The Metropolis and the Methars: The Struggle for Wage of Manual Scavengers in Colonial Calcutta

Abstract

In the night of colonial Calcutta, soils were collected by the methars. As per Act VI of 1863 regulations, restrictions were imposed on methars. Thus, suitable depots were made and leased to the tollah methars. Since the 1870s, the disposing of the night soils in the river was stopped, and the duty of tollah methars was shifted to the municipality. Chandals was by profession an excluded social category. Even in prison chandals had to clear the night soils of the others. In protest of that prisoners specially methars declared a strike in the prison for months and hence formed a unique bonding that Putnam called ‘social capital’. This article discusses how methars of late colonial Calcutta while upholding the oppression gradually developed ‘social capital’ and started negotiating to establish their justified claims using party politics.