What is shocking in India is this picture of someone practising open defecation and in the other hand having a mobile phone.
– WHO Director of Public Health Maria Neira

Of all the shitholes and hellholes in the world, nothing can match that stinking eyesore known as India.

No other country comes even remotely close to that benighted land in filth, inequality, injustice and savagery.

India’s sole claim to fame is as the world’s largest public toilet.

Shani’s Creation

Is there any other country in the world where daily over half a billion people are compelled to defecate by the roadside, by the train tracks, by the river, by the sea, by the temple, by the church, by the mosque, by the pond, by the field and by the school playground?

Here, chew on these damning statistics put out yesterday by the World Health Organization:

* 48% of Indians defecate in public, a percentage higher than in Ethiopia, Nepal, Haiti, Cambodia, Pakistan, Benin and every other country in the world. In Progress on sanitation and drinking-water – 2014 update, the World Health Organization puts the number of India’s public defecators at 597 million, a number higher than public crappers in all other countries combined

* Of the 2.5 billion people that do not have access to improved sanitation facilities, 792 million are in India

* 65% of Indians living in rural areas (villages and small towns) crap in public and turn the place into a fetid, unhygienic hell

* Since 1990, only 291 million additional Indians have gained access to improved sanitation (China has done much better in the same period with $623 million more people now having better sanitation)

Squatting at the nearest open spot, one hand on the cell phone discussing the prospects of Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi at the elections or chatting about the latest Allu Arjun and Salman Khan movie and the other hand resting on the water mug to cleanse their brown and black bottoms, Indians unceasingly delude themselves as inheritors of a 5,000-year-old glorious civilization.

The country never tires of running “Incredible India” and “Shining India” ads on hoardings, TV and New York City buses boasting of its extraordinary culture, military might and army of software programmers but comes up with a million excuses when it comes to fixing the things that matter most – Public Sanitation, Clean Water, Basic Healthcare and Primary Education.

Ad on NYC Bus – “Incredible Shithole” Would be More Accurate

Anyone with an iota of sense in his head will easily grasp that India must be the handiwork of Shani (Satan) in his angriest, vilest mood.

Little Change Since 2010

India may be making more movies than the rest of the world.

Sure, India is producing more code monkeys than any other country in the world.

But the pace of change when it comes to improving public sanitation has been incredibly slow in India.

Over the last four years, the number of people defecating in public in India has come down by a mere 41 million (i.e. 6%).

Going by the current trend, in the not too distant future the only people defecating in public in the world will be Indians.

Wrong Priorities

Beside endemic corruption that makes a mockery of any government program aimed at the poor, India also suffers from a horrible sense of priorities.

The country squanders millions on nonsensical ad campaigns to burnish its image, drops billions on higher education, dreams of sending manned space missions to the Moon, Mars, U’ranus and God knows where else, pumps billions into its nuclear bomb and ballistic missile programs but invests far too little on public sanitation and primary education.

India is not constrained merely by its leaders and its government.

Many of its people are no better.

They throw money at the latest Bollywood garbage, willingly give and accept bribes, stand in line to emigrate to the U.S. and even if there are public toilets steadfastly refuse to use them preferring to empty their bladders on the nearest wall or loosen their bowels on the sidewalk.

In a million years, Indians and its people will not rise beyond the gutter.