By Pallavi Aiyar
BEIJING - What is usually lost in the fashionable discussions comparing India and China as models of economic growth and development is the fact that development is not solely about shiny surfaces and broad roads. China has indeed outstripped India by these criteria, but perhaps even more significantly, it has transformed its formerly feudalistic, stratified society into a modern state of relatively flattened social structures and belief in the dignity of labor.
Middle class Indians in cities, flushed with metro and mall-generated excitement, are wont to dismiss the caste system as a relic that no longer holds sway, at least in urban areas. Yet, the steady stream of /jamadars/ who spend their days cleaning out the toilets of houses both modest and grand, a job that other domestic staff resolutely refuse to consider, is indicative of just how deeply rooted caste consciousness is. Gandhi himself identified toilet cleaning as key to revolutionizing society. He stressed repeatedly that in a society's approach to private and public sanitation lay its commitment to true freedom and dignity. But if Gandhi was correct in his beliefs, then it is authoritarian China, not democratic India that has in fact achieved self-respect for its citizens.
Yu Bao Ping started work as a public toilet cleaner and attendant in Beijing's Jiao Dao Kou neighborhood last September. Originally a rice farmer from Anhui province, the 38-year-old is ecstatic at having landed such a good job. He says that compared to the backbreaking labor of farming, cleaning toilets is a cinch. It gives him a stable income, and more importantly, a chance to broaden his horizons in the big city.
"I have made so many friends through the toilet," he says. In several older sections of Beijing, homes still lack private bathrooms and an entire lane uses the communal facilities. Yu works in one such community latrine. "Everyone in this neighbourhood comes through these doors," he says, "and I have met so many different kinds of people, including foreigners."
In many parts of India, people still rush off to take a bath if they accidentally touch a /bhangi/ (night soil worker). The confidence with which this reporter's neighbourhood toilet cleaner, Lou Ya, shook hands when approached for an interview, is indicative of just how different social relations are in China.
Lou Ya, 27, a former waitress from Sichuan province, says if she could do anything she pleased, she would pick being a hairdresser. But in the meantime, she is teaming up with her husband, Ou Zhi Sheng, as a toilet attendant and cleaner. Husband and wife divide the work: he takes the men's room, she the ladies'. What she likes best about the job is the steady income, around 700 yuan (US$90) per month, and the fact that it provides she and Ou with rent-free accommodation.
Hundreds of fancy new public restrooms, complete with flush toilets and hand dryers, are currently being constructed by Beijing's municipal authorities in the run up to the 2008 Olympics. These new "luxurious lavatories", as they have been dubbed by Chinese media, have gleaming compartments for men, women and disabled users, and as a final addition a tiny room housing the 24-hour attendants.
Lou Ya, says she doesn't think it odd at all to be living inside a toilet. The little room that houses the husband-wife duo has a bunk bed, a small TV set, a fan and even a stove. It's a home that happens to be extremely close to their place of work. And not coincidentally, it gives them an incentive to keep the toilets spotless and odor-free.
Even in China, though, cleaning toilets is not a profession completely free of stigma. Lou Ya admits that there are people who would view her work with revulsion. "But I am standing on my own two feet and earning money," she says, "and I am proud of it." There are times when she feels a little disheartened with the daily drudgery of her work. These are times when "people make a big mess". But it's at these times that she remembers the story of the famous sanitation worker, Shi Chuanxiang, and draws inspiration.
Following the Communist Revolution in 1949, the Chinese government began the practice of annually electing "model workers": exemplary figures from the country's vast working class intended to instill in citizens a respect for manual labor. Shi Chuanxiang, who spent more than 40 years of his life shoveling and carrying manure from hole-in-the-ground public bathrooms, was one such model worker and became an idealized figure across the country after he was received by Liu Shaoqi, the then president, in 1959. His story is compulsory reading in elementary schools even today.
As China transitions into a capitalist culture, divisions along class-lines have certainly re-emerged. The penniless migrant worker and urban yuppie are separated by an enormous socioeconomic divide. Yet, a general belief in the dignity of labor has developed in Chinese society a progressive mindset, from which India still seems generations away.
Pallavi Aiyar is the Beijing correspondent for the Indian Express newspaper.