On Gandhi and Sanitation

Abstract It was Gandhi who gave centrality to the debate on sanitation from the perspective of bio-power. The category of sanitation for him was not something to be used as a form of control but an instrument for transforming the structural caste-based hierarchy. Gandhian idea on sanitation resonates well with the anthropological notion of holism. He has visualised sanitation across the domains of soma, polis and psyche. Sanitation for Gandhi is not limited by its technical definition requiring only technical solutions but in its expansion that assumes a metaphorical significance. For Gandhi, swaraj (self-rule) in political sphere can only be achieved if there is a collective sense of sanitation and hygiene. The field of sanitation, therefore, can be seen as a testing ground for the ability and preparedness to achieve political swaraj. Sanitation reforms for him are based on reforming the collective sense of social self. This kind of reformation leads sanitation into the domain of the ‘moral-political’ that invoke collective and municipal efforts from the state to address insanitation. It is within these contexts that the article tries to understand the Gandhian philosophy on sanitation that traverses through the conceptions of bio-power, caste hierarchies, colonialism, scientism, nationalism and morality.