‘Loo’ Could Well Be India’s Biggest Waterloo

In a country of 1.2 billion, almost half of the population does not feel compelled to use the toilet to relieve self. Reason? There is simply NO toilet in place. India’s sanitation problem, where successive governments have failed to push the hygiene agenda into cities and villages since independence, has been growing despite best efforts.

India’s two biggest political parties – Congress, which ruled the country for the longest period of time, and now the biggest majority and the ruling party the BJP – are on the same page on this. Both want ‘toilets’ to become the primary necessity of people in rural areas, where toilets are virtually absent and people defecate in the fields and relieve themselves behind the bushes without a care for the world.

For those who would want to see wry humour, this could well be a way to fertilise soil. But what escapes the truth is that most people die of water borne diseases once the monsoon starts, thanks to faeces that flow with soil and enters the rivers, thus polluting water. Also, equal or more contributing factor is the drainage that flows into the river. Waste water treatment plants are unheard of, so long as rivers flow in every city – no matter how dirty they get with every passing day.

With a good 130 million households lacking toilets and 70% people finding a ‘bushy’ barricade behind which begins the journey to relieve self, India is in serious trouble as far as the health of its people is concerned.

This shall soon cause major health problems, especially among children, who assume open defecation as an accepted form of relieving themselves.

In the recent times, another inhuman side to open defecation has been pressing governments to act sooner. Women turn into targets for sexual predators when they step out in the open to defecate. In Bihar alone, nearly 400 women were raped when they set out to answer nature’s call.

The recent rape and murder of two sisters in Uttar Pradesh shook the state. The girls were hanged from a tree after they were sexually assaulted when they had stepped out of their house to defecate in the open field. There are also cases of snake bites and innumerable attacks on women and children.

In a way, relieving self in the open seems to be a cultural issue as well. It is not about being able to afford. Although the government has pumped thousands of crores into sanitation campaigns, India has never been able to convey the message of hygienic toilets.

What has seen stupendous success even without an advertising campaign is the usage of mobile phones. Today, government offers huge subsidies to households in villages that come forward to build toilets. But mobile companies have achieved bigger feats with their technology and have turned into a greater necessity among people even without offering any perk!

Open defecation or urination is something that has been ingrained in people’s psyche as part of their culture. Else, rooting out an evil like this should not have taken more than two decades.

The collective belief that having toilets close to living spaces is detrimental to health and life has been strongly etched in people’s minds since ages. People believe building a toilet even some distance away from home is not only a waste of money, but also a breeding space for unhygienic practices.

Urban areas, though very cosmopolitan in their spirit, also don’t care much about how the lower class lives in its slums. Corporate social responsibility doesn’t extend to this space.

Pushing for toilets is a dirty job. But someone’s got to do it.
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