India's recently elected Prime Minister, Narendra Singh Modi, deviated from the usual silly speech patterns into which a majority of Indian Premiers fall. During his maiden Independence Day address to the Nation, Modi focussed on local problems.
India is plagued by a toilet problem; there are very few clean, usable, public toilets available for ordinary people in this nation. Many houses in villages and urban areas don't have proper toilet facilities either. The scarcity of toilets forces people to defecate and piss here, there, everywhere, thus creating monuments of health hazard.
The lack of toilets poses special problems for girls and women in India. Often times women are forced to seek out dark, empty, corners, away from populated areas, to relieve themselves without sacrificing on shame. In the process, they endanger themselves gravely, as is evidenced by the recent gang rape and murder of two little girls in Uttar Pradesh. They had gone out into a field to pee and never came back.
So, when Modi pledged to fill every public school in India with a separate toilet for girls by August 2015, he displayed a commodious intent, a big-heartedness by caring for the little people (figuratively speaking, India is a nation where the majority are "little" with resources and power of Lilliputian proportions, but women are littler by virtue of their gender).
Heeding his call for toilet-investment, corporations like Tata Consultancy, donated money.
May the chrome-yellow revolution for the girls of India begin.
No comments :
Post a Comment