In 1983, the activist joined the Pune Mahanagarpalika Kamgar Union which was founded by Bhau Phatak, a leader of the Lal Nishan Party (Leninist) in 1943 and later featured leaders such as Susheela Kulkarni, Aappasaheb Bhosale, Prabhakar Gokhale. Manohar’s work at the union revealed to her the larger canvas of the lives of municipal workers, most of whom were on contracts – sweepers, sewage workers, those who handled solid waste management and so on. 

Unionise, Unionise

At the corporation union, Manohar started organising the workers and conducting meetings with stakeholders like corporators, labour commissioners and the officials of the corporation. These meetings were conducted mostly to inform government stakeholders about the working conditions and safety issues of sanitation workers and negotiate better conditions. 

“We work for workers’ rights but it’s a government-recognised union so there are certain rules and regulations. For example, workers can’t go on a spontaneous strike. We have meetings and rounds of discussions, and then we submit our demands and if these are still ignored we plan an agitation. But we have now come to a stage where government stakeholders can’t ignore our demands easily because of the power of unionising,” said Manohar. 

With her at the helm, PMC workers have fought for several rights – safety kits, free government housing under the Shramsafalya scheme for sanitation workers who had completed 25 years of their service. The union has fought exploitative work rules. Earlier, women sweepers had to mark their attendance with their supervisors four times a day – once, when they began sweeping the roads early in the morning, then after they had finished their task, the third time when they returned from their break and finally, when they completed their day’s work. This was tiresome for the workers, especially women.

“Women are traditionally burdened with household responsibilities, and then they come to work and deal with these practices, unsafe work environments and low salaries. This jeopardised their mental and physical well-being, so we agitated and had the attendance reduced to a two-step process,” she said.

During the recent pandemic, the union helped the 13 families of contractual sanitation workers who died of COVID. “The Pune Municipal Corporation gave no compensation, nor did it extend support to families. So we collectively decided and helped these families with Rs 1 lakh each,” said Manohar. 

The Shramik Mahila Morcha mostly represents domestic workers and unorganised sector workers who routinely deal with domestic violence, sexual violence, and dowry harassment. “If we couldn’t resolve the issue through dialogue, we organised protests. I remember a dowry case from rural Pune, some 25 years ago. The young woman’s mother came to us and we mobilised, went and spoke to her in-laws and demanded that the young woman be given back all the money and gold she brought from her maternal home. We agitated till they did it so she could survive independently,” said Manohar. 

Satyashodhak: Revolutionary Play

As we said, culture is Manohar’s favoured tool for empowering marginalised groups. She was the production-in-charge of the GP Deshpande play, Satyashodhak. Veteran theater director Atul Pethe who is known for his experimental socio-political plays approached her with the script and asked if could direct the play for and with union members. Manohar loved the idea and proposed it to the union which decided to produce the play. It was a huge success and the team organised 118 performances across India and at international theatre festivals. Up to 80% of the cast was made up of PMC’s sanitation workers and union members. 

“Satyashodhak received both huge support and criticism [for its casting]. It was very challenging to train sanitation workers for theatre because their lives were so distant from the stage. Forget performing, they don’t even get the time, money or opportunity to visit a theatre to watch plays. But Atul Pethe pulled it off, he was very patient with all workers, hosting workshops for them,” said Manohar.

 Among those whose lives she enriched through the arts is Sandeep More, a sanitation worker with Pune municipal corporation and a member of the union. He had met her 12 years ago, when he was a safai karmachari and also studying for his Masters degree. The meeting changed his life.

“She questioned me closely about my education, hobbies, and so on and then I got an opportunity to act in Satyashodhak. At the time, I was also working on the housing issues of sanitation workers in the union under her leadership. All this ate into my work time and there was every chance I would have suffered a wage cut,” recalled More. Manohar stepped in and proposed to the PMC that all sanitation workers who were in Satyashodhak be paid full salaries even if they were performing during duty hours. “It’s her and the union’s power that PMC agreed to this. Otherwise, theatre would have been beyond us for economic reasons,” pointed out More.

Pethe recalled meeting Manohar after the screening of his 2007 documentary ‘SEZs, A Prelude to Anarchy’. She had asked if he would do a film on the lives of sewage workers. 

“I was naive at the time and as a middle-class filmmaker I thought I could make a nice film with beautiful shots. But the time I spent with Mukta and the sanitation workers opened my eyes to a world I knew nothing about. After I went down into the gutters one day to experience the world of these workers, I could not eat for days. She showed me this world of caste oppression, deprivation, poverty, and filth. My point of view and even my voice has changed completely since then,” said Pethe. 

The film, Kacharakondi (the waste trap), which Pethe thought would be a quickie, took eight months. It was screened across the state, in schools, colleges, residential complexes and even the state assembly. It was also distributed as a DVD. 

Five years ago, Manohar founded the Satyashodhak Yuva Manch for the children of union members. She also scripted a play, Galileo, on the life of the astronomer, that was performed by the children of union members. The pandemic ended the shows. It was a small production with youngsters reading the play in a theatrical style. “I wanted to create a space for the next generation. Many of the workers are good musicians but don’t get any cultural space because they have no education or resources. When I see their talented children I feel at least I can do something for them,” she says.

Her sense of humour, empathy and easy communication style connect instantly with young people. She created the Krantiveer Bhagat Singh Brigade, an initiative to help the children of Maharashtra’s sanitation workers find employment. She also pulled together the Maharashtra State All Workers Collective, a network of trade unions and mass organisations.

For all this work, Manohar is now finding it hard to be optimistic about the future of trade unions. 

“Organising workers has become challenging today. Everything is getting privatised, and big corporations don’t care about the welfare of labourers and laws. Workers everywhere have to sign exploitative contracts, unionisation is banned. On the other hand, increasing unemployment is compelling people to take on any kind of work without any organisational support. Religious hatred and divisive politics are other challenges, but dialogue is the only solution,” she said.