Haven’t been to India, but I recall in Nepal, bus stations upcountry would all have “shitting fields” nearby, and someone was always out there squatting down.
This reminds me of a recurring dream, when I am deeply asleep but need to pee. My dream is that I am going from place to place looking for a working toilet, but they are all broken or just aren’t there, and I am getting more and more desperate. Finally I wake up, from the stress of the dream or from bladder pressure.
I always thought that if I ever let go in the dream, I would also let go in real life and wet the bed. Turned out not to be true.
I’ve heard this is one reason India has such a big rape problem too. Really, no joke. Rapists will lurk around the fields waiting for some lass to go take a dump.
I had a college friend who served in the Peace Corps in Nepal. he told me that human feces were everywhere=even a pristine mountain stream could be contaminated. he boiled all his water and never drank anything but tea and bottles water.
For me as an Indian living in urban India, the biggest issue is air pollution. Specially in Delhi which is relatively a well planned city, lots of open spaces, playgrounds, with world class public transportation etc. But air pollution is really bad in Delhi. The main reasons are geography, vehicular pollution, farmers is surrounding areas burning their crop.
We don’t use water purifier. Tap water is good enough for drinking , though in some areas you would require a water purifier.
Every one has a toilet (of course) , in all Indian cities I have been to. Exception may be the poor labourers who have come from rural India to Urban India and who have to live in unauthorized colonies. In rural India, people have to be taught I think. I once lived in a friend’s village for a few days where people liked to go to the fields in the morning (to take a dump) despite some of them having toilets in their house.
India has less rapes happening per capita than USA and less than most countries. As much as you would like to believe otherwise, rape is not a India specific problem. Indian men are not particularly ‘rapey’.
Comparing rates of sexual assault between countries is difficult when there are cultural differences in the reporting rates, in the differences in conviction rates relative to reported incidents, in whether sexual assault between married spouses is considered sexual assault or not, and whether or not there are gross impingements on women’s rights and freedoms that may have an effect on the rate of sexual assault, the rate of reporting of sexual assault, and/or the rate of conviction for sexual assault.
Yes, it is. Factoring everything in, South India in particular may still have the amongst the lowest rape-rate in the world as also hinted at by the stats. Women in general feel as safe (or more safe) in public as in developed nations (in night times as well).
In most urban centres, Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai etc, women are quite empowered. Low Fertility rates (<2), High literacy rates (nearly 100% in young urban people) and high employment rates are some indicators. So the point of under-reporting is becoming weaker and weaker with time.
"Rape is the fourth most common crime against women in India. According to the National Crime Records Bureau 2013 annual report, 24,923 rape cases were reported across India in 2012. Out of these, 24,470 were committed by someone known to the victim (98% of the cases). According to 2012 statistics, New Delhi has the highest raw number of rape reports among Indian cities.
“According to the United Nations, India’s rape rate was the highest amongst countries, with nearly 24,000 cases of rape in 2006 alone.”
Bolding mine. BBC has also been running a series on India’s rape crisis.
