What is the issue?

• Speaking in Gujarat on the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared India “open defecation-free”.
• It is time to reflect if rural India is truly open defecation-free and consider having a sanitation policy for those who continue to use the outdoors.

What is the claim?

• October 2, 2019, besides being Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary, is the fifth, and perhaps final, the anniversary of the Swachh Bharat Mission.

• The Swachh Bharat Mission website claims with some documents that the country has achieved 100% coverage of latrine ownership.

What is the true state?

• Between 2014 and the end of 2018, latrine ownership in a survey area in Bihar, U.P., Rajasthan and M.P. had increased by 34 percentage points.
• Yet, even in states that had already been declared open defecation-free, the actual coverage was far below 100%.
• The percentage of people defecating in the open declined by 26 percentage points.
• However, close to half still reported being open defecating.
• More worryingly, the programme barely managed to bring any change in the behaviour of latrine owners.
• Like in 2014, about a quarter of people who own a functional latrine continued to defecate in the open.
• Overall, the survey found that 44% of people in these 4 States defecated in the open.

What is the concern?

• In the past 5 years, the Indian government has built 100 million toilets.
• With a country as large as India, this is a big achievement.
• However, the means adopted for achieving this reveal the darker side of the Swachh Bharat Mission achievements.
• Hard-working government officials convincing people to build and use a latrine might be half the story.
• The mission beneficiaries, as well as government officials at every level, faced immense pressure and threats.
• Many rural Indians were threatened with or even denied their legal rights, such as PDS ration, Kisan Credit Cards, for not building a latrine.
• Officials resorted to threats of fines and jail terms to intimidate people in some places.

What is the way forward?

• With unrealistic targets pushed down from the top, the sanitation policy under the Swachh Bharat Mission had been a coercive one.
• The real need now is a ‘non-coercive sanitation policy’ that will address the remaining who openly defecate.