BackPM must say ‘open defecation’ and ‘latrine use’ out loud!
The importance of behaviour change is not clear in the government's newly released plans but it is still not too late
Premium
Earlier this week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi shared a letter about his goal of achieving a Swachh Bharat (clean India) by 2019. In it, and in other recent speeches, he has spoken of the launch of a mass movement to create a Clean India, saying that “the time has come to devote ourselves towards swachchhata (cleanliness) of our motherland." The rest of the world is becoming increasingly aware and alarmed at how global open defecation is largely concentrated in India alone. But still, the Prime Minister and his government talk of cleanliness only in terms of sweeping the streets and cleaning offices and homes, entirely avoiding the issue of open defecation and latrine use here at home.
Till date, the Prime Minister has only acknowledged the problem of open defecation in terms of a lack of toilets, implying that the solution lies in constructing more of them. But from a recent study of sanitation attitudes and behaviour in rural north India (the SQUAT Survey), it is clear that many people choose to defecate in the open despite having access to a working latrine in their home. This choice is grounded in deep-seated beliefs that will not be countered by constructing latrines for people who don’t want them, or by presuming that calls for cleanliness will suddenly encourage latrine use. The importance of behaviour change is not clear in the government’s newly released plans, but Modi still has the opportunity to make it so.
To assume that people will know that they are expected to use a latrine when they are asked to “wholeheartedly engage in the task of cleaning your homes, work places, villages, cities, and surroundings" is dangerously naïve. More than half of SQUAT survey respondents who defecate in the open believe that doing so is healthier than using a latrine. Given this, how would they know that cleanliness means that open defecation is unacceptable?
There is no longer space for embarrassment or politeness. Open defecation is killing hundreds of thousands of babies every year in India, and without explicitly using the words ‘open defecation’ and ‘latrine use’ we will not be able to change people’s minds or their behaviour. Unless the Prime Minister speaks with frankness and specificity about the challenges at hand, leaving no room for ambiguity, this campaign will surely fail in making India open defecation free.
The organizers of the Global Citizen Festival in New York City this weekend invited Prime Minister Modi because they have chosen ending open defecation as a cause they will champion. They expect that the Prime Minister “is coming to the festival because he is dedicated to helping people to see that using toilets is safer and cleaner than defecating in the open." If the Prime Minister can explicitly highlight the importance of ending open defecation while abroad, he must use similarly unequivocal language in India to make his expectations clear. I hope that on 2 October, as Modi calls upon the nation to come together to make a Swacch Bharat, he talks to us directly and in no uncertain terms about the most pressing cleanliness challenge that India has.
Payal Hathi is associate director at the Research Institute for Compassionate Economics (r.i.c.e.)
Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed – it's all here, just a click away! Login Now!
