I have to admit I don't understand why India cannot be a lot cleaner than it is. I've been away a lot but do visit India several times a year and many parts. The most illiterate person is running around with multi-sim cell phones, has a satellite dish and tv access, seems to find public transportation to any where, home cooked meal is dirt cheap ... yet regardless of level of affluence I have seen people spit in public spaces. This does not take infrastructure!
We can build a trillion toilets - but can anybody actually use a toilet that is so dirty? I cannot even go near the toilets in trains because it just stinks!
I firmly believe that a large number of Indians do not believe in keeping their surroundings clean. They double and triple clean their own little apartments or huts every day and then simply toss the garbage out into public space. So it becomes someone else's problem.
AND THAT IS WHY WHAT MODI HAS DONE IS BRILLIANT! Instead of covering up this bad trait he has through the light on the problem - youngsters and children are now growing up with a sense of shame about open-air toilets, spitting, garbage etc.
There is hope
I will add a couple of other things:
1) In crammed hutments it is impossible to have a toilet inside the hut for obvious reasons. Unless there is running water and closed drainage flow, how do we expect these hut dwellers to live in their hut and still put up a toilette? It is wrong to see this as a toilet problem because it is actually an affordable housing problem.
2) In villages when people go out into the fields, I have found it is less to do with affordability or space - rather, it is to do with closed drainage and running water. The village houses mostly have wells and pumpsets, annd there is no drainage system. Instead of building 'septic tanks' they simply use the fields