Lest we forget: let Open Defecation Free not become Literacy

Lest we forget: World Toilet Day 2019 celebration concluded. Early morning follow up pictures on whatsapp feeds are rare now, any significant officers writing monosyllable- (sir...do that...do this...follow up) on the numerous groups stopped. and that also ended my plan to write something significant- a elusive academic paper on how new media- specially whatsapp messaging was a great tool utilized to further the campaign of Swachh Bharat across India.

Its good time to look back into the history of campaign in India's development history. When I joined college in 1999, it was perhaps the last few years of great literacy mission in India. I was selected to be a data collector for one of the Total Literacy Campaign districts in Haryana. However, I could not join then. 

So, where are we now:

World Literacy Day 2019 celebrated not long before sometime in September. India and world had a great literacy programme in the decades of 80s & 90s. Literacy and Sanitation campaign has very very interesting similarity.

 

1. Both were launched roughly same time---1988 and 1986*
2. Governments have invested huge administrative energy in achieving literacy & sanitation.
3. Both required huge motivation on the part of individuals and a favourable ecosystem to achieve the objective and continuing it. First generation in both cases are hard to handle. 
4. Both were looking for outcomes at district level- 1. Total Literate district and 2. ODF district
5. Interesting programming progression- ODF to Post ODF and Literacy to Post Literacy.
6. Similarly notified- resource agencies, and big media campaign relevant in their time and large partnership of schools, colleges, civil society organisations, volunteers etc. 

So, what did we achieve through campaign.

1. India's literacy is still at 74.04% with range of 63-93% from Bihar to Kerala.
2. Female Literary perform below.
3. No one talks about literacy any more. If anything we hear is perhaps annual three day talk when ASER report reveal learning outcome possible to compare that with "Usage" in case of sanitation.
4. So, campaign resulted into benefiting states like- Kerala and other smaller states. Bigger states- MP, UP, Bihar and others are still below 70% #. 

How government is looking at literary now. Perhaps we are waiting for the denominator to diminish to hit total literacy and that means a certain age group to be completely left for heavenly abode. Few are exceptions determined to be literate before starting the journey. Long live Bhageerathi Amma from Kerala who took literacy exam at the 105. @

Here another  big assumption is anyone entering into age 7 is for sure going to be literate, which may not be reality considering our education system.  

Open Defecation Free- Way Forward 

India has declared itself open defecation free and have resolved to work on ODF sustainability. News Papers report and government's own programming efforts indicate there still are families who are either left out of baseline or using the shared facilities. Those need to be converted into families having their own household toilets.

As incentive regime staring to end sometime soon. We are making two big assumptions.

- Those families who are given incentive to build toilet have it and all members using it.

- All new housing unit being constructed in coming days will have toilets.

did it work for literacy? No, similar assumptions did not work with literacy and so it may not work for sanitation as well. Perhaps coming census 2021 will shed some light.

Till then, as someone who had decades of experience on sanitation said when the campaign launched in 2014 said..." all the good work in sanitation would now be done post 2nd October 2019"- Lets do good work and programme to sustain what we achieved during the campaign.

------a happy "engagementwithshit"

Disclaimer: Views expressed in blogs are personal and no way represents views of the organizations that I work with or worked with in the past. 

*http://www.nlm.nic.in/intro_nlm.htm 

# http://censusindia.gov.in/2011-prov-results/data_files/mp/07Literacy.pdf

@https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/kerala/great-grandmother-appears-for-literacy-equivalency-exam-in-kerala/article30024898.ece

Swachh Bharat Abhiyan has been an experiment in self efficacy

Context: The new government has resolved to work on providing tap water to all households in next five years, its important to look at the last campaign which govt. ran for last five years. Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) campaign achieved reasonable success in very short span of time driving many different communities and many different levels of bureaucracy  to achieve which is not only unprecedented by all accounts but also built a foundation which can unleash India becoming much cleaner country in years to come. It has also been world experiment of sorts for the world how sanitation can be prioritized.  

What worked for the campaign: Practitioners of behaviour change has been talking about "self efficacy" being the salient lever for adoption & sustenance of any new behaviour. The behaviour, which requires large scale environmental modification even requires highest self efficacy believe in the system itself. Swachh Bharat Mission has been one such experiment in the history of large scale programmes. It has created space for provisioning of information, tools, and skills for administration and households to implement the programme, promoted healthy behaviour at community level with appropriate incentives built in both financial as well as social approvals, promoted role models through its various mass media initiatives.  

Highest political leader believed it could deliver. It has created ecosystem at the highest level to make sure system is constantly reminded of the objective. District Magistrate believed it could be delivered and most importantly households believed it could  change the behaviour. After long long time to my readings since the National Literacy Mission (TLM), for the first time ever administration reached out to the community and enroll their participation, organised them, harnessed their goodwill to achieve extraordinary. Communities got together to stop something which was essentially a bad practice.  

There are last mile challenges and that's going to remain but as the buzz around govt. is cognizant and believe it could deliver which again is further experiment of self efficacy. They are planning for SBM 2.0 and will stay invested.  

Why water can be delivered and why challenges are far bigger.

Since system has tested and gained the confidence that it could deliver, it can take a confident stride on water. 

Water crisis is bringing community closer to being amenable to govt. initiatives. If govt. can come closer to working out mix of surface & under ground water based projects there are reasonable chance of success.

Panchayati Raj system is romanced & have been wrongly assumed it could deliver on water despite dismal performance of urban local bodies which has fewer resources or for that matter the highest legislature sans large number of bureaucrats and specialist working around. If we can provide the similar level of support system to panchayats it will work.

Sanitation has very interesting individual incentives built into it. All households were eligible for some kind of incentive. Therefore,construction of toilet was not that tough, usages still remains a challenge. Jal Jeevan Mission may not bring the similar incentives to every households. 

Second, provisioning of water has been pretty much pvt. enterprise as urban or rural housing. Individuals have been mostly building houses for generations in rural areas. Majority of urban houses are built by individual households themselves. The private companies/developers still caters to fraction of urban population. Government's role is limited to home loans provisioning. Rural housing has never had this provisioning as well.

Water supply system doesn't bring any direct incentives to the households and in this context asking for user charges are going to be even tougher as there is alternative available which is one time investment & have better individual control for areas which still don't are not yet severely affected. It will also be difficult for the households to completely stop using their own handpumps manual or motor operated. 

Also there are likely to be multiple departments working around water and that will make it even more difficult.  

Can we make social science or say community work glamorous?

Recently, I attended a very informative workshop at IIT Madras Research Park. We had this fantastic, knowledgeable professor managing the business. He has fantastic voice modulation and affirmative demeanor to command one and all. He was at his poetic best while explaining science.  

Centre has fantastic research centre hosting Saint Gobain research labs, incubation centre and many more. They are coming up with international centre for clean water. The centre in its brick & mortar form- have only under construction workstations, seminar halls, wires lying here and there at this moment. However, our respected professor shepherded all of us a strong 100 delegates squeezing into 4 lifts, given instructions where to be clicked and how many times, also forcing us to visualize what they were building. I am not really sure, and many were of my kind, what was there to see.

Over break, I was discussing with my colleague, why all of us went to see that under construction part of building which he kept referring as Taj Mahal. And there was a tentative agreement this was coz of IIT enigma and technology folklore that our society has perpetuated over generations. Giving primacy of science specially technology over all other disciplines collectively.

That brought me to the next question- can we possibly create same glamour for social science or possibly community work. Not sure I can say yes. The last celebrated community worker so to say, who went on becoming famous was Mr. Obama. He supposedly decided to do community work over normal law practice.

Social Science folks did have some enigma and fair share of folkloric status. I did manage to visit Tagore's house and did see where Amartya Sen used to live and did go with all curiosity to JNU academic block or Dhabas. And those are mostly history and that does grip you and transport you in life and times of iconic people.

But I am not sure, a professor in best of the social science institutes in India or outside could take for a guided tour to show only under construction building to 100 odd strong crowd, mostly very qualified and scientists.

Interestingly spaces where we operate need community work to be more glamorized inviting smart young people to join and talk with the same sense of fulfilment, assertion and authority. Wish we could be same diligent in reporting every data points, every emotions, that we encounter while we work with community. 

Someday, we get to the point asking discovery or invention of another technology is not the answer of the technology which failed due to lack of community work.

Incentivize community work better. And possibly that can make it glamorous as well.