Dry toilets: An ecological wisdom

Spiti Valley is a rural and dry mountain region located in the Indian Himalayas in the district of Lahaul and Spiti in Himachal Pradesh. Being a cold desert, the region receives scanty rainfall in the summers that is not enough for the crops to thrive. Dependence on water is therefore exclusively centered around glaciers whose water collect in streams traditionally called ‘tokpos’ and rivulets called ‘yuras.’ On visiting this place, one would witness all the civilizations thriving next to the tokpos from where water is diverged into the fields through yuras. The unfortunate dual existence of agriculture and scanty rainfall compels the farmers to engage in a monotonous task of irrigating the fields. The problem of water-scarcity is however ameliorated by the toilet and sanitation design systems prevailing in the region, which produce natural manure to be used in fields. Upon gaining deeper insights about the traditional agricultural practices of the people of this valley, one learns how the local knowledge pertaining personal sphere of sanitation holds symbolic power to question not only the design of modern sanitation systems but also the paradox of development and modernity that cities are clothed with. What is progress if whatever new infrastructural and technological advancements we are coming up with are detached from the ecology of the area it is being used in? Is it even progress and development if they are happening at the cost of the deterioration of nature’s resources?

Spitians have been using dry toilets since their start of civilization in the cold Himalayas. Dry toilets are also called composting toilets and are the ancient versions of modern eco-san toilets. It has two levels, a toilet on the top and a composting unit underneath. After using the toilet, a bit of dirt (locals mostly use ashes, mud or dry dung) is shoveled into the composting unit, through a hole to facilitate decomposition by microorganisms. The dirt also covers the waste and blocks the foul smell. Furthermore, these toilets do not need water. At the end of every year, the composting unit of every household is cleaned by the locals with the help of neighbors, friends, relatives and village people. It is a communal affair and the waste that has decomposed is usually dry. The naturally formed manure is put to use in the fields before the ploughing season. In Spiti, therefore, there is no concept of ‘waste.’ The symbiotic relationship between the toilet design systems of the locals and the fragile ecosystem facilitates growth of healthy crops and ameliorates the brunt of water crisis characterizing the dry region. The use of dry toilets is, therefore, an eco-sensitive wisdom born out of the geographical realities of the cold desert and is especially useful in the winters when water freezes. However, an influx of tourists, increase in globalization and the bandwagon effect of modernity is not only hierarchizing sanitation design systems but also disrupting the temporal existence of indigenous wisdom and infrastructure when it comes to construction of toilets.

Semiotics of Toilet Design

Sanitation, although being a very personal matter, is also very political. It is impacted by class, caste and geographical privileges that one is born with. Living in an environment that is far away from the reaches of dust and garbage dumping sites is a choice that one can afford to make depending on one’s position in the socially stratified society. Spiti Valley is a very dusty, dry and typical desert area with very harsh climatic conditions. Because of the extreme cold, it is unusual to take bath on a daily basis like people in cities do. Being dictated by the weather conditions, the concept of sanitation, therefore, takes a very different toll here. Similarly, when it comes to toilet design, the semiotics functioning around it is context dependent. The semiotic analysis is flexible to change depending on where the toilets are located and who is about to use them. In a rural village context where it is only the family members and other locals using the toilet, the meaning limits itself to efficiency and normalcy of a village life. All the people living in the village depend on agriculture as their primary source of income. Therefore, the dry toilets are not only perceived as a sensible option owing to the ecology but also a necessity because of the need for natural manure. However, as one moves from the villages to more urban areas marked by the existence of hotels, concrete buildings and more tourists, the semiotics around toilet design becomes fluid.

Living in a hierarchized society marked by caste, class and gender differences, our everyday objects, infrastructures and architectures come to be ‘filled with semiotic relationships, which in turn have political connotations’.[1] Most of the semiotics revolving around these infrastructures are shaped by the overarching burden of modernity and development that we’re all expected to carry. The brunt of modernity is borne most heavily by those from lower strata of the society who are socially, intellectually and financially less privileged. Recognizing this larger discourse around development expands the semiotics of toilet design in Spiti from the usual understanding of its eco-friendly nature. In the dry toilets of Spiti, there is an understanding of where one’s waste is going. One sees the waste and later when decomposed to form manure, engages with it materially. With modernity however, progress of sanitation design systems is measured by how well you can invisibalise the waste. There is no awareness of what trajectory one’s waste takes. In pour-flush toilets, waste is flushed, it goes into sewers and ceases to exist visibly for those using it. The waste is left in the sewer and septic tanks to be manually engaged by those who are forced by their caste status do so. Intentionally or unintentionally, modern toilet and sanitation design systems work efficiently only to strengthen the existing inequalities in society and stigmatize dirt, caste status and sanitation work.

The materiality of waste, sewers and septic tanks are engrained with oppressive social values of caste and class. They become the secondary instruments which facilitate the stigmatization and oppression of manual scavengers and other sanitation workers, with sanitation and toilet design systems being the primary instrument. Just like sewers and septic tanks, the toilet design systems in Spiti are also engrained with social values of class and stigmatization of dirt outside its own rural context. As Luisa Cortesi says, ‘things are thick with power’.[2] For the outsiders, these toilets become symbolic of the ‘backwardness’ of the region. These toilets are looked down upon and therefore become an indicator of the scale of development one has afforded to reach. When I took one of my friends to visit Spiti and meet my family, the first thing my parents said on the phone was, “We don’t have a good toilet. Will she be able to manage with our traditional toilet”? With the oppressive discourse of so-called ‘development’ and the hierarchization of toilet design systems, the traditional toilets immediately become instruments that trigger shame and remind Spitians of their class and their ‘backwardness.’ It compels Spitians to be apologetic that they cannot keep pace with the race of modernity. The toilet design systems of Spiti also crystallize the understanding of how ‘the personal is the political.’ How something as personal as one’s own sanitation sphere can be linked to and be influenced by the larger political discourse around development.

Globalization and Tourism | Effect on toilet design

Spiti Valley harbors a landscape, lifestyle and culture that attracts tourists from all across the world. In recent years, it has become a famous tourist hotspot with an influx of people coming in the summers when most of the religious events and harvesting happen. To service this influx of tourists, towns like Kaza have built many concrete structures including cafes, restaurants and hotels. All of the infrastructures manifested in these buildings is incongruent with the fragile ecology of the place that has water shortage and is very cold in winters. Furthermore, hotel rooms are attached with modern toilets and bathrooms, where water is expected to be available all the time. To cater to the preference of modernity and of the tourists, owners have constructed borewells to extract groundwater. With an average annual rainfall of 170 mm, recharging the groundwater seems like a phenomenon that will take forever. Exhaustion of groundwater exacerbates the water scarcity during the winters when tourists cease to visit because of the extreme cold climate and the blockage of roads due to heavy snowfall. With tourists visiting and the bandwagon effect of futuristic infrastructures, Spitians in the towns have shifted from their eco-sensitive indigenous knowledge regarding construction of houses and toilets. The indigenous knowledge is losing value and existence in the face of the larger discourse around development and a drive to ‘modernize.’

Furthermore, tourism has not only changed the sanitation design in towns but also the source of income that the people depend on. In displacing agriculture as the ultimate source of livelihood, the economic restructuring due to escalation of tourist visits has broken many of the lay community arrangements that underpinned agrarian activities. A lot of people are investing huge amounts of money in constructing these modern architectures with ‘modern’ sanitation design systems that are completely detached from the ecology of the area and exacerbates the issue of water-scarcity characterizing the dry region. The fluidity of the semiotics of toilet design, therefore, critiques the idea of timelessness revolving around local/indigenous knowledge. It shows how ‘knowledge as a situated practice is not static but, rather, is subject to change influenced by changing state conceptualizations of a place’.[3] Furthermore, the explosion of tourists has not only strengthened the income source for people owning hotels but also shifted them from their traditional occupations of agriculture. This economic restructuring has altered how Spitians engage with Spiti as a place. Use of pour-flush toilets has pushed the need for more chemical fertilizers and pesticides as there is no natural manure to cater to the growth of crops. These artificial manures in turn, not only pollute the nearby streams but also pose a threat to the population of birds that depend on the insects in the fields for their subsistence. The change in toilet design systems therefore disrupts the cycle of nature where there is no such thing as ‘waste’. The modern sanitation design systems are detached from nature’s way of working and change the way Spitians engage with Spiti as a place. Furthermore, the ways of thinking possessed by Spitians are becoming dichotomous with the flora, water management and topology of their area.

In Spiti, due to water shortage in the winters, people have to depend immensely on hand pumps for extracting water for subsistence and sanitation purposes. The hand pumps also have predictable chances of freezing and becoming malfunctional as a result of extreme low temperatures. To avoid such unfortunate circumstances, locals cover the hand pump with thick warm clothes in the evening after the sun sets. However, such handwork in the evening does not guarantee water supply in the morning. In 2017, the residents of village Khar in Pin Valley of Spiti had to walk around 1 km to fetch water for the river streams as the pumps and water pipes had frozen and become malfunctional. Similar problems are faced by residents of village Tailing in the winters. The construction and regular usage of pour-flush toilets in such dry regions is an impossibility and an insensible option as it requires all-time availability of water. Furthermore, the modern toilet designs need an underground sewerage planning which is very challenging to carry out in such rocky dry terrains. However, the locals in the town engaging in the business of tourism have defied the local knowledge in the face of visually more appealing and modern toilet designs.

Furthermore, the traditional toilet designs of Spiti ideologically defeat the dominant discourse around development and in doing so, pose a solution to other rural areas in India experiencing water-shortage and engaging in agriculture as a source of income. The dry toilets also become a solution for rural areas where manual scavenging is still a grim reality. According to data by Safai Karamchari Andolan there are still 2600000 insanitary latrines in the country which are manually cleaned by Dalits. Manual scavenging is a caste-sanctioned occupation which Dalits engage in because of oppressive caste-hierarchies characterizing the Indian society. Even in urban areas, the modern toilet designs and the underground sewage networks are not only detached from ecology but also reinforce the work of their maintenance on lower castes. This shows how toilet designs besides exacerbating water scarcity and management issues in cold Himalayan regions also reinforce existing caste and class hierarchies in society. Stretching the semiotics of toilet design and its repercussions strengthens the claim that personal (sanitation sphere) and the political (discourse around development, caste and class hierarchies) are intricately linked.

The toilet designs of Spiti Valley portray a subjective semiotic analysis depending on who is using the dry toilets and in which area, urban or rural. In the face of the race of modernity and increasing tourist visits, the traditional toilet design denotes how ‘backward’ or ‘developed’ one is. The toilets, therefore, become symbolic of one’s class and the scale of development one has reached in terms of sanitation. The visibility of the waste through the hole of the dry toilet is considered unclean. Toilet designs, therefore, come to be hierarchized while neglecting the eco-sensitive wisdom of the dry toilets which are congruent with the ecology of the region. Furthermore, increase in tourism and deviation of agricultural practices in towns has altered not only how Spitians engage with Spiti as a place but also disrupted the generally perceived timeless existence of local/indigenous knowledge. The toilet designs in Spiti are therefore, not only symbolic of how the ‘personal’ is linked to and influenced by the larger political discourse around development and modernity but also how infrastructures or sanitation design systems come to acquire and be trapped within social values of power, shame and backwardness.

[1] Cortesi, Luisa. “The Muddy Semiotics of Mud”, Journal of Political Ecology, Vol. 25, 2018, Pg. 618.

[2] Cortesi, Luisa. “The Muddy Semiotics of Mud”, Journal of Political Ecology, Vol. 25, 2018, Pg. 631.

[3] Gagné, Karine. “Cultivating Ice over Time: On the Idea of Timeless Knowledge and Places in the Himalayas”, Anthropologica, Vol. 58, no. 2, 2016, Pg. 195.