"'In the beginning, you'll find yourself wishing for a stronger stomach to handle the visuals her unforgiving camera throws at you – toilets overflowing with feces, humans collecting feces with their bare hands, humans plunging their hands into drains and more – but as the film progresses, the disgust is no longer to do with what's being shown on screen."
This is how Sowmya Rajendran describes Kakkoos, a documentary film on the lives of manual scavengers of Tamil Nadu. Kakkoos is directed by 25 year old Divya Bharathi. During the premier of the film, she said "this movie should evoke anger, not tears. It is a political fight, and it has to be fought."
The BJP-led NDA government is spreading the lie that everybody is cleaning and creating "Swachh Bharat". Bezwada Wilson has said that the politics of Swachh Bharat is a conspiracy. Without the aproval of the parliament, Rs. 2,00,000 crores has been allotted for this scheme, whereas for the eradication of manual scavenging the budget has come down from Rs. 570 crores to Rs. 10 crores.
Tamil Nadu Untouchability Eradication Front (TNUEF), Safai Karamchari Andolan and other organisations have been fighting for eradication of manual scavenging for several decades now. Kakkoos, which focuses on the plight of those engaged in this disgusting caste based profession, is a timely creation to debunk the lies of Swachh Bharat.
