Loo and she can’t behold
In a scene from the documentary A Clean Story, a mother is asked by filmmaker Triparna Banerjee if her 11-year-old daughter has kidney stones because she had little access to drinking water. No, the mother answers. Because she does not drink water at school since she doesn’t like using the toilet. That single sentence reflects the plight of young school girls and the ripple effect that lack of access to sanitation has on people like the student.
Banerjee’s previous project, From the Shadows, had won a grant from the prestigious New York-based Chicken & Egg Pictures. She began working on the documentary after a Hyderabad-based NGO, Good Universe, which works to highlight the impact of climate change on women, approached her to address the issue through her camera. “I was shocked to know the poor condition of these schools. I felt the best way to amplify the stories of these girls was to make a documentary, since cinema is a powerful medium to create necessary impact.”
For over two years, the 39-year-old filmmaker, her team and members of Good Universe, visited around 50 government schools in and around Hyderabad. The harrowing stories they collected captured in the 18-minute documentary revealed schools without functioning toilets, filthy toilets, and washrooms without running water. “The situation is very distressing,” shares Banerjee, adding, “Some of the toilets do not have doors or even walls. Basic things like taps are missing. The problem is not that toilets are not there but that they are not maintained at all.”
Over the course of two years, as the documentary filmmaker visited schools, she saw the same story repeating over and over. While many schools did even not allow her to film their facilities, others were uncomfortable answering questions, reflecting the deep stigma os speaking on sanitation issues in society.
Obviously the lack of functioning school toilets is a major crisis for young girl students: According to the Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE) of the Ministry of Education, more than 20 per cent of schools in Telangana do not have toilets for them. In India, 78,854 schools are without proper toilet facilities for girls, according to Stats of India, a platform that collates data on Indian issues.
At a government school near the Financial District in Hyderabad, one of the most developed areas of the city, students cannot use the restrooms since they are filthy. The toilets are frequented by pigs. “The students use the open space behind the school to relieve themselves,” Banerjee laments. “It’s a co-ed school and girls and boys have designated areas in the open. Many girls don’t come to school while they are menstruating or during the monsoon to avoid the embarrassment of defecating in the open.”
Yet another case: a Zila parishad school in Khajaguda (near Hyderabad) with 160 girl students lack toilets and drinking water. Most of the students get dehydration in summer because they don’t drink the water from the school taps. The massive dropout rate of girls happens after puberty because parents are no longer comfortable sending their daughters to schools that lack adequate sanitary facilities.
A case in point is the primary school which had 14 Class I girl students; a number that went down to four by the tine they reached Class V. Studies have found a direct correlation among girls getting married early after dropping out from school. However, Banerjee is heartened by the spirit of the students she met. “They have a zeal for education and want to study, but face so many obstacles,” she says.
Banerjee plans to screen the documentary across India to inform NGOs working in the sector. .” Under the Swachh Vidyalaya Initiative, 2.26 lakh toilets for boys and 1.91 lakh for girls were constructed or made functional in 2.61 lakh elementary and secondary government schools by 2023. The first obstacle to ‘Beti Padhao’ seems to be gender discrimination in schools without sanitation.