Toilet museum exhibits weird and wonderful historical loos to campaign for better hygiene in India
Ever wondered what King Louis XIV's personal throne looked like, or the chamber pots ladies used in the 1700's? Well now you can find out
View gallery
Barcroft
"
"
"
"
"
"
"
"
"
"
Museum of toilets View gallery
A new museum has used hundreds of toilets to create a weird and wonderful exhibition - all to promote better hygiene in India. The museum in New Delhi, India, has made toilets a work of art, and they are a key to finding out more about our history. The Sublabh International Museum of Toilets showcases lavatories from the 1700s, ladies' chamber pots, and French disguised toilets. But perhaps the biggest attraction to this new world of sanitation is the replica of the throne of King Louis the XIV. Dr Bindeshwar Pathak, founder of the NGO Sulabh International, which founded the museum, said: “It is indeed a very unusual museum and it’s the only one of its kind in the world.
“A highlight of the museum is the replica of the throne of King Louis the XIV. The king is believed to have used this to defecate while conducting court sessions.”
Hundreds flock each month to browse the facts, pictures and artifacts that date back to 2,500 BC. Let's just hope the plumbing keeps working or they will be in deep, well, trouble.
Curators scoured the globe for unusual toilets to make the display as interesting as possible, and it doesn't disappoint. There are privies, chamber pots, toilet furniture, bidets and water closets, and the information boards tell you everything you could wish to know about sanitation across the world.
Who wouldn't want to know where medieval women perched after all? With sanitation issues worse than ever in third world countries, the museum aims to inform people of how problems have developed over time.
Ancient: Victorian-era pots show stark contrast to modern times
Gaurav Chandra, the museum’s coordinator, said: “We founded the museum to give a message.
"It’s an education for students, who can learn about historical trends in development of toilets.
“India faces a big challenge in sanitation sector. So our museum helps policy makers to understand the efforts that were made in this field in the past.”
Founded by Dr Pathak in 1970, Sulabh is now the largest non-governmental organisation in India with over 50,000 volunteers. Mr Chandra added: “Sanitation is a huge issue in India. This museum is a kind of reminder. We want people to come and see." The museum made it to the list of the Top 10 ‘Weird and Unusual’ museums in the world earlier this year.
We laud this approach as a step in the right direction. Slowly but surely toilets will be built in India and we appreciate such initiatives to raise awareness of the massive shortfall in toilets in India.
We will do our best to raise the voice of the poor :)
We laud this approach as a step in the right direction. Slowly but surely toilets will be built in India and we appreciate such initiatives to raise awareness of the massive shortfall in toilets in India.
We will do our best to raise the voice of the poor :)
Let them enjoy nature, why do u care? the stink does not travel that far n they hv a more fertile india. P.S added benefit they don't hv to rely on Fauji fertelizer:)
[h=1]Toilet-temple talk exposes India’s pitiable state of sanitation[/h]
Viewd by: 166
Not rated yet
8:57 PM 22 October 2013
Politicians in power and opposition locking horns invariably on every issue is no news in India. Rarely do they agree on anything, however vital it may be for the nation or people. But out of the usual run of things do happen sometimes and one such glaring case was that of Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh and BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi thinking alike and saying the same thing: toilets are more important than temples. Now they squabble over who said it first!
Whatever may be the political persuasion that prompted both leaders to voice similar sentiments ahead of the election season, it is India’s pathetic state of sanitation that has been brought out into focus. Total sanitation for all was the dream of Mahatma Gandhi. Unlike the wily politicians of the present day, sanitation for him was more important than even Independence. But the post-Independence era politicians who wielded power through ballots have ignored this along with many of his similar potent messages.
Consequently, Indians continue to ‘defecate everywhere’, as writer V S Naipaul famously pointed out five decades ago. Nirad C Chaudhuri too wrote about the “Hindu indifference to squalor” in Autobiography of An Unknown Indian, published in 1951. The celebrated authors’ depiction of disgusting Indian practices had provoked authorities, but it never prodded them to action to wipe out the awful common scene from the rural as well as urban areas of the country.
Little has changed in the intervening half a century. Statistics still project India as the world leader when it comes to being unsanitary as 60% of the “global total” who do not have access to toilets live in India. Nearly 636mn Indians still defecate in the open. Nobel laureate Amartya Sen added insult to injury by pointing out that Bangladesh does better, much better, in the matter of getting its citizens to do their stuff indoors.
According to the Census, only 47% of households had indoor toilets in 2011. It is a big improvement from 36% 10 years back. But the situation is still pretty bad in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha and somewhat bad in Delhi, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. Only 22% of households have latrines within the premises in Jharkhand and Odisha.
The Central Rural Sanitation Programme was started in 1986 to provide sanitation facilities in rural areas. The Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) formulated in 1999, at one stage, talked about providing access to toilets for all rural households by 2012.
“With the effective implementation of TSC, the sanitation coverage in rural areas of the country has increased to approximately 74% as of November 2011,” Jairam Ramesh told parliament. But his claim is not corroborated by the Census data.
The absence of a functional toilet at home can be attributed as the primary cause of the death of 100,000 children by the age of 5 every year. Research points out that poor sanitation is an important cause of stunted growth and lower cognitive abilities in children. Given the scale of the awful problem today, it is worth asking why toilets and sanitation were unfashionable for so long. How did authorities manage to ignore the issue so far? Considering the obvious price that the poor pay in terms of privacy, dignity, safety and health, how do they explain this absence of empathy?
Sanitation is the single biggest trigger for improving the quality of life and for ensuring good health for all. But there is a long history to the near total disregard for it in this country, so it is time that high-profile leaders talk about it, not for slinging dirt at each other, but for clearly emphasising that toilets are more important than temples. What the country badly needs is a debate on how to ensure that there is a functional toilet to service the basic human need of every Indian.
When Modi followed Ramesh in expressing a preference for toilets over temples, such a debate, in fact, has begun. Forget about last year’s outrage from the saffron camp and its attempt to flush Ramesh’s words down the toilet then. What might appear a tad insensitive coming from Ramesh has different undertone coming from Modi - because he is known to be a Hindutva leader supported by the Sangh Parivar working on the agenda of building temples. Modi’s rivals thought that it might be his turn now to be pilloried for putting potty before piety.
But nothing apparently happened. Whatever his motivation, Modi’s ‘toilets first and temples later’ suggestion did not, surprisingly, ruffle the feathers of saffron brigades like the Bajrang Dal or Vishwa Hindu Parishad. It is a good sign. The Congress accused the BJP of double standards for attacking Ramesh and letting Modi off for saying much the same thing. Whether it is hypocrisy or delayed realisation, it is good that the prime ministerial candidate of a leading political party thinks it is time to privilege toilets on the priority list.
Is Modi just stooping to conquer? The startling policy shift could be the result of his recognition that winning India needs a different game from winning Gujarat. The nation, he knows, is simply not communally polarised the way Gujarat is and potential allies do not wish to adopt consciously majoritarian positions. For all the hype about the Modi bandwagon, the fact is that he has a long way to go if he is to win even the popular vote that his party polled under veteran A B Vajpayee.
Whatever may be the political game being adopted ahead of the 2014 national elections, no party can ignore any more the fact that India’s pitiable state of sanitation is more than a matter of shame and embarrassment - it has social and economic implications that this country can hardly afford. Let the debate focus on the challenge and desperate need to prioritise sanitation as a fundamental human right.
For any party that wants to win an election what better popular cause is there to fight for in a country where the majority of people do not have proper toilets? So, stop pampering the minority. Instead of promising laptops and cellphones, let the manifestos of political parties make pledges to build toilets and rehabilitate manual scavengers. May the best toilet builders win in 2014! Temple can surely wait, can’t it, Mr Modi?
Im not so concerned about the nature bit, but its the assault on the members of the opposite sex that have me concerned along with the elderly. Toiletlessness is one of the main reasons for India being the rape capital of the world. (bigsmile)
So when asked about the choice between nature and fauji fertilizer the victims of the assault almost always opted for the fertilizer. Lets build some toilets in India :)
Let them enjoy nature, why do u care? the stink does not travel that far n they hv a more fertile india. P.S added benefit they don't hv to rely on Fauji fertelizer:)
