Sometimes you need to get your hands dirty, happily

There was a time, not too long ago, that human excreta would not exactly come up in a social conversation among adults, and definitely not among the top brass of the government. But I faced no predicament when an old friend from college, and now the secretary, Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Param Iyer, invited me to empty out a pit full of decomposed excreta with him: The answer was an unhesitating YES. The invitation was to lead to an experience I would cherish forever, getting to observe getting Bharat Mata "Swachh" in action, at close quarters. And when I say close, I mean, really close!


Sanitation and the building an Open Defecation Free (ODF) nation is, has to be, everybody's business. Like me, most Indians too dream the dream of a clean India. Then, the idea of shovelling excreta, completely decomposed excreta actually, popularly called "sona-khaad", should make no Indian who calls herself/himself "educated" hesitate: if they do not lead by example they are not really educated, merely (and at best) literate. Recall Gandhiji: the one truly educated Indian.

Within weeks, I found myself in the beautiful city of Pune on a balmy Wednesday evening, having dinner with the secretary, as he passionately explained to me the working of the twin pit toilet, which the Swachh Bharat Mission (Grameen) has been propagating for most of rural India. He explained in graphic detail how the toilet is made of two leach pits, each approximately one metre wide and a metre deep. At a time, waste from the toilet is directed into one of the pits. The waste water leaches away from the pit and it takes around 5 years of regular use by a family of five for the pit to fill up. Once a pit fills, the household can redirect the waste to the other one. As the second pit stars filling, the solid waste in the first one begins decomposing. In about a year's time, it decomposes completely, gets converted into compost and can be used in the fields as a fertilizer rich in nutrients, proven to enhance crop yield. Hence the name "Sona-khaad".

The idea of us emptying a pit was to practically demonstrate that this compost is safe to handle, and to defy myths and social stigmas around handling what was perceived to be "faeces". Hardly a subject of usual dinner table conversation, but this was the one real business dinner I have attended: because what ODF implies is more than a clean and disease free India; it is the task of protecting the dignity of our women.

The next morning, we were up at the crack of dawn, and began our drive to Daund block of Pune district, 85 kms from Pune city. This would be where we were to meet Deepak Govind Jadhav and his family, whose toilet we had come to clean!

As an urban dweller, regardless of how many times you may have visited a village before, there really is nothing like the beauty of a clean and well-mapped village. This was the sight that welcomed us to Pandharewadi gram, home to Mr Jadhav and family. I knew that the state of Maharashtra had declared itself ODF recently, yet the sight of a toilet standing, colourful and proud, in the verandah of each and every household of the village filled me with an indescribable pride.

Deepak and his family stood outside their house, welcoming us warmly to their village and humble home. I wondered what they must have felt then, seeing a bunch of the distant, senior "babus" from Delhi who came all this way to their house - to clean their toilet! We approached the pit which, we were informed, had filled over a year back and was full of compost by now. The lid was opened and we got right down to business. I jumped in with a shovel in my hand. There were no surprises: exactly as Param Iyer had said: there was no odour whatsoever, not even the slightest, and to take my considerable weight, the compost had to be as solid as the solid land around the pit. I immediately left my shovel and started taking out the compost with my bare hands - the shovel was really just slowing me down in the narrow pit. One by one, our entire motley group - senior officers of Government of India, additional chief secretaries from many states, and officers of Government of Maharashtra - entered Deepak's toilet pit and mined wealth from waste, the "Sona-khaad". Truly a memorable morning!

Back at home in Delhi that evening, I couldn't help but think about the progress figures of the Swachh Bharat Mission that Param Iyer had reeled off, and thoughtfully given to me as part of my written brief: 7 crore toilets built in 3.5 years, 17 states/UTs, 385 districts, 3.7 lakh villages declared ODF! Obviously, a mammoth task that should do us all proud.

The realisation that Deepak's wife, and other women in his joint family, and their children, specially girl-children, as well as ALL the households in that village are now using toilets, and are no longer shamed in the open, filled me with a mixture of deep satisfaction, pride, and lots of hope. We can indeed make India ODF, and restore to our women the dignity they deserve. We can clean our villages, cities and our rivers. We can make mother India pure and "Swachh".

-Rajiv Mehrishi is a retired IAS officer and currently Comptroller and Auditor General of India.
(Views expressed are personal)