Diane Coffey and Dean Spears' Where India Goes --- by Alex Tabarrok

Where India Goes, by Alex Tabarrok on August 28, 2017.

Where India Goes [https://www.amazon.com/Where-India-Goes-Abandoned-Development/dp/9352645650], a book about the problem of open defecation in India [...] Written by Diane Coffey and Dean Spears [...].

Drawing on the academic literature, Coffey and Spears show that open defecation sickens and kills children, stunts their growth, and lowers their IQ all of which shows up in reduced productivity and wages in adulthood.

The dangers of open defecation are clear. Moreover, Gandhi said that “Sanitation is more important than independence” and Modi said “toilets before temples,” yet in India some half a billion people still do not use latrines. Why not? Jean Dreze and Amartya Sen (2013, https://www.amazon.com/Uncertain-Glory-India-Contradictions-2013-07-04/dp/B01K949958), offer a typical explanation:

In 2011 half of all Indian households did not have access to toilets, forcing them to resort to open defecation on a daily basis…

The phrasing presents the issues as one of lack of access that forces people to resort to open defecation. From this perspective the solution seems simple, provide access. After all, if you or I had access to toilets we would use them so if someone else isn’t using toilets it must be because they don’t have access. A bit of thought, however, dispels this notion.

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For many people in India, open defecation is preferred to latrine use. The reasons relate to issues of ritual purity and caste. Latrines in or near homes are considered polluting, not in a physical so much as a spiritual or ritual sense. Latrine cleaning is also associated with the Dalit (out)-caste, in itself a polluting category (hence untouchable). That is, the impurity of defecation and caste are mutually reinforcing. As a result, using or, even worse, cleaning latrines is considered a ritual impurity. The problem of open defecation is thus intimately tied up with Hindu notions of purity and caste which many do not want to discuss, let alone condemn.

In the villages the idea of open defecation is also associated with clean air, exercise, and health. Thus, in surveys “both men and women speak openly about the benefits of open defecation and even associate it with health and longevity.” Even many women prefer open defecation if only because it gives them a chance to get out of the house and have some freedom of movement.

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More at http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2017/08/where-india-goes.html