Praveen Kishore Development | Public Policy | Economics | Governance

Public Health and Hygiene with the Psyche of Purity and Pollution in Indian Society

10 Mar 2019 0 comment(s) Opinion Pieces

1. Introduction

The notion, the idea and the conception of purity and pollution is one of the bedrocks of Indian thinking and Indian psyche. It has been conceptualized and formulated thousand of years back and has been cemented over the centuries in such a manner that even now, it is almost impossible for most of Indians to think, formulate and analyse his or her worldview without placing objects, ideas and concepts in the framework of purity and pollution. And this notion of purity and pollution has nothing to do with scientific ideas of cleanliness, hygiene and health, though it is not uncommon to find educated people trying to justify their cultural ideas of purity and pollution and activities generated out of this as being based on scientific and modern standards.

Of course, caste system is the most potent example of application of this idea of purity and pollution whereby a hierarchy of work, livelihood and existence has been erected cementing it with caste-endogamy, blood linage and caste based occupational specialization. This all has made caste a brilliantly exploitative social structure, a humanly designed stratified hierarchy which has weathered centuries of changes. Although analysis of the Indian caste system is not the primary purpose of my essay here, it may not be possible to completely avoid references to it.

What is perhaps more remarkable is the extent to which such notions have pervaded and seeped the daily activity, daily action and interaction of Indian people, of all classes and caste, of every region (and even religion) of India. In many cases, people who are generally against the concept of caste and other exploitative structure, processes and institutions of Indian society are themselves not aware of their own blind spots, and are thus unknowingly following, promoting and peddling such unscientific, primitive notions of purity and pollution in different wakes of daily life, interaction and profession. It should also be noted that this purity and pollution is a widespread notion, cutting across caste lines. So, it is quite natural to have people from the lowest caste, who have historically been exploited and bore the brunt of oppressive caste system, also behaving and acting in manners in their daily lives which are in line with such unscientific and mythical notions of purity and pollution.

2. Cleaning One’s Bottom

Indian culture’s obsession with ‘notional’ purity and pollution can be best illustrated through how Indians perceive, act and perform various action related to going to toilet (most importantly defecating but also bathing, washing etc).

The first thing to note about Indian process is the use of hand to clean the bottom, particularly the touch which has to be made with excreta by the fingers of the hand and then cleaning of that hand/fingers subsequently. At one level, this highlights the particular emphasis given in Indian psyche to the removal of impure substance from the body by cleaning the parts (anal orifice) thoroughly with water – the importance of water is not only for cleaning somethings, but also for purifying things. But then the question arises – why to use fingers to clean the bottom and touch the excreta. Are there other better methods? This point can be made salient by comparing how the bottom is cleaned after defecation in western cultures. For a European or American, the use of hand and direct touch to clean the bottom is a strict no-no. In fact, in western psyche, the notion of cleanliness incorporates the notion that the dirty or unhygienic things should not be touched directly by hand/body and therefore, they use napkins or papers or clothes for cleaning it. For a western observer, thus, the Indian insistence of cleaning the bottom using hand is outrageous – how can the consciousness of cleanliness allows Indians to touch the excreta with their bare fingers?

However, for an Indian mind, the use of napkins to clean the bottom is insufficient, to say the least, as it does not and cannot clean properly. Especially, for Indians, cleaning is not complete in absence of water. In many senses, the Indian psyche does not make a very clear distinction between the meanings of ‘cleaning’ (in a hygienic and clinical sense) and ‘purifying’ (in a ritual and religious sense). So, for an Indian, for cleaning his bottom post-defecation, water is to be used, and then to further make the cleaning complete, fingers/hand have also to be used. Further, in this process, the hand has become dirty (and impure too) by touching the excreta and bottom, and therefore, it also needs to be cleaned (and purified). That is the logic of washing the hand (with soap or other cleaning agents) after cleaning the bottom. But, the scientific notion of health and hygiene will also require the hand to be washed with soap after it has come in contact with faeces. So, what is different (or mythical) about Indian system and logic?

For that, we need to ask some questions. First, why do Indians use separate hands, i.e., left hand for washing the bottom, and right hand for all other work? In other words, if the hand/finger which touches the excreta is to be washed subsequently to make it clean, why then insist on using a separate hand for washing the bottom? The natural and logical answers seem to suggest that there is a ‘notion’ of ‘pollution’ attached with touching the faeces which cannot be cleaned fully even by washing (using soap, other cleaning agents and water) the hands. That is, the fingers which touche excreta get ritually polluted and it is not possible (or very difficult) to ‘purify’ them by merely washing and using soap. Therefore, it is required that altogether another hand/finger is used for cleaning the bottom so that we have separated the polluting hand/fingers from the pure hand and fingers. Secondly, why do Indians not settle happily to accept the western notion of not at all touching the excreta and using paper/cloth to clean/wipe their bottom? This again cannot be done because, bottom also needs to be cleaned (purified) and act of wiping using cloth/paper is not equivalent to using water and fingers to clean one’s bottom after defecation. Therefore, the insistence on using the left hand. The modern scientific notion of hygiene and cleanliness is not applicable here though many people generally explain this use of left-hand on the ground that it is always better to be safer using another hand altogether to reduce the risk of bacterial and other infection which might persist if we are not very careful in washing our hand after bottom cleaning very thoroughly. But this logic misses the point of using paper/cloth, which is even better than using any hand/finger at all from hygiene and health point of view. Therefore, the psyche underlying this almost universally prevalent practice among Indians is the deeper notion of ‘purity and pollution’ being carried for centuries without much thought and questioning.

Further, many of us who are from urban middle class would be aware of the recent development and use of water jet/nozzle in toilets which are used to clean our bottoms now. This is a unique Indian invention. In many senses, it solves the problem of cleaning bottom with water and also not touching it with hand in the process, thereby leaving the hands clean (and pure). So, as I understand, if one is using the water jet to clean his bottom, he need not use his fingers, as that work is being done by water force coming out of nozzle. But is it the case? I suspect that there are a good number of cases where people are not satisfied with the water force and would still like to use fingers/hand to (thoroughly) clean the bottom (orifice). To examine it further, we need behavioral data on the manner in which this new invention is actually being used.

3. Toilet Training in Indian Culture and Psyche

Let me make these arguments even more salient by extending the present example further.

It can be done by examining the role and function of soap as a cleaning agent and the processes through which the Indian mind organizes the cleaning acts subsequent to defecation. So, again, if we peep into the bathroom of most Indian - middle class and upper middle class, even poor households, both in urban and rural areas - one striking thing to be noticed would be existence of separate soaps, one for bathing and another for cleaning the fingers/hand post bottom-cleaning. Thus, there is a separate soap which has to be used for washing the dirty polluted hand post bottom cleaning, and there is another soap to be used for bathing. Why this? A soap is a soap – it is a cleaning agent! Why should we have two separate soaps for these two acts – which are actually nothing more than mere acts of washing and cleaning. The cleaning agent (soap) can perform its function on our body during bath, and the same soap can again perform its function on our hands post bottom-washing. And in this process, any thought or notion that the soap itself gets dirty, i.e., the cleaning agent becomes unclean in the process of cleaning, is absurd. But that is exactly how the Indian mind perceives this process. Thus, the reason for having separate soap is to be found in the notion of cleaning agent itself getting polluted/uncleaned in the process of cleaning. This is precisely the notion of ‘purity and pollution’ wherein the soap is imputed with impurity by the touch of notionally impure hand/fingers resulting from cleaning bottom. And due to this reason, that impure soap cannot be used for cleaning our body while taking bath (which, to add further, has in itself some ritual importance too). What is crucial to identify here is the extension of the idea of ‘purity and pollution’ to the ‘inanimate cleaning agent’ itself.

But how many of us have found it strange, or for that matter, how many of us have even thought about this issue in this analytical manner? Is it not illogical and unscientific to say that a soap itself looses its capacity to clean something if it comes into contact with that dirty thing (hand), and therefore, it cannot be used to clean something else (our body during bath)? Notion of purity and pollution gets more confounding and contradictory if we further consider that the same impure soap can be used to clean another dirty hand again and many times so. In this whole purity and pollution game, the soap itself becomes polluted somehow. And this pollution of a cleaning agent cannot be removed out of that agent, it is permanent and eternal, like the pollution attached to the caste of people, which is based on birth and is permanent and eternal!

Further, the act of washing hand involves both the hands, and thus the logic of using left hand to wash one’s bottom loses its rational and logic as the left hand transfers its pollution and impurity to right hand when it comes into contact with right hand during the washing process itself. Thus how come the right hand has remained immune from being polluted by touch? Or am I mistaken? Are there people, families and communities who are taught and trained to wash their left hand without the use of right hand? So, in sum, this examination shows that the notion of purity and pollution operating on the process of washing one’s bottom using ones left hand, cleaning one’s hand with separate soap etc, is itself confounded and is not the application of scientific ideas of hygiene, cleanliness and healthy practices.

Furthermore, there is the question of why we wash hands with soap when we are not washing the bottom with soap? Isn't it better from a purely cleanliness perspective to wash our bottom also with soap rather than only using water? In this sense, the western practices should also be questioned as to why they prefer to use tissue/napkin which, though allows them to avoid direct touch with excreta/bottom, still leave something to be desired in terms of hygiene and cleanliness.

This all is nothing but the one of the most telling example of notions of ‘purity and pollution’ based on cultural, mythical and religious principles rather than application of scientific notion of hygiene and cleanliness. And let me point out, in many senses, the western practices are also not immune to it. But most of us would fail to realize this. In fact, I have often been branded as stubborn, needlessly argumentative, nit-picker and illogical when these ideas where put forward and people were confronted with and asked to respond.

Nevertheless, I am not yet finished with my arguments!

4. Post-Toilet Processes and Limits of Hygiene

How and when to wear pants/trousers after the act of defecating also assumes importance in many Indian households. And let me analyse this too! So, the question is: what is to be done immediately after cleaning one’s bottom? Since the process of cleaning the bottom has polluted the hand, should the same hand be used for wearing the pants or should the hand first be washed before using it to touch/wear the pant? This question might seem quaint or even ridiculous to many, but it is important for our analysis, as I show below. Thus, for most of us who have always used a bathroom/toilet which also has a basin/hand washing facility, this question or dilemma in the present form might never has arisen. But, if we consider situation where the toilet does not have the hand washing facility, this is a question which need pondering. Especially in rural, semi-urban or not-so-well off households, it is common to have washbasin/sink/hand-pump (and soap) outside the toilet. And in all such cases, there is no other option than to first wear the pants after finishing off with defecation and washing the bottom, then come out of the bathroom and then finally wash the hands. Similarly, in most common/community toilets (like Sulabh Sauchalaya), or pay toilets at public places, this would be the case. But what about the cases where options exist? What do we generally do? What should we do? Do many of us think in terms of what I am pointing out here? Or do we act in a certain manner unknowingly or without even thinking what we are doing? Have certain habits been inculcated into our psyche since childhood by our family/parents/community? Such questions are relevant and need to be asked. For knowing a general pattern in terms of what people ‘actually’ do in toilets with wash basin, what their behavioral responses are, perhaps an empirical data collection needs to be done to throw more light. But my primary focus here is not in knowing the regional, social, community and class (and caste too) wide variations in these practices, though in itself, it would be an interesting and insightful study. My purpose can be served by citing examples, and therefore, let me cite two examples.

In fact, I have come to realize the salience of this question when I faced different types of toilets over many years of my life, especially those in houses in rural area . In one of the villages, being a rather prosperous village of Bihar, there was no government provided piped water supply (as is the case for most villages in Bihar). There was a hand-pump in the closed courtyard at the back of the house, one corner of which had this small toilet hardly measuring 3x3 feet, and being barely 6 feet in height (it was an Indian style toilet where you squat, not sit - often called latrine). And this was only a toilet, bathroom for taking bath was at another corner. There was a small water tank at the roof of the house, an electric motor and water pump, and thus the house had private piped water supply too, including in the toilet and bathroom. What was interesting and striking for me was the soap which was kept in that small toilet, so that one can wash his hands (after cleaning his bottom post-defecation) before coming out of the toilet, thereby making it possible to wash hands before one wears/touch pants. Thus, the placement of soap in that tiny toilet, where one can hardly stand erect, was for the express purpose of avoiding touching of cloth before one has washed his hand. I could realize this only after some thought. On the contrary, another prosperous household in another village (in Bihar again) did not have a soap in its small toilet (here too, there was a private piped water supply in toilets and bathrooms, and an Indian style commode) and thus people were expected to wash their hand after coming out of the toilet (obviously thus, wearing their pant post-defecation using those polluted hands).

My purpose in going to such details is just to raise the issue and prompt us to think through the process and habits which we follow, and analyse whether these are based on some scientific, logical reasons of cleanliness and hygiene or whether such steps which might seem to be based on scientific reasons are actually based only on ‘notions’ of purity and pollution existing in our minds.

One thing also needs to be noted. The two examples cited above are from two household belonging to two castes, one forward caste another backward caste. Most of us can rightly guess that the household having soap in the tiny toilet belonged to the forward caste. On the basis of this example, it may be tempting to generalize that higher caste groups are more particular and more prone towards observing such notional acts of purity and pollution. Though I suspect this to be true, I do not want to claim this on the basis of just two examples as above. Generalization need larger sample and evidences and therefore, I need to resist this generalization, though the observation above about caste status and ritual observances, most probably is correct.

Obviously, the above examples are taken from well to do middle class (and middle and upper caste) social setting, though they are from rural areas. Obviously, such finicky issues do not arise in all those cases where people defecate in the open. And that proportion is a very large one in our country (more than 50% of all Indians defecate in open). In cases of open defecation, or in cases of public toilets the question of washing hands before wearing pants, or the question of transmission of pollution form excreta-stained hands to clothes/pants does not arise as there is no option available in all such cases whereby hands could be washed with soap before wearing pants. Therefore, in this sense too, such questions can be said to be an example of fixation of the middle class' (and perhaps upper caste's) mind with notional purity and pollution.

But yes, it can be argued that, from a purely hygiene and cleanliness perspective, at the limit, washing hands with soap before those hands touch pants/cloth is better than touching cloths for wearing pants first and then washing hands with soap. Or, in other words, the marginal benefits of washing hands first before wearing pants is positive, howsoever small that positive benefit might be. This argument seems correct. But the more relevant question is the value of that marginal benefit in terms of better hygiene and at what cost that benefit is sought to be achieved. In terms of public health and hygiene practices and policies, when there are huge issues of open defecation, to which I will come now, the obsession of Indian middle class with such abstract notions characterizes the salient irrational and mythical reasons behind this. It also highlights a skewed emphasis on extreme level of notional hygiene without regard to one’s environment and surroundings, where many other things and persons to which one is coming in contact with, or trying to avoid contact from, may be much dirtier and unhygienic or cleaner and hygienic respectively. An example is the fixation of Indian mind with cleaning the private space combining it with utter disregard for cleanliness of public spaces. Its manifestation is everywhere for us to see, the most potent one being when we throw trash on the road and footpath, content that the dirt and pollutant has been out of our home (private space).

5. Toilets, Hygiene and Public Health Policy

Social and community wide notions of purity and pollution are not something purely individual, as pointed above, which can be left on its own for individuals to decide. Hygiene and health are public goods with large externalities. It is often much more important than we think, and certainly needs government and policy intervention due to its public goods nature.

What is certain is that public health and hygiene have significant effect not only on family but also on social, political and community wide discourse and attitudes. This can ensure that a particular policy or program is finally rendered ineffective or is failed because such deeper social notion and prejudices were not thought over carefully while planning an intervention. A very telling example is the difficulty being faced by Swachchh Bharat mission in recent years, and same difficulties faced by its predecessor programs earlier, for constructing toilets in households as well as ensuring that people use those toilets too.

One of the crucial factors which has adversely impacted the implementation of this policy and the objective of making Indian countryside open-defecation free is again the notion of purity and pollution. Places like toilets due to their functional use are by nature considered polluting and impure in Indian social structure, special understanding and built environment. In ancient times, when perhaps there were no toilets (except for few people) and open defecation was the norm for most people, it was to be performed away from the home. Excreta being a polluting substance, must be discharged as far away from the home as possible. In case of elites/kings, if they were not goings to excrete outside their home/palaces, their excreta was to be be transported (most often by people of the lowest caste) far outside the home. And therefore, in Indian psyche, toilet is a place which should not be situated within the house, it should be outside the house, and if possible, as far away as possible. That is one of the reason why traditionally, (rural) Indians used to (and still do) defecate in the open-fields, away from home. Therefore, in terms of policy, it has been easier to convince people that they should use toilets instead of going into open-fields, but has proved more difficult to convince them that the toilets can be situated within the house. Indians would prefer to excrete away from home - whether in a toilet or in open field is perhaps not that important. Any observant eyes would be able to find supporting evidence of this on a tour to rural area. One can notice the newly constructed small toilets (promoted and subsidized by government) outside the house, separate, as stand-alone structure in the form of a walled column of 3x3 foot with a tin/metal/wooden door. Thus, these toilets are always preferred to be placed well-outside the household. However, despite being constructed outside the house, many rural Indians are still not keen on using it. This has again to do with notions of purity and pollution, like notions of touch, smell, feeling that faeces remains within close distance of home (most of rural toilets are pit-toilets), availability of water inside and notion of cleaning, (and sometimes the sadistic attraction of excreting in someone else’s filed!). In case of women, coming out of home to enter toilet in public view is something they are mostly ashamed of. Compare it with the practice when they go for open defecation as a group of women in dark (either before sunrise or after sunset).  A recent book titled 'Where India Goes' takes a deeper look at the rural sanitation and toilet practices and rightly identifies the notion of purity and pollution and its various manifestations, mostly importantly the caste system, as the most important obstacle facing the sanitation reforms in rural India (Coffey, Spears 2018). The focus of the book is on rural India and how the entrenched notions of caste based purity and pollution has played havoc with improving sanitation and health of rural India. In many senses, what I am trying to argue here is the fact that the notion of purity and pollution (and therefore, caste too) is still entrenched in urban and middle class India too. It is not different from rural India in terms of practicing and propagating ancient and unscientific notions of purity and pollution. In light of all this, another interesting area of inquiry would be as to how middle and upper class urban Indian has come to accept the notion of ‘attached toilets’ with bedrooms in urban flats/homes, and the connected contradiction of continuing with other notions of purity and pollution. I guess, the use of flush-toilets (instead of pit-toilets being constructed in villages), which takes away the excreta and thus removes it away from the home, has an important part to play in the psyche as it makes the urban Indian to think and fell that the polluting substance has been removed from the home.

On closer examination, in case of open defecation, the notional logic of purity of washing, use of hand, touch of cloths, removal of feces and its distance from home etc, all gets confounded. A person defecating in open does not have the liberty of washing his hands with soap before he touches his pants. But certainly, he should be washing his hands with soap as a hygienic act. And here are the actual questions of hygiene and health form public policy perspective. There are large numbers of instances where people have not been used to washing hands with soap after returning from open defecation. That clearly is a public health hazard. In older times, there were hardly any soaps, but there were other materials which were used as cleaning agents, most popular being clay/soil. But now, availability and affordability of soap for most Indians is hardly an issue. Therefore, the necessity of realizing the importance of and inculcating the practice of washing one’s hand with soap after cleaning his bottom should be an important public health policy goal. But should it be mixed with the question of not touching one’s pants before one has washed its hands? The answer to this should depend on scientifically determined facts of dirtiness, cleanliness, hygiene and clinical issues, not on the notion of purity and pollution existing in peoples psyche. And then on the marginal benefits and its limits which such habits bring to the public and society at large. What is more, I am aware of cases where people going for open defecation have not even used water to wash their bottoms, but used dirt, clay pebbles etc. to wipe/dry their bottoms. Clearly, this is unhygienic and such are the questions of public health policy which needs policy maker’s urgent attention. All this certainly points to the fact that mere focus on ‘constructing’ toilets in rural India was not and is not the solution. The change has to be brought in cultural and psychic sphere - including the reform of caste based social structure - which is much more difficult. Furthermore, there would be wide variation in practices depending upon which area/region/state of India one is considering and factors like social structure, economic development, public awareness, social norms and relations etc. will affect the public health and hygiene discourse of a region, and all of this must come into play in any contextual policy design and implementation program. Let me not go further into the public health issues here and turn to some other social practices over-determined by notions of purity and pollution.

6. Going Beyond Bottom Cleaning

To emphasize further the unscientific nature of notions of purity, pollution and dirtiness occupying Indian mind, and how it has affected Indian psyche, I will extend the scope of examples to other routine daily activities as well as social interactions of Indians.

Let me continue in the bathroom for some more examples! One quite pertinent and interesting to me is the act of puking or vomiting and its comparisons from how and where it is done in western cultures. I am sure many of us would have seen English movies and have come across scenes where actors have been shown to be vomiting. What I want to point out here is the fact they vomit in the commode, not in wash basin or sink. That is, in west, people vomit in the commode where they also excrete and pass urine. In India, that would be a strict no-no. Indian middle class would vomit in the basin or sink, never in the commode. This contrast again points towards the notion and psyche I am analyzing. For western mind, dirty or polluted or unhygienic materials can come out not only from one’s anal orifice or genital organs but also from mouth (and any other bodily orifices), and therefore, they all are treated similarly. Thus, whether it is vomiting or excreta or urine, the acts of discharging these are similar and can be and usually are emptied in the same pot (i.e., commode). On the other hand, for Indian psyche, deeply ingrained with notional purity and pollution, anything coming out of anus and genital organs are impure and polluting substances, and these orifices are fundamentally and qualitatively different from other bodily orifices, including mouth, or even nose. Therefore, anything coming out of mouth is not polluting and impure like faeces or urine (it may be dirty in a normal sense, which can easily be cleaned), and therefore, it should not be emptied in a place where faeces or urine is emptied. What is more, the commode, by its function of being holder or acceptor of faeces and urine, has itself become impure and polluted, and taking mouth or head even near it is not at all acceptable, and should be scrupulously avoided. Even the touch of commode by hand is not considered acceptable because it is a polluted substance and can spread that pollution and impurity by touch. I need not remind here that apropos, in the mind of Indians, the people who thus handle excreta are the most impure and polluted human beings.

Now, the last illustration from bathroom! How do we take bath? Do we treat different parts of our body differently in term of purity and pollution, especially genitals and anus during the bathing process? There are people who have been taking bath considering these organs (and even armpits) as parts needing separate treatment. They will clean these parts separately first using soap, wash and rinse them with water and then apply soap on the body (excluding these parts). In some cases, perhaps they will wash the soap too after using it on their anuses or genitals, or otherwise perhaps rub the soap on their hands and then use hands to apply soap on those parts, thus keeping the soap safe from being polluted from the touch to these parts. Again, this is an issue which needs further exploration, both in terms of process and actions involved as well as its variations in different social groups, castes, family and household practices and economic status. But despite all the variations which we may encounter, the idea of purity and pollution is again the motivating factor deeply underlying such practices.

7. Shoes and Tables

The idea of perpetually and eternally dirty and polluting ‘things’ which cannot be cleaned by any method extends to large number of objects of our daily use. And such notions have been imputed to these ‘things’ often by drawing parallels from pure and impure ‘bodily parts and organs’.

A potent example is shoe. For and Indian mind, human feet are rather impure and dirty part of the body. Let us recall how we have often been reminded during our childhood that our books should not be touched by feet because books contain (essence of) Goddess Saraswati (goddess of knowledge), and feet, unlike hand, is not a pure and appropriate body part to come into contact with books. Or, we can recollect the famous ‘Purush Sukta’ from Rg-Veda, which describe the birth of different castes from different part of the body of primeval man – Brahmin from Head, Kshatriya from arms and so on, and the lowly Shudra from the feet! Let us remember that the objection towards touching books with feet is not actually due to the reason that feet are generally dirty and may be unhygienic due to this, because touching and handling books with dirty hands are never objected to. So, the real objection is always for touching books with feet which are eternally impure parts. And thus, shoes being something to be worn at feet are impure by implication.

Shoes are also impure and polluting because they have traditionally been made of animal hide/leather, another impure and polluting substance. Leather as a substance has a very low place in purity hierarchy of Indian objects, and any activity and person related to or engaged in leather-work has been placed at the lowest levels in Indian social hierarchy.

To bring the issue of how shoes are considered notionally impure and polluting, I would go beyond the practices of keeping shoes outside the house, or in a particular place in the house, or practices of not entering some particular rooms in the house wearing shoes. All of these examples can be justified on the ground that keeping outdoor shoes/sandals/sleepers confined to one place is a hygienic practice and helps in keeping the home healthy and clean. Therefore, I would pose another question. What about keeping a shoe on a dining table or study table after washing it thoroughly? Are we going to accept it as normal? Will we readily agree to it? Please note that I am not even asking a much more contrasting question about keeping a thoroughly cleaned shoe besides a statue of deity. If a shoe is perfectly cleaned and washed, what is the problem in keeping it on a dining table? In fact, I have argued this example with some people. Even the most progressive people find it unacceptable and inconvenient first, though some of them have finally agreed with my point of view after arguments, but certainly not in the first instance. It is ingrained in our mind that shoe is something dirty which cannot be cleaned by whatever method we deploy, and that is making us uncomfortable and prompting us to react to the proposition that a washed shoe can be placed on a table. In other words, Indian mind and psych assigns a place/position for almost every item and object, and any change of such place/position is violation of rules and hierarchy of purity and pollution.

This thought process and psyche comes from the ‘notion’ (and not fact) of purity and pollution which I am trying to isolate in this analysis. I still remember a striking scene from my early days in Cambridge, USA where I have started living in a Harvard provided apartment. It is usual to have common washing areas in such apartments where some washing and drying machines are installed, and which can be used by residents. There, to my surprise, I saw a student washing his clothes and canvas shoes together, in the same bundle putting all of these in the machine together. That was one of the incidents which made me think and ponder over these issues. Can we Indians even think of washing our shoes and clothe together in the washing machine? Again, someone could argue that Indian roads and public spaces being very dirty and polluted places, shoes are much soiled here, and in USA, shoes hardly gets soiled the way they get in India. But clearly, it is stretching the argument too far. The point is whether we would be willing to wash a relatively unsoiled shoe along with our shirts and pants in the same washing machine? And that readily brings us to the real question and insight.

8. Food, Kitchen and Cooking

Unscientific and illogical notion of purity and pollution extend to our kitchens too, and in no small ways. In fact, food, food habits, cooking medium and fire are crucial elements in Indian and Hindu social, cultural and religious practices, and they affect the daily lives in so many subtle ways that it is often difficult to even discern the hidden sources of many practices, habits and prejudices transmitting through ages.

Without going into much detail, I would just mention about the widespread use of separate utensils for cooking vegetarian and non-vegetarian food across different parts of India. It extends to not only cooking pots but also to pots and plates used for eating non-vegetarian foods. Thus, it is quite common to have separate pots and plates for non-vegetarian foods in Indian households. What is more, it is also possible to find cases where the washing area/sink for non-vegetarian pots and utensils is separate from the area where the vegetarian pots would be cleaned. This fact does not need elaborate and nuanced arguments to highlight the notion of purity and pollution deeply ingrained in such practices. Similarly, the separation of cooking stove/chullah for non-vegetarian and vegetarian food is another example where the pollution of non-vegetarian food is considered transferred abstractly to the cooking medium - fire. Thus, like the examples of soap and other cleaning agents being unable to clean and purify the polluted left hand after bottom washing, the soap in kitchen is also incapable of cleaning the pots and pans used for cooking and eating non-vegetarian food. The pots and pans are ritually polluted by touch with non-vegetarian food and cannot be cleaned by any method whatsoever. Therefore, they have to be separated form other folks of their group – other pots and pans which are purer, cleaner and are used for cooking vegetarian items. And it should be remembered that such discriminatory thinking and practices are widespread across caste groups. It is followed with as much enthusiasm by lower caste groups also, who are otherwise victims of various discrimination on the basis on caste status and hierarchy coming from notions of purity and pollution of human beings.

On the same ground, who can cook food in a kitchen is also an equally important issue. It is especially important in places where the lady of the house (or wife) is not involved in cooking. With urbanization and education, the nature of Indian middle class has changed significantly during past half a century or so. With working wives, it has become imperative that there is a cook in the house. However, who will be hired as a cook is always a important question – and often one of the most important criteria is to have a cook of a desired caste. Or of a caste as high as possible. But alas, it is not always possible to have a higher caste person readily available for employed as a cook. Here, I remember what I found when I joined BHU for my undergraduate degree. And I understand that the similar practices existed at many other residential universities and colleges. The cooks in the common mess were called 'Maharaj', and were of Brahmin caste. The pot and utensils cleaners were not Brahmins, in fact, most of them were lower caste workers, but the cooks were not from lower caste. Again, with time, the practices are changing, but that change is under compulsion, not a willing acceptance of social reform.

I do not have data from a large number of cases, but it can be observed that middle class Indians often prefer a relatively higher caste person as a cook compared to the relative ease with which they hire any (lowest caste) maids for cleaning (jhadoo-pochha-bartan) work. If fact, it is mostly not relevant as to what is the caste of the person/maid when one is hiring a cleaner, or bathroom cleaner. But, if a maid/male is being hired for cooking, it would be desirable to have some knowledge about his or her caste. But again, increasingly in large urban metros, this too is becoming very difficult, as it is often impossible to ascertain caste of unknown maids (who have migrated to the city from distant places) aided by the fact that such people routinely hide or misrepresent their caste. But one thing may be easily observed, we would hardly find the same person doing the toilet cleaning as well as cooking in the same house. It will always be preferred that these are two different persons. In most urban settings (again my observation is limited to north Indian cities, especially Delhi and in Bihar, and also Bangalore, but I assume it to be the case in many other parts of the country too) there is a clear demarcation among the maids/domestic servants about the type/nature of work they are to do – and this is largely based on their caste background. The lowest of the low castes (generally bhangi, dom, musahar etc. in north India) are generally found employed in the most dirtiest and polluting work - all types of cleaning, including bathroom cleaning, waste collection etc.

Thus, these notions of purity, pollution, untouchability and touchability are the underlying psych of Indian mind, readily extended to people by hierarchising them and placing them in hereditary endogamous marriages-based caste groups with unalterable notions of pure and polluted castes. And therefore, caste as a concept will perhaps remain until the aforementioned notions of purity and pollution remains in Indian psyche.

9. Sex and Menstrual Hygiene

Let me now come to some social, sexual hygiene and public health issue which are again intimately intertwined with this notion of purity and pollution, and without which I think this essay would not be complete. Sexual organs, sexual activity and related things are also often considered dirty, polluting, impure, sinful and shameful in a typical middle-class Indian mind. So, it is common to find hardly any sex-education and awareness imparted to kids by their middle-class parents. What is lamentable is the gross neglect of awareness and knowledge about hygiene related to menstrual cycles in women and girls. Again, blood coming out of female genital is considered impure and polluting – the extension of same wrong notion of purity etc. It needs to be noted that blood from other part of the body or sacrificial blood does not carry any such impurity for Indians – but the menstrual blood does! And therefore, this huge public health and hygiene crisis in India, where large number of women in the menstrual age do not know the importance of proper hygiene, feel ashamed to discuss the issues with even their intimate friends and thus suffer irreparably through cycles of avoidable ailments and health problems. Even the well-off, educated and middle-class households have treated these issues with secrecy and any open discussion of such issue is reacted to in a scandalous manner. It has been reported that large number of women do not know or pretend they do not know when they are asked, the word for vagina in their mother tongue! Many of them called their vagina by the description ‘the place from where you pee’! (Kakar and Kakar, 2007). Even well educated women would not know or pretend they do not know the word for their sexual organ in their mother tongue. For many of them, it is more convenient to use its English word - ‘vagina’ rather than its Hindi or other language word (Kakar and Kakar, 2007). This all points towards the taboo, shame and notion of impurity attached with sex related issues. And again, all this is coming from the notion of sexual organs and sexual activities being somehow impure and polluting, something about which there should not be public discussion, a pleasure about which one need to be ashamed of even to accept that it is an enjoying activity, especially with respect to women.

We can also remember form our adolescent days the uncomfortable and often avoiding faces of our parents whenever there was an advertisement of sanitary napkin on TV. Changing the TV channel was often the action taken recourse to, to get rid of this difficult situation. And I understand, many of us who are now parents themselves, still do the same! Similarly, the act of lovemaking is also somehow been degenerated into a shameful, undesirable (or at least a necessary evil needed to make children) and still remains a polluting activity in many educated middle class Indian minds (despite Khajuraho and Kamsutra). Therefore, it is something which should be done and finished quickly and preferably in dark, so that not even the partners see each other, what to talk of any third person or outsider. The psyche is that the lovers should not see each other faces, their bodies and thus do not actually experience the joys and pleasure of sexual act. Why not tell boys and girls about love, making love, and about sexual health, including menstrual health? The same obscurantist and unscientific notion of purity and pollution has to be blamed in large part as the deep underlying cause for this Indian psyche.

10. Concluding with Caste

This notion of purity and pollution is closely intertwined with the exploitative caste system devised in Indian subcontinent centuries ago, where certain lineages/groups were declared pure, and others polluting and dirty. It all perhaps started with identifying, classifying and declaring certain work, profession, activities and items in a stratified hierarchy of better and worse, purer and impurer, polluting and non-polluting. Then this notion was imputed to groups of people engaged in such activities and handling such items. And then soon, to continue and perpetuate the control over power and resources,  the caste system was solidified in to hierarchical structure which was based on the notion of hereditary, blood-based notion of transfer of pollution and dirtiness from generation to generation. And the crucial factor to propagate caste was and is marriage. In other words, the bedrock of caste system was and is the caste-endogamous marriages. That is the reason why marrying in one’s own caste is so paramount in Indian society, even today. And despite all tall claims of weakening of caste, it remains very strong because this most important bedrock of caste system is still intact. As per a recent study, even now, only 5% of Indians marry inter-caste. Yes, only 5%! That too, in most cases, these are young people who are in love and choose to marry despite their parents’ disapproval. Therefore, inter-caste marriage where it has been arranged by parents/families and is socially approved is perhaps much less. And the next level where is will be considered socially desirable and actively promoted - a situation when the matrimonial columns in newspapers (and online marriage sites) will not be classified and arranged caste-wise - seems to be a pipe dream. Due to this very reason, caste would not vanish so easily from India, despite the false and hypocrite claims of many urban middle class Indians (most of them are from upper castes). The only remedy perhaps is the situation where people start marrying inter-caste in huge numbers!

Till that time, most of us would have no answer to the question as to why no Brahmin, Bania or Rajput has ever been found to be employed as sewer and toilet cleaner, and why no bhangi, musahar or chamar is found to be working as priests in temples!

***

Reference

1. Coffey Diane, Spears Dean: (2017) Where India Goes - Abandoned Toilets, Stunted Development and Costs of Caste; Harper Litmus, New Delhi
2. Kakar Sudhir, Katharina Kakar: (2007) The Indians - Portrait of a People; Penguin Random House India, New Delhi.

(Approximately Eight thousand words)