The recently released “Health of the Nation’s States” report highlights the uneven progress made by India’s states in improving public health.
The likelihood of the average Indian falling sick due to unsafe water and poor sanitation is 40 times higher than in China.
This calls for an increased attention to the problem of open defecation.
How serious is open defecation?
Strikingly, more than half the population of the country defecate in open fields and by the roadsides.
Resultantly, water supplies in rural India get contaminated with this.
This in turn contributes to repeated spells of diarrhoea and widespread maternal and child malnutrition.
The resulting “stunting” and “wasting” causes the tragedy of millions of Indian children growing up physically smaller.
And with inherent reduced learning abilities even before they enter the schools.
As a follow up of this is the reduced potential of workforce when these undernourished children get into the working age population.
What perpetuates open defecation?
Some observations reveal that it was not poverty, illiteracy or a lack of water that impeded the use of toilets.
Evidently, according to the 2011 Census, about half of rural households that had no toilets had water facilities.
Similarly, in about half of households where one member has completed school, the practice of defecating outside continued.
More than 80% of countries with worse literacy rates than India’s have lower percentages of people defecating outside.
In India, it is the notion of purity and cleanliness, associated with caste, that actually makes households unwilling to have a toilet at home.
The perceptions of caste hierarchy, people's roles, etc hinder communities from opting out of open defecation.
Most villagers are unwilling to close and then empty inexpensive open-pit latrines for reuse, even long after the contents have decomposed into compost.
What is desired?
Promoting social equality is indeed a prerequisite for achieving India's goals on open defecation free environment.
Before insisting on building toilets, the social attitudes about caste and cleanliness have to be changed.
