GARLANDING THE SANITATION WORKERS: GLORIFICATION OF LABOR, CASTE AND INDIAN PSYCHE

After independence India has made a good progress in many areas such as academia. Indians succeeded to make their presence felt at the best academic institutes in the world and they have been popularly recognized for their contribution. But one thing which could not change even after independence and constitutional provisions is the notion of caste. This is the notion prevalent everywhere and gets reflected in everyday social. This paper makes an attempt to understand two incidents: first, a video, in which some people are garlanding the sanitation workers, got viral on social media in April 2020 during the lockdown; second, the celebrities such as Salman Khan, Shipa Shetty, cricketer Yuvraj Singh and Sonakshi Sinha made comments on a Dalit caste known as Bhangi. The first incident makes an impression that caste is not an issue in the modern India. This paper contests this impression and makes an effort to reveal how caste functions between the sanitation workers and the people who garlanded the sanitation workers. The study also attempts to understand the psyche of the people who made casteist comments.