The Modern Review/Volume 38/Number 6/Our Insanitation
Our Insanitation.
We have to quote the following words of Mr. M. K. Gandhi from Young India with pain and shame:—
During my wanderings nothing has been so painful to me as to observe our insanitation throughout the length and breadth of the land. I do not believe in the use of force for carrying out reforms, but when I think of the time that must elapse before the ingrained habits of millions of people can be changed, I almost reconcile myself to compulsion in this the most important matter of insanitation. Several diseases can be directly traced to insanitation. Hookworm, for instance, is such a direct result. Not a single human being who observes the elementary principles of sanitation need suffer from hookworm. The disease is not even due to poverty. The only reason is gross ignorance of the first principles of sanitation.
These reflections arise from the abominations I saw in Mandvi. The people of Mandvi are not poor. They cannot be classed as ignorant. And yet their habits are dirty beyond description. Men and women dirty the streets that they walk on with bare feet. They do this every morning. There is practically no such thing as a closet in that port. It was with the greatest difficulty that I was able to pass through these streets.
Let me not be hard on the poor inhabitants of Mandvi. I know that I saw nothing better in many Streets of Madras. The sight of grown-up people lining the river banks and after the performance proceeding with criminal thoughtlessness to the river and cleaning themselves in it and injecting into its sacred water typhoid, cholera and dysentery germs has not yet faded from memory. This is the water that is used also for drinking. In the Punjab we violate God’s laws by dirtying our roofs and breeding millions of flies. In Bengal the same tank quenches the thirst of man and beast and cleanses him and his pots. But I must not continue this description of our shame. Seeing that it is there, it would be sinful to hide it. But I dare not carry it any further. I know I have underdrawn the picture.
Sir P.C. Ray once observed: “Science can wait, Swaraj cannot.” Whatever other sciences can wait, sanitation, which depends on the knowledge and application of many sciences, cannot. That seems to be implied when Mr. Gandhi observes:—
Let us not put off everything till Swaraj is attained and thus put off Swaraj itself. Swaraj can be had only by brave and clean people. Whilst the Government has to answer for a lot, I know that the British officers are not responsible for our insanitation. Indeed, if we give them free scope in this matter, they would improve our habits at the point of the sword. They do not do so, because it does not pay. But they would gladly welcome and encourage any effort towards improved sanitation. In this matter Europe has much to teach us. We quote with pride a few texts from Manu or, if we are Musulmans, from the Quran. We do not carry even these into practice. Europeans have deduced an elaborate code of sanitation from the principles laid down in these books. Let us learn these from them and adapt them to our needs and habits.