India's new loos save lives
An Indian group has fought against poor sanitation by building more than one million household toilets since its founding in 1970.
Every morning, in nearly every Indian village and town, a caste of Indian men and women come to the homes of the well-to-do and carry away buckets of human waste on their heads. The work of these Balmikis, or scavengers, once moved Mahatma Gandhi to take up the work himself, to shame Indians into rejecting this centuries-old traditional practice and to push for modern sanitation.
"I may not be born again," Gandhi told his followers, "but if it happens I will like to be born into a family of scavengers, so that I may relieve them of the inhuman, unhealthy, and hateful practice of carrying night soil."
It is one of the astounding contradictions of modern India, and a fact notably missing from the ruling party's current feel-good ad campaign, that this "inhuman" practice continues even today. At a time when growing numbers of urban and even rural Indians own mobile phones and drive expensive foreign cars, where Indian software engineers are busy creating the "next big thing," and where Indian rocket scientists today are planning a joint US-Indian mission to the moon, more than three quarters of the nation's citizens live without access to a simple toilet.
Perhaps the biggest champion of proper sanitation is a well-born group of men and women with an idea: to bring proper sanitation to the masses, and social justice to India's most benighted citizens.
Founded in 1970 by a high-caste Brahmin, Bindeshwar Pathak, the Sulabh International Social Service Organization has built more than a million household toilets, and helped nearly 60,000 Balmiki-caste Indians obtain the skills and education to move on to more fulfilling lives.
"The question is not money. If you used local materials, you could build this toilet for the cost of a radio, just 20 British pounds, 1500 rupees, 35 US dollars," says S. Ramachandran, a retired engineer who now consults for Sulabh International. The toilet he is referring to is a simple canvas and wood shed around a simple Asian squat-type toilet that empties into a composting pit. "The real question is education."
Like many groups with a cause, the workers at Sulabh are earnest and dedicated to their cause. But they also have a sense of humor.
Consider the Sulabh Institute's Museum of Toilets. Tucked away in a working class neighborhood on New Delhi's southwestern side, the Toilet Museum features exhibits donated by some 60 countries, and combines high ideals with low humor to get its point across.
"You must be knowing about the rivalry between the French and the British, sir," says the museum's tour guide, Sanjay Kumar. He places his hand on a wooden seat built in the shape of a book. "This is a toilet made by a French person who did not respect the Britisher's favorite writer, Mr. William Shakespeare." Sure enough, on the side of the book-shaped table is Shakespeare's name on the "binding." On the top of the book there is a hole.
"This is just a model, sir," Mr. Kumar says, in case the guest is offended.
But while humor is part of the Sulabh International approach, India's sanitation problem is no laughing matter. Only 252 out of the 5,000 medium size towns and cities in India have sewage systems; some of these operate so poorly that the sewage is simply dumped untreated into rivers. As a result, nearly 89 percent of all Indians either defecate in the open, or use temporary latrines or substandard community toilets.
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