Broad estimates reveal that almost 2.4 billion people are striving to stay well, keep their children alive, all for a want of a toilet. The #UN launched the Sustainable Development Goals (#SDGs) in 2015 to ensure that everyone everywhere has access to toilets by 2030, making it a #globaldevelopmental priority. In 2013, the #UnitedNationsGeneralAssembly officially designated November 19 as #WorldToiletDay. #SwachhBharatMission has the same goals and challenges. It is a mission to solve the country’s deep-rooted #sanitationchallenges. Eliminating #OpenDefecation in India by 2nd October 2019 – the #150thbirthanniversaryofMahatmaGandhi – is one of the key aims of the #SwachhBharatAbhiyan. The campaigns support (#Gramin) for building an individual toilet is Rs. 12,000.
One step at a time
The government has launched campaigns through various mass communication channels highlighting the negatives of open defecation. The outcome of such relentless campaigning has paid off. Approximately 8.9 million individual household latrines have been built in rural areas in the past one year. According to official figures, the access to toilets has increased to 46.9% from only 32.6% in 2011 across the country. And according to the #NSSOfigures, in 1993, 85.8 per cent of rural households didn’t have access to a latrine. By 2012, the number was reduced to 59.4 per cent. However, #Bihar and #UttarPradesh have built only 927 and 862 household latrines respectively since the #sanitationmission was launched.
Open defecation is a huge problem in our country. Last year, we saw a bevy of international artists in the Global Citizen Festival perform to raise #awarenessaboutsanitation. The Festival harnessed the universal power of music, attracting world-famous artists including Jay Z, Demi Lovalo, to elevate sanitation within the #internationaldevelopmentcommunity. We try to understand the extent of the menace (#opendefecation) and its implications with the help of statistics, as well as highlight a success story. We also raise concerns about our womenfolk and their safety, which is compromised in a scenario of open defecation.
The Global Citizen campaign came to India to raise awareness against open defecation, highlighting #UNsWorldToiletDaymission. How can we forget Vidya Balan’s message on radio against open defecation and the need for #toiletsforwomen. Yes, open defecation gives rise to multitude of problems related to #health, #hygiene and women safety. The rape of two minor girls, who had stepped out to answer nature’s call, is a reminder of the larger issue at hand. Surveys and data reveal that rape and violence against women increases during open defecation, since it leaves them vulnerable. And this isn’t a rural problem alone. So, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the #SwachhBharatMission, it was applauded for its intent.
According to the recent Swachhta Status Report of the National Sample Survey Office, in 2015 more than half of the rural population (52.1 per cent) of the country still defecates in open.
India’s International ranking
India’s international ranking in tackling open defecation is not satisfactory. Sub-Saharan Africa, which had 65 per cent of the #GDP per capita of India, had only about half of the #ruralopendefecation compared to #India.
Open defecation is considered a major public health menace, causing #childhooddiarrhoea, #parasiticworminfections and other scourges that contribute to childhood stunting, #malnutrition and tens of billions of dollars in lost productivity every year. Diarrheal diseases kill 7,00,000 children every year in India alone most of which could have been prevented with better #sanitation. India has spent about $3 billion since 1986 on campaigning and sanitation programs, but has not come close to Bangladesh’s success. Two-thirds of India’s 1.25 billion people still use the great outdoors as their #publiclatrine.
About half of Nepal’s 30 million people and about 20 per cent of Pakistan’s 182 million also do not have facilities at home. #Bangladesh has virtually eliminated open air defecation, bringing it down to only 1% of its #population who do not have access to indoor toilet facilities. Only 5 per cent of rural people defecate in the open. “We have no sanitation problem. Although we are poor, we are living in society now with dignity,” Rokeya Begum, who lives in Kishoreganj’s Gobaria village, says with a broad smile. Like poor households in the country, her family would also use the roadside, open fields and jungles to defecate. Then things changed when the local administration helped her install a #sanitarylatrine in her home a few years ago.
But all is not lost, still we have volunteers like Meera, who are making a huge difference by #educatingthevillagers. Comparable data from various rounds of #NSSO show that as of August 2016, only 17 of the 650 districts have been declared #OpenDefecationFree (#ODF) by the government. Of the six lakh plus villages in India, 54,732 were declared ODF as of 31st March 2016.
#MawlynnongVillage’s Success Story
But not all is as gloomy. #Mawlynnong, located in the state of #Meghalaya in India’s #NorthEast region, was never aware that its efforts to promote #cleanliness would usher in fame and #economicbenefits to this village as well. According various studies on this village, with the emergence of the village as a popular destination as a result of the ‘#cleanestvillageinIndiaandAsia’ tag, focus has been shifted from the state capital #Shillong to this village, which is almost 90 kilometers away from state capital. The Union #MinistryofDrinkingWaterandSanitation mentions that #Mawlynnong is a model to showcase how collective efforts can elevate a village to position itself on the tourism map by promoting eco-tourism. The village is Asia’s cleanest village and God’s own garden, and the government also describes it as a village that is not only #clean and #green but also a #modelofsustainableenvironmentalsanitation and #drinkingwater. There are many lessons to be learnt from a nondescript and almost isolated village, and Mawlynnong has proved exactly that.
#Cleanliness: a way of life
#Cleanliness has become a way of life for the people of Mawlynnong village. The love for cleanliness keeps all the villagers—right from the village elders to the children busy throughout the day, and the day starts with the #villagewomen sweeping the roads early in the morning. The villagers have also devised methods to keep their village clean and this has been remarkably successful. A dustbin made out of #bamboo is found all along the village, and everyone makes it a point that dirt and waste are not thrown everywhere. They have formed a committee comprising the headman and 10 members to take care of maintaining #cleanliness, #drinkingwater and #sanitation, and this committee keeps a check on each and every aspect of the life in the village. “This committee is like a guiding force in the village, and the important decisions related to the village are routed through this committee,” says the village headman.
There are stories of individual and collective endeavours that shine amidst the gloom. Atrapta village in the Jaitpur block of Mahoba has taken control of the situation. Meera, a sweeper has been running a movement against open defecation since last July under the larger campaign of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (#CleanIndiaMission). She wants to see her block in #UP, free from open defecation. She has been #spreadingawareness, #educating them about the harmful effects of #opendefecation. Mira and her group of workers have already cleaned 30 villages within the #Jaitpurblock. They work tirelessly since morning, going from one house to the other explaining and educating. She explains as to how the harmful dirt can spread through particles that fly from the soil or from underneath our feet and from the wheels of cars, and how it can also lead to many #diseases. She has been cautioning the people against deadly diseases, and how prevention is always better than cure. Her efforts have not gone unnoticed. The state Education Minister was quoted saying that the campaign had made a difference. People are putting in money to build toilets.
Plea for Community Ownership
#IndiaWaterFoundation, a non-profit organization, started a project on “#IntegratedapproachforempoweringlocalcommunitiesforecologywaterbodyconservationsanitationandhygienethroughawarenessenhancingcampaignsandUseofenvironmentfriendlytechnologies” in 13 villages – #Gagol, #Fafunda, #Chansara, #Narhara, #Mahiuddinpur, #Bhudbaral, #GumiJurranpur, #Jurranpur, #Mahrauli, #Uplehda, #Khedabalrampur, #Bajot and #Jalalpur – which are in red zone population of more than 50,000 of South Block, #Meerut (UP), supported by #NCSTC, #MinistryofScienceandTechnology, #GovernmentofIndia. This project involved close interaction and participation of multiple agencies like #Panchayats, #Block & #Districtadministration and #StateDepartment as well as multiple #stakeholders like #students, #educationists, #civilsocieties, #media, #linedepartmentsofthedistrict, #women, #children.
We received overwhelming response from all #stakeholders. We also focused on convergence of multiple agencies. The salutary outcome was in terms of #capacitybuilding of various stakeholders in #waterquality, #sanitation, #hygiene, #judicioususeofwater for day- to-day activities and #irrigation through folk media and audio-visual campaign. #Developingmodelsbasedonsciencecommunication, like location specific innovative initiatives for actionable learning and building field capacity for adopting scientific & best practices in knowledge-critical domains, knowledge-led motivation of youth for leadership and improvement of quality of life of specific target groups based on scientific approaches of ‘Being-on-their-Own’ and ‘#Collectiveresponse’ to challenges and location specific problems.
While in most #villages, there are people like Meera who are stepping out to help the community realise the ill-effects of #opendefecation, but there are villages , where #education and #awareness is not able to dissuade some from carrying out what their ancestors have been doing since time immemorial, and therefore the government is taking the matter in their hands. Haryana government recently announced that drones would be used to monitor people going out to defecate. Meanwhile, in #MadhyaPradesh, a law was passed which bars anyone not having a flush toilet in their homes from contesting in Panchayat elections. A sarpanch (village chief) in the neighbouring state of #Chhattisgarh has ordered that people not constructing toilets will not be able to use the government distribution shop to get essential food items.
But can we ever talk about #SwachhBharat and let our people defecate in the open? Strangely, amongst all the promises by the politicians before the elections, none of them spoke about #buildingtoilets. What good is a laptop when we don’t have toil#ets? How can we even imagine a state progressing, embracing technology and yet not have the basics in place? How can we address epidemics and the spread of diseases without addressing this menace? For a country riddled with gender, caste, class inequalities, we have a problem that persists–the lack of toilets inside people’s’ homes.
By #DrArvindKumarPresidentIndiaWaterFoundation
