Mission accomplished on October 2nd. “India has stopped open defection” declared Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India on the 150th anniversary of Gandhi’s birth.
This claim has triggered wide public responses. Here we’re not going to argue about gaps between targets and delayed implementation, or about new toilets which can’t be used because they lack water; we overlook the difficulties of encouraging changes in behaviour and will pass over the lost opportunity to retrain manual cleaners consigned to this work by their caste. There are other problems.
Open Defecation Free is a term of art signifying ‘the absence of visible faeces in the environment.’ Visible to whom? Invisible faeces are flowing from many urban latrines into more or less open drains where they mingle with general waste in a way that is only too disgustingly visible to those who have to clear these drains.
Whose environment? Invisible faeces surround homes without patta or with unproven patta which do not qualify for subsidised toilets. Municipal sanitation workers without access to toilets or changing rooms have to shit on the very same urban verges that they clean.
Do all these people not count as Indian?
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