A few years ago, there was a high-grossing Indian film called "Toilet: A Love Story" (Toilet Hero), which used the form of comedy to interpret the various difficult images of Indian families repairing toilets.
In the film, a pair of Young Indian men and women who "bonded" after free love quarreled on the wedding night. Because, the bride Jaya found that her husband's house did not have a toilet. Unable to stand the convenience of the outdoors, she proposed to her husband Keshav that there must be a toilet, otherwise it would not be enough...
The next day, Keshav took action, began to overcome all kinds of prejudices, and insisted on building a toilet for his beloved wife.
To tell the truth, for a Brahmin family like Keshav, who has a little industry, money is not a problem, and the biggest resistance is that their noble caste and traditional Indian cultural customs are extremely resistant to the existence of toilets - high-caste Indians are too clean, so they will choose outdoor convenience!
How could a place containing excrement exist in a noble Brahmin home?
Movie screenshot: The first person to oppose the construction of a toilet at home is the father of the male protagonist
In fact, this heavy taste love story really comes from life. As early as 2012, a fierce Indian bride, Anita Nari, was unable to endure the torture of outdoor toilets, and escaped from her husband's house on the fourth day of marriage, claiming that she would never live with her husband again without a separate toilet.
Under the media coverage, a charity took the initiative to build a toilet for her, and on the day the toilet was opened, she also returned to her home.
Looking at the appearance, the couple does not look like the Brahmin caste in the movie
Unlike this happy story, a tragedy in 2015 was the suicide of a 17-year-old girl in the eastern Indian state of Chalkand. Because her parents refused to build toilets at home, and the convenience in the wild allowed her to encounter all kinds of unwarranted harassment.
There are also complaints that there is no toilet at home, and the woman insists on divorce.
For example, the Indian state of Rajasthan has accepted a "toilet-induced divorce case."
The woman who filed for divorce, Na'er, wanted a toilet to be built at home, but was repeatedly refused. Eventually, Na'er couldn't bear it and filed for divorce in court, and... In the absence of fruitless coordination, the divorce claim was approved. Because, the local judge believes that the lack of toilets in the home, which causes women to solve internal emergencies in the wild, is also a form of "abuse".
You know, in the wild toilet, in addition to being very inconvenient, there are many safety hazards, very vulnerable to attack and harassment.
As shown in the movie, in rural India, men can walk regardless of the time period, can say to walk, generously find a "secluded place" to solve the internal emergency; women have to walk a long distance, carry water jugs to the wild to solve, and must travel in groups, but also have to choose as far as possible after night or before dawn.
Movie screenshot: Early morning scene of women traveling together
Night action is because it is more secretive at this time, and traveling in a group is to ensure safety.
As shown at the beginning of the film, the men driving across the road will use the headlights to illuminate the women who are convenient for the group, and even release some flirtatious or insulting words.
Of course, the most dangerous situations always happen to women who really can't afford to travel in groups and risk disengagement alone – many rapes and murders occur when the victim is acting alone.
According to a 2012 data, women in India are 90 percent more likely to be harassed when they go to the toilet, and one in three women say they have been assaulted or harassed as a result.
Screenshot of the movie: It tells a real case, in 2014, a pair of sisters in Uttar Pradesh were unfortunately gang-raped and hanged from a tree when they were in a convenient company.
According to 2014 data, on average, only 48% of households in India own a toilet. And this situation, compared to the more developed and open south, in north-central India, especially in the countryside around the capital Delhi, the proportion will be even lower, perhaps only about 20%, which is far lower than the number of people using mobile phones.
As a result, in addition to affecting the senses and mood, severe infectious diseases such as dysentery, cholera and typhoid fever are rampant in india's lower and middle classes all year round. For foreigners, even if it is only a short business trip, tourism, the scope of contact is very limited, and almost no one can escape the doom of severe diarrhea.
However, open defecation in the wild, as a daily practice, has become deeply integrated into Indian life and has long become a deep-rooted tradition. If you want to correct it, the difficulty is not general.
An Indian man urinates on the Toilet Hero movie poster
The main reason for this is the one mentioned at the beginning, that they are "too clean" to repair the filthy toilets in their homes.
According to the Hindu concept, dirt and bad luck go hand in hand, and toilets are typical unclean places, and if there is a toilet in the home, it will bring bad luck to the family.
At the same time, they also believe that nature is holy and has the effect of purifying evil and dirt, so intimate contact with nature is an important part of the practice. Open-air convenience can help people enter nature, receive baptism, expel evil, and purify the body and mind. What's more, going to the toilet together is always seen as a good opportunity for people to relax and socialize.
Indian men also like to be convenient with each other, and what is the purpose of the small kettle they carry in their hands, I think everyone understands
Here to clarify, it should be clarified that the seemingly unique "cleaning habit" of Indians after convenience - using their fingers, usually the way to rinse with water on the fingers of the left hand, has nothing to do with their dislike of using the toilet.
Southeast Asian regions like the one I used to work in, such as Thailand, also have this habit, and in general, on formal occasions, people don't extend their left hand to others, and they mainly use their right hand to eat. Their toilets, whether they are personal families or supermarkets, airport railway stations, will be equipped with a flushing sprinkler on the side of the toilet.
But these countries are not as bright as the big cities in China, but the streets are clean and there is no indescribable situation and smell of India.
So, to say why the toilet penetration rate in Indian households is so low, in addition to economic reasons, is more because most people simply do not realize that they really need a toilet.
As early as 2014, when Prime Minister Modi's first term began, in commemoration of the 145th anniversary of Gandhi's birth, he vigorously promoted the "Clean India Initiative", the core goal of which is to build 12 million toilets in rural India to improve people's living environment and enhance India's international image.
Clean India Action promotional poster
With an entire budget of $20 billion, it was planned to eliminate open defecation by 2019.
Its slogan is also particularly "grounded" - there is a toilet, go to the toilet, rest assured toilet!
Every rural Indian household receives a "government toilet subsidy" of 12,000 rupees, which can probably solve three-quarters of the construction cost, and the remaining quarter of the cost is basically affordable for most Indians.
However, the Indian government found that after many toilets were built, they were either unusable or no one used them.
First of all, in order to cope with the inspections of their superiors, some grass-roots government cadres have carried out "face projects" and built many "pseudo-toilets" with only one urinal and no sewage system or septic tanks. There is no practical significance other than to charge the number.
Or embezzle government subsidies during construction, cut corners, engage in tofu slag projects, and do not consider the maintenance of flushing facilities and sewage pipes, resulting in these toilets accumulating filth after use, dirty and dirty, becoming a hotbed of various infectious diseases.
Moreover, many indian rural areas do not have running water at all, and this modern pumping toilet is not in line with local customs.
What's more, in the Indian folk, many ordinary people are unwilling to accept the existence of toilets in their hearts.
Some people think that the water flushing toilet is too wasteful, in order to save money, they will still choose to go to the field for convenience. The toilets repaired by the government were "supplied" to cope with inspections or used as storage rooms.
A "government subsidized toilet" in rural India
There are also many stubborn villagers who firmly refuse to use the toilet, because of the religious and traditional cultural feelings we analyzed earlier.
As a result, in order to let Indians go to the toilet, the Indian government has exhausted its brain cells, and the content is very magical.
Some places are on the "soft" and talk about feelings.
For example, local governments in some states have set up "good morning squads" to "squat" in the groves of villages and towns in the early morning. Once they find an attempt to go to the toilet, men and women, young and old, they will take away the small jar of water in their hands, and then give him a flower and a loving education - to impress him/her with warmth.
Some places engage in material stimulation and reward residents who take the initiative to go to the toilet.
For example, the Ahmedabad Municipal Council stipulates that for every public toilet, you will receive 1 rupee.
Going to the public toilet without paying money to pay for welfare is also quite Indian. It's just that this reward seems to be a bit cut, converted into rmb, about nine cents.
There are also encouragements for brides to "marry without toilets" and to launch slogans such as "no toilets, no wives". After the bride and groom take a group photo in their toilet and turn it in, the government will award an additional reward.
real life
Movie posters
Of course, more places are not so patient and good-tempered, and tend to choose some tough methods. For example, the municipal department sent a special water wheel to serve with a high-pressure water gun as soon as it was found that someone was defecating on the ground.
Others posted photos directly to local websites, or printed and pasted on the walls of the village, specifically for people to watch, as a sign of humiliation.
In fact, some local governments also force civil servants to turn in photos of themselves and their toilets at home, and if they do not pay, they will deduct their wages and face the risk of being dismissed.
Under the busy and busy operation of the government, the toilet penetration rate in India has indeed increased significantly in recent years, but it is still 18,000 miles away from the goal of "completely eliminating open defecation habits by 2019".
The reasons behind this are complex, with difficult legacy problems such as poverty, religion, caste, etc. Just paying money and shouting slogans is not a cure for the symptoms.
After all, the "clean" in the minds of Indians refers more to "clean" in the sense of religious culture. For example, they think that water can purify the human body, but they don't care whether the water itself is clean or not.
Obviously, "cleanliness" in the religious sense does not necessarily lead to a clean environment, and it may even run counter to the two. For example, the water of the Ganges, which has gathered the periodic table of chemical elements, and the cow urine that is enshrined as a holy object....