Bio
Bezwada Wilson is an activist and one of the founders and National Convenor of the Safai Karmachari Andolan (SKA), an Indian human rights organization that has been campaigning for the eradication of manual scavenging. He has been leading this movement for over a decade and is well known as one of the leading figures of the Dalit movement in India. His work at SKA, a community-driven movement, has been recognized by the Ashoka Foundation which has nominated him a Senior Fellow. In July 2016, he was honoured with the Ramon Magsaysay Award.
Bezwada and his organization have served as a watchdog, pushing for legal action to demolish dry toilets across India and preparing manual scavengers to achieve new sources of income. His goal is to detach manual scavenging and sanitary work from Dalits, in the larger context of reforming the caste system, by pushing government agencies to replace manual scavenging with mechanization.