In a bizarre order, the district education officer of Ashok Nagar in Madhya Pradesh has suspended an assistant teacher for defecating in the open. Mahendra Singh Yadav is an assistant teacher at government school, Budehera, is a resident of village Silvati in district Ashok Nagar.
The district education officer in the suspension order said, “Mahendra Singh Yadav violated the ambitious Swachh Bharat Mission of the government and defecated in the open despite having a toilet at his home.”
The suspension letter that is marked to the district collector says it has been issued under directions from the district collector.
The Congress party, however, has called it hypocrisy. “The officer who is issuing such bizarre orders is trying to please his political masters and this is happening in the rule of the BJP whose national president was in Bhopal only last month and the house that he visited for lunch did not have a toilet.
In fact residents of slums behind the state secretariat where Chief Minister Shivraj Singh sits every day defecate in the open. Everyone in this government is just trying to please the bosses,” Congress spokesman KK Mishra said.
Social activists have also slammed the government for the decision. “People cannot be penalised for attending to nature’s call like this, particularly in a country like ours where there is a huge gap between the required number of toilets and the number on the ground. People have to be convinced to use toilets, they have to be educated but you cannot penalise them like this,” a social activist said.
The Jain community too has sought exemption for its saints from using toilets. “There are many issues involved. The way the district education officer has acted is totally bizarre,” a social activist working in the field of sanitation said. He did not want to be named, lest it should suggest he supported open defecation.
