A lengthy portion of the linked article talks about the use of cow dung as fuel. That is very common. In most cities and villages there are cows wandering around everywhere and there is cow dung all over the streets. There are people who collect the dung, dry them on walls and use them for fuel. You can see cakes of cow dung drying on walls no matter where you go. But does this make India a hell-hole? I don’t think so.
It tickles me when apologists try to tell us that because such and such a thing happens once in a blue moon in a First World country, that we are in fact no different from a Third World country.
And usually those people have never even been there.
If a body is found floating in a river in the First world it is usually due to an unexpected death, or as a result of a crime, not as a deliberate action by ordinary people that is ignored by the authorities.
Also the authorities in a F.W, country will make it a matter of priority to remove the body for investigation and proper disposal.
As to the hygiene thing, no that is not incredibly unusual in India, or other parts of the T.W., I have seen people happily cooking and eating close to human waste on the ground near them many times.
Also people defecating and urinating into not the just rivers where they take their drinking water from, but from the actual sites on the rivers where they take their drinking water from , not just India but Sub Saharan Africa and other locations.
T.W countries aren’t just like us, but with " fewer consumer items" as so many naive people seem to think,( amongst other things mud and dung huts, and dirt roads didn’t die out in the 19thc ).
Its a whole different mindset in those locations, which is usually the major reason for those countries being in their present situations, not just rampant corruption.
Don’t think those photos are much of an exaggeration. I recently read an excellent book (can’t think of the name right now) describing the status of fresh water around the globe. Brought out the fact that most of the major rivers in India, in particular the Ganges, could not be run thru a typical American sewerage treatment plant. They are so bad that their water would have to be cleaned up first.
And no city in India has fresh water 24/7. Most have it on only for one or maybe two hours per day. And huge areas in cities like Delhi have no water at all. The Delhi water department has a fleet of 5,000 trucks (25,000 gallon capacity) that fan out into some areas of the city at 5:30 AM to deliver water. Also noted that the illiteracy rate for females in India is so high because they have to spend so much time on things like carrying water from these trucks to their homes, which may be 3 or 4 miles away. Try that carrying 5 gallons (over 40 pounds) of water.
Serious question: How is it that huge swaths of India’s poor don’t get wiped out by plagues?
I see there was a plague in 1994 but only 52 people died (300,000 fled). It also was in Gujarat where scudsucker indicates is not like the places in the OP’s photographs.
How does this cramped and unhygenic population avoid spreading disease, and/or staying alive while infected?
Part of me is all, “People are freaked out that I only wash my towels once every couple weeks and these people swim in a river of shit?”
And another part is all, “How is it that India is not decimated by disease. They swim in rivers of shit!”
Seriously, how is it that they don’t have rampant cholera, e coli, plague, etc? Or maybe they do have millions who suffer, but it’s just a drop in the bucket, population-wise?
It’s because human beings aren’t as fragile as you were led to believe.
Sure, I trust that. It might also be regional tho. Perhaps if I went from the suburbs to taking a bath or drinking in the Ganges, I might get sick and die. But someone who does it every day wouldn’t.
But still, plague is a real thing. Even if every-day bacteria don’t get these folks how is it that new and deadly bacteria doesn’t, either?
India does have an extremely high disease burden.
Societies do develop systems for managing poor drinking water. In that part of the world, boiling water for tea tends to be the way to go, but heating that much water can be expensive for the extremely poor.
Just going to stay in my bubble forever, never going near that place.
Have you guys heard of a place called Rand McNally? People there wear hats on their feet and hamburgers eat people.
It’s a disappointing attitude to see at a site dedicated to fighting ignorance. There are a lot of things to see in the world, even in places that aren’t tidy.
I’ve been to India once and saw mostly Rajasthan as well (Delhi, Agra, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Bikaner, and Jaisalmer). I remember walking through the Karni Mata rat temple barefoot with my feet sticking to the ground because of the feces and urine from the rodents then driving a couple miles and walking through a modern grocery store. I’ve walked through the slums of Delhi at the break of dawn through what could best be called a homeless camp near a large mosque and then pop into an unblinkingly western style McDonald’s.
Is there a lot of poverty in India? Yes, shockingly so. But the pictures lent towards the totally shocking and looked to be mostly of Varanasi, a place known for a religious tradition for the funeral rites connected to the Ganges river.
I remember driving through Rajasthan from Jodhpur to Jaisalmer (near the Pakistani border) and seeing grass huts, lot of them. I never expected that level of National Geographic. I stopped at one point as I saw some peacocks in a clearing. When I got out to take pictures, a young woman and three kids came out to see what I were up to. I gave them some candy and attempted to do some visual communication (they spoke neither Hindi nor English). They were in abject poverty, no running water, no nearby small city, but they just seemed happy. It’s the kind of memory that seared itself into my brain.
Yea, there is a lot of poverty, but there’s also a different kind of beauty. There’s a lot that is difficult to stomach and while those pictures were a indicative of what I saw (I didn’t see any corpses, but I also didn’t get to Varanasi), they don’t show the whole picture either.
I will say, it’s been a while since I’ve been to India (at least 10 years), but those picture is not my experience of India, nor that of my family which has been there several times over.
Those pictures are exploitative, and focusing mostly on the deceased, and not just on “religion”, but rather focusing on those struck hardest by it. The Ganges River is considered the holiest river in all of India, and yes, is entwined within its culture and religion. Ceremonies are held there with Funeral pyres, and the bodies are meant to be consumed and turned into ashes, and the ashes spread into the river to purify the soul. This world is merely physical, and our physical vessels are returned to the Mother River basically is the gist of it after being burned to ashes.
However, as mentioned above, many people cannot afford such ceremonies, and are forced to compensate. The Holiest River in all of India- said to purify one’s sins if they bath in its waters or drink its water, and a grieving family cannot afford to properly dispose of their loved one? That leads to the above pictures- corpses in the River, which are certainly disturbing to see.
It is not the proper way for those bodies to be disposed of- but in India, there is extreme levels of poverty, that’s not a lie. But to focus only on this single location, and to go around basically trying to find the poorest of the poor (which is not hard to do I admit) and their methods of burying their loved ones? It’s in poor taste.
The other cities in India do not have the Ganges nearby- their rivers are certainly filthy, but you will not (normally) find corpses purposefully being disposed in them, there is grime, dirty, pollution, loud noises, animals roaming freely and extreme levels of poverty and riches next to each other- but you will not see such similarly horrifying sites of corpses piled about everywhere, and rotting bodies out in the open. The photographers went to a specific area of India, known for these religious rites, and took pictures. To assume one location can speak for an area as vast and complex as the Subcontinent is just not possible.
Yes, these pictures show a dark side to India, but it is not the whole story. One could do the same for the US at various time periods- going out to the areas ravaged by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and saying this how the entire US is would be ridiculousness, going out to the Westborough Baptist church protestors and saying this is how Christians behave in America, to go to our homeless shelters in our own inner cities and slums and to photograph only those people and try to pass that off as a representation of the United States is just not accurate. They may be a slice of our country, but certainly not the whole story. The same would apply here. Take it with a grain of salt, but this blog certainly did seem to have an agenda in presenting their story.
Also, the toilet thing- again he is showing families struck hardest and the poor, who do not have a steady supply of water, who reuse the same water. Much of India has modernized, especially since the technological boom (and the whole Outsourcing). There are many areas with running water, more modern toilets, and those who still use the old ways, but can draw water each time with use, as well as using soap.
But again, if you focus on the poorest (which there certainly are plenty of areas present in India), you will not see that, you will see those living under the worst of conditions struggling to get by and making do with what limited means they have.
I would at least try to view other sources as well before jumping to the conclusion of labeling such a broad area of land and cultural diversity by the pictures of a single source at a single location in India.
The Big Thirst: The Secret Life and Turbulent Future of Water by Charles Fishman. Excellent book.
It also talked about how even the wealthy people in India don’t have running water 24/7. They may get water a couple of hours a week. This means the water mains are not under constant positive pressure, so it’s badly contaminated. Wealthy people have tanks to store water, using pumps (which are illegal) to pull as much water as possible during the few hours a week the water runs. And use reverse osmosis systems for making potable water.
I’d rather read about cholera than contract it.
Cholera? Cholera ain’t shit (no, er, pun intended) if you know what you’ve got and rehydrate. Cholera, now that we understand it, is no longer one of man’s great enemies. I’m sure there are plenty of those hanging around the slums of Mumbai, though.
Yeah, cholera is easily treatable. You don’t even need drugs, just hydration. The reason why cholera gets bad is that people don’t have access to safe water to keep hydrated with. Like most diseases, it’s determinant is poverty more than biology.
Now giardia, that’s a bitch. It won’t kill you, but it will give you a bad week. And you can get that right here in the USA.
Not to mention leprosy.
As has been pointed out to you, dead bodies appear much, much more frequently along the Ganges, than the places you mention. Sometimes a fact is true, even if you find it unpleasant.
The fact doesn’t mean that India isn’t interesting, or that Indians aren’t worth knowing, or that India doesn’t have anything to offer, it just means that there are a lot of dead bodies in the Ganges.
We have leprosy here; in fact, I have family living in one of the states it’s endemic to.
Also, speaking of disease where hydration is the standard therapy, dengue fever sounds positively nasty and we apparently don’t have a vaccine for it.