Indian Outlook Towards Toilets...!!!

Well I know this might be strange and it looks strange. The first question that would be raised would be that is India that much different from all the other countries. Well I should say YES.

First I would like to clarify that India above includes not the 25% of the people who live in cities and towns but the rest 75% who lives in villages. It is these people who comprise India. Recently I saw a comment by one of the government servant who is head of the Sanitation program in one of the Indian villages and I got to know about the reality, which totally shocked me.

Many governments came and went and all the governments aimed at improving sanitation and for this there first step were to build toilets. Many schemes were started for this like Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan, Swacha Bharat Abhiyan, and MNREGA etc. Government gave large amount of funds for construction of toilets, Rajasthan went to the extent that it made it mandatory to have a toilet if you want to fight for elections in panchayat, but still the problem has not been solved. As an Indian I thought that there might be lack of funds, improper implementation, and corruption in these and as usual India has failed to achieve its target, this is much obvious to think by any Indian.

But but my friends the reality is totally different. Though I do not totally neglect all these but the problems in India are much deeper. The first problem is that people are not at all interested in constructing toilets, even free toilets. Even well off houses in villages don’t want to have toilets in their home. The common misconception among people is that toilets are dirty places and must not be near house. They are not willing to clean them and keep them functional which they think is a task of backward classes. Hence they prefer to defecate openly in the fields which solve all these problems and misconceptions. Now you would surely believe that India is Unique in itself.

If government wants to achieve its target of removing the tag of Open Toilet from India then it will surely have to include one more element in its policies that is Education Of People, awareness among people. Policies are successful only when there is people’s participation and to ensure this government will have to change their mentality otherwise all this would be in vain.

Akshay Ratnawat