“Come and have a look at my toilet!” said Rajesh, a visibly excited farm worker in a remote village in rural Rajasthan. “No! Come and see the toilet at our home first!” exclaimed Meena to the sanitation team visiting the area. When was the last time you saw someone exult over toilets? Maybe, never? But in Rajasthan, this has become a common sight as thousands of households have just experienced the toilet revolution of their lifetime. The milestones achieved in remote corners of the state offer lessons for scaling-up sanitation in other Indian states that are struggling to eradicate open defecation.

Rajasthan has traditionally done poorly on sanitation because of water scarcity, low literacy and difficult terrain. However, the turning point in the state’s sanitation story came in 2010, when rural sanitation was devolved to the Panchayati Raj and Rural Development Department. This led to a renewed focus on sanitation through greater decentralization.

Simple changes of policy created an enabling environment for change. The most significant was the state’s decision to junk its traditional construction-driven agenda in favour of a participatory approach. Instead of treating households as mere beneficiaries of a subsidy program, the state empowered them to be decision-makers.

The Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) approach it adopted focused on improving sanitation by addressing the root cause of open defecation — the attitudes and behaviour of people.

CLTS, however, is only a tool to initiate the process of transformation through behavioural change. In Rajasthan, the holistic approach adopted by the state led to faster progress. Partner organizations like the Water and Sanitation Program (WSP) of the World Bank and UNICEF stepped in to provide technical support to the state for scaling up rural sanitation. As a result, CLTS workshops were complemented with vibrant district-level sanitation campaigns led by Collectors, improved communication between departments, strengthening the supply chain of sanitation products and monitoring toilet usage rather than construction.

Managing waste locally

Most households construct twin-pit latrines or single pits, if they cannot afford the two-pit system. If constructed properly — documented evidence says a pit 4-feet deep and 4-feet wide works well — it takes around five years for one pit to fill up. Once the first pit is full, households can start using the second one while the fecal matter in the first pit breaks down. The average cost of a basic toilet (equipment and superstructure) is around Rs. 12,000, which is what beneficiaries are entitled to under the Swachh Bharat Mission, the new name of the erstwhile Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan. However, many households incur additional expenditure on decorative tiles which is a reflection of their aspirations. Households also opt for septic tanks. Since the decision is with the household as per Rajasthan’s sanitation model, they are free to choose from the options available in the market. The toilets displayed at the park range from Rs. 12000 to Rs. 31000 with different technology, material and design options. There is a misconception among households that a 4-feet deep pit would fill up too soon. So people end up digging pits that are even 10-20 feet deep. This could pose environmental and health risks in the future and the government is trying to address this through community awareness activities. The sanitation park in Pali, for instance, was also developed to clarify some of these issues.

Sewerage systems are uncommon in villages in Rajasthan as the state has difficult soil conditions. Some are rocky belts, others have sand dunes and kacchi mitti. So onsite sanitation systems will be better in the long run. Further, decentralised systems will also ensure that every household takes ownership of their own waste management.

Preventing slip-backs

To prevent slip-backs in ODF villages, districts have strengthened the process of verification and monitoring. In Bikaner, for instance, the district has implemented a mobile-based application to monitor the usage of toilets. Further, to encourage toilet usage, the districts make payments to the beneficiaries only after they start using the toilet. Hence, subsidy is no longer the means through which households construct a toilet, but a reward they get for using it.

From a situation where not a single village was ODF, Rajasthan has come a long way in just two years. Bikaner, the second largest district in Rajasthan, recently reported 75 percent coverage, showing a remarkable improvement from 25 percent coverage in 2012. Other districts are making sincere efforts to catch-up, with Churu and Bundi reporting 70 percent and 50 percent coverage, respectively. If the momentum continues, Bikaner and Churu might soon be free of open defecation.

One can write reams about Rajasthan’s sanitation revolution but what stands out is this: The revolution epitomises the strength of unity and collective action. It highlights the role that women can play as agents of change even in a patriarchal society. Most importantly, it underlines the need for states to switch from the traditional construction-driven approach to one that is demand-driven, participatory and focused on behavioural change and toilet usage. While subsidies are important, the real driver is the quest for a dignified life.

shish Gupta and Nikhil Shrivastav’s article, “Why Using Patriarchal Messaging to Promote Toilets is a Bad Idea”, is insightful but has misread the intent of the communication messages used to promote toilet use in rural Rajasthan.

They believe that the sanitation messages tied to the practice of wearing ghoonghat/veil by women in rural Rajasthan promote patriarchy, when in reality, these messages have done exactly the opposite – the sanitation campaign in rural Rajasthan has not only reduced open defecation but has also led to the liberation of women in a patriarchal society. Probably, isolating these messages from the holistic sanitation campaign could have caused the confusion.

In several districts of rural Rajasthan, women are at the forefront of the sanitation campaign. The campaign breaks away from the traditional patriarchal system and has empowered women to step out of their homes to demand for their right to safe sanitation.

Ms. Dheeraj Joshi, member of Mission Poorn Shakti – a women-led community service group in Pali district, Rajasthan said that “the sanitation campaign has liberated us. Many of us have left behind our veil to participate in the sanitation campaign that is now being led by women in our village.”

In several districts like Churu, Pali, Bikaner and Bundi, women and children are seen forming human chains at five in the morning in the open fields to drive away people who go out in the open. This is a community-led total sanitation (CLTS) tool that has encouraged women to step out of their homes to fight for a common cause. In Pali, for instance, women form an integral part of the team that conducts the door to door survey for sanitation.

Messages that underline the age-old practice of wearing the veil to emphasize the importance of toilet use may sound a bit odd at first, but they in fact tend to remind rural folks that true dignity doesn’t come from wearing a ghoonghat. It has been observed during the campaign that these messages make villagers take notice of the problem of open defecation more seriously, and pushes them to  think about their flawed sense of pride and dignity

Rural Rajasthan’s sanitation campaign has several other generic level messages though I agree there could be more messages that involve all kinds of toilet users – the women, men including the elderly and the children.

In order to address the problem in an inclusive way, the community-led sanitation approach in Rajasthan clarifies to the people by stating that: “Even if one person in your community doesn’t use a toilet, your community is still going to be unhealthy. The flies will continue to contaminate your water and food.” A practical demonstration of how flies travel from human excreta to their food has pushed many to immediately construct a toilet.

As a result of these campaigns, several men who were earlier going out in the open have now started using a toilet in rural Rajasthan. In many households, men who work as masons elsewhere, end up constructing the toilets in their own household. Agreed that some people would continue to go out in the open and we need to address these challenges as we move forward.

Rajasthan, like many other states in India, has a long way to go before it is completely free of open defecation. But what is important to remember is that the campaign in rural Rajasthan has led to significant improvements in not just toilet use but also the status of a woman in the society. The campaign tries to break away from the patriarchal system by empowering women, who are affected the most by the lack of toilets, to be the agents of change.

Merely stating the prevalent practice of wearing the veil is by no means an endorsement of the same. Sometimes, underlining certain negative aspects of rural life can lead to changes that transcend beyond boundaries of religion, sex and caste to create an equitable and just society. In rural Rajasthan, it has given the strength to the ghoongat-clad woman to speak up for her right.

Toilets and women’s safety

This idea that toilets are important for the dignity of women and should be built to make sure that women don’t face sexual harassment has also gained currency rapidly. Even Prime Minister Modi invoked these patriarchal messages at his first Independence Day speech: “Brother and Sisters, we are living in 21st century. Has it ever pained us that our mothers and sisters have to defecate in open? …. Can’t we just make arrangements for toilets for the dignity of our mothers and sisters?”

In the Sanitation Quality, Use, Access and Trends (SQUAT) survey 2013-14, 4.3% of the women said that they had been harassed while going to defecate in the open. That is not a small number at all, but an even larger number – 7.6% – said that they had been harassed while going to the market. If we are promoting toilets as a solution to sexual violence faced by women going to defecate in the open, perhaps we should also start promoting Amazon and Flipkart as solutions to sexual violence in rural markets!

There is a further problem with the idea that toilets will solve the problem of violence against women. Data collected by the government’s National Family Health Survey (2005-06) reveal that most sexual violence occurs within the home, not outside it: 93% of the women who faced sexual violence in India said that it was committed by their husbands or former husbands, while only 0.9% of the sexual violence was by strangers (Table 15.5). Criminalising marital rape will create far greater protections against sexual violence than building toilets. Even for stranger violence, our response should be to create a society where women can move freely without fear, and not look for ways to eliminate the need for women to go outside the confines of the house. Toilets are needed not because they will prevent rape, but because their use will prevent the spread of germs and disease

A few years ago the Guardian published an article co-authored by directors of four international organizations (WaterAid, Oxfam International, UN Millennium Campaign and Unicef), containing the following paragraph that has been quoted by everyone from angry young bloggers to the American Bar Association:

A report in the Times of India in February this year quoted the police in another district of Uttar Pradesh as saying that 95% of cases of rape and molestation took place when women and girls had left their homes to “answer a call of nature.”

Your piece however points to data that indicates that “most sexual violence occurs within the home, not outside it.”  Rather than attributing violence to location, or trying to enclose women in the name of safety we must open the minds of all to the truth about violence, the facts about health and hygiene, and the right to freedom and dignity for all.