Shit Is Happening

The just released Census data on latrines comes as no surprise

Among the many people that social networking has made famous, there is also Wilbur Sargunaraj, a Tamilian. You can see him on YouTube sing a completely senseless song titled Chicken 69. You can see him in the Middle East with a Sheikh discussing Michael Jackson. But what has made him most famous are two instructional videos—‘How to use the Eastern Toilet’ and ‘How to Use the Western Toilet’. In the videos, he is dead serious about the lessons. While everyone finds it ridiculously funny, there is no doubting the utility of what he’s doing. In fact, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have it running on a screen in Indian public toilets, considering their state.

The Indian cultural relationship with shit is to let it happen and somehow expect it to take care of itself. In a rural society, goods offloaded in the backyard or field turns into useful manure. In an urban setting, as this country is surely becoming, the same formula does not work. But Indian society just does not get the concept of toilets or clean toilets. The Census 2011’s Houselisting and Housing Data, which was released recently, has a section on latrines. The findings are as unsurprising as what you see when you look out of a train or bus window: half of India, or 49.8 per cent to be precise, shits in the open. Percentages can be deceptively innocuous. So, to convert it into real numbers, that would be 600 million Indians defecating in the open. Allowing an arbitrary 100 gm of shit per person, that makes 60 million kg of excreta being laid out directly onto Indian soil.

Mahatma Gandhi had a brilliant suggestion: let everyone carry a small spade and then bury the shit, converting it into a humongous amount of manure which would be as good as gold for crops. But as with many of Gandhi’s ideas, it is impossible for normal people to do.

There is, however, an easier solution: build only toilets under NREGA. You would then have something to show for all the amount of money doled out, and it would also be of utility to the very people who are doing the work—the poorest of the poor.