A charity learned of Buddy’s determination and helped her build the toilet. To the groom’s delight, the toilet was opened the day his wife came home.
Bride flees without toilet in husband’s house
Batti married into the village of Vishnupur Kurd in Uttar Pradesh and asked her husband where the toilet was, and he told her, “Go outside.” The story was so bad that she fled her husband’s house on the fourth day of her marriage when her mother’s family visited. The incident caused a local sensation, and both her husband’s family and her mother’s family urged her to return to her husband, but she insisted that she would not enter the wedding room without a toilet.
AFP quoted her as saying on July 1: “I’m stubbornly convinced that I can’t stay in a home where people might watch me toileting outdoors. My parents were angry and upset, but I told them I had to do it. My parents’ house has a basic indoor toilet, so it was really difficult for me to toilet outdoors.”
After learning about Bharti’s story, the Indian health charity Sulabh decided to build a toilet for Bharti and her new home. Founded in 1973, Sulabh is one of India’s largest social organizations dedicated to improving public health in the country, building 1.2 million toilets for the poor in rural India.
Toilets overshadow wedding houses
Outdoor toileting is one of the major social issues in India, involving women’s rights, public health, and contradictions between traditional and modern lifestyles.
India’s 2011 census showed that about 131 million households in the country do not have toilets, 8 million use public toilets, and 123 million use outdoor toilets, which is particularly difficult for women.
Bandeshwar Pathak, founder of Sulabh, said women don’t go outdoors to use the toilet during the day and must solve the problem after dusk until dawn, and “walking barefoot in those places is prone to tapeworms, bacteria, many diseases, and it’s not hygienic for children (to play in those places).”
Jairam Ramesh, India’s rural development minister, said India “should be ashamed” that 60 to 70 percent of women are forced to go to the toilet outdoors.
The issue of toilets has become one of the focal points of social discourse in India. In some places, a “No Toilet, No Wife” campaign has been launched, calling on women to reject marriage suitors who cannot provide a home with a toilet.
Building a toilet to break the ice
Bhatti’s toilet is set among a clutter of houses with walls painted bright yellow. With two cesspools, a storage room and a toilet, the toilet cost more than $1,000 to build. In the experience of Sulabh’s members, if it were just a toilet with a lock, it would eventually turn into a storage room.
Sulabh held an inauguration ceremony for Bati’s latrine last week, with hundreds of villagers in attendance. Bharti finally nodded her head and agreed to return to her husband. Sulabh also presented the couple with a $3,600 bonus.
For Bharti’s husband, Amarjit, the most important thing was his wife’s return home. “I was embarrassed when told she had to go outside to use the toilet,” he said, “Now that the toilet is built, we will maintain and use it well.” New toilets and cash incentives are the envy of the villagers. 45-year-old Kamala Sharma said, “We have nothing at home and going outside in the dark to use the toilet is a problem, but it takes money to build a toilet like this.”