National Geographic USA - August 2017

A PLACE TO GO 119

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washing to share with their families.

yield. After Tiwari’s presentation I ask a village
elder, a non-Dalit, what he’d do after his pit was
full. “It will be like mud, so we’ll have no prob-
lem emptying it ourselves,” he says. I want to
believe him. But many others, in supposedly
ODF villages, have told me they’ll call a Dalit.
Back in the center of the village, Tiwari re-
minds her audience of the link between feces
and diarrheal illness and calculates that the
village spends tens of thousands of rupees a
year on medicine. “You are enriching the doc-
tors,” she squawks. “Imagine how you could
improve your house or your roads with that
money.” Tiwari appeals to their dignity. She
shames them for spending rupees on mobile

phones, or a thousand kinds of funeral foods,

instead of on toilets.

She tries every argument. Then, after an

hour-long harangue, Tiwari asks, “Should this

change?” “Yes!” the crowd shouts. “Who will end

open defecation?” she screams. A hundred hands

shoot skyward. j