r.i.c.e.

Our article on pollution, latrine pits, and untouchability has been published in this week's EPW! This article discusses the findings of the Switching Study, which we started several years ago. So it's great to finally see this in print!

India has far higher open defecation rates than other developing regions where people are poorer, literacy rates are lower, and water is relatively more scarce. In practice, government programmes in rural India have paid little attention in understanding why so many rural Indians defecate in the open rather than use affordable pit latrines. Drawing on new data, the article finds that widespread open defecation in rural India is on account of beliefs, values, and norms about purity, pollution, caste, and untouchability that cause people to reject affordable latrines. Future rural sanitation programmes must address villagers’ ideas about pollution, pit-emptying, and untouchability, and should do so in ways that accelerate progress towards social equality for Dalits rather than delay it.

Access the article from EPW's website here, or download it from our research page.

And congratulations to Avinash, one of our board members, and his colleagues, who also have an article published in this week's EPW on policy options for making pulses more affordable! See his article here.