E. S. YURLOVA

Candidate of Historical Sciences

Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences

SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ASPECTS OF THE PROBLEM OF WATER SUPPLY IN THE INDIAN FAMILY

Key words: India, water, symbol of purity, drinking water scarcity, sanitation, health care

In the family life of Indians, water occupies an important place. Water and food represent a key element in the ritual practice associated with such concepts as purity (aka sanctity) and desecration. Food and its preparation, in addition to its physiological value, are one of the ways to express the characteristics of a particular caste. A woman is traditionally responsible for maintaining the ritual cleanliness of the home. Cooking at home is a woman's exclusive responsibility.

The question arises: aren't men involved in cooking? Answer: Yes, they do, but they usually do it outside the home (in restaurants, eateries, and other public places). Family is something else: a sacred cause. And the kitchen is also a sacred place. A member of a different caste is not allowed to enter the kitchen.

A SYMBOL OF PURITY AND HOLINESS

From the point of view of ritual purity and, consequently, desecration, food, even cooked in boiling water, is not considered clean (pakka), but only raw (kaccia), subject to desecration. Pakka food is cooked in boiling milk or fried in ghee. Rice cooked in boiling water is kaccia, and steamed rice is pakka. Hence the need to prepare different foods in compliance with strict rules of ritual cleanliness.

On the other hand, water is a symbol of holiness. Bathing in the sacred waters of the Ganges cleanses a person, frees him from earthly sins. After communicating with a representative of a foreign caste or a non-believer, you need to" purify " yourself with water - perform ablution, for example, take a shower, pour a jug of water on yourself, or simply sprinkle yourself with water.

Ritual desecration can be transmitted through water. Therefore, it is carefully protected from "contamination". It is no coincidence that in the hostel, when using the same vessel, Indians drink water without touching it with their lips. Until now, Dalits (formerly untouchables) are traditionally not allowed to take water from a source used by "pure" castes. It is believed that a widow can also defile the water, and this will bring misfortune. There is a well-known case when Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi opened a new hydroelectric power station, after which a brahmin performed a purification ritual. After all, I. Gandhi was a widow.

Not only in India, but also in a number of other countries, including South Asia, it is women who are historically responsible for the supply (delivery of water for household needs from wells, columns and reservoirs) and the use of water in the family. The traditional painting of women with a pitcher of water is not a thing of the past...

In rural areas, small towns and urban slums of megacities, providing families with water is associated with a large amount of time and heavy physical labor. In conditions of chronic water scarcity and insufficient number of wells, especially in poor neighborhoods, water supply is an acute problem for the entire life of women. Solving this problem is one of the ways to improve their living conditions.

Here we are faced with the problem of lack of water for domestic needs. In India, only 5% of the total amount of water used in the country is used for this purpose, including in agriculture and industry. (In developed countries, domestic water consumption is 2-3 times higher than in India.)

The problem of clean water, especially safe drinking water, is extremely acute in India. 27% of the rural population and 6% of the urban population do not have access to it. In rural areas, the most vulnerable and backward segments of the population are affected.

A similar situation exists in urban slums, where, according to the 2011 census, more than 65 million people live (according to other sources, 90 million). At the same time, their number is constantly growing. In the last decade alone, the slum population has increased by 25% ^.1 More than 70% of the water consumed in villages does not meet World Health Organization standards. 80% of all diseases in the village, 21% of infectious diseases and 20% of deaths of children under the age of 5 are directly related to unsafe water consumption.

SOURCE OF UNSANITARY CONDITIONS

The main causes of water pollution are untreated discharges of sewage waste. According to some estimates, New Delhi alone accumulates 36 million tons of waste annually. Of these, only 50% is processed, and the rest is directly discharged into the Jamna River. (If anyone has tried the beautiful watermelons grown on the banks of this river, he knows that this is fraught with diarrhea and other diseases.)

The same situation is observed in other cities. Only 31% of sewage in India's 23 largest cities is treated, while the rest infects the country's 18 major rivers, including the Ganges. Most Indian rivers are poisoned by nitrates, other pollutants, and toxic metals. More than 66 million people suffer from the consumption of water with a high content of such substances. Therefore, the treatment of waste water and the discharge of contaminated water into rivers and reservoirs require urgent solutions.

Poor sanitation in rural areas and cities is another reason for contamination of drinking water sources. This is understandable. After all, 70% of the rural and 35% of the urban population live without toilets. According to the United Nations Children's Fund UNICEF in 2008, 638 million people in India defecated in open places. According to the latest census of India, 53% of households did not have toilets. Nitrates and harmful bacteria from human faeces penetrate through the soil into water bodies and wells ².

Accurate estimates of underwater water pollution from excessive use of fertilizers and pesticides in agriculture are still lacking. However, the problem lies not only in this, but also in the use of exorbitantly large amounts of water for irrigation. As a result, a huge number of drinking water wells in irrigated areas are contaminated. Moreover, in the same areas, water has a high salt content, which makes it unsuitable for consumption.

India finds itself in a kind of vicious circle. The need for further development of agriculture and industry leads to increased water use and at the same time to deterioration of its quality and pollution.

CHILDREN WHO ARE VICTIMS OF HARMFUL WATER

Lack of safe water and unsanitary conditions affect the high level of maternal and child mortality and lead to massive diseases, which cause 400 thousand people to die in India every year, 90% of them are children.

India has a high infant mortality rate. In 2012, it was 42 per 1,000 newborns. (In 1971, the infant mortality rate was 192 children per 1,000, i.e. almost one in five children died.) The highest infant mortality rate was observed in Madhya Pradesh (56 per 1,000), and the lowest-in Kerala (12 per 1,000). These indicators are significantly worse than not only in developed countries, but also in many developing countries. The corresponding figures (per 1,000 infants): USA-6.0, Russia-7.3, Sri Lanka-9.5, Germany-11.1, Brazil-12.5, China-15.6, Kazakhstan-23.1.

Of the 9.7 million child deaths under 5 years of age worldwide, 2.1 million occur in India. In this case, one of the main causes is called sepsis (blood poisoning). This is not surprising, since most births occur at home in unsanitary conditions.³ Most often, women in the villages of Northern India, writes E. Bumiller, give birth directly on the floor in their hut. The midwife cuts the umbilical cord with an old knife or sharp stone. The wound is smeared with fresh cow dung, which is considered an antiseptic by local residents.⁴

Many childhood diseases, one way or another, are associated with water, its contamination, improper storage. Among the diseases that take the lives of children, the most widespread and dangerous is diarrhea. In polluted waters, sewers and ditches, mosquitoes are actively breeding, which transmit dangerous diseases that pose a great threat to young children. Thus, about 600 million people in India are at risk from mosquito-borne lymphatic filariasis ("elephantiasis"), of which a significant proportion are children. ⁵

Water scarcity and poor sanitation also have a negative impact on maternal mortality during pregnancy and childbirth. In 2012, it was 178 per 100,000 newborns in India. However, in poor states such as Assam and Uttar Pradesh, maternal mortality was 328 and 293, respectively. (In the two most prosperous states - Kerala and Tamil Nadu-these figures were 66 and 90.) The average Indian maternal mortality rate is almost twice the UN target of 103 maternal deaths per 100 ths. the goal of achieving this goal worldwide by 2015.

CLEAN WATER SHORTAGE A THREAT TO THE NATION'S HEALTH

All these negative factors, of course, are related both to the lack of clean drinking water, and to the general state of sanitation and hygiene, which requires clean water.

In recent years, the Indian public has been paying more and more attention to the intolerable state of unsanitary conditions associated with water scarcity. Numerous articles are published on this topic, which openly and bluntly discuss the lack of toilets and the consequences of this. Attention is drawn to the fact that in poor rural areas, 89% of primary schools do not have toilets, and 60% were not supplied with water. According to some estimates, the consequences of lack of toilets, such as diseases and deaths, cost the budget 2.4 trillion rupees (more than $39.3 billion), which is 6.4% of the country's GDP. It is noted that even Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka are better off than India in terms of sanitation.⁶

Without the work of the bhangi cleaners, The Hindu newspaper wrote, India would have been drowned in mud altogether, since modern sewage and modern toilets are available only to a relatively small part of the population. ⁷

The fact is that, according to tradition, certain lower castes of cleaners continue to work in India, which were assigned hereditary rights to sewage works. Today they number more than 1 million people. These hereditary rights provided for the territorial distribution of cleaners for servicing the homes of high-caste Hindus. Municipal authorities made decisions that stipulated that the work of sewage cleaners was carried out on the basis of private contracts, which in some parts of the country did not have deadlines and were inherited, figuratively speaking, along with the stigma of untouchability.

In 1993, the Government of India passed a law prohibiting manual labor of sewage cleaners and the construction of" dry", i.e. without modern sewerage, toilets and their maintenance. But this did not solve the problem, and it was even more aggravated, especially in connection with the large influx of rural population to the cities.

The problem of eliminating "dry toilets" and manual cleaning of sewage has a long history. Back in 1901, Mahatma Gandhi attracted public attention to it. After independence (1947), the authorities did not ignore the problem of unsanitary conditions. But the results remained very modest.

Thus, the government headed by Manmohan Singh (2004-2014) tried to calculate the total number of toilet cleaners in the country and allocated 350 million rupees for this purpose. However, a year later it turned out that nothing had been done. As a result, it was announced that the program was closed, because "it was not possible to find a suitable technical agency to carry out this work"⁸. In the 2011/2012 financial year, the government allocated 1 billion rubles. Rs. for the elimination of manual cleaning of sewage and rehabilitation of cleaners, but these funds remained unspent.

In 2012, the Supreme Court of India ordered the central government and state authorities to provide all public schools with basic infrastructure, including drinking water and separate men's and women's toilets, for 6 months. Back in 2011, a similar court decision noted that one of the reasons for dropping out schoolgirls is the lack of women's toilets.⁹

In an address to both houses of Parliament in March 2012, the then President of India, Pratibha Patil, announced that the Government would introduce a new bill in Parliament to eliminate manual sewage collection and eliminate unsanitary conditions. At the same time, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced that manual cleaning of sewage will be eliminated within six months. However, until the end of 2012, the promised bill was not submitted to Parliament for consideration. And the minister responsible for sanitation promised that the problem of modern sewerage and toilets will be solved only by ^2017.10

With all this in mind, India's Frontline magazine asked: "Can we believe that this shameful practice will be put to an end if it has not been done in the country's 65 years of independence? To do away with manual cleaning of sewage, you should first get rid of the caste filter.

consciousness. Everything will change only when Indians understand that no one is doomed to clean up after others forever. " ¹¹

POLITICIANS REMEMBERED WATER SUPPLY AND UNSANITARY CONDITIONS

The actual problems of water supply and sanitation, in fact, for the first time in many years, were loudly voiced at the parliamentary elections that ended in May 2014. This, in particular, was reflected in the election speeches of the leaders of the two main political opponents - the Indian National Congress (INC) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The BJP has launched a direct attack on INC Vice President Rahul Gandhi, who was a member of Parliament for 10 years from the Amethi constituency in Uttar Pradesh. A video prepared on the instructions of the BJP leadership stated that in the 37 years during which members of the Nehru-Gandhi family were elected to Parliament from this constituency, there were no noticeable changes in improving the social structure in Amethi. This included water, sanitation and energy supply issues that determine the quality of people's lives.

Directly blaming the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty and Rahul in particular, the BJP stressed that in the Amethi district, which is about 2 million people far from the most disadvantaged of the 90 parliamentary constituencies from Uttar Pradesh, 60% of homes did not have electricity, 80% of homes did not have toilets. Moreover, 44% of schools did not have toilets for girls, which limited their ability to attend school. In fact, this situation in Amethi was nothing more than part of the overall picture of the development of basic household infrastructure in Uttar Pradesh and, in general, in India.

NEW ATTEMPTS AT WATER PURIFICATION

It would be extremely wrong to say that the Indians do not understand the significance of this problem. The current Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, sees it as one of the priority issues of his government. He said that the construction of toilets is among the more important tasks than the creation of new temples. His Government has set a goal to end the practice of outdoor defecation by 2019 , the 150th anniversary of the birth of Mahatma Gandhi, who has attached great importance to addressing the problem and even claimed that sanitation is more important than independence.¹²

As noted above, the scale of this problem and its significance are important not only for the health of the nation, although this in itself is the most important factor, but also for the entire development of the country. Experts write that bacteria and worms spread dangerous diseases that prevent the body from absorbing food. This is reflected in the fact that, despite the growth of economic prosperity, the development of children in India is slow.

According to UNICEF, almost half of children in India are not getting enough nutrition. A huge number of such children die from preventable diseases. This is especially common in the north of India, where defecation in the open air is most often practiced. During the monsoon, underground water spreads many dangerous diseases. Due to massive diarrhea, many Indians have a low body weight, even compared to people in poorer countries who get fewer calories, such as in Africa. Underfed Indian mothers give birth to weak children who are susceptible to various diseases.

One of the reasons for maintaining this order of things is an ancient cultural tradition. The Laws of Manu, a nearly 2,000-year-old sacred text, encourages defecation outside the home to avoid ritual desecration. The caste division of society, which has not yet disappeared from the public consciousness, also contributes to the fact that only Dalits should clean up human impurities.¹³

A recent survey of 23,000 Indians in northern India found that in more than 40% of households that have toilets, at least one family member prefers to "liberate" in the open air. Another study noted that many respondents viewed the practice positively as "healthier and more social." At the same time, toilets, especially public ones, were considered as desecrating (from the caste point of view). Many men believed that toilets should only be used by women, the disabled, and the elderly.¹⁴ Overcoming such perceptions is not an easy task, especially since this problem is considered very delicate. Hence the difficulty in conducting mass campaigns to spread in the public consciousness the need to get rid of these harmful unsanitary customs and habits. Of course, economic measures aimed at creating the appropriate infrastructure are also required.

Population growth, especially in urban areas, and the associated further increase in demand for water consumption, will continue to pose major challenges in providing water to Indians if effective long-term measures are not taken in this area.

¹ The Hindu. 17.10.2013.

^{Sethuraman Somya.} 2 Nation in a State: The story of missing toilets // The Hindu. 27.04.2012; Spears Dean. The long and short of open defecation // The Hindu. 14.03.2013.

³ India 2011. A Reference Annual. New Delhi. Publication Division. Government of India. 2011, p. 507-508.

^{Bumiller Elisabeth.} 4 May you be the mother of a hundred sons. A journey among the women of India. New York, Random House. 1991, p. 22.

⁵ India 2011. A Reference Annual.., p. 518.

⁶ The Hindu. 29.09.2011.

⁷ The Hindu. 10.10.2012.

⁸ The Hindu. 21.11.2012.

^{Bakhand K.} 9 India accounts for 58 per cent of those practicing open defecation globally // The Hindu. 29.09.2011.

¹⁰ Unfinished Journey // The Economist. 24.03.2012.

¹¹ Editorials. Toilets can be Temples // Frontline. 20.10.2012.

¹² Sanitation in India. The final frontier // The Economist. 19.07.2014, p. 53.

¹³ Ibidem.

¹⁴ Ibid., p. 54.

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