In India scavengers and sweepers still carry out the basic sanitary services in cities and towns. While many are employed by local urban authorities to clean the sewers and sweep the streets, a significant number still work in their traditional occupation. This means that scavengers are still cleaning latrines by hand and carrying night-soil in baskets on their heads. As their occupation renders them permanently polluted, according to Hindu society, scavengers are treated as untouchable, even by other untouchable castes.

Scavengers are placed at the bottom of the heap in India, ranked as the lowest social group, in Ambedkar's words, ‘the lowest in a system of graded inequality.’ They are known by different names in different states – Bhangi, Thotti, Paki, Madiga, Balmiki, Chuhra, and Mehtar. For centuries now, they have held the strict monopoly of cleaning latrines and toilets, handling human excreta. This is one area where progress has not intruded. As this occupation is associated with cleaning of human bodily waste, it is considered as an unclean occupation.