In India,More Women Demand Toilets Before Marrige

Prospective Brides Demand Sought-After Commodity: A Toilet

Indra Bhatia, who is raising seven children in Panchgujran, India, said her toilet has changed her life.

Indra Bhatia, who is raising seven children in Panchgujran, India, said her toilet has changed her life. "When I marry my daughters off, I will make sure that their home is fully equipped with a toilet and the works," she said. (By Emily Wax -- The Washington Post)




NILOKHERI, India -- An ideal groom in this dusty farming village is a vegetarian, does not drink, has good prospects for a stable job and promises his bride-to-be an amenity in high demand: a toilet.

In rural India, many young women are refusing to marry unless the suitor furnishes their future home with a bathroom, freeing them from the inconvenience and embarrassment of using community toilets or squatting in fields.

About 665 million people in India -- about half the population -- lack access to latrines. But since a "No Toilet, No Bride" campaign started about two years ago, 1.4 million toilets have been built here in the northern state of Haryana, some with government funds, according to the state's health department.

Women's rights activists call the program a revolution as it spreads across India's vast and largely impoverished rural areas.

"I won't let my daughter near a boy who doesn't have a latrine," said Usha Pagdi, who made sure that daughter Vimlas Sasva, 18, finished high school and took courses in electronics at a technical school.

"No loo? No 'I do,' " Vimlas said, laughing as she repeated a radio jingle.

"My father never even allowed me an education," Pagdi said, stroking her daughter's hair in their half-built shelter near a lagoon strewn with trash. "Every time I washed the floors, I thought about how I knew nothing. Now, young women have power. The men can't refuse us."

Indian girls are traditionally seen as a financial liability because of the wedding dowries -- often a life's savings -- their fathers often shell out to the groom's family. But that is slowly changing as women marry later and grow more financially self-reliant. More rural girls are enrolled in school than ever before.

A societal preference for boys here has become an unlikely source of power for Indian women. The abortion of female fetuses in favor of sons -- an illegal but widespread practice -- means there are more eligible bachelors than potential brides, allowing women and their parents to be more selective when arranging a match.
ad_icon

"I will have to work hard to afford a toilet. We won't get any bride if we don't have one now," said Harpal Sirshwa, 22, who is hoping to marry soon. Neem tree branches hung in the doorway of his parents' home, a sign of pride for a family with sons. "I won't be offended when the woman I like asks for a toilet."

Satellite television and the Internet are spreading images of rising prosperity and urban middle-class accouterments to rural areas, such as spacious apartments -- with bathrooms -- and women in silk saris rushing off to the office.

India's rapid urbanization has also contributed to rising aspirations in small towns and villages. On a crowded highway that runs into this village, about 170 miles north of New Delhi, young women, once seen clinging to the backs of motorbikes driven by their fathers or husbands, now drive their own scooters. One recent popular TV ad shows a rural girl sheepishly entering a scooter showroom, then beaming as she whizzes through the parking lot on her new moped.

If they don't have washroom what they do ? ...midnight sit on nali outside the house or groom smell ****zz all nite..like rest of Indians...lolzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

PEACE

in pakistan most women take a lota and go to feilds.

*************************************************************************

wat they gonna do? sleep in the toilets. but then gain dont indian women use cow dung as fuel in their homes

now that's poverty, keep buying more jets india

Some world power. Huh?

-------------------------------------------

I think it's a sensible request. I mean the toilet could be a metaphor for India I guess...it must be a very important aspect of Indian civilization, now if only the bath or the shower was one too

No surprises here.

\\India's rapid urbanization has also contributed to rising aspirations in small towns and villages. On a crowded highway that runs into this village, about 170 miles north of New Delhi, young women, once seen clinging to the backs of motorbikes driven by their fathers or husbands, now drive their own scooters. One recent popular TV ad shows a rural girl sheepishly entering a scooter showroom, then beaming as she whizzes through the parking lot on her new moped. \\


This is true ! Rural India is transforming like never before. Even the demand for more toilets is part of this process ! This article in its own way is illustrating the transformations taking place in rural India.



But why are other people mocking this ! Havent they looked in their own countries !



http://www.irc.nl/page/46269


',500 activists have been trained in Pakistan, as part of the Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) campaign, to try and persuade people to stop defecating in the open. The campaign, initiated by the World Bank's Water and Sanitation Program (WSP), is striving to banish open defecation from 564 villages. '


http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/120176836/PDFSTART

Making Mutual Sense: My Daughters and I in a Village in Iran


'The first few times we lived in Deh Koh, the village had no electricity or gas,
no plumbing, no toilets or bathrooms, and no piped water in the small, crowded
mud-brick houses.'



===========================================
Let Noble Thoughts Come to Us from All Sides- RigVeda

-------------------------------------------

In PAKI-stan the women chit in the streets. LOL

Wow,....simply wow.. Now I really feel bad for them. Toilet a luxury.

Arya,

Did you even read your link or just hoped we wouldnt? You do realize that she states that the first time they lived there (as your quote states) was in a village in 1965? lol

Back on topic.....tsk tsk.

This is a very true fact and i've seen it with my own eyes. The article may have been posted now, i remember women have been demanding toilets for over 5 years.


"Racing cars which have been converted for road use never really work. Its like making a hardcore adult film, and then editing it so that it can be shown in British hotels. You'll just end up with a sort of half hour close up of some blokes sweaty face." Jeremy Clarkson

\\Did you even read your link or just hoped we wouldnt? You do realize that she states that the first time they lived there (as your quote states) was in a village in 1965? lol \\


You do realise that she said there are no toilets in the first few times she lived in there. And those ' first few times' is a ambiguous plural term which could mean any number of times from 1965 to later decades.Even she havent even specified things got changed later on by the time she left in 1994. Anyway, my intention to post the article is not to nitpick on Iranians, but to make a point that Iran is also a developing country (may be a little better per capita wise compared to India but developing country nonetheless) and for them to make fun of India is like a fellow with a torn shirt making fun of another person with slightly bigger torn shirt.At the end of the day, both have torn shirts irrespective of the sizes of their torn.

===========================================
Let Noble Thoughts Come to Us from All Sides- RigVeda

-------------------------------------------

@aryan arya- i admire your patience to try and educate iranian trolls biased against India.




colours of Kaziranga

yea you're right we just woke up one day with a biase against india

__________________________________________
The art of knowing is knowing what to ignore.

Rumi

since most indians live on footpaths this is an understandable demand... no body likes being started at or licked in the butt by a holy cow while taking a crap...

india is one big shiit hole

---

Pakistan Airforce: The largest distributor of Indian airforce parts in Asia



Pathankot Strike
8 F-86Fs of No 19 Squadron led by Squadron Leader Sajjad Haider struck Pathankot airfield. With carefully positioned dives and selecting each individual aircraft in their protected pens for their strafing attacks, the strike elements completed a textbook operation against Pathankot. Wing Commander M G Tawab, flying one of the two Sabres as tied escorts overhead, counted 14 wrecks burning on the airfield. Among the aircraft destroyed on the ground were nearly all of the IAFs Soviet-supplied Mig-21s till then received, none of which were seen again during the War.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFHlzP69n9c

---

^^ says a phuckistani.




colours of Kaziranga

imagine millions of people live on ONly in Bombay footpath..

PEACE

Now in India instate of fixing the infrastructure, Like roads an toilet they buy fighter jets and Gold, isn't that funny having tons of gold but living in sh!t!

Is toilet a luxury in India ???? .. if so, real sad

how about shower ? of course beyond most indians .. you need to walk first before you run, ... no wonder indians so smellyyyy ... I get it now