How The Waghri Community, India's Invisible Recyclers Help Keep Old Clothes Away From Landfills

Ahmedabad is known as the textile capital of India. Every Sunday the Sabarmati riverfront plays host to the Ravivari or Sunday Bazaar. This market is visited by thousands of buyers from low-income households. Most of the clothes here are second-hand clothing. And most of it would have ended up in landfills or garbage dumps if it weren't for the Waghri community of Ahmedabad. This is just one of the many marketplaces across India where the clothes collected by the Waghris end up. You must have seen them in your own city too.

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Bartanwali, chindiwali, kapdewali, she is known by many different names. She goes from door to door, calling out to people, asking for old clothes. There are thousands like her, across India. They frequent societies and housing complexes, apartment buildings and colonies once or twice a week, collecting old clothes in exchange for utensils or other household goods. They are the Waghris - a nomadic community - who have been operating this informal, often invisible old-clothes recycling trade for more than a hundred years now.

Once criminalised, the Waghri is a denotified community but the stigma of being considered criminal remains. The word Waghri itself has negative connotation In Gujarati and so members of the community consider both Waghri and Chindiwali as derogatory terms. They prefer to be referred to as Devipujaks or Deviputras.

Radha Ben is a veteran chindiwali or rag collector as the Waghris are often called. She said,

We are all Waghris, but of different kinds. Some are Deviputra, some Vervaputra, among others. I belong to the Devipura community. After my mother passed away, this trade was handed down to me. I am 50 years old, my children also do this with me. I have taught my two daughters and daughter-in-law the trade, they are also part of this.

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Talking about the status of their community in society, Anita Ben said,

They don't give us any respect. Other communities like Harijans, Bharwar, Rabari, they are known communities. Our community has a higher place in society. But our community has no honour and gets no respect.

The process is simple but one that requires tenacity. Radha Ben, and many more like her, set off every day on five to six-hour rounds called Pheris. Radha Ben announces her arrival in a typical fashion. But she isn't allowed inside the housing complex, so she sits under a tree, outside the building, waiting for people to notice. If a resident likes the utensils or household items she has brought along she is invited to the person's home.

Radha Ben walking to work - to sell utensils in exchange for old clothes

There is a process of bargaining involved as Radha Ben negotiates the amount of clothing she wants in exchange for the utensil she is about to give away. Usually, she asks for more than just one bundle of clothes, which means over 10-12 pieces of old clothes in exchange for one utensil. Sometimes, customers even ask for specific items that Radha Ben then sources for them.

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Bharti Ben Man Singh Bhai Rana, a resident of Ahmedabad is a regular customer of Radha Ben. Sharing her shopping experience, Bharti Ben said,

I didn't like the utensils she had brought today, so I have asked her to get something else for me. I want a basket in which I can keep children's clothes. I don't want this one. I want her to bring the other kind. She told me she will get it, provided I give her a good saree. I have given her a nice saree. Now she will get me my basket. She said if I am not at home she will hand it over to my daughter-in-law.

Radha Ben then sorts all these clothes at her place of dwelling. Once the sarees, jeans, trousers and shirts are all sorted and placed in separate piles, they are ready to be taken to the Delhi Darwaja Bazaar where these clothes will be sold.

Radha Ben said,

Every item of clothing has a different price. I have clothes for Rs 100, I have some for Rs 50, and I even have items for Rs 10-20. The customers decide which one they want to buy. If they like the one for Rs 20, they buy that, or if they like the one valued at Rs 10, they buy that one. This is how the business happens. It depends on the customer. Sometimes they buy one for Rs. 10, sometimes for Rs. 20.

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Ahmedabad's Delhi Darwaja market is the city's largest market for second-hand clothes. Hundreds of women from the Waghri community gather here with the clothes they have brought from their daily pheris to sell them to local vyaparis or middlemen. The vyaparis buy these clothes to take them to nearby towns to sell them in small shops or pavement carts. This trade has been an age-old tradition of recycling.

Talking about the market, Sadhna Ben, buyer and seller of old clothes said,

This market has existed for the past 100 years. We have been doing this clothes business from the Delhi Darwaja Bazaar for the last 30 years. The Waghris bring the clothes after their daily collection, then we sell them. Every day we sell around 20 kilos.

Sadha Ben said her parents and forefathers, everyone was involved in the trade of buying and selling old clothes.

Similarly, Bharti Ben and her family have been involved in the process of buying utensils in exchange for old clothes. She said,

My mother used to give these ladies old clothes, so I have been seeing this transaction since childhood. I am following the same tradition. I have seven brothers, and all my sister-in-laws also follow this tradition. We all give clothes in exchange for a utensil or household item. It has been a long time, at least 10 years. Even my mother-in-law, my sister-in-law, they all give away old clothes like this.

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This informal Waghri trade, based on a traditional system of barter, is bringing affordable second-hand clothing to India's rural and urban poor. But it also prevents India's old clothes from choking overflowing and hazardous landfills.

The clothes bought by the vyaaparis are further sold in local Budh (Wednesday), Ravi, Shani Bazaars (weekly local markets) where they are purchased by those who can't afford to pay huge sums of money. And that is how, the item of clothing that was on the verge of being discarded, becomes something new.

The way the linkages between the chindiwalis, the vyaparis, and individual customers work, clothes collected in Gujarat could well be sold in Maharashtra. In some cases, these old clothes are bought in flea markets by designers who upcycle and create something quite different from them.

But what if there is no ‘bartan wali' like Radha Ben? The veteran said,

All of us, we deal in clothes. We are kapda waalas. If you have extra clothes at home, and there is no bartan wali or kapde wali to collect them, all you old clothes will pile up. If there are old clothes that nobody wears, which are of no use to anybody, some people might donate them, others might throw them away. This is what happens if there is no bartan wali or kapde wali to collect these old clothes. What will happen to all these old clothes? These old clothes will be thrown away. People like me collect all your old clothes in exchange for utensils, and then nobody wants to throw the clothes away.

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The effectiveness of the Waghri community in prolonging the lives of old clothes is undeniable. But why is it such an invisible trade? How can it be continued and even supported by the government?

According to the Indian Textile Journal, more than one million tonnes of textiles are thrown away every year, with most of this coming from household sources. Textiles make up about 3 per cent of the weight of a household bin.

Originally from Gujarat the Waghri community, or Devipujaks as they prefer to be known, are India's 'invisible recyclers' who collect old clothes in exchange for utensils. The Waghri women who lead this trade are known in most Indian cities as bartanwali, chindiwali or kapdewali. For more than a century now they have been flag bearers of an informal system of recycling clothes that not only keeps old clothes out of landfills, but also provides them as affordable options to the poor. Despite this, the community faces absolute dejection, a struggle to hold a fixed market in Indian cities and meager economic returns.

Radha Ben said,

When we go to sell clothes, the police harass us. They take our belonging and put them in a truck. They take all of the bundles of clothes and utensils as well. There is no fixed place for us to do business. We go from street to street to do business. When the police pick up our things, we need to pay money to get them back.

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Anjali, a member of the Waghri community in Delhi said,

Sometimes people give us old clothes, sometimes they don't. We have little children who we leave at home to earn money for food. The government doesn't listen to us. We wish we could get a job, but no one gives us any.

Anita Ben said,

If someone from our community works in the government, or has a government job, then we too can boast about the fact that one of ours is in the government. For four months during the rains, we cannot do any work. Because when it rains, the clothes get wet. At Delhi Darwaja, no one lets us sell clothes and neither do the customers come. So for four months, we cannot conduct any business.

Some members of the community have been moved to government housing from the slums they inhabited near the river front of Ahmedabad. But the new housing is far away from the marketplaces they do business in. Others are still awaiting rehabilitation and are forced to live next to the landfill at Ganesh Nagar.

The trade itself is filled with uncertainties a lot of the time - the uncertainty of losing their market places, and the general discrimination from residential authorities and the police. But with these difficult circumstances, if the Waghri trade was to stop, it would impact other businesses as well.

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Rajesh Bhai, Utensils Seller at Delhi Darwaja Bazaar in Ahmedabad said,

This trade is very important. If the Waghri trade were to stop, there would be huge piles of dirty old clothes that will take a long time to clear. It is because of the work they do that these old clothes keep getting recycled. This trade has tea shops associated with it, paan shops associated with it. Then once the clothes have been collected, the tailors get associated, those who alter clothes get associated. Then the clothes also go into villages, a lot of clothes are sold there too. So there's a long chain of people associated with this trade, which is constantly in motion. If the Waghri or Devputra community wouldn't exist, the livelihoods of many people would collapse.

Sandeep Kumar is a regular vyapaari or wholesale dealer. He has been visiting the second-hand cloth market at Delhi Darwaza in Ahmedabad for the past 13 years. He buys second-hand sarees, jeans and shirts from here and sells them to people from low-income backgrounds. The wholesale dealer Sandeep said,

It is a poor area, where people cannot afford to pay Rs. 500 for a saree. So, we sell them sarees for Rs. 100, Rs. 80, Rs. 50 as well. There is nobody to listen to our problems. In Delhi Darwaja, the police are constantly moving us away, but we should be given a fixed spot.

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The Waghri trade of recycling old clothes has many businesses associated with it. The utensil shops, where the women buy utensils from. The shops of plastic household items that are also used by the women in exchange for old clothes. Then there is the transport business - the autowalas or tempo walas who help transport large quantities of clothes to and fro the marketplace. And, of course, many other ancillary businesses such as the chaiwala, bhajiawala, paniwala and others, who set up stalls in the bazaars where low-income households come to buy affordable clothes.

If India's urban planners notice the invisible yet immutable work of the Waghri or Devipujak community, they could legitimise their trade by awarding them a dedicated market place to carry on their business of recycling old clothes.

And it isn't just Gujarat, the Waghri or Devipujak community operates practically all over India.

Radha Ben said,

Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, you can find the Waghri community even in Pakistan. You will find them even in Kashmir. There is no part of the country where you won't find Deviputras or Waghris.

In Delhi, this community finds its market in a unique setting. Work begins in Delhi's Ghoda Mandi in Raghubir Nagar at 4 in the morning, and goes on only for a few hours. A t-shirt costs Rs. 1, while trousers go for Rs. 10 each. If any item of clothing has a hole in it, its price is further reduced.

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Anjali, a member of the Waghri community in Delhi said,

Once we take the old clothes from here, we sort through them at home. If there are any nice clothes, that are suitable for wearing, we put some aside for our own use. The rest is taken to the market at 4 am for us to sell. This is what we do with these old clothes.

Back in Ahmedabad, Radha Ben's daughter Anita too found a chaniya choli for her daughter, whose face lit up when she tried it on.

The Waghri community survives at the bottom of the pyramid that is India's second hand clothes market. But they are a critical part of the textile waste value chain.

So the next time you hear the familiar cry of a bartanwali, give her your old clothes. You will be helping not just the environment by keeping your old clothes out of landfills, you will also be contributing to the livelihood of an entire community.

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