SWACHH BHARAT MISSION, 2014 - THE CLEAN CRUSADE

From collective shame to national pride, India's journey toward eliminating open defecation is a story of strong political will and leadership, grand scale and ambition, and community, corporate and celebrity participation

- BY SONALI ACHARJEE

Cholera, polio, typhoid, hepatitis...India had long grappled with an embarrassing richness of diseases that spread through the faecal-oral route because of poor sanitation in the country. And children below the age of five bore the brunt of these diseases. In 2014, India's infant mortality ratio (IMR) stood at 38 per 1,000 live births and the under-5 mortality rate (U5MR) at 45. Today, IMR stands reduced to 28, while U5MR was 32 in 2020. And a recent study published in the journal Nature, which analysed data from 35 Indian states and 640 districts between 2011 and 2020, attributes it to one factor: the Swachh Bharat Mission. Announced by Narendra Modi soon after he became prime minister in 2014, the more than 100 million toilets built under this project have helped India avert close to 60,000-70,000 child deaths, according to the study.