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The Daily Janchetna

Year11, Issue:6, Saturday, Nov.7,2020.

. Message of the Day .

. History of the Day .

. Today’s History .

7th November

Important Events:

This government had ruled Russia since Tsar Nicholas II’s abdication the preceding February, but it had lost almost all support as Russia’s horrific World War I casualties continued to mount. In fact, at this crucial moment Provisional Government ministers could find almost no one willing to defend them. That night, Bolshevik Red Guards broke into the palace and arrested the ministers, bringing the Provisional Government to an end

The “storming of the Winter Palace” has gone down in history as the climactic moment of the October Revolution. But overthrowing the existing government turned out to be the easy part. Over the next three years, the Bolsheviks (soon renamed Communists) would have to win power in a bloody civil war and reestablish order in a country that had descended into anarchy.

For both opponents and supporters, the October Revolution represented the advent of socialism. Those on the political right saw socialism as scourge that entailed the violent expropriation of private property and the trampling of individual liberties. And throughout the twentieth century, Soviet socialism continued to be seen as an existential threat to liberal democracy and capitalism.

But many on the left welcomed the Revolution as the start of a new era, with harmony and equality for all people. Particularly given the senseless slaughter of millions of soldiers during the First World War, the October Revolution seemed to offer an alternative—a government ruled in the interests of the common people that would ultimately produce a communist utopia.

One hundred years later, the October Revolution still stands as a seminal event in world history. But no longer can it be seen in Marxist terms as part of the inevitable progression from feudalism to capitalism to socialism to communism. Instead, the Revolution today is often viewed as a cautionary tale about the dangers of socialist ideology.

According to this thinking, the socialist ideas pursued by Communist Party leaders led to the crimes of Stalinism, which produced neither equality nor harmony but left millions of people dead. With the collapse of the Communist regime in 1991, the anniversary of the October Revolution is no longer celebrated in Russia. Many people regard the entire Soviet epoch as a tragedy, the result of socialist thought put into practice.

. Current .

Swachh Bharat Toilets:

 Having reported on China's bustling southern provinces for three years immediately followed by about as long working in New Delhi, I believe comparing the two countries a waste of time.

China is largely a developed world country while India is a wannabe, that is, a nation with a highly developed sense of wanting to be a superpower with little idea of how to become one.

Nothing demonstrates this more vividly than the report's observation that the likelihood of the average Indian falling sick due to unsafe water and poor sanitation is 40 times higher than in China.

If you want to understand why, a startling and surprisingly readable new book, Where India Goes: Abandoned Toilets, Stunted Development and the Costs of Caste provides the answers.

It has many comparisons with the rest of the world, but the cohort the authors compare us to -- much more sensibly -- is mainly countries such as Laos and Bangladesh, which have made much faster progress than we have in drastically reducing the incidence of open defecation.

The contamination of water supplies in rural India from more than half the population of the country defecating in fields and by the roadside contributes to repeated bouts of diarrhoea and widespread maternal and child malnutrition.

The resulting 'stunting' and 'wasting' might sound like ugly jargon, but only begin to capture the tragedy of millions of Indian children growing up physically smaller and with reduced learning abilities before they have even entered school.

Put another way as Bill Gates did recently, 'Data from 2005-2006 show that 48 per cent of young (Indian) children were malnourished. Since these children were born between 12 and 17 years ago, approximately half of new entrants to the workforce today, about 4.5 million each year, are less likely to fulfil their potential.'

Dean Spears and Diane Coffey argue in Where India Goes, that it is not poverty, illiteracy or a lack of water that impedes the use of toilets.

According to the 2011 Census, about half of rural households with water have no toilets; about the same proportion where one member has completed school continue to defecate outside.

More than 80 per cent of countries with worse literacy rates than India's have lower percentages of people leaving their faeces out in the open to, in effect, unwittingly poison their neighbours and their toddlers.

The culprit is caste.

Medieval notions of purity and cleanliness make many in rural India unwilling to have a toilet at home.

Equally problematic, for a country seeking to eradicate open defecation by prime ministerial edict by October 2019 -- the rate of decline would have to be accelerated by a multiple of 12 to meet that hyped-up goal -- is that most villagers are unwilling to close and then empty inexpensive open-pit latrines for reuse, long after the contents have decomposed into compost.

Such latrines have helped countries such as Bangladesh quickly bring down their rates of open defecation.

When his uncle’s soak-pit latrine needed to be emptied out, a young Brahmin recounts, however, the family in Sitapur had to get someone in Lucknow, some 90 km away, to empty it for Rs 5,500 for a two-hour job. (The normal daily wage is Rs 200.)

A woman named Priya, from a lower caste, explains why her family cannot empty a latrine pit; the work can only be done by 'bhangis; they have been created (by God) for this work'.

On the next page, a pasi (a traditionally pig-rearing Dalit caste) voices much the same view: 'People won't eat with us and they won't drink water from our cups.'

To his credit, Parameswaran Iyer, the drinking water and sanitation secretary, helped empty a pit to change villagers' opinions; he has a bottle of the proceeds on his desk in Delhi.

"It is manual scavenging when it is fresh excreta," he said n March. "This is plain odourless compost."

Government and non-governmental organisations in Bangladesh relied on community efforts to galvanise villagers. Bangladesh has almost eradicated open defecation -- down from 42 per cent in 2003.

At the end of their fascinating investigation into the hurdles India faces as it tries to combat open defecation with the same largely unsuccessful strategy of the past few decades of building toilets instead of changing attitudes about caste and, erm 'cleanliness', Spears and Coffey remain realists.

'Promoting social equality is indeed a more difficult path to eliminating open defecation than that other countries have faced,' concludes one of the most admirable and important books I've ever read.

'Lest this fact seem discouraging, it will also have much greater benefits.'

A proudly Hindu nationalist government is better placed in theory to rid us of our adherence to open defecation.

It kills more Indians than any terrorist organisation could, but turning that around will take communicating both that all Indians are created equal and that continuing this practice is anti-national.

Can our politicians measure up to this challenge? There is no more urgent task.

. Informative .

Is only Delhi's air polluted?

The answer is no, the entire country's is.'
'So why such obsession with Delhi?'
'But the most powerful people in India live here: The prime minister, civil servants, Supreme Court judges, MPs, diplomats, dadas of the media...'