Sanitation is my religion: International sanitation expert Bindeshwar Pathak

Chennai, September 5: Bindeshwar Pathak (70), social reformer, native of Bihar, fights the caste system in India and particularly discrimination against manual scavengers by the upper class by introducing green toilets. Born a Brahmin, Pathak lived with scavengers and founded Sulab sanitation and social reform movement in Delhi in 1970, and has now successfully constructed hundreds of toilet complexes which are being used by nearly 10 million Indians.He spoke to me after being awarded the 'lifetime achievement award' by the Rotary Club of Madras in the city last Tuesday.

Question: What are the advantages of Sulab toilet?

They are hygienically and technically appropriate. Ours is an affordable system and doesn't pollute the ground water. Sulab model is a clean toilet which can be fixed in a house and there will be no complaints of mosquito or foul smell. Apart from this, sulab converts the waste into compost, which could be used in the fields and house gardens. Our model has been acknowledged by the UNDP in the human development report.

Question: How about your presence in Tamil Nadu?
We are spreading it as much as we can. In Tamil Nadu there are small groups which have taken up projects to set up toilet complexes. Sulab toilet in Chennai airport is working well. Our eco-friendly toilet model has not been patented simply because we want many more to benefit.

Question: How far the Sulab projects have empowered the untouchables?

Instead of talking about figures, I am telling you a tale of two towns in Rajasthan - Alwar and Tonk - where the upper caste and lower caste people earlier involved in manual scavenging, dine together and live without any discrimination. Recently, I was informed that many upper caste families have shown interest in marrying lower caste women. We first make arrangements to bring people from different castes to have a cup of tea  together and then have food together. Sanitation is my religion. Ours is a protest   movement against caste hierarchy in Hinduism. Instead of raising our hands against them, we supplicate and win their hearts. Gandhigiri is our weapon.

Question: Why will utilising biogas-linked toilet complexes remain a far-fetched dream in India?

We have to stop feeling shy and discuss sanitation. Our toilet museum in Delhi was set up in 1994. Scores of people visit the museum and are thrilled about the toilets different civilisations used in the early ages. The government and voluntary organisations have to come forward to promote its usage and explain the benefits of biogas toilets. Apart from India, we have installed green toilets in Kabul in Afghanistan and now got invitations to set up the same in African cities. All this because people are willing to talk about toilets without feeling shy.

To know more about Bindeshwar Pathak: http://www.sulabhinternational.org/content/dr-bindeshwar-pathak

Gandhi to rescue our rupee

• Why should we depend on MNCs to eat potato chips and gulp soft drinks?
• Gandhian economics is not bullock cart economics 

Pramila Krishnan

Chennai, September1:  Mahatma Gandhi gave solutions to enhance the economic development of India, but we have failed to implement his models in a big way, says Gandhian, A. Annamalai, director of the Gandhian study centre in Chennai. Annamalai spoke to me about how economic policies framed without following Gandhian values have failed, and what are the immediate measures that can save us from this abysmal situation.

Question:  How can Gandhian economics shake us out of the present economic slowdown?

Annamalai: Gandhian economics is the best policy to develop India in a sustainable manner. For example, we celebrate allopathy and call our native medicine as alternative medicine; the same thing has happened with our economics now. Instead of strengthening our foothold in agriculture as Gandhi asked us, we invited multinational companies (MNC) to invest in every field in India. A foreign firm sets up a company only to earn more or use the cheap labour available here. If his profits plummet, he simply shuts up without bothering about the workers and consumers. So we have to understand that foreign investment happens because MNCs want to flourish and are not bothered about the welfare of Indians. As far as possible, we should have decentralised production and distribution for all goods.

MNCs recruit scores of educated youth every year. Isn’t this progress?

Annamalai: We have to understand that MNCs take a fresh load of workers every year. But do they expand their units? They get rid of workers and take new people every year. This creates an illusion that MNCs give employment to the masses. If the recruitment had really benefited us, why should the unemployment index soar in the country? Employment by MNCs has really benefited only the creamy layer of society.

Are Gandhian economics suitable for this era of consumerism?

Annamalai: Most people relate Gandhian economics with bullock cart economics and think it suitable only for villages. Gandhi also preached distribution of wealth. If you think a car is an essential need, it should be made available for the last citizen of this country. Ours is an agro-based economy. Unless we invest and improve agriculture, we won’t be able to see growth and empowerment of the common man. Privatisation and globalisation are not the roadmaps for Vallarasu India (superpower India). Why should we depend on MNCs to eat potato chips and gulp soft drinks? Can’t we produce and sell them locally? Localisation and swadeshi consumerism should be encouraged to free us from MNCs and fight economic slowdown.

From my bookshelf

Letters from prison-Captive Imaginations-Varavara Rao

Page number 12: 

Wait for me,, and I’ll come back,

Wait and I’ll come.

Wait through autumn’s yellow rains

And its tedium

Steel your heart and do not grieve,

Wait through winter’s haze,

Wait through wind and the raging strom,

Wait through summer’s blaze.

Wait when other’s wait no more,

When my letter stop,

Wait with hope that never wanes,

Wait and don’t give up.

Wait for me and I’ll come back;

Patience, dear one, learn.

Turn away from those who say

That I’ll not return.

Let my son and mother weep

Tears of sorrow,

Let friends insist that it’s time,

That you must forget.

Do not listen to their kind

Words of sympathy,

Do not join them if they drink

To my memory.

Wait for me! Let those who don’t-

Once I’m back with you-

Let them say that it was luck

That had seen us through.

You and I alone will know

That I safely came

Spitting every kind of death,

Through that lethal flame,

Just because you learned to wait

Staunchly, stubbornly,

And like no one else on earth,

Waited,love, for me.

Page number 20: 

When children play for long under trees, one often hears mothers affectionately reprimanding them: ‘what treasure have you buried under the tree? Often, it is said out of irritation if the girls are not helping with household chores. In the case of boys, it is because they are not on time for their meals. As for me, call it a fond illusion, but I seem to sense my mother’s living presence in the trees outside my window, watching me from the open sky, the mango trees, her outstretched arms.

Providing new tastes again and again

My mother’s hands are like honey.

Tiding me her story time and again

My mother’s voice is a melody.

Drawing me close

Those hands turn into the vision of spring-

The koel’s song

The rasa’s taste

The cool shade

Page number 21: 

In the years of 1986 and ’87 in summer, I used to read mostly under the shade of those trees. The mango tree outside my windows fell during the gale of 21 February 1988. Then I truly felt as if mother earth had lost one of her arms. Such a big tree uprooted so easily! As the hailstones pelted down, as the strong wind blew and the rain fell, the slender jamun plant bound to a bamboo moved restlessly, but the string did not snap. The guava tree rocked back and forth wildly, as if possessed. Only the stalk was left of the rose bud that would have bloomed in a few days. The petals fell scattered around the plant.

As I said, not all the trees in this courtyard were planted by human beings. Some of them were planted by birds. What was strange was, that beside each tree that grew thus because of birds, another kind of tree grew alongside. In jasmine bed there was an almond growing, in another, a sopanut tree, a kaumaga, not to speak of the rela. And in the rubbish heap in one corner, there grew a neem, a jasmine, a tamarind and a rela.

Page number 22: 

During three summers that blazed down on us, tending the trees we had planted was like caring for infants. With joy, I watched the green tip of the jackfruit grow inch by inch, picked off the worm eaten leaves of the jamun, and looked at the days of my imprisonment against them. Watering the plants on summer evenings, talking to the birds that fearlessly join me and gracefully drink the water I pour, a thought flashes through my mind brining a feeling of shyness in its train: this love of plants I have learnt so late is one I must cherish privately. A love which must never be shown in public except as the proverbial three flowers  that bear six fruits.

Page number 24:

One morning a rose bush puts forth a bud. Remember when you planted that cutting, wiping desire for a new life to take root? And whenever a heart is wounded and stitched together again, a new dawn seems to be twittering to life.

As I write of that experience it is if the pollen of those wounds bursts forth from my fingertips. Whether in humiliation, or amidst felicitations, in suffering of in joy, the spirit of these trees as I have understood it in these last three years has infused my tastes and values.

Page number 26: 

From bare stalks haunted by

Memories of fallen flowers

Fresh shoots appear.

Hidden in the leaves of the present

 The invisible future

Koel-like, ours forth

The pain-drenched sweetness

Off the past.

Page number 29: 

Surely it can’t be pleasant thing for birds, as symbols of freedom, to be in jail? And yet how can I claim that they are not cheerful and contended? Whenever I see pigeons inside the jail I wonder. .. And the sight of the these pigeons reminds me , not of the people forgotten, but of bonds that must be forgotten; not of past lives but of the past trapped in the present.

Page number 30:

But then, I don’t quite understand how these surroundings have grown so congenial ovr the last two and a half years and why there are pigeons everywhere now. In the trees, in courtyard in front of my cell, on the barrack ventilators, before the staff kitchen, near the water, above the ledges of the barracks behind my cell- they are everywhere, like blue-grey clouds that have come down from the sky. The sounds- their rustling against the tin windows shades, pecking at each other, the fluttering of wings-from a background to the silence of my solitary existence. They have grown so familiar that I have stopped going to the back of my cell fearing that I may disturb them when I walk briskly in the evening. Sometimes I go there stepping softly, barefoot, to watch them. Even at night, as I place inside my cell, I do so in perfect silence, for fear of disturbing the pair of pigeons nesting in the ventilator.

My days and night slip by, spent in these lovely pigeonholes, and as I drift into sleep.

Page number 33:

In a culture of inequality, the value called love is always the first casualty. You don’t change the system merely by shedding tears of sympathy. Nor do you change it by patronizing, reacting or commenting. Isn’t that why Marx said that you cannot change society unless you become part of the change?

Page number 36:

I have no great fondness for cats, nor do I dislike them. But, as the curds in our mess grew continuously less, I suspected that it must be because someone was adding more water to the milk, or a smaller amount of milk was being set aside for curds, or someone was drinking it up. We could not discover the exact cause and carried out all kinds of inquiries. At last we discovered that one of the detainees, out of sheer love for his adopted child, was keeping the cupboard unbolted and allowing the cat to have its fill of curds. The man himself was not particularly used to eating curds.

Page number 44:

Everything that I read is absorbed instantly like water by dry earth. Throughout the day I read newspapers and journals-front to back, without missing a single link. But then, there is no one with whom I can share my opinions or discuss what I have read. A full three years have passed since I have glanced through any magazine of revolutionary nature. Magazines with such writing must have blossomed in hundreds. What is the use of having eyes if one is not able to read them?

In the newspapers I read, I find nothing about class struggle, or struggles for democratic rights or civil liberties; nothing about tribal revolts, dalit and women’s liberation movements or environmental movements. There is no word in these newspapers of revolutionary organizations, their journals, and how these organizations are reacting to caste and communal clashes, and a host of other issues. Not a single ray of light penetrates the pervasive gloom.

Page number 57:

Censorship of letters is not an inconvenience that is associated only with jails. I have lived with it for the last 23 years. The heated debates about the postal bill and the tapping of telephones, and the mutual recriminations between the Congress and other parties, are amusing to a communist who has been used to this from the very birth of his party. This discussion of an open secret seems to me like Brahminical sophistry.

The difference between letters being censored while in jail and while outside is that, out there, you cannot claim they are being censored although you know the truth. Besides, outside jail, we seal our letters and then post them. They are delivered sealed (unless the one who reads then is too lazy to seal them again). In jail, the letters are handed over without the pretence of sealing them. Letters that arrive are torn open, censored, stamped with the jail seal and signed by the concerned official, before being delivered to the addressee.

Our loves, friendships, bonds, tenderness, ideas, innermost feelings, passions, dreams, truths – the most private and secret chambers of our hearts are laid mercilessly open by the surgeon’s knife. The gaze of strangers and aliens falls on them and they are returned to us, unstitched. What stubborn hearts these, that even in such conditions they continue to throb with feeling!

When I was first arrested in 1973, the mere thought  that someone would read my letter would paralyse my pen.

Page number 62:

The people to whom I write and who write back to me are all immersed either in public service or in literary and cultural movements. I tend to forget what a bad correspondent I used to be when I was outside, similarly preoccupied. Now that I sit ready with my pen poised on paper, I am quick to fall victim to impatience, misunderstanding or anxieties because those whom I write to don’t write back. Even those whom I write to don’t write back. Even those who are not busy expect letters from me, don’t reply. When they try to write, their hearts but do not reply. When they try to write, their hearts weigh heavily on their pens! And so they expect me to continue to write without hoping for a reply!

Page number 63: 

Although in my political activity I never compromised or bowed before anyone, for these letters, from the minute I expect them to arrive, I seem to turn into beggar-hands stretched. 

 முதியவர்கள் தங்களின்  உரிமைகளுக்காக போராடத் தயார் 

இன்று விருதுநகரில் முதியவர்களுக்கான முதியவர்களின் கூட்டமைப்பு சார்பில் ஏற்பாடு செய்திருந்த கூட்டத்தில் கலந்து கொண்டேன். மிக நெகிழ்ச்சியான சந்திப்பு. ஒரு 20 தலைவர்கள் முதியவர்களின் முக்கியமான பிரச்சனைகளைப் பற்றி பேசினார்கள். முதலாவதாக, அவர்கள் எதிர்பார்ப்பது, அன்பு, மரியாதை, அவர்களையும் குடும்பம் மற்றும் சமுதாயத்தில் அவர்களின் பங்கேற்பு என சொன்னார்கள். 

ராமசாமி தாத்தா ஒரு MGR பாடல் பாடினார்.

முதியவர்களுடன் ஒரு group photo

2010ல், தலைகூத்தல் என்ற பெயரில் நிறைய வயதானவர்கள் அவர்களின் குடும்பதினர்களால் கொல்லப்பட்டனர். அது பற்றிய நான் செய்தி வெளியிட, அது பலதரப்பில் விவாதங்களை ஏற்படுத்தியது. இரண்டு வருடங்களுக்குப் பிறகு, நான் பார்க்கும் முதியவர்களின் சிந்தனை என்னை வியக்கவைத்தது. அவர்கள் அவர்களுக்க்கப் போராட முன்வந்துள்ளனர். அவர்கள் மாவட்ட கலெக்டரை சந்தித்து அவர்களின் கோரிக்கைகளை வைப்பதாக கூறினர். இந்த முதியவர்களிடம் தன்நம்பிகை  இருந்தது. இவர்கள் பயணிக்கத் தயாராகி விட்டனர். தற்போது 109 குழுக்களில் 1,500க்கும் மேற்பட்ட முதியவர்கள் இந்த அமைப்பின் கீழ் ஒன்று சேர்ந்துள்ளனர்.  

                         

                            வெள்ளிக் கிழமை புன்னகை

திருபோரூ ர் மற்றும் கேளம்பாக்கம் அரசுப் பள்ளிக்கு சென்றேன். நிறைய குழைந்தைகள் ABL அட்டைகளை வைத்து படித்துக்கொன்று இருந்தனர். அவர்களின் முகங்களில் புன்னகை, தன்நம்பிக்கை இருந்தது. அவர்கள் டீச்சர் இல்லாவிட்டாலும், இருந்தாலும் அவரவர் கற்றலில் இடுபட்டு இருந்தனர்.  ஒரு மாணவி சொன்னால்: இது நானே செய்த ஆடு பொம்மை." உடனே அடுத்து இருந்தவர்களும் தங்கள் செய்து வைத்திருந்த பொம்மைகளை எடுத்துவந்தனர்.








நான் ஸ்கூலில் படித்தபோது, டீச்சர் இரண்டு நிமிடம் லேட்டாக வந்தால் சந்தோஷம்தான்.அதே போல வெள்ளிக் கிழமை இன்னும் சந்தோஷம். பெல் அடிக்கும் தருணம் அளவிட முடியாத புன்னகை இருக்கும். இந்த குழந்தைகளிடம் அந்த வெள்ளிக் கிழமை புன்னகை இருந்ததாக உணர்ந்தேன்.

People who fight for other's rights are abused?

மனிதர், மாமனிதர்: 

கிருஷ்ணம்மாள் ஜெகநாதன்

அவரது வார்த்தைகளில் :

நிலம் இல்லாதவனுக்கு நிலம் வாங்கி தரனும் என்ற எண்ணம் பேய் புடிச்ச மாதிரி மனசுக்குள்ள. வீடு, காடு இதை தவிர வேற எண்ணம் எதுவுமே இல்லை.

நாகபட்டினத்தில் நிலசுவந்தார் ஒருவர் சபதம் போட்டார். ஒரே நாளில் ரெஜிஸ்டர் பண்ணுவதாக  இருந்தால் உடனடியாக கேட்ட நிலத்தை தரேன் என்றார். முழு பணத்தையும் தர வேண்டும் என்றார். என்னிடம் பணம் கிடையாது. நம்பிக்கை மட்டும், துணிவு மட்டும், நான் பிராத்திக்கின்ற வள்ளலாரின் பக்தி மட்டும் துணையாக...உடனடியாக சரி என்றான்.

அவரிடம் 1,040 எக்கர் நிலம் இருந்தது. அதை வாங்க வேண்டும். தாட்கோ நிதி மட்டும் கிடைத்தால் போதும், வருவாய் துறையில் தலித்துகளுக்கு பத்திரபதிவு செய்வதற்கு உள்ள கழிவுத் தொகை இருப்பதால் வேறு செலவு கிடையாது.

கலெக்டர் ஜவஹரிடம் சென்றேன் . 1,040 ஏக்கர் நிலம் ரெடியாக இருக்கிறது, நிலசுன்வந்தர் குறைந்த விலைக்கு கொடுக்க முன்வந்துள்ளார். அனால் நிலசுவந்தார் ஒரே நாளில் ரெஜிஸ்டர் பண்ண வேண்டும் என்கிறார்  என்றேன். உங்கள் உதவி கிடைத்தால் ஏழை மக்களுக்கு வீடு கிடைக்கும் என்றேன்.பயனாளிகள் தயாராக உள்ளனர் என்றேன்.

கலெக்டர் உடனடியாக ஒரு ஆர்டர் போட்டார் . எல்லா VAO, தாசில்தார் மற்ற அதிகாரிகளைவரச் சொன்னார். அடுத்த நாள் காலை எல்லோரும்வந்துவிட்டனர் .நானும் பயனளிகளுடன் வர,உடனடியாக ரேஜிஸ்டரேசன் துவங்கியது.கலை 10 மணி ஆரம்பித்தது அடுத்த நாள் கலை 3 மணிக்குத்தான் முடிந்தது. கலெக்டர் கூடவே இருந்தார்.அவரை ஓய்வு எடுக்கசொன்னபோது சிரித்துவிட்டு என்னுடனே இருந்தார். எல்லா பயனளிகளுகும் நிலப்பத்திரம் ரெடி ஆனது.

அடுத்த நாள் மெட்ராஸ்ல் வருவாய் துறை அதிகாரியைச் சந்தித்து பத்திர பதிவு தொகையில் கழிவு இருப்பதைச் சொல்லி, பதிவிற்கு அனுமதி கேட்டேன். அதிர்ந்துபோனார். "அரசாங்கத்திற்கு இது பெரிய நஷ்டம்"என்றார். மேலும் இதுபற்றி விவதிதுவிட்டு சொல்வதாக சொன்னார்.

ஒரு வேலை ஆரம்பித்தால்எனக்கு  அதை உடனடியாக முடித்தாக வேண்டும். பஸ் பிடித்து முதலமைச்சர் கலைஞர் வீட்டுக்குப் போனேன்.செக்யூரிட்டி போலீஸ் என்னை விசாரித்துவிட்டு நான் ஏன் தனியாக வந்தேன் என்று
கேட்டனர். "நீங்கள் எல்லாம்என்னுடைய நண்பர்கள் தான் என்றான்." சிரித்துவிட்டு என்னை கலைஞரை சந்திக்க அனுப்பினர். விவரத்தை சொன்னவுடன் கலைஞர் யோசிக்கவில்லை. வருவாய் துறை அதிகாரிக்கு உத்தரவு போட்டார். என்னை திருப்பி அனுப்பிய வருவாய் அதிகாரி வரவேற்றார். எல்லா பத்திரங்களுக்கும் கழிவு உறுதி ஆனது. 

அடுத்ததாக தாட்கோ அலுவலகம் சென்றேன். நிலையை விலக்கி மிக அவசரமாக நிதி வேண்டும் என்றேன். தாட்கோ அதிகாரிகள் நிலைமை உணர்ந்து சீக்கிரமாக நிதி கொடுத்தனர். மிகுந்த சந்தோசத்துடன் நாகப்பட்டினம் வந்தேன். தாட்கோ நிதி மற்றும் வருவாய்த் துறை பதிவு தொகை கழிவு என எல்லாம் கை கூடியது. சொன்னபடி நிலசுவந்தரிடம் பணத்தை கொடுத்து 1,040 பத்திரங்களும் ஒரே நாளில் பதிவாகியது.

(இன்று கிருஷ்ணம்மாள் ஜெகநாதன் வீட்டில், அவருடன் ஒரு நாள் கழித்தேன் . நெகிழ்ச்சியான நாள்.)