A novel method to shame the shameless in Tripura

Written by Teresa Rehman

Wednesday, 13 May 2009

A hilarious cartoon put up in a village square of a family found defecating in the complete with the names and addresses of the offenders. Well, this scenario is the reality for people in Tripura’s S.N. Colony Gram Panchayat. This novel method to shame people who s(p)oiled the village surroundings was part of a resolution passed in 2004 by the panchayat in S. N. Colony village in Jirania Rural Development Block in West Tripura district, 18 km from Agartala. The panchayat’s order worked and this village with 670 households was free from open defecation and was also awarded the Nirmal Gram Puraskar in 2005.

The brainchild of the then village headman Bijay Karmakar, the panchayat both amused and alarmed the villagers. It worked as nobody wanted to be caught and shamed in front of the entire village. “As part of the Total Sanitation campaign (TSC), we provided squatting plates to every family so that they did need to relieve themselves in the open. We then conducted an intensive campaign through public meetings and door-to-door meetings. But, I think the resolution to put up the poster was the real clincher,” Karmakar told Tehelka.

The authorities implementing the TSC were also bemused by this interesting step taken by the villagers which could, they felt, also strike the right emotional chord. Deepak Das, Additional Chief Engineer, Drinking Water and Sanitation department, Tripura feels that this campaign should also be replicated in other villages in Tripura. “People in Tripura were used to defecating in bore-hole latrines. Though it is open, at least it is in one fixed place. We are now trying to tell them about modern toilets,” says Das.

Convincing the masses in Tripura has not been difficult because the TSC is a comprehensive programme to ensure sanitation facilities in rural areas with the broader goal of eradicating open defecation. The TSC is a part of reform principles initiated in 1999 when the Central Rural Sanitation Programme was restructured, making it demand-driven and people centred.

The main goal of the Government of India is to eradicate the practice of open defecation by 2010. To give a fillip to this endeavour, the Government has launched the Nirmal Gram Puraskar (NGP) to recognize and give cash rewards to fully-covered PRIs and those individuals and institutions who have contributed significantly towards ensuring full sanitation coverage in their areas of operation. To put the spotlight on sanitation the UN General Assembly declared 2008 the International Year of Sanitation. The goal is to raise awareness and to accelerate progress towards the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target to reduce by half the 2.6 billion people without access to basic sanitation by 2015.

Talking about sanitation is a tricky affair. The fact that sanitation is a broad issue with implications for a variety of development areas was also stressed in the Third South Asian Conference on Sanitation, recently held in Delhi. Chris Heymans, Regional Team Leader of the Water and Sanitation Programme of the World Bank stated that there was a need to usher in a behavioural change among people which would not be possible by merely pumping in money and resources. Innovative and compelling techniques were called for. The Conference reiterated the need for local people to feel a sense of participation and also to not feel repulsed or intimidated by any plan.

This tiny village in Tripura is spearheading the campaign in a witty, innovative and effective manner. The state, with 1039 village panchayats has won 113 NGPs till date. The panchayat of S.N. Nagar, a Nirmal Gram Puraskar awardee has also been trying to impart lessons on health and hygiene to the villagers during satsangs in the local temple. “Almost everyone here comes for evening satsang or community prayer. We use this opportunity to create awareness among the people and tell them that defecating in the open causes diseases,” adds Karmakar.

The villagers have vigilance committees to keep an eye on people breaking the panchayat’s order. But this is one vigilance committee that does not have to work too hard. The “public caricature” resolution passed by the village panchayat at S.N. Nagar village has worked wonders: No poster of someone guilty of soiling the village surroundings and endangering public health has ever had to put up in the village square.

ends