Magazine
5 December 2012
Last updated at 01:57 GMT
Images of gods help to protect this wall
Spend
any time in India, and you will see men urinating in public. In the
state of Rajasthan last month volunteers began shaming offenders by
drumming and blowing whistles. But some argue the country also needs
more, and better, public toilets.
A few days after we moved to India my son pointed to a group
of men standing in front of a wall near our flat. They were all laughing
and joking as they urinated in public. He looked at me, confused, and
said, "Why are they doing that?"Five years on, I am still trying to find an answer. Travel around the world's largest democracy and you better watch where you are walking as you will find men - and it is almost always men - urinating and spitting everywhere. An Indian friend of mine recently joked that it has become a national pastime.
"We will do it anywhere," he said with some pride.
The decision by the authorities
in part of Rajasthan to try and stop people urinating in public by
embarrassing them has started a debate here.
A columnist in one of the country's most popular English
language newspapers recently asked the question, "Are Indians by nature
unhygienic?"His answer, which angered a number of his readers, was "Yes".
Armed with a copy of his article, I decided to pose the same question to some friends of mine.
Bikram, part of India's new young cash-rich middle class, was the first to answer. After glaring at me for a few seconds he said: "How can you even ask such a stupid question?"
The answer was quite simple, he added. "There are just not enough toilets here." There were lots of nodding heads around the table.
Bikram had a point. India's rural development minister Jairam Ramesh recently said that the country needed toilets more than temples. Almost half of the homes in the world's largest democracy do not have one. His comments led to protests outside his house. But a few days later he urged women not to get married unless there was a toilet in their new homes.
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But then Tina, a housewife,
decided to have her say. "It is not about toilets, it is about a lack of
civic sense," she said, adding that just a few hours earlier she had
seen a man urinating on the street, right in front of a public toilet.
"It happens all the time, and it is disgusting," she said.I looked at Bikram, hoping for a response, but he had nothing to say and pretended that he had to make an urgent call. But a friend of mine from Mumbai, Raju, shook his head.
"Have you ever been to a public toilet?" he asked.
"They stink. I had one near my
house and they had to knock it down as you could not walk within 50
yards of it without being physically sick."
Tina, though, was now in full flow."Well that is because of caste," she said. "We expect people from lower castes to clean toilets. We will not do it. Until that changes the problem will remain."
Her friend Brinka, who was sitting next to her, wanted to say something. Her eyes were fixed on all the men around the table.
"Can I ask you guys why we women can wait until we find a toilet but you men can't?" she asked. None of the men around the table dared to answer.
As I walked home I saw a man standing on the pavement.
Legs apart. You can guess what he was doing.
I asked him in Hindi: "Why could you not wait till you got home or find a toilet?"
He looked at me like I was mad. "This is India sir... this is what we do," he replied.
Listening to our conversation was a policeman. I asked him
why he did not stop him. With a smile on his face, he said: "What is the
point?"Those words kept ringing in my head as I continued my walk home. How could you solve the problem with that attitude?
As I looked up, I saw pictures of the gods on the wall in front of me.
They had been placed outside a house so that people would not urinate on it. India may need more toilets than temples - but in this deeply religious country, it seems that divine intervention is the only thing that can stop men from urinating in public.
Garbage and sewage
B S Raghavan, The Hindu Business Line
Rajasthan's shaming plan
- Launched last month in 34 villages in Jhunjhunu district
- Volunteers will shout, beat drums or blow a whistle if they see anyone urinating or defecating
- Repeat offenders may be fined
- An official said 80% of villagers had a toilet, and the aim was to persuade the rest to build one
Indian contradictions
- Nearly half of India's 1.2bn people have no toilet at home and defecate in the open
- But more than half the population - 53.2% - have a mobile phone
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