There was a time in India when something as simple as going to the toilet was a question of dignity. Most homes didn’t have one. People relieved themselves in the open fields, along railway tracks, or by the roadside. Women waited till nightfall, risking safety and health, for the privacy that daylight denied.
Behind every statistic was an unseen tragedy - the millions of manual scavengers who cleaned human waste with their bare hands. Every morning, they carried buckets of excreta from dry latrines, facing humiliation and social exclusion.
And then came one man who refused to look away: Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak.
In the 1970s, while working in Bihar on a Gandhian social reform project, Dr. Pathak saw firsthand how the absence of toilets wasn’t merely a sanitation issue - it was a human one. It stripped people of dignity, reinforced caste hierarchies, and endangered public health.
Determined to find a solution, he began experimenting. The result was a simple but groundbreaking design: the two-pit pour-flush toilet. Affordable, sustainable, and odor-free, it required no manual cleaning. Each pit alternated use - while one decomposed waste into manure, the other stayed active. It was elegant in its simplicity and profound in its impact.
With just ₹500, Dr. Pathak built his first two toilets. From that humble start grew a movement - Sulabh International - an organization that would go on to transform India’s sanitation landscape.
Over the decades, Sulabh built more than 1.2 million toilets across the country, serving millions of people daily. But Dr. Pathak’s mission went far beyond brick and mortar. He wanted to liberate the people who had been forced into the degrading work of manual scavenging.
Under Sulabh’s programs, former manual scavengers were trained as beauticians, tailors, and cooks. They were given education, employment, and - for the first time - dignity.
Dr. Pathak’s work didn’t just change sanitation; it changed mindsets. He showed that cleanliness and compassion go hand in hand, that innovation is meaningless without inclusion, and that progress must begin where human suffering is greatest.
Today, thanks to his vision and the tireless efforts of thousands who followed his lead, open defecation in India has dropped by over 60% since the 1980s. Public toilets have become a common sight, and the conversation around sanitation has shifted from taboo to transformation.
Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak passed away in 2023, but his legacy lives on - in every child who no longer has to defecate in the open, in every woman who feels safe, and in every worker who no longer carries the burden of another’s waste.
He didn’t just give India toilets. He gave it dignity.