A PLACE TO GO 105deeper. “Fifteen feet would have been better,” he
says. Pit latrines have a huge drawback, you see:
They fill up. And rather than empty a pit with a
shovel or hire a pump truck—or easier still, dig a
new latrine, which is standard procedure in oth-
er nations—rural Indians, especially in northern
India, often opt to build no latrine at all.
Three years ago RICE researchers collected
data on latrine use by more than 22,000 rural
Indians. The team discovered that 40 percent of
households with toilets had at least one member
who continued to defecate outdoors; that people
with government-funded toilets were twice as
likely to defecate in the open as those who built
their own; and that families without any toilet
at all said they couldn’t aford to build the type
they’d actually use. RICE found that privately
constructed pit latrines were four to five times
larger than the 50 cubic feet recommended by
the World Health Organization. “That’s the size
used all over the world,” Srivastav says, “and a
family of six won’t fill it for five years.” Indians’
ideal pit latrine was larger still: up to 1,000 cubic
feet—larger than many Indians’ living space.
Why this obsession with size? “A smaller soak
pit will fill up in five months,” Jagdish explains,
erroneously. “Then I’d have to call a Dalit”—a
low-caste person—“to empty it.”
“Couldn’t you do this on your own?” Srivastav
asks. Jagdish shakes his head.
“There would be objections from the commu-
nity,” he says. “You’d be ostracized for cleaning
your own house.”
That pronouncement points to an answer to
the great puzzle of Indian sanitation. Why are
India’s open-defecation rates so much higher
than those in other developing nations, when
India is richer, has higher literacy rates, and has
more access to water? What sets India apart, at
least according to RICE, are rural Indians’ beliefs
about purity, pollution, and caste.
For thousands of years Dalits—formerly
known as Untouchables—have been forbidden
from drinking at the same wells, worshipping at
the same temples, or even wearing shoes in the
presence of upper castes. Modern laws against
such discrimination are rarely enforced, and
poverty and violence still compel Dalits to do
the nation’s dirty work. They clear carcasses
from roads, placentas from birthing rooms, and
human waste from pits and open sewers. Mean-
while higher caste Indians retain their status and
supposed superiority in part by avoiding any
association with such degrading labors.
In recent years, however, Dalits struggling
for equality have begun to shun the sorts of jobs
historically used to justify their oppression. And
so the cost of emptying a pit latrine has risen as
demand for the service has outstripped the sup-
ply of willing workers. Given this fraught social
and economic landscape, it’s no wonder that
some rural Indians save enough money to build