Business Insider –AFP, Abhaya Srivastava, Oct 2, 2014
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| Founder of Indian sanitation charity Sulabh International Bindeshwar Pathak (C) demonstrates his low-cost two-pit toilet technology in New Delhi (AFP Sajjad Hussain) |
New Delhi
(AFP) - Surrounded by latrines and soap dispensers, sanitation charity founder
Bindeshwar Pathak is most at home in the toilet, which he vows to build in
every impoverished home in India.
Affectionately
known as India's "toilet guru", 71-year-old Pathak has spent four
decades working to improve sanitation in a country where half of the population
relieve themselves in the open air.
Inspired by
Mahatma Gandhi, a champion of cleanliness, Pathak has more recently been
spurred on by new Prime Minister Narendra Modi who wants to make India free of
open defecation by 2019.
"India
has the technology and the methodology. What we lack is infrastructure,"
Pathak said of Modi's vision, as he took AFP on a tour of cheap, eco-friendly
toilets that his New Delhi-based charity has developed.
"We
also need funds to the tune of $42.3 billion considering each toilet will cost
about $320," he said, making quick calculations on a piece of paper.
"We
can't claim to be the next superpower when we don't even have something as
basic as a toilet for everyone," he said ahead of Thursday's national
holiday to celebrate the birthday of India's independence hero Gandhi.
National
hygiene drive
Modi is due
to launch a national cleanliness drive on Thursday, after pledging in August to
ensure all households have toilets in the next five years.
From top
ministers to lowly officials, all are expected to turn up to work on Thursday
to clean up their government buildings -- including their toilets -- many of
which stink of stale urine and are littered with rubbish and spit.
"This
mission ... aspires to realise Gandhi-ji's dream of a clean India," Modi
said recently after pledging during the May election campaign to build
"toilets first, temples later".
"Together
we can make a big difference," the Hindu nationalist said.
UNICEF
estimates that almost 594 million -- or nearly 50 percent of India's population
-- defecate in the open, with the situation acute in dirt-poor rural areas.
Some 300
million women and girls are forced to squat outside normally under the cover of
darkness, exposed not only to the risks of disease and bacterial infection, but
also harassment and assault by men.
The issue
was thrown into the spotlight in late May when two girls, aged 12 and 14, were
allegedly attacked as they went into the fields to relieve themselves. Police
are investigating if they were gang-raped before being lynched.
Two-pit
toilet technology
Pathak, the
founder of sanitation charity Sulabh International, has already constructed 1.3
million toilets for households using his cheap, two-pit technology.
When one
pit is filled, it is covered, and the other pit is used. Within two years, the
waste in the covered pit dries up, ridding itself of pathogens and ready for
use as fertiliser.
Such
toilets use less than a gallon of water per flush compared to 2.6 gallons (10
litres) for conventional latrines and do not require attachment to underground
sewer lines, which are nonexistent in most villages.
Pit toilets
also eliminate the need for the degrading task of manually removing toilet
waste by workers who are seen as the "ultimate untouchables" in
caste-ridden India.
Pathak is
determined to banish the need for such "manual scavengers", who often
scoop out excrement with their hands into wicker baskets, a campaign also
pushed by Gandhi before his death in 1948.
Himself an
upper-class Brahmin, Pathak recounted how he was made to consume cow dung and
urine as part of a "purification ritual" after he touched a woman,
who used to clean latrines, as a 10-year-old boy.
"This
moment has stayed with me," he said.
Pathak's
charity has also harnessed "bio-gas' produced from human waste which is
used to generate electricity to power the charity's offices. The gas has also
been bottled for use as fuel for cooking.
Despite his
achievements, Pathak said his task is far from complete, and he was determined
to change cultural and social attitudes against toilets. Many people in India
consider toilets unhygienic and prefer to squat in the open, believing it is
more sanitary to leave waste far from your home.
"Many
people (also) find toilets stifling," said Pathak. "We tell them that
you can keep the top of the toilet uncovered if you want to have a feel of
defecating in the open."
Related Article:
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Employees
hang just-washed donated cotton clothes that will be used
to make cloth sanitary napkins at non-profit
organisation 'Goonj'
(Echo) in New Delhi on April 22, 2014 (AFP Photo/Sajjad Hussain) |
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