Kids Corner

Current Events

Incredible India:
Indian BJP Health Minister Likes To Urinate In Public

MICHAEL SAFI, The Guardian

 

 

 





An Indian Health Minister has been pictured urinating on a wall amid a nationwide drive by his BJP party to end public defecation and promote cleanliness and hygiene.

Kalicharan Saraf, the Health Minister for Rajasthan state, was pictured relieving himself on a wall in Jaipur in an image currently making the rounds in the Indian media.

The picture (see on right) went viral and caused embarrassment for Safar and the ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP). Ending public defecation and urination are key priorities of the “Clean India” campaign, a flagship policy of the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi.

Modi is frequently pictured holding a broom and sweeping streets as part of the drive.

Men urinating in public is a common sight in Indian cities and villages and an estimated 500 million people in the country still defecate outdoors, a daily practice considered the main reason for the country’s high rate of diarrhoea-related deaths among children aged five and under.

Nearly 190,000 children die each year from conditions linked to frequent bouts of diarrhoea, which weakens their immune systems and makes them more vulnerable to malnutrition and diseases such as polio or pneumonia.

Reviews of the toilet-building programme have shown many Indians continue to defecate openly despite the presence of new latrines in their villages.

A 2015 study argued the practice is deeply woven into the culture of some communities, in one case giving women an opportunity to leave their homes and socialise away from the scrutiny of their mothers-in-law. It also found many toilets were inadequately built and frequently flooded.

Saraf declined to comment in detail, telling Indian agencies the picture was “not a big issue”.


[Courtesy: The Guardian. Edited for sikhchic.com]
February 21, 2018
 

Conversation about this article

1: Arjan Singh (USA), February 24, 2018, 10:06 PM.

Not surprising at all. Majority of Indian leaders lack the basic education, manners and human decency. This is evident not only in this article and the picture but also in the history of modern India. Even after many episodes of organized pogroms the Indian leadership and society fail to bring law and order for not only minorities but also for the majority Hindu women.

Comment on "Incredible India:
Indian BJP Health Minister Likes To Urinate In Public"









To help us distinguish between comments submitted by individuals and those automatically entered by software robots, please complete the following.

Please note: your email address will not be shown on the site, this is for contact and follow-up purposes only. All information will be handled in accordance with our Privacy Policy. Sikhchic reserves the right to edit or remove content at any time.