‘Only 37% of over 10,000 pay-to-use toilets in Mumbai are for women’

Times of India: Mumbai: Sunday, 27 December 2015.

Few things in life are as compelling as a full bladder. Last month, it made 22-year-old Laxmi Pandit plead, bargain and fight with the hard-nosed attendant of a toilet near Bandra Terminus who refused to allow her in. Due to a water cut, this three-storeyed Sulabh Shauchalaya had been locked for a whole day clogging the bodily plumbing of hundreds of women such as Pandit who, ironically enough, live atop a water pipeline.

"From 11 am to 9.30 pm, we had to control ourselves," recalls Pandit, whose system retched and vomited in protest. "Imagine what the pregnant women must have gone through," adds the resident of this 1800-shanties-strong Indira Nagar slum where most female bladders rely on the two first-floor ladies' loos of this public toilet for relief.

Of late, construction work has blocked the gate to this loo "so we have to take a circuitous route and climb a bunch of cement slabs to get there," says Pandit. But between the toilet near Colgate Palmolive ground, which heaves with "unlimited men" as Pandit puts it, and the one near Bandra Family Court which is always full, this Bandra Terminus loo is the only real option for these slum women.

The lack of public toilets for women in Mumbai may be a tired lament but last week, it found new hope when the Bombay high court directed all the municipal corporations in the city to provide safe and clean toilets for women. The Right To Pee movement a united front of 33 women's organisations has been raising a stink over this matter for years. In 2012, an RTI filed by these RTP activists found that out of the 10,381 pay-to-use toilet seats in this city of nearly 20 million, a paltry 37% are for women.

Besides, by law, men and women are supposed to have free access to urinals but the 2012 RTI showed that the city had no urinals for women. This means women working outdoors have to pay to use a toilet even when they merely need a urinal.

It is no wonder then that providing public toilets is seen as a form of gender empowerment. "As women, we are equal contributors to the economy and should have equal right to public utilities," says RTP activist Supriya Sonar, urging us to find out where the gender budget of Rs 5.25 crore allocated to the BMC "for construction of toilets and lavatories for women" this year went. "Over 90 per cent of the working women in Mumbai are from unorganised sector who suffer the most due to lack of toilets," says Sonar, citing hawkers and even domestic workers who are not allowed to pee in the bathrooms they clean. In fact, several female traffic cops have confided in Sonar off the record about "drinking less water" while on the job to avoid the urge to pee. "Problems worsen when they are menstruating," says Sonar.

It was the plight of his sister and mother that prompted Raju Vanjare a slum-dweller from Mankhurd to take up the cause of better sanitation for women. "They would wait for us to leave the room to relieve themselves in the sink and open defecation for them meant a long trek to the bushes," says Vanjare, adding that using public toilets wasn't an option as it was poorly maintained.

In his recent monthly meetings with the municipal body and toilet owners as an RTP activist, Vanjare brought up issues such as the fact that Kherwadi had three toilets for men and none for women and that the curtain obscuring the ladies' loo opposite Bandra station is torn, laying it bare to the gent's toilet right across. However, "in nine months, meetings haven't yielded much," says Vanjare, who was shocked to receive an email from the civic authority recently which said they should discontinue the meetings.

One toilet for every 50 Mumbaikars would make life easier. At present, though, one caters to 1,000, points out activist Hemant Mohite. adding that the activists have decided to team up with the BMC for the implementation of gender-friendly toilets.

But the issue isn't merely about the lack of toilets for women, says filmmaker Paromita Vohra, whose 2006 film 'Q2P' opened up the conversation on gender and toilets in Mumbai so much so that many even referenced the film in their PILs. "Even if there are toilets for women, how beneficial are they considering some women won't step out late in the night?"asks Vohra, who feels it is important that the matrix used to figure out the number of toilet units for women doesn't rely on outdated notions of women in public spaces. "You and I, for instance, can walk into a McDonald's if we want to pee," says Vohra. "But a woman on the street can't."