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dalton99a

(90,907 posts)
12. Well, one can't blame them for wanting to stay in the U.S.
Thu Oct 23, 2025, 05:15 PM
Thursday
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-27775327

Why do millions of Indians defecate in the open?
17 June 2014

It's early morning and local commuters are queuing up for tickets at the Kirti Nagar railway station in the Indian capital, Delhi.

Along the tracks, another crowd is gathering - each person on his own, separated by a modest distance. They are among the 48% of Indians who do not have access to proper sanitation.

Coming from a slum close-by, they squat among the few trees and bushes along the railway tracks and defecate in the open.

To many, this is a daily morning ritual despite the hazards of contracting diseases such as diarrhoea and hepatitis.

It can be even more hazardous for women since each time a woman uses the outdoors to relieve herself, she faces a danger of sexual assault.

A new World Health Organisation (WHO) report says more than half a billion people in India still "continue to defecate in gutters, behind bushes or in open water bodies, with no dignity or privacy".

Access to sanitation is a challenge that India's politicians want to tackle - both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) promised to put an end to open defecation in their 2014 general election manifestos.

During his campaign, Narendra Modi, BJP's newly-elected prime minister, promised: "Toilets first, temples later".

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