Indias potty problem

The idea of toilets for every home needs more homework to provide for every contingency connected with the concept – water supply, drainage, methodology for cleansing them, utility of disposed of waste and byproducts that can be derived from them for use as resultant manure or gas for cooking. A holistic, inter-government approach is needed, taking all the States along and involving voluntary bodies. Without that, the idea can degenerate into a heavy financial burden and a greater health hazard

On the last Independence Day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled his plans for each household having toilet by the year 2019. He was harking back to what Mahatma Gandhi had advocated a century before. It may be worthwhile re-visiting this “yuck yuck” issue.

Modi had shown his preference, but once, for toilets over temple, alluding to the one his party advocates in Ayodhya during his election campaign last year. Forthright after taking office, he unveiled plans from the Lal Qila. Modi offered women, the worst sufferers who would appreciate this more than men, the hope for socio-economic emancipation.

He was offering a toilet seat before a seat in workplace or legislature. Following the PM’s I-Day appeal, funds were allotted in the Union Budget and we have reports of some 60,000 toilets being constructed. Some state governments heeded, most have not.

Statistics do not impress considering the gigantic requirement. Yet, while giving due credit, it needs emphasising that a toilet must have support system of regular water supply and maintenance. Without that, it adds to the squalor in which our public places abound.

Indians, by and large, lack a sense of public hygiene. Even the much- talked drainage system of the Indus Valley Civilisation that we failed to retain, had open drains. Social norms have since dictated that this biological necessity conducted away from living quarters.

The practice of using riverbanks and open space before sunrise was a necessity in olden times. It may have seemed obnoxious but piped water supply to flush out the waste to drainage or sewage systems evolved much later. Only the well-off could afford toilets, while the rest turned to open, secluded places.

The wealthy built toilets attached to their homes but assigned their cleaning to people belonging to a particular caste. The scavengers would access the small passage in back walls without entering those homes. Although scavenging and carrying waste as head-load has been legally banned, this remains their vocation to this day.

Despite popular movements opposing it, till the end of last century most urban and semi urban areas did not have drainage or sewerage systems for automatic disposal. Municipal committees with small budget did not have enough resources to end the system.

Despite enactment against the practice, and rising resistance to it, the practice continued till the turn of the century in many towns. The poor, migrants and homeless have continued to use open spaces. After railways lines were laid, they became a safe venue for disposal.

For women, it remains an embarrassing drill to carry the water pitcher and walk through the village. It has affected their metabolism as they suffer diarrhea and other ailments that they cannot even talk about. “We defecate in the open just the way our cattle do.

We are not different, except that they can do it any time, while we have to do in the dark, bitten by snakes and scorpions,” a woman in Maharashtra’s Wadali village laments in a documentary made by the students (2014-15 batch) of the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), Amravati.

The topic is a no-no in public. Late Piloo Mody was the first to demand in Parliament public toilets for women in all villages. Former Prime Minister Chaudhary Charan Singh lent his support in 1978 but the planners belonging to the urban elite derided them for bringing the issue to public domain for political gain.

The reluctance of religious leaders was evident from the fact that temples and temple towns that attract millions have taken long to reconcile to the idea of building toilets for the devotees. Millions of pilgrims converge there all around the year, but providing toilets for visitors, especially women, remains inadequate even though toll is collected from each pilgrim.

It required a visit by 12 journalists, including women, from the European Union, who experienced and narrated their experience of searching for toilet facility for the government to wake up and act. For decades after it became the national capital, nobody thought of toilets for women in New Delhi’s Connaught Place or its railway stations.

Believe it or not, even Parliament House did not have separate toilets for women officials, media and security personnel or visitors. After protests and debate, some existing ones were specifically allotted for women. Although intense campaigns were undertaken to attract tourists and travelers to earn foreign exchange, attention was not paid to this basic need.

Till 1998, petrol pumps and gas stations did not have clean toilets for travelers on roads and highways. It is only since 2001 that the Ministry of Petroleum has made it mandatory for the oil companies operating retail outlets to provide toilet facility. Renuka Choudhary, a long-time parliamentarian and minister, had got built sets of public toilets in her constituency.

But as enough water was not available to flush them out, within a fortnight they became unusable and had to close. Hence, priority accorded by Modi must be welcomed and worked upon. For that, it is necessary to change the mentality of the politicians and bureaucracy.

The ministry concerned has launched an intense campaign by attacking the taboo over attached toilet that prevails in many parts of the country for both social and economic reasons. In one advertisement, the social worker played by noted film star Vidya Balan attacks the ritual of keeping a bride’s head covered while asking her to use open space for toilet. The slogan adopted is brilliant: ‘Jahan Soch Vahan Shouchalaya.’

But the ministry seems to have launched the campaign without giving fuller thought to a brilliant concept. It has betrayed the pretence of implementing a wish of the Prime Minister. One area that needs thinking and planning is what should be done with the waste. Disposing it into water bodies like rivers and ponds as is generally done now has added to the pollution, making their water impossible to consume.

This is true of major river systems like the Ganga, the Jamuna and the Godavari. Treatment of waste produces excellent manure to give organic stuff and fruits. It would reduce use of chemical fertilisers that, like oil and gas, has rising demand graph and is imported.

The idea of toilets for every home needs more homework to provide for every contingency connected with the concept – water supply, drainage, methodology for cleansing them, utility of disposed off waste and byproducts that can be derived from them for use as resultant manure or gas for cooking.

A holistic, inter-government approach is needed, taking all the States along and involving voluntary bodies. Without that, the idea can degenerate into a heavy financial burden and a greater health hazard.