Congratulations on taking up an issue that is the most embarrassing for India (The Throneless, Oct 21). However, building public toilets is far easier than maintaining them. Availability of water, user education, prevention of hardware and water theft are a few issues. What’s needed are least water-consuming, theft-proof toilets. Perhaps Outlook can announce a contest for the best design. This is a serious suggestion, not a facetious one. It is also necessary to have paid toilets with attendants at all places. Charges should be at least Rs 5-10. Even the poor wouldn’t mind shelling out a rupee or two for relieving themselves in dignity.
Sudhir Apte, Satara
When Narendra Modi follows Jairam Ramesh in expressing a preference for toilets over temples, we know a national conversation has begun. It’s worth asking why toilets and sanitation have been neglected in our country for so long, given the scale of our problem. The old alibi of size and poverty wilts in the face of figures that mark out India as an outlier in the indoor toilets ‘rankings’. Even Bangladesh, poorer than we are, has managed to provide access to indoor toilets to 90 per cent of its people. Sri Lanka is positively First World in this regard. The absence of lavatories should be seen in conjunction with that other great absence: of primary schools. Education and sanitation are the two most spectacular failures of Indian public policy.
J. Akshobhya, Mysore
I know of many low-income households in my town which have toilets in their homes. Yet, people still go out in the open as they do not have enough water to flush. Perhaps the Bill Gates Foundation could consider ‘reinventing’ the toilet.
S.L. Murthy, Visakhapatnam
Toilets, or at least urinals, are needed at all public places—be it petrol pumps, bus stops, public parks, commercial complexes, schools or temples.
D.V. Mohana Prakash, Mysore
It’s not just about building toilets, it’s as much about keeping them clean. Go to the swankiest mall and you see the toilets leave much to be desired. Even the elite in India will keep the toilets in their house clean, courtesy servants and maids, but won’t leave public toilets clean.
Arun Maheshwari, Bangalore
It’s not enough to be concerned exclusively about toilets. Indians need to get over their general apathy towards public hygiene, and the long list includes spitting, littering, strewing garbage and so on.
R.V. Subramanian, Gurgaon
It’s high time we inculcated a sense of hygiene in the minds of people. This can be done only by using a campaign mode approach involving people—especially women and girls. As the district collector of Nizamabad, Andhra Pradesh, in 2002-03, I oversaw the installation of one lakh toilets dovetailing many government programmes and with the total participation of the community. I played on the atma-gauravam (self-pride) of the women, especially adolescent girls, to push my agenda of “no guard of honour” (when women would stand up as vehicles would pass by. The campaign led to a massive improvement in people’s health.
Asok Kumar, on e-mail
When the poor in villages and migrants in the cities continue defecating in the open and fisherfolk use the seashore as an open-air toilet, I do not know how you mean to say Kerala is a 100 per cent open-defecation-free state.
K.P. Rajan, Mumbai
A nugget from recent history. Chaudhary Charan Singh, PM for all of 23 days, had in his first and last speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort said his first priority would be to ensure every Indian had access to a latrine (the word he used). Unfortunately, Indira’s Congress pulled the rug from under his feet. What if!
A.K. Ghai, Mumbai
The people of India should give up their fixation for mobile phones and prioritise the facilitation of toilets for each of our brethren.
K. Chidanand Kumar, Bangalore
We now have technology to use sewage as a resource. The biomethane produced from it can be used as fuel, the rich organic matter in it can be processed into fertiliser. With 1.2 billion people, India needs to look at building infrastructure that not only provides toilets but also uses the sewage generated every day to pay at least partially for the cost of building a toilet network. Do this properly, and it might be possible to make a profit, at least in concentrated population centres like cities and larger towns. The trend in environmental circles in the West now is to look at “waste” as a resource. India needs to change its policymakers’ thinking to parallel current thought trends on waste in the West. There is much to be gained from doing this—dignity for people who do not have toilets, power and fertiliser sources for greening the environment to a substantial extent, and general hygiene. In a country whose engineers write software for Formula 1 races, the brains needed to do this can surely be found.
Mehul Kamdar, Appleton
I have experienced toilets before temples in the late ’50s when we had to go back to our ancestral house in Thekkegramom, Chittoor, Kerala. There were dry latrines in every house, but the menfolk would every morning rush to the farther bank of the shallow river (aptly called Shokanashini, dispeller of sorrow) and squat in their appointed places. This early morning ritual was religiously enacted on those vast toilet grounds with a small but imposing temple of Ganesha being a mute and annoyed witness to it.
C.V. Venugopalan, Palakkad
