Toilets & the swachh conundrum

Book review of 'Where India Goes: Abandoned Toilets, Stunted Development and the Costs of Caste'

Where India Goes 

Abandoned Toilets, Stunted Development and the Costs of Caste

Diane Coffey and Dean Spears

HarperCollins

271 pages; Rs 250

This is a development puzzle that economists have struggled to explain: Why, despite growing prosperity, do millions of Indians continue to defecate in the open? 

The 2011 census revealed that a little more than half the country still defecated in the open. In rural areas, the situation was worse, with more than two-thirds still relieving themselves in the open.

Between 2001 and 2011 – the period when India clocked its fastest expansion in modern history – open defecation declined by