livingdead
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Mods: I know toilet related threads are banned, but this thread is not intended as a troll thread.
You are free to close if you think so.
Sautik Biswas of BBC discusses lack of hygene in India and wonders whether it is a cultural thing (more specific to hindus)
Is anybody really surprised that nearly half of India's 1.2 billion people have no toilet at home?
Not really. The India Human Development report has been saying this for a while. The situation is worse in the villages, where two-thirds of the homes don't have toilets. Open defecation is rife, and remains a major impediment in achieving millennium development goals which include reducing by half the proportion of people without access to basic sanitation by 2015.
Is the lack of toilets and preference for open defecation a cultural issue in a society where the habit actually perpetuates social oppression, as proved by the reduced but continued existence of low caste human scavengers and sweepers?
It would seem so.
Mahatma Gandhi, India's greatest leader, had, in the words of a biographer, a "Tolstoyian preoccupation with sanitation and cleaning of toilets". Once he inspected toilets in the city of Rajkot in Gujarat. He reported that they were "dark and stinking and reeking with ***** and worms" in the homes of the wealthy and in a Hindu temple. The homes of the untouchables simply had no toilets. "Latrines are for you big people," an untouchable told Gandhi.
Read rest of post here.
BBC News - Is India's lack of toilets a cultural problem?
You are free to close if you think so.
Sautik Biswas of BBC discusses lack of hygene in India and wonders whether it is a cultural thing (more specific to hindus)
Is anybody really surprised that nearly half of India's 1.2 billion people have no toilet at home?
Not really. The India Human Development report has been saying this for a while. The situation is worse in the villages, where two-thirds of the homes don't have toilets. Open defecation is rife, and remains a major impediment in achieving millennium development goals which include reducing by half the proportion of people without access to basic sanitation by 2015.
Is the lack of toilets and preference for open defecation a cultural issue in a society where the habit actually perpetuates social oppression, as proved by the reduced but continued existence of low caste human scavengers and sweepers?
It would seem so.
Mahatma Gandhi, India's greatest leader, had, in the words of a biographer, a "Tolstoyian preoccupation with sanitation and cleaning of toilets". Once he inspected toilets in the city of Rajkot in Gujarat. He reported that they were "dark and stinking and reeking with ***** and worms" in the homes of the wealthy and in a Hindu temple. The homes of the untouchables simply had no toilets. "Latrines are for you big people," an untouchable told Gandhi.
Read rest of post here.
BBC News - Is India's lack of toilets a cultural problem?
