Opinions
The liberator: "educate, organise, agitate…"
Once in many generations comes a person who changes the life of millions in a positive way, and promises to revolutionise the world. The great avatars of major religions, scientists, philosophers and reformers since civilization began have taught mankind important lessons to reform and improve his ways. In the secular world, Einstein stands out for his relativity mathematics. In this generation we have come to know and honour Dr Bindeshwar Pathak, whose revolution lies at the other end of human straining for excellence; he has brought toilet technology to the point where even the
meanest among us, in city or in countryside, can afford to go out in privacy and dignity: toilets for the millions, cheap, effective and sanitary; no more the street-side stooping and stench that I witnessed in Dhaka, Bangladesh, in 1974. His is perhaps the greatest contribution to India’s millions since independence in 1947.
“…Dr Pathak’s endeavours constitute one of the most amazing examples of how one human being can affect the well-being of millions.”
It is appropriate at this time of Easter and Vaisakhi (the dawn of the Hindu Solar year) that we applaud Dr Pathak, a man in the footsteps of Christ and Gandhi. Most Indians know of Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar (1891-1956) of Madhya Pradesh, an “untouchable” who rose against great odds, from derision and abuse, to become an author of the Indian constitution and who gave his full talent to make India move from outlawing untouchability to prosecuting it; disillusioned with Nehru’s failures in this and to promote equality he converted to Buddhism before he died. Undoubtedly Dr Ambedkar would have been overjoyed to meet Dr Pathak, a Brahmin scholar from Bihar, who took up the cause of the meanest of untouchables of India, the scavengers whose task it was to work for pennies removing excreta from houses (bucket toilets), drains and sewers.
While others have slowly gained ground since independence, scavengers remained untouched by reforms until Dr. Pathak began, 40 years ago, to study them and worked among them, and so devised and introduced simple but effective technology to dispose of, sanitise and recycle human excreta: a twin-pit, pour-flush system requiring only 1.5 litres per flush, and ecologically friendly--the Shulabh Shauchalaya, and founded the NGO Sulabh International Social Service Organisation in 1970. SISSO has installed over a million domestic and several thousand larger communal versions in various parts of India. The largest of these, an impressive structure at Sai Baba shrine in Maharashtra, serves 30,000 users daily, purifies and recycles waste water for lawn irrigation and produces enough biogas from excreta for lighting and water heating, and odourless residue as fertiliser, eliminating the need for bore-hole and pit latrines anywhere. The UNDP has recommended SS for use also throughout underprovided areas of Latin America, Africa and SE Asia. SISSO has created Sulabh Sanitation and Social Reform Movement to educate and inform - with the help of thousands of volunteers, including the highest in government - to achieve social change and improve mobility, opportunity and respect for all, changing so far the lives of over a hundred thousand people. Last year he took a group of 36 women to the UN where they travelled to receive an award and demonstrated their changed status and new skills in diverse occupations previously closed to them.
Dr. Pathak has Master’s degrees in Social Science and Literature, and two doctorates - Philosophy and Literature - on “liberation of scavengers”, environmental sanitation and “eradication of scavenging”. His books include “Road to Freedom.” This August he will become the 2009 Stockholm Water Prize Laureate at a Royal Award Ceremony and Banquet during World Water Week in Sweden. The citation says, in part, “…Dr Pathak’s endeavours constitute one of the most amazing examples of how one human being can affect the well-being of millions.” This comes on top of 33 awards received since 1984 so far from Indian and international groups (including UN, Vatican, Dubai and Brazil).
Respect for sanitation has permeated Indian culture from its oldest expressions. Explorations of the Indus/Saraswati culture that ended, some say abruptly ca. 4000 years ago, showed that the cities, (each about 100,000 people, Harappa and Mohenjodaro being the original excavations) had complex indoor plumbing, waste disposal systems, communal baths and other sophisticated infrastructure. The technology, like so many others, was lost in whatever catastrophe overtook that civilisation. In the past hundred years Indians in rural Guyana have used duckweed to purify pond water and make it suitable for fish-farming; we had them adjacent to our house, as did most people in that area. Dr Pathak includes this among his recommendations for rural sanitation and health promotion in addition to his marvellous toilets.
While others have slowly gained ground since independence, scavengers remained untouched by reforms until Dr. Pathak began, 40 years ago, to study them and worked among them, and so devised and introduced simple but effective technology to dispose of, sanitise and recycle human excreta: a twin-pit, pour-flush system requiring only 1.5 litres per flush, and ecologically friendly--the Shulabh Shauchalaya, and founded the NGO Sulabh International Social Service Organisation in 1970. SISSO has installed over a million domestic and several thousand larger communal versions in various parts of India. The largest of these, an impressive structure at Sai Baba shrine in Maharashtra, serves 30,000 users daily, purifies and recycles waste water for lawn irrigation and produces enough biogas from excreta for lighting and water heating, and odourless residue as fertiliser, eliminating the need for bore-hole and pit latrines anywhere. The UNDP has recommended SS for use also throughout underprovided areas of Latin America, Africa and SE Asia. SISSO has created Sulabh Sanitation and Social Reform Movement to educate and inform - with the help of thousands of volunteers, including the highest in government - to achieve social change and improve mobility, opportunity and respect for all, changing so far the lives of over a hundred thousand people. Last year he took a group of 36 women to the UN where they travelled to receive an award and demonstrated their changed status and new skills in diverse occupations previously closed to them.
Dr. Pathak has Master’s degrees in Social Science and Literature, and two doctorates - Philosophy and Literature - on “liberation of scavengers”, environmental sanitation and “eradication of scavenging”. His books include “Road to Freedom.” This August he will become the 2009 Stockholm Water Prize Laureate at a Royal Award Ceremony and Banquet during World Water Week in Sweden. The citation says, in part, “…Dr Pathak’s endeavours constitute one of the most amazing examples of how one human being can affect the well-being of millions.” This comes on top of 33 awards received since 1984 so far from Indian and international groups (including UN, Vatican, Dubai and Brazil).
Respect for sanitation has permeated Indian culture from its oldest expressions. Explorations of the Indus/Saraswati culture that ended, some say abruptly ca. 4000 years ago, showed that the cities, (each about 100,000 people, Harappa and Mohenjodaro being the original excavations) had complex indoor plumbing, waste disposal systems, communal baths and other sophisticated infrastructure. The technology, like so many others, was lost in whatever catastrophe overtook that civilisation. In the past hundred years Indians in rural Guyana have used duckweed to purify pond water and make it suitable for fish-farming; we had them adjacent to our house, as did most people in that area. Dr Pathak includes this among his recommendations for rural sanitation and health promotion in addition to his marvellous toilets.
Recalling those icy-hot days in the sun
Those were hot days in the sun! Sometimes the memories come back in a rush, and I have to say it out before it falls into forgetfulness. It happened during the spring thaw a couple weeks ago – the meltdown the night before turned to ice on the streets the next morning. A slippery sidewalk is of major concern to businesses, and so, an owner was chipping away at the ice – overhead, icicles hung down dangerously, thick like stalactites, mini-swords of Damocles waiting to come down on a restive passerby’s head. Ice, ice, everywhere, I thought as I walked carefully past, the reworking of the line from the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner bubbling up in my mind from years and years of storage.
And then, out of that space where many memories reside, I stood in my shoes, the sown salt under my feet, and said to the businessman, “When I was a young boy, we had to wait until Sunday to get our ice, and it had to last a week until the truck came around again.” Of course, he looked up without understanding, missing the danger of the thick icicles overhead, focusing on the clear and present danger in the slick surface under his feet.
But those were hot days before electricity came to my village, waiting on a Sunday morning for the ice-truck to come up the street. It was a Bedford, its diesel engine as lazy as the driver, the hood of the truck rattling like a loose jaw because of the bumpy, gravel roads among our houses. The truck was as ugly as a crapaud, and just as green; its tray was custom-made with thick wooden planks bolted together – it dripped rust and smelled of vegetables and fish. And indeed, this is what the truck did on a Sunday morning – it was a mobile market stall. Riding on the tray behind were a number of attendants, a few young boys like me, who knew more of the world, were skilled at weights and measures, and understood the scales well enough to commit highway robbery with each transaction.
It was from this truck that families in the village where I grew up bought ingredients for the Sunday meal. Perhaps a fish or two with unseeing, opaqued eyes, the skin flashing silver in the sun; vegetables such as pumpkins deftly cut by a young boy with a long-bladed knife, its edge as silver as the fish floating among chunks of ice in a barrel chiseled in half.
My mother would entrust me with two ten cents in one hand, and two quarters in the other. I held the coins tight as I chased the lumbering truck gleefully with the other barefoot boys, making a game of letting our shadows line up with the back of its tray. With the two ten cents I was directed to purchase watercress, which we called “greens”. This was part of the traditional Sunday fare and was sometimes served with sliced cucumbers. I haven’t had “greens” in decades, and I don’t think I’ve missed the bitter crunch. It was good for me, my mother insisted, and perhaps this is why I’ve had no issues with my teeth and I’m still eagle-eyed.
With the two quarters I was told to politely ask the man standing tall above and looking down on me from the tray, for “50 cents ice, please”. This was the moment I loved – the man would put the “greens” in my bag, perhaps a cucumber or two, while one of his young men sliced the pumpkin, weighed it out and then robbed me blind by dipping an unseen finger on the scale. The ice purchase was worth the robbery – a tall ice-pick, which was a sharp, pointed rod on one end, the other end on a wooden handle tightly wrapped with silver wire. At the front of the tray, just behind the languorous driver’s head, were glacial blocks of ice covered with damp, brown and smelly crocus bags. A bag would be peeled off a block. The ice-pick would then be put to work with vigorous energy, its point like a tooth that bit deeper and deeper into the ice. Splinters would fly upwards, some of the pieces catching the sunshine and falling to the floor with the brilliance of diamonds. And there, before my eyes, 50 cents worth of ice would be carved out. In my time, of course, 50 cents meant a lot of ice – enough that the man would have to drag it out from the front of the tray using a clamp that levered two curved teeth like elephant tusks. If the chunks that fell during the carving were big enough, these would be tossed down to be caught by our many competitive and eager hands. With those hot days in the sun, the ice was promptly popped into the mouth with hygienic disregard – each piece a treat that quickly melted like manna from heaven.
Decades later, I watch my feet on salt-sown sidewalks, while glancing uneasily upwards for icicles as sharp as ice-picks.
But those were hot days before electricity came to my village, waiting on a Sunday morning for the ice-truck to come up the street. It was a Bedford, its diesel engine as lazy as the driver, the hood of the truck rattling like a loose jaw because of the bumpy, gravel roads among our houses. The truck was as ugly as a crapaud, and just as green; its tray was custom-made with thick wooden planks bolted together – it dripped rust and smelled of vegetables and fish. And indeed, this is what the truck did on a Sunday morning – it was a mobile market stall. Riding on the tray behind were a number of attendants, a few young boys like me, who knew more of the world, were skilled at weights and measures, and understood the scales well enough to commit highway robbery with each transaction.
It was from this truck that families in the village where I grew up bought ingredients for the Sunday meal. Perhaps a fish or two with unseeing, opaqued eyes, the skin flashing silver in the sun; vegetables such as pumpkins deftly cut by a young boy with a long-bladed knife, its edge as silver as the fish floating among chunks of ice in a barrel chiseled in half.
My mother would entrust me with two ten cents in one hand, and two quarters in the other. I held the coins tight as I chased the lumbering truck gleefully with the other barefoot boys, making a game of letting our shadows line up with the back of its tray. With the two ten cents I was directed to purchase watercress, which we called “greens”. This was part of the traditional Sunday fare and was sometimes served with sliced cucumbers. I haven’t had “greens” in decades, and I don’t think I’ve missed the bitter crunch. It was good for me, my mother insisted, and perhaps this is why I’ve had no issues with my teeth and I’m still eagle-eyed.
With the two quarters I was told to politely ask the man standing tall above and looking down on me from the tray, for “50 cents ice, please”. This was the moment I loved – the man would put the “greens” in my bag, perhaps a cucumber or two, while one of his young men sliced the pumpkin, weighed it out and then robbed me blind by dipping an unseen finger on the scale. The ice purchase was worth the robbery – a tall ice-pick, which was a sharp, pointed rod on one end, the other end on a wooden handle tightly wrapped with silver wire. At the front of the tray, just behind the languorous driver’s head, were glacial blocks of ice covered with damp, brown and smelly crocus bags. A bag would be peeled off a block. The ice-pick would then be put to work with vigorous energy, its point like a tooth that bit deeper and deeper into the ice. Splinters would fly upwards, some of the pieces catching the sunshine and falling to the floor with the brilliance of diamonds. And there, before my eyes, 50 cents worth of ice would be carved out. In my time, of course, 50 cents meant a lot of ice – enough that the man would have to drag it out from the front of the tray using a clamp that levered two curved teeth like elephant tusks. If the chunks that fell during the carving were big enough, these would be tossed down to be caught by our many competitive and eager hands. With those hot days in the sun, the ice was promptly popped into the mouth with hygienic disregard – each piece a treat that quickly melted like manna from heaven.
Decades later, I watch my feet on salt-sown sidewalks, while glancing uneasily upwards for icicles as sharp as ice-picks.