Slapping fine for open defecation will not clean India’s holiest and dirtiest rivers
Every day, on my drive to work I cross the Yamuna, a venerated river, worshipped by the hindus much like the Ganges.
The longest river in India has been fighting a losing battle for survival in the national capital; in any other city across the world, driving across the river would make for a breathtaking sight.
But for me, some days I see waves of foam for as far as I can see, on others I see a squalid drain and during the rains I see a host of jhuggis on the pavements on the sides of a busy road because the river bank, home to thousands of poor, is flooded.
It is these people who also use the Yamuna floodplains for defecation, not people like you and I who can also afford to pay the hefty fine.
The people using the floodplains as a toilet are the ones who get by with perhaps a few thousand rupees a month and defecate in the open not by choice but by compulsion because toilets provided by the government, if at all, are filthy and a long walk away.
So when the National Green Tribunal (NGT) comes out with a ban and a hefty fine it makes for good press, but it fundamentally ignores the underlying reason for open defecation.
One, the cluster of jhuggis has only grown on the floodplains and while the Delhi government might believe that openly allowing slums to come up across the city makes for good vote bank politics, it is only aggravating an endemic issue and at a level permitting the violation of basic human rights.
Living in jhuggis makes the poor more vulnerable to disease and exploitation and it denies them their basic rights. Attempts made to move these clusters have backfired in the past but that’s primarily because of poor planning and execution.
Second, the NGT also bans any kind of dumping of waste, which is good, but it must make a distinction between bio-degradable and non-degradable waste. It should have been more specific in what’s not permitted because blanket bans do not work.
In a country of many religions and festivals, it’s imperative that an alternative is provided, even Singapore, which has a sizable Indian population, has provided its residents with an alternative for immersions and other religious rituals. And this needs to be corroborated with a massive information campaign on eco-friendly choices.
Hefty fines is just a short sighted policy approach where, yet again, the vulnerable is being held to the highest standards of propriety.