Is the washroom clean?
Why public washrooms in India are not clean
Finding a clean public washroom in India is not easy.
But why?
Why are most public washrooms in India so dirty that they are unusable? The short answer is that Indians believe lies. And when we have wrong beliefs, it impacts both our lives and the world around us.
What are the lies that we are believing? There are two specific lies connected to notions of purity. We believe that
The external world affects our internal purity, and
Impurity is contagious.
Lies that enslave us
Indian worldview, especially as seen in the Dharmasastra, sees people, tasks and spaces as pure or impure. In this worldview, bodily functions (such as stool, urine, blood, or even death) are considered unclean. Impurity is contagious. So a person becomes unclean in their internal being through contact with these elements. The way a person regains a state of cleanliness is through the daily ritual bath.
Consider the fact that most Indians take a bath after attending a funeral. The reason is that Indian thought views impurity as contagious. It sees death and dead bodies as unclean, and therefore proximity to, or contact with a corpse could contaminate one's state of purity. And since external impurity affects internal impurity, I become an impure person through contact with impure elements.
Have you noticed that in traditional Indian houses, the toilet is not inside the house or connected to the house? It is usually a building outside the house.
This is because Indian thought also views spaces as pure or impure. This follows from the idea that impurity is contagious. The toilet is where we go to relieve ourselves. It is a space that is constantly in contact with impure objects. The space is impure. And since impurity is contagious, if it is connected to the house, the house could become impure.
Thus, toilets are considered unclean, or impure.
Now why should one spend a lot of effort and time cleaning a space that is anyway impure, and that will always be impure?
That is how the lies of Indian philosophical thought have resulted in unclean toilets.1
The truth that exposes these lies
The preoccupation with purity is not unique to Indian thought. Most religions are concerned with purity. (Even secular religions like atheism betray an obsession with purity, often seen in terminology such as juice cleanses or digital detoxes.)
This concern for purity points to an ultimate truth — God is pure. If we must approach God, we must likewise be pure.
But the Dharmasastras betray the reality that humans keep constructing gods of our own making. We think that contact with toilets make us impure and unworthy to approach God.
The Bible instead gives us truth. When he was on earth, Jesus confronted the religious leaders of that day and said, "What goes into someone's mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them... the things that come out of a person's mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. For out of the heart come evil thoughts — murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what defile a person."
The Bible exposes the lie that a person can become impure by contact with external impure objects. It is the heart that produces impurity.
If impurity is a matter of the heart, then the entire idea of spaces and people being impure due to contact with our so-called "impure objects" is shown to be a lie.
One can avoid toilets and impure objects, take regular ritual baths, and so on, and yet be completely impure in the heart. At the same time, one could clean toilets for one's vocation and yet be pure in the heart, which is what God cares about.
If this is true, then we are freed to view toilets as worthy of our best efforts. We are enabled to pursue excellence even in toilet cleaning because the work has the same dignity as providing leadership to a country.
When a leader cleaned a toilet
Dr T Norton Sterret was a missionary to India who lived in the Nilgiris. During a Bible study training happening in the campus he owned, the students returned to their rooms during a break to see a strange sight. Dr Sterret and his wife had covered their hands with plastic covers and were manually cleaning the toilets which were clogged up with human excrement.2
This incident profoundly impacted the Indian students who could not fathom the idea of a leader cleaning toilets.
When we truly start believing the Bible, we will truly see cleaning the toilet as having dignity. We will not despise the work or the people who perform such work. We will not despise the place and leave it to its sorry state. Because our own purity would not be at risk, we are freed to pursue excellence in cleaning toilets.
Today, the powerful in our country are enslaved to false beliefs. How many leaders do we see who personally ensure our toilets are cleaned? For that matter, how many leaders clean the toilets at their own homes?
If we need clean toilets, ultimately, we need the truth of the Bible to set the people of our country free.
Daily Newsings
Hey everyone,
Before we end, a quick note. Being Indian and Christian seeks to help followers of Jesus in India live faithfully in our dual citizenship — as citizens of the kingdom of heaven, and as citizens of India.
Living faithfully as citizens of India means being concerned for what happens in India. But reading or watching the news can be difficult if you don’t have a habit of consuming it. We often lack the context to know if a Government policy decision is good or bad. We often don’t know how to respond to certain things.
If this is true of you, you might be interested in Daily Newsings. Every weekday, I write a short reflection (which I call musing) on any one piece of news from the newspaper. I am not an expert on many of these issues. But I try to make sense of the news as a Christian who loves the nation.
Email notifications on Daily Newsings have been turned off by default for new and existing subscribers to Being Indian and Christian so that I don’t spam you with an email every day of the week.
But if you would like to receive Daily Newsings in your email inbox, you can change that in your subscription preferences. Or you can click the link below, and turn on notifications for Daily Newsings.
Change subscription preference
If you prefer listening to reading, I also read out the newsing and publish it as a podcast. You can find it on most podcast platforms (Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, etc.)
If you have any doubts, feel free to hit reply to this email or reach out at jeyapaulcaleb@substack.com.
Cheers,
Caleb
These specific lies have also resulted in the injustices of the caste system. I explain the caste connection in a previous article: https://jeyapaulcaleb.substack.com/p/we-all-want-purity
This incident is recounted in the biography of the Sterrets, titled "Tale of a Legend."
This is an important topic, but the essay at its outset overlooks overcrowding, socio-cultural factors, caste legacy, infrastructure/maintenance issues, poor design/accessibility, and civic sense/public etiquette and moves from the complexity of an Indian issue to solely focus on purity.
Using only the - white missionaries cleaning toilets- example reinforces the "White Christian saviour" cliche, which is overused by many Indian Christians. This particular example perpetuates a general Indian Christian outlook that favours colonialism, western imperialism and hinders the Indian Christian community from addressing post-colonial challenges.
We also have many examples of Indian social reformers: Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar from the 1800s to Bindeshwar Pathak who amongst other things founded the Toilet Museum in Delhi (he recently passed away), and Bezwada Wilson who was conferred the Ramon Magsaysay Award for his work in Manual scavenging.
The essay is philosophical. I wish it was more practical. Its focus on purity/pollution directly blames caste and Hinduism as the only issues in this challenge. It highlights that caste hierarchy is an issue in the church and in Christian leadership. Reading the blog title and summary, I am eager to read more about the practical role of bible-believing, church going, Indian Christians in our society who are viewed as agents of the west.
By glorifying westerners and downplaying Indian roles, your example illustrates a recurring pattern. It is a western and colonial framework that obstructs a postcolonial exploration of what it means to be Indian and Christian.