We all started our work from 4 am in morning to 12 in afternoon and spread in different areas of Patna. After whole day of rag picking we hardly earned Rs 10-20.

Beside that we got all kind of abuse and discrimination in localities.Generally people, consider us thieves. They stop us in getting into their area, sometime even they beat us and also get us harassed by the police.We are the first ones to be targeted if there is any crime in our area of residence and work.

In a day we have to walk for 9-12 Kilometers to collect rags; and it also depends on availability of rag- waste Because of this hardship of our work we hardly enjoyed our life. Alcohol is best recreation we learnt since our childhood.