Too little cleanliness and too much godliness

Mains Paper: 2 | Governance 
Prelims level: Swachh Bharat Abhiyan
Mains level: India needs a waste management system and not a single one, but multiple kinds of waste management systems to deal with local conditions

Context 

• The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (SBA) is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s flagship programme. 
• In 2014, he announced that by 2 October 2019, the 150th birth anniversary of Gandhi.
• India will be open defecation free. 
• Like Gandhi, Modi also places cleanliness above godliness with his election slogan ‘toilets before temples’. 

Facts of SBA 

• In 2014, about 61.7% of all Indians defecated in the open. 
• Today, that number, according to the government, is 5.45%. 
• This large reduction has come from constructing 86.6 million toilets across India.
• The SBA claims that 25 states and Union territories are now completely open defecation free. 

India really more swachh as a result of these efforts? 

• The main reason for this failure is equating the availability of a toilet with the preference to not defecate in the open.
• The toilets are provided for free by the government; Indians prefer defecating in the open to using basic latrines. As basic latrines need to be emptied out manually or pumped by simple machines, they are unacceptable to upper caste Hindus. 
• Dealing with human feces is considered polluting and is historically associated with untouchability. Indians are unlikely to use toilets without a water connection, or a soak pit, or a sewage system, to easily deal with the waste.
• Any manual pumping of waste is unacceptable and unlikely.
• If India constructs sewage and waste management systems, open defecation will automatically reduce and eventually be eliminated. 
• Increase in the construction of toilets and a campaign has to end open defecation is that this takes place within a caste stranglehold. 
• Manual scavenging, which was outlawed in 1993 is very much present. 
• Dalit communities who historically engaged in manual scavenging are once again being forced to do the same job. 
• Upper castes, and even other higher caste Dalits, force these jobs on them. 
• The SBA provides no contracted jobs to these scavengers to deal with the waste, nor does it provide equipment, or safe working conditions. 
• There are another failure is that if toilets are actually used for defecation, which then enters a sewage system.
• There is still a problem of dumping untreated waste in landfills and rivers. 
• Indian rivers have reached high levels of toxicity because of untreated human and industrial waste being dumped in staggering quantities. 

Way forward 

• To solve all these failures, India needs a waste management system and not a single one, but multiple kinds of waste management systems to deal with local conditions. 
• Defecation is not a problem only when it’s in the open. Untreated waste handled by humans without safety gear leads to fatalities, and when dumped in rivers increases infant mortality, reduces life expectancy, and overall health outcomes. 
• Union government needs the SBA should be tackling the big questions on waste management and sewage systems. 
• Instead it pats itself on the back for building and distributing free toilets. With 
• This plan India will certainly not be swachh by Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary, and on Gandhi’s 250th birth anniversary we will still be drowning in our own waste if it hasn’t killed us. 

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UPSC Prelims Questions: 

Q.1) The Swachh Yug campaign aims to
(a) create awareness about cleanliness among youths all over India.
(b) ensure solid waste management in cities along river Ganga.
(c) end the practice of open defecation in villages along Ganga through behavioral changes.
(d) ensure proper sanitation facilities for girls in every school.
Answer:  C

UPSC Mains Questions:
Q.1) India really more swachh as a result of these efforts?