Ensuring hygiene in God's name

We swear in the name of God that we shall not defecate in the open.............The residents of Shankarpur, a remote village in Chhattisgarh state of India, took a strange oath last year. They solemnly swore in the name of Maa Danteswari, a revered goddess in this part of the world, that they would never practice open defecation again.

Anyone who breaks the vow would face social exclusion and a penalty. The village school's principal V.C. Shukla narrates a familiar story that resonates across Bastar region in central India, Grassroots Features reports.

This has been the modus operandi of the district administration to ensure the use of toilets. Of the 90 panchayats (village councils) in Chhattisgarh that will receive awards for total sanitation by the Indian government called the Nirmal Gram Puraskar 2007, Bastar boasts of the maximum number of awardees - 27.

'Apart from administering the Maa Danteshwari oath, we highlighted the fact that toilets accorded safety and respectability to women. The response was immediate, especially among women, who went on to lead the movement from the front,' Collector Ganesh Shankar Mishra said.

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