world's toilet crisis.. india is right there

[astrokid.nj]

I dont know if I am posting this in the right place, but I just wanted to bring this to the attention of the readers here. I dont have any specific purpose in mind, other than spreading the word.

somewhere in the nirmukta blogs, I read that "Indians are number one at thinking that we are number one". I can never understand why the arrogance. We need to shove this in the face of nationalists, in the hope for (absolutely basic) improvement of the human condition.

IIRC from the video below, 600 Million in India do open defaecation.
Its rather disgusting (be warned), but its the truth.
http://www.hulu.com/watch/154282/vanguar...let-crisis

[Ajita Kamal]

Thanks, astrokid.nj. You speak the unpleasant truth, with the true conviction that the ability to look at ourselves objectively for our faults as a nation is what will save India from those who ignore the suffering that is as much a part of its reality.

Nationalists are afflicted by penis-envy of the ego.

[donatello]

That video at Hulu can't be streamed outside the United States. I found this one on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQKumqNJHL0

astrokid.nj: Can you confirm that it is the same one?
EDIT: Yup, it is the same video. People, watch it on Youtube!

[donatello]

Just to let people know that this documentary is not a one-off incidence of reports about toilets in India:

More mobile phones than toilets: UN Report - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnew...eport.html

When the trains stop - Tehelka - http://www.tehelka.com/story_main36.asp?...en_The.asp - This one is about manual scavenging in Delhi's Railway station.

Inteview with Eureka Forbes rep: http://www.tehelka.com/story_main36.asp?...ourers.asp - Related to the previous story.

[Lije]

Thanks for sharing the video. The Vangaurd guys are doing some good journalism. Have to find some time to watch their other docus.

It is indeed saddening that some people in India constantly harp about us being the greatest and grandest civilization when we can't even get the basics right.

Here is another article on manual scavenging: http://www.flonnet.com/fl2318/stories/20...900400.htm

[siddharth]

"Indians are number one at thinking that we are number one"

This was ascertained after a sample survey across the world. I have even used this in a comic to highlight our ignorance of the world.

I think having toilets should be our major concern, right after food and water security.

I propose a massive clean, free public toilet be built at the "Ram Janma Bhoomi".

[TTCUSM]

(03-Aug-2010, 11:02 PM)siddharth Wrote: "Indians are number one at thinking that we are number one"

This was ascertained after a sample survey across the world. I have even used this in a comic to highlight our ignorance of the world.

I think having toilets should be our major concern, right after food and water security.

I propose a massive clean, free public toilet be built at the "Ram Janma Bhoomi".

Or we could empower the women in Indian villages, since they are the ones who have the most to gain from public sanitation facilities:

Quote:In India it is estimated that more than 660 million people still defaecate in the open - a big cause of a host of diseases, from diarrhoea to polio. It is women, activists say, who suffer the most. “Women who must go outside have to do so before sunrise or after nightfall so they can't be seen,” said Bindeshwar Pathak, founder of Sulabh, which has built toilets for ten million Indians, and the recipient of this year's Stockholm Water Prize for developing ecofriendly and cheap lavatories to help to improve public health.

Ranjana Kumari, director of the Centre for Social Research, said: “I come from a village and I know that if there is no sugarcane or wheat in the fields women may have to walk very far to find privacy. It's inconvenient, undignified and, at night, it's not safe.”

[shrihara]

This is terrible

Full episode can be watched here
http://current.com/shows/vanguard/924822...crisis.htm

[astrokid.nj]

Quote:There are pockets of resistance, however. Some upper-caste communities are not happy having lavatories in their homes because tradition dictates that such an arrangement is unclean.

Mr Monda said: “People do not want to go to the toilet in the home where they cook food. And many old people enjoy the opportunity to go for a walk. It gives them the opportunity to check on their fields

Can you believe that??

I am currently reading VSNaipaul's "Area of Darkness" (published in 1964. A tough read simply because of the writer's style) where he talks about this very issue.. He talks about how Gandhi was also appalled at this, and tried to reform it. In the beginning, I thought this was only due to poverty. But no.. the damned caste system is what has conditioned us to tolerate this for so long. Here's a small writeup.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?sid=a...ewsarchive

Quote:Gandhi focused on the Hindu caste system that subjugated the lowest social stratum to the unsavory realm of latrines. For some 4,000 years, so-called bhangis or untouchables earned a modest living by scraping “night soil” from the cavernous household toilet pits of higher castes and carrying it away in pans balanced on their heads.