Officers turn vigilantes in MP

NK SINGH

• An elderly pilgrim to Ujjain is beaten up, publicly humiliated and forced to clean his faeces with his own hands after he is found relieving himself on the ghats of Kshipra river. The Ujjain municipal corporation employees upload the video on social media as part of their “public shaming” campaign for making the town open defecation free. As they film his humiliation, they chuckle, asking the old man to show his face to the camera.

• As part of their “public shaming” exercise, Narsinghgarh municipal employees try to film a teenaged girl when she goes out to answer call of nature. The girl objects and threatens to break their mobiles. Next day a government officer visits her house. The girl later complains to the police that the officer slapped her.

• Two villagers in Khargone district are arrested after they question the Collector’s claim that their municipality has been declared ODF. They point out that there are many houses where toilets have not been constructed. After an argument, a sub divisional magistrate sends both to prison.

• In Gwalior district, some villagers refuse to stop relieving themselves in the open. When the government employees try to persuade them, the belligerent villagers take out their guns and force the employees to flee. The administration arrests one person and start proceedings to cancel arm licences of accused in more than a dozen villages.

• The panchayat employees union complains that enraged women beat up their members when they blow whistles to stop people from relieving themselves in open. Blowing whistles is part of the official public shaming drive. According to the union, till now more than 250 panchayat secretaries and 100 sarpanch have been beaten up during ODF drive in Madhya Pradesh.

The drive against open defecation needs much more than persuasive skills. “Penalisation may well be the only option to meet targets,” as a study by Centre for Policy Research points out. Reluctance of people to install toilets is not necessarily linked to poverty.

Money for helicopter, but not for toilet

A Sehore farmer had chartered a helicopter for his son’s marriage. When he approached the district administration for permission to build a helipad, it was discovered that he did not own a lavatory!

In urban areas people were seen relieving themselves next to neat and clean looking newly-built Sulabh complexes!

Hence people welcomed with open arms Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Swachch Bharat Mission. Till 2016, MP was brimming with ‘inspiring’ tales about success of the programme.

Sehore mason Dilip Malviya became an icon when Modi publicly mentioned him for constructing more than 100 toilets without charging any money.

Siblings Maimoona and Aamir Khan donated their scholarship to build a toilet at the school where they studied.

Brothers gifted toilets to their sisters on rakhi and students scrapped together their scholarship funds to construct toilets their families could not afford.

The CPR study covers Madhya Pradesh, among other States. It describes SBM as “a textbook case of near perfect conditions for policy success.”. Flush with funds from Swachch Bharat cess, the programme boasts of high-level political commitment, time-bound targets and a clearly measurable outcome ---- ODF.

But as the goal post shifted from mere construction of toilets to achieving ODF status, notes the study, the programme faces the danger of distortion due to overreach by overzealous officers.

Serious pressure to meet targets, says CPR, has created “conditions for race to the top that undermines the core objectives of the programme.” Officers resort to penalisation of citizens to achieve these targets.

The aggressive terms adopted in MP for the “public shaming” are quite suggestive ---- “roko-toko”, blowing of whistles,“dabba gang”, confiscating of water bottles, and “vanar sena”, groups of children swopping down on people reliving themselves.

No salary without toilet

As a result, ODF has effectively created a social divide between those who own a toilet and those who do not.

A SDM in Sehore decreed that he would release on bail only those have toilets at home.

In Shivpuri 140 panch and 90 sarpanch without lavatories were threatened with disqualification and all toilet-less home owners were threatened with prosecution under section 269 (negligent act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life) and 336 (endangering the safety of others) of IPC.

Collectors of Shahdol and Panna stopped salaries of employees without lavatories.

SPs of Katni, Rajgarh and Shahdol refused character certificates, passport verifications and arm licences to toilet-less people.

Minor boys fan out in localities of Sagar early in the morning to snatch water bottles from those relieving in the open.

Bhopal Municipal Corporation imposed fines as high as Rs 50,000 from people defecating in open.

Gwalior administration issued notices for cancellation of more than 100 gun licences of villagers who don’t own toilets.

The government will purchase wheat only from those farmers in Sheopur district who have lavatories.

As the financial year comes to a close, the deadline and targets generates a fierce competition among government officials. As the competition grows, so does the jockeying for position, awards and medals among the highly ambitious.

As they adopt the path of penalisation, they forget the primary goal fixed by Prime Minister Modi ---- sustained community engagement for a Swachch Bharat.

Powers That Be, my column in DB Post of 29 Jan 17

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