Sangita Vyas, a research fellow at the Rice Institute, said: “For Swachh Bharat to have made huge progress, they would have needed to address caste hierarchies and beliefs in purity and pollution. We found that it seems to have exacerbated caste hierarchies. Sanitation is used as a method for elite groups to suppress marginalised communities.”
Concerns were also raised in a report last year by the UN special rapporteur for safe drinking water and sanitation, Leo Heller. “As an unintended consequence of the desire to obtain rewards, including the title of ‘open-defecation free’, some aggressive and abusive practices seem to have emerged,” he wrote.
Heller reported that “individuals defecating in the open are being shamed, harassed, attacked or otherwise penalised,” and that accused open defecators faced being denied food rations, or having their electricity disconnected.
Heller also noted the Indian government “recognised the existence of abuse associated with the Clean India mission implementation and issued at least two advisories to all states underlining that such practices must stop”.
Despite rapid economic strides in past decades, India has lagged behind other countries on sanitation. Academics have argued that the practice of open defecation has survived because cleaning toilets is considered low-caste work.
