By Gayatri Manu
From a trip I recently took to Gokarna, I realised that as a female traveller, it is a bad idea to have a couple of beers before boarding a bus. This realisation came 3 hours into the journey, when my bladder was threatening to burst with every bump on the road. I woke my reluctant friend up, and an argument ensued with the bus driver when I asked him to stop the bus at a toilet. Ten minutes later, he stopped the bus in the middle of nowhere and sent us off into the bushes to “do our business,” while he walked to the other side of the road to do his.
Travelling for long distances in a bus or a car has become synonymous with “holding it in” or “adjusting”. These incidents are common among women, senior citizens, and disabled people, where complaints of the lack of proper sanitation facilities on highways are always countered with a quick “go pee in the bushes!” as though this is the solution.
While it might seem like nothing is being done about this, Vasudeva Sharma, a Bangalore-based activist, has started a petition about the same on Change.org, which is addressed to Nitin Gadkari, Minister of Road Transport and Highways. The petition, titled ‘Safe & Clean Highway Toilets for Women’, has managed to garner over 26,000 signatures in the past 9 days.
He says in the petition, “Many Indians prefer traveling by bus because of non-availability of train tickets or the expense of flight tickets. But for women, senior citizens and people with disabilities, traveling by bus in India has always been a nightmare because of the toilet problem. The Government needs to fix this huge problem with the Indian transport system. What is the point of futuristic highways and smart cities if women can’t use these highways?”
Jan Eliasson, the Deputy Secretary-General of the UN, said on Women’s Day this year that, “Although everybody deserves the dignity of a safe and clean toilet, women and girls are particularly vulnerable to the effects of inadequate sanitation.” A survey conducted in India by the online travel portal Holiday IQ found that around 98% of female Indian travellers feel that there is a need for more toilets across highways in the country.
The Karnataka government, for instance, had taken the initiative to provide basic amenities on national highways, with the announcement of its ‘Kuteera’ scheme in this year’s budget. However, as the Hindu reports, this is only on paper. An official from the Tourism Department said to the media, “Construction is not the big thing, maintenance is. Even local bodies are not showing interest. Such facilities exist, but are not enough for the number of highway users, which has doubled in the last five years.”
But it isn’t only on highways that we need more public toilets. We need them in our educational institutes, work places, and on our streets. Women’s lives would be so much easier if only they had access to a public loo.