Survive or Sink

Like an experienced banker, she starts Survive or Sink with an SOS on some very disturbing statistics:

• 3 children under the age of 5 die every minute in India. Unsafe water is the major cause of this, due to chemicals from industrial waste (fluoride, arsenic) and bacteria (from untreated human excreta).
• India has the highest incidence of stunting where 40% of our children fail to achieve their full physical and mental growth.
• 25% of India is still defecating in the open with no toilet or sewage system connections. 75% of 1.75m tonnes of faecal waste generated every day – human excreta and water mixture that bears disease carrying bacteria and pathogens – remains untreated and is dumped into drains, lakes and rivers posing a serious threat to health.
• Only 20% of domestic and 60% of industrial waste is treated, rest is discharged without treatment. As a result, Groundwater resources in vast tract of India are contaminated with fluoride and arsenic.
• UN has ranked India 120th of 122 countries for water quality estimating that 70% of our water is contaminated. Half of our 445 rivers are too polluted for safe consumption and not even one has water fit for drinking without extensive treatment.
• Half of the most polluted cities of the world are in India. (See Wikipedia ranking, 9 of top 10 are in india, topped globally by Delhi).
• In an exercise done by Ministry of Urban Development, none of the 423 cities that were rated were found to be healthy and clean. In fact 190 were found to be on the verge of environmental crisis.

The idea to share this dark underbelly is not to disillusion, but as a wake-up call, to spur us into action. Naina then gives multiple examples of how there are silver linings.

Swachh Bharat Mission, beyond the publicity gimmick, has yielded real results: The number of open defecation-free (ODF) villages has gone up from 47,000 to 384,000 over the same period—about 65% of all villages in the country. Seventeen states and Union Territories (UTs) are now ODF.

There are also multiple examples of how corporate employees are trying to bring about a change. Tata Group is doing a lot. And many factory workers have taken the onus to educate the villages nearby.

I was very energised by the biomass example where private enterprises can pay communities to collect and dispose of their waste because they in turn make fuel or fertilizer from this waste. Capitalism at its best!

There are also deep insights. While a lot of progress has been made in villages, “problem in urban slums is even worse. Close living proximity and crowded conditions, open drainage and lack of maintenance…. contribute to the outbreak and spreading of diseases.”

Another aha moment: For many households, health is not a strong motivating factor for toilet construction, but social pressure is. Hence the need to involved faith based organisations. Also, how movies like Toilet: Ek Prem Katha are bringing these core issues to mainstream discussion while also being economically attractive for producers.

The book is a collection of articles and papers published in various places and so can be repetitive. Same statistics comes in multiple chapters. Some of these articles were probably used in policy documents and hence can be full of procedural matters and acronyms. I wish the publishers had done a better job in editing to bring out core messages succinctly and in a language, that creates the maximum impact amongst readers. But let us not to be too harsh, and look at the golden intent and passion. We need many more Nainas to champion these serious issues.