If there is a ranking of countries in respect of observance of standards of sanitation and hygiene, one can be sure that India would figure close to the bottom. Some time ago, a British MP, Lucy Ivimy, was reported to have said that Indians did not know how to dispose of their rubbish and are congenital litterbugs.
From time to time, in their unguarded moments, highly placed persons in advanced industrial countries have burst out against Indians for being filthy and dirty in their ways of life. A majority of visitors to India from those countries complain of “Delhi belly” within a few hours of arrival, and some fall seriously ill.
There is no point in getting infuriated or defensive about this. The general lack of cleanliness and hygiene hits the eye wherever one goes in India — hotels, hospitals, households, work places, railway trains, airplanes and, yes, temples. Indians think nothing of spitting whenever they like and wherever they choose, and living in surroundings which they themselves make unliveable by their dirty habits.
The Indian Public Health Association has regularly been reporting the “scary situation” in Indian hotels, restaurants and eateries. The last, in particular, do not follow hygienic practices, use unclean containers, utensils and cups and plates and are often located near open drains or garbage bins.
Most mid-day meal kitchens in schools are no better.
DIRTIEST CLOTHES
Recently, Minister of Rural Development Jairam Ramesh courted a controversy with his remark that India needed more toilets than temples. Open defecation has become so rooted in India that even when toilet facilities are provided, the spaces round temple complexes, temple tanks, beaches, parks, pavements, and indeed, any open area are covered with faecal matter.
Some years ago, while staying at the Guest House of an undertaking, I watched with disbelief the wife of a fellow-guest occupying another room letting her child out into the compound to do its business. When I asked her why she was doing it when there was a good attached bath-room, she blandly said that the child was not comfortable with any other mode of evacuation. True story!
If one wants to keep one’s sanity, one should avoid entering the kitchen of a hotel or even an ordinary household. I sometimes wonder how we are still alive eating at our hotels. At the dining hall of a posh mansion hired out for weddings, I noticed stacks of dahi vadas and jalebis kept covered by the dirtiest clothes I ever saw.
Here are some sample findings from a published study conducted by Hygiene Council and supported by Reckitt Benckiser:
All swabbed kitchen cloths in India are heavily contaminated and found to be the dirtiest item in Indian households; in 92 per cent cases, chopping boards and knives are found to be contaminated; 45 per cent of home makers do not wash fruit and 51 per cent of them do not wash vegetables before eating; only 44 per cent of them clean and disinfect their child's lunch box every day; only 44 per cent of children are made to wash their hands after playing outside.
INTRIGUING FEATURE
The other day, filth and muck reportedly prevented the Minister of Shipping G. K. Vasan from stepping on to the Chennai beach from where he wanted to watch the tugging away of a stranded tanker.
One would presume that at least the passengers travelling air-conditioned classes in Indian trains paying costly fares would come from more hygienically sensitive strata of society. But no: Within a few hours, the coaches are choked with all kinds of litter, commodes are blocked with all kinds of stuff, flushes rendered dysfunctional and washbasins put out of use.
Even as Indians, we are forced to recoil with horror at the infinite tolerance of fellow Indians to pile-ups of garbage, overflowing sewage, open drains and generally foul-smelling environs. Governments too naturally reflect the same traits. Go to any government hospital, for instance.
An intriguing feature of this scenario is the general appearance of cleanliness and tidiness of churches, mosque, gurdwaras and Buddhist and Jain places of worship in contrast to the repelling conditions of Hindu temples and related establishments.
Are Indians, then, by nature oblivious to standards of hygiene? And among Indians, are Hindus more indifferent in these respects than others?
Keywords: observance of standards, sanitation and hygiene, India to figure at bottom, standards of hygiene, rubbish and congenital litterbugs
Comments:
My experience is that people adjust to their surroundings. If laws are strict and enforced, the same people that will throw garbage around will look for a garbage bin. And if people are in clean areas, they will behave clean and if they are in dirty areas, they behave dirty. This is easily noticed in India too where clean areas are kept clean and dirty areas further dirtied by the same person.
An embarrissing reality and world wide reputation.Realising the fact is the first step to
addressing the problem.This will greatly improve the tourist industry.An important addition
would be the International Airports that are the first impression for a visitor.
Does it ever occur to you that Hindu places of worship are maintained
by govt and not Hindus. Govt is pathetic when it comes to cleanliness?
Those statistics you quote are Hindu specific ? Please be sensitive to
Hindu sentiments.
more aware of sanitatio.
The country had lots of slogans. One was, "Cleanliness is next to Godliness". If ever proof of the non-existence of deities is required, one needs to look no further than the empty slogan.
The incident about the child being led outside etc., is nothing new. An age-old practice, imbibed in the genes of the people. Does education make a difference? It cannot! The genetic mutation called K-115 has been isolated by scientists. However, its excision may lead to long-lasting medical effects.
In the meantime, the "educated" can ponder on the use of toilet paper, which would go a long way in cutting down on the faecal full-body skin treatment that many give themselves and their fellow beings.
We've managed to come up with the absolutely unique concept of zero that determines just about everything in human lives, but we still think hanging the Brahmin string across the ear will keep us clean.
One half does an evacuation upstream and the other half does so downstream. That is democracy!
Yes we are. There should not be any doubt about it....again temples are the dirtiest. Trains...please don't ask..
kitchen of restaurents...please don't see otherwise you'll never eat in a restaurant.
While one would agree about the lack of sanitation and cleanliness in
most of our Cities are we not exaggerating a wee bit.
The Udipi restaurants pride themselves on their cleanliness,if you
visit the famous MTR in Blore,you leave through their kitchen which is
spick and span.Same can be said for many of the Restaurants in our
cities which have the open kitchen concept.
Yes lots needs to be done,Municipal Corporations have not been firm
anywhere in the country as Parties fear the vote Bank,as source
segregration of waste in our households would reduce considerably the
garbage problem in our Cities.
Stricter fines on erring establishments in public places,better
maintainence practises are need of the hour.
Well written article. recently I was travelling in AC Chair Car from
Mangalore to Thrissur. On the way one well to do literate person
boarded and occupied my next seat. He purchased a samosa and tea and
opened the eating tray and was enjoying his snack. When he almost
finished the snack and tea I saw him squeeze the tea bag so that he
dose not loose out that too. But unfortunately the cup / glass tumbled
and little tea was split. He hurriedly took out his hanky (i saw a
paper nearby too) and tried to dry the place. Then in a hurried act he
slid back the tray and the empty plate and tea cups were pushed in to
the net bag attached to the seat.. I did not know whether to Laugh OR
cry. But the generalisation on the basis of the worship place is
unfounded and NOT true and a wild allegations as Hindus IGNORE such
false accusations against them& do not react. This suits all writers
and they liberally accuse the Hindus. Hygiene and Religion do not have
any connections.
Few years back I was coming back to chennai from bengaluru,next to me was a kannadiga working in an oil company in Tanzania.What he found astounding in that african country is that he had not seen anyone, children or adult, reliving themselves in open places.To reiterate what he said, many representatives from U.K/Germany who traveled with me in India for sales calls have told me that what shocks them in India apart from abject poverty is the high amount of defaecation in full view of others.How can a human being demean themselves in this way? There is a past that villagers have always defecated in open field, there never was a concept of toilet.Even where they had one during the british raj, it was left to the lowest class to clean the shit.With this kind of back ground is it any surprise we still have remained the international show piece of open defecation? Our politicians and our administrators have failed in their fundamental duty in education / facility creation.
Very well said. Undoubtedly we live in one of the most unhygienic
land. The habits of bad hygiene transcend high, middle and lower
classes of the society. It has much to do with the abysmal lack of
scientific temper across the society educated and illiterates, wealthy
or poor. Every turn of life in India one can come across primeval
practices possibly stretching back centuries rooted in utter
superstitious beliefs. This is main cause of all the evils including
scant hygiene personal and public, plaguing the society. A visit to
any crowded sacred places is enough to fall sick with deadly water
borne diseases like Hepatitis. Dalits rolling over leftover food of
Brahmins inside the temple at at the Kukke Subramanya temple,
Karnataka is sick enough an example.
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Am not sure I agree completely with this. Yes, we lack civic hygiene. Our roads,
trains are all dirty. People defecate in the open.
But I don't agree with the religious angle you've brought in. If you go to
Kushalnagar in Coorg you can see how much Buddhists have dirtied the place. But
look at the clean ones in Sikkim or Darjeeling. Mosques in Bangalore also exist in
filthy areas without sanitation. Take a walk around city market in Bangalore. There
are also clean mosques I have been to. Temples like the ones in Udupi or Sringeri
or Guruvayoor see a lot of pilgrims but are spic and span. It cannot just be pigeon-
holed through religion is all am saying.
Restaurants I agree can adhere to a much stricter standard of hygiene. But, as Mr.
Ramanathan mentions above, in Bangalore there has been the Darshini chains
started by the MTR folks through UD where the kitchen is open behind the counter
and you can see the cooking and cleanliness.
Every problem in India is interrelated. In this case it is pretty
simple. A comparison between an Indian in India and an Indian in the
USA, the UK, Australia or the Europe will put a light on the problem,
which every one of my fellow Indian’s, who travelled abroad would
agree. There are rules, there are ethics (related to hygiene) and
then there is willingness to stick to either of them when we are
outside India. When we travel back we go back to our roots, where
rules are so democratic in nature that we tend to forget our way of
life when we lived in one of the developed countries and try to be one
of our brothers back here. And yeah we have a classic answer to this
“back to routine thing”, “what difference is it going to make when,
only I change and a hundred thousand others don’t”? See the comparison
over here is based on a 1:100000 ratio. And this very ratio (we can
convert it into a world renowned term, “population”) is the root cause
of the problem I was telling in my first line
Continued from earlier comment:
When a rule is made, the governing authority should make sure that
they are implemented. The inadequate number of people who can be
employed to oversee such rules getting implemented is one of the issue
(remember government has not enough to pay to them) while the larger
one still remains the same, “mindset of people” who think that law
should focus on more heinous crimes than trivial issues like
cleanliness and even if I break a law which fines me for my deed, I
would rather pay bribe than getting punished. Well I would rather pay
the fine, than paying a bribe (see I campaign for a cause called India
against Corruption ;)). Hence many such trivial issues in India are
tied with three things, “Population”, “Corruption” and “Traditional
Tolerance”. But there is a positive side too. Just as I stop paying
bribes, a day will definitely come when I will be part of “India
against Filth” campaign. It’s just a 66 years old country (pre
independence days are not accounted here).
No, Raghavan, I disagree with you. Indians are not unhygenie per se, it is the cumulative set of surroundings that make it unhygenic. If you had ensured that the catering was given to a better equipped contractor at the wedding you mentioned, surely the jalebis and vadas would have been stored more appropriately, dont be stingy on money and then find faults. Coming to restaurant kitchens, your opinion seems to be biased. More and more commercial kitchens are getting modern and hygeinic by the day. Coming to temples, rightly said, they are taken over by the government, and it is for the government to maintain a proper sanitation, which you will not find. But you chose to remain silent on that aspect. Please start seeing society with a wider opened eyes, and you will find examples of fine sanitation and hygeiene more than you think exist!
When you saw the ministers reaction, you should have noted his constructive comment too.
The whole problem lies there, these ministers don't go by bus even once in a year, their kids go to special school etc.
Lack of cleanliness is multifactorial. One is habit and other is lack
of facilities and large number of people who has to use the limited
facility. In 2005 I visited the HRD ministry in New Delhi for attestation of certificates. There was thousands of people from
different part of the country visiting the place daily. However there
was (i couldn't not find)not a public toilet in the vicinity, and the
worst part is you need to spend a whole day there to complete the
attestation. The way to get over it is to build toilets and to
maintain it well and educate about good hygienic practices from school
age.
This issue is a double-edged sword. There can be a separate debate on where the
responsibility lies...the government for not implementing stringent laws or the
general public for debasing themselves. I think the fault lies with both. I've seen
examples where a civic body constructs public toilets in public places such as bus
stations, but still people choose to piss out in the open. And I can tell you from
personal experiences, when I was in India last year, some (rare!) public toilets in a
major metro were in a pathetic state of maintenance (which I am sure is the case with
almost all of them). A change has to come about in the way people think of their
surroundings and their cities. The sense of 'ownership' is lacking. There is a paucity
of public facilities, and even if present, are in a dismal state of maintenance. The
change, however, has to come from the individual and should be supported by the
government in terms of providing facilities and implementing rules.
Dengu, Bengu, Mengu,Zengu all prosper in Indian cities because the garbage is not recycled properly or cleaned.
If the corporation comes out with tag labels for Hospitals, Restaurants, Lodges, Streets with Red, Orange, Green and posting
it regularly after health checks for cleanliness, people might be
carefull and institutions will start cleaning properly.
Will the Government embark on such a system ?.
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