Why do you want to start engaging on an accusatory note? This ragebaiting is neither good for dialogue nor for your health. Try being more respectful with those you disagree with. Coming to your concern, there is no "peak" or trough dishonesty in talking about artists and artisans because they consisted of a large chunk of the Shudra professions. In pre-modern India's cottage economy, pretty much everyone was an artisan. On the contrary, what is dishonest is to single out manual scavenging as a means to shit on the Hindu tradition just as the Church does. Shame! Manual scavenging is a reality in modern India too and certain castes are disproportionately represented in these jobs but I don't see you blaming the Constitution for this reality. Therefore, when you insinuate that some people were condemned to a life of indignity by Manu, please point me to the relevant verses in the scripture. Secondly, manual scavenging was not an industrial scale activity in pre-modern times. There were no toilets inside houses because dry-pit arrangements in agricultural fields was the norm, where most human waste was converted to manure. In the subsistence economy, all waste was recycled and while your oh-so-modern sensibilities may find it disgusting, there was economic value associated with turning shit into manure. That is nothing to be ashamed about. Thirdly, some communities handled dead carcasses as raw material for leather production. What is so degrading about it? The fact that the raw material was their birthright under the Jajmani system or that they were leather workers going about making shoes, bags or musical instruments using the hide they got for free? Or does your moral indignation arise from the fact that they had permanent guaranteed patrons and never had to look for new markets to explore just to survive? Or does it prick your bleeding heart that these leather workers were given rent-free land by the government and land grants directly by the villages as in the case of Hadki-Handola (Maharashtra). Look up Henry Orenstein, Harsh Satya, Ravinder Guruji on the Jajmani system as a start. You can also start here: pragyata.com/the-real-cost-o… Ideology is good for sloganeering, not truth seeking. Good luck.