Interventions (inputs to SBM(G))

All interviewees ascribed the initial impetus for the Swachh Bharat Mission to the prime minister, Narendra Modi. In 2014, in his inaugural speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort in Delhi, Modi announced his plan for India to become free from open defection in 5 years, by 2 October 2019, in honour of the 150th anniversary of the birth of Mahatma Gandhi. The setting of this ‘big hairy audacious goal’19 made the need for radical changes in the government’s normal approach evident:

[We are in] mission mode delivery arrangement, where you have a sunset clause that you have to achieve in a given time period… …So, it's a very different working paradigm. (01)

[In normal practice] the government might have said that we have 10 years to make India open defaecation free. So we might have done squat for 7 years and started working in the eighth year and then asked for a 5 year no-cost extension. (16)

Officials at all levels referred to the prime minister’s evident commitment to SBM:

The major change is that the political leadership came from the prime minister’s office… …to reach all the communities, civil societies, religious leaders, famous people of India, actors or people in sport. Involving everybody at the same time for a national cause under the lead of the PM. (14)

…the fact that this is led by the prime minister – it is high on the agenda of every district collector. It has led to government functionaries being on their toes all the time and also reaching out to the people in a way that has never happened before. (12)

And the PM kept up pressure over the life of the programme:

So, it was not just a political announcement, but they backed it with serious attention over last 4 years, I think that’s quite dramatic. That’s one big game changer. (16)

…the PM referred to Swachh Bharat in 35 of his 50 addresses to the nation on All India Radio between October 2014 and December 2018. (10)

Breaking with administrative norms to appoint staff on the basis of seniority, the prime minister sought out a technocrat to lead SBM(G) within the MDWS. The chosen secretary was a sanitation specialist and was also unusual in having worked both within the Indian administrative service, and outside of it in international bodies. This gave him the ability to navigate the government hierarchy, but also to see where it might be disrupted.

In terms of technical leadership, this time the people put in place to lead this campaign are people with global experience that have worked abroad. They are aware of what is happening in the world in terms of sanitation programming, successes and failures, so there is great openness to learning in this programme. (14)

The ministry team led a consultation exercise with states to gather lessons from a succession of previous sanitation campaigns, and to work out what it would cost to achieve the goal of an open defaecation free (ODF) India. The total bill was estimated at some US$20 billion over 5 years, or about US$4.00 per head of the population per year.20 In addition, the team negotiated a loan of US$1.5 billion from the World Bank.21 The ministry also asked the World Bank, UNICEF, WaterAid and other support agencies to augment their technical assistance to states, and asked philanthropic foundations (Tata Trusts and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) to fund the recruitment of consultants to a project management cell:

The consultants have given a new dimension to the working of the ministry. Previously we were working like a government setup, but with the coming of this young blood… …they have given momentum to the programme. (02)

Unusually for India, the management cell was integrated within the ministry rather than sitting outside of it. The SBM(G) team thus had access to government communications channels and to the cabinet and prime minister:

What Modi has done is picked up these bureaucrats and said you have direct access to me… (09)

A further input that distinguished SBM(G) from standard Indian government programmes was a new strategy for communications. The team recognised early on that it was important to constantly communicate; downwards through the government hierarchy to programme actors, outwards to the population as a whole and to partners in the private and development sectors, and also, critically, back upwards to SBM’s political masters. Key influencers had to be kept on board:

We started delivering and then we started communicating that to the people who matter - like media, like the political masters, they need to feel that the thing is moving. Then there are academics, the international community, the sort of people who are influencers, who can spread the word. It's like chicken and egg: when you start doing well, then nothing succeeds like success, but it needs to be communicated… (11)

So point is, if you want political leadership and you get it, then you have to nurture it… (14)

Mass media played a major role in keeping all these audiences supportive and involved:

…all of our communication has become much more world class. Indian government ads are [normally] easily identifiable from their look and feel -- they are dull, boring and preachy and nobody wants to watch them. But in this ministry the ads are very exciting and entertaining… (10)

Honestly I don't know if promoting stuff on social media is leading to behaviour change in rural India, but it does make urban India more aware about what happening in rural areas, for that is also important. (12)

Changes to the environment in districts

The theory of change depicts how these inputs (disruptive leadership, mobilisation of human and financial resources, new modes of communication) changed the operating environment for staff working in India’s more than 600 districts. The new leadership team in the ministry recognised that the first barrier to overcome was widespread staff scepticism, engendered by the experience of having seen many previous campaigns falter.22 They needed to make district officials believe that change was possible. One hundred districts were therefore targeted for an ‘early-win’ campaign. Their heads, the district collectors, were invited to national workshops, and were offered resources and, unusually, direct access to the leadership, to enable them to resolve any problems they encountered. By the end of 2016, most of these flagship districts had declared that they were ODF. This model was then duplicated across the country.

That is one of the great achievements (of SBM), they really have made sure that there is great support for any collector who wants to achieve this. (17)

The new leaders of SBM disrupted social norms in districts by modelling behaviour that was results-oriented and ethical. One interviewee recounted:

If the secretary is going to the field [normally], the collector’s job is to be the protocol officer, to receive him at the airport, ensure his dietary requirements, see his arrangements are proper. Your job is to carry his briefcase. But this secretary focuses on the task in hand, he asks the collector important questions, rather than where to buy this handloom saree for his wife… This changes the professional ethics. Then the administrators know that this guy will ask for results rather than where to go shopping. (09)

Several interviewees told of the surprise that they felt when they saw a photograph of a top ministry official climbing into a toilet pit to empty it in the national newspapers.23 One top state official dug toilet pits herself. Another related her initiation to the SBM programme by a trainer which violated the norm :

’Tatti’[shit] is the most disgusting and vile word in Hindi. And he was just like: ‘tatti tatti’… …and I could not stop giggling. It is not even a word you may use, you may use this word at home, but not if there is a guest or someone. (10)

Many interviewees felt that such activities had caused a change of norms in society, and by extension, in districts:

So this is quite unique… …5 or 6 years back you could not even talk about defaecation. And now you see that the whole of India is expert on the issue of open defaecation. (14)

A further change to the operating environment of districts was the use of technology to monitor and encourage progress. Collectors were set targets by the leadership in Delhi and then, unusually, were held to account. They were expected to report on progress in face-to-face meetings, in regular multi-participant video conferences and online.

Video and satellite conferences were my two important communication tools to connect with people and officials from across all the districts. I used video conferences to get figures on how many toilets had been built and to hand out targets. (15)

District collectors were trained on, and encouraged to sign up for, social media, and to use email:

[It is] rare for a bureaucrat to reply within an hour to an email. That means he has got email on his phone. Babus [bosses] still don’t do it to this day. (10)

In addition, the MDWS created a live ‘dashboard’; a website displaying progress on sanitation coverage showing the number of toilets built and the percentage of households covered.24 In many states this system worked automatically via a mobile phone app that was updated by village authorities in real time, as toilets were built and funds disbursed to householders’ electronic bank accounts.

These improvements in communications technology provided an environment in which districts knew they could be held publicly to account, but also gave them an opportunity to show off their success. Rather than being forgotten in remote corners of the country, those collectors and their staff who did well were held up as examples on social media, invited to receive awards at multiple ceremonies involving local, state or national dignitaries and some were given awards by the prime minister himself.

The secretary… …travels a lot to see what’s happening on the ground and he tweets almost every day about the good things that are happening. So, this provides a lot of motivation to the system. (08)

We had this workshop to felicitate the spouses which really touched all of them. Many of these wives… …said that nobody has ever acknowledged the work that we do. (15)

A further means by which ‘business-as-usual’ in districts was disrupted was the introduction of ‘fresh young blood’. Aside from deploying technical consultants, development partners were asked to recruit a cadre of new, young and enthusiastic fellows. Five hundred preraks were hired and assigned to support districts, where they took on a variety of roles.

This is how the programme works: they take fellows from districts which have become ODF and put them in districts or states wherever it’s required according to the skills and the needs… (08)

The preraks are an astonishing innovation… They have been terrific… (17)

Preraks described how they offered flexible support to districts, filling in where needed:

I had a collector who would call me pretty much on a daily basis. If I didn’t meet him, he would text me and ask about the update. Eventually, I would run a lot of workshops and he even sent me to different locations because [he said] ‘I can’t understand what the problem is there, why don’t you go and check out what the problem is and just address it…’ (07)

Preraks supported each other and shared solutions to problems, often using social media:

But in terms of everyday things that we needed to carry out, we were calling each other on WhatsApp or email… ‘I heard that you guys have a lot of dysfunctional toilets, how are you working on this?’ …that was on a WhatsApp group. (08)

Psychological changes

In figure 2 innovations that changed the social and technological environments in districts led to psychological changes (belief, motivation and habitual response) of the relevant officials. First, staff had to believe that change was possible. Officials repeatedly described how they had joined a civil service out of a desire to ‘serve’, but had been frustrated by bureaucracy and stasis:

It's just pushing up against the wall which is not going to move ever. So, why am wasting the good years of my youth and all my energy and ideas on this? (10)

But as they saw progress, staff begun to believe that the sanitation situation could be changed:

Because it gives you so much conviction, you know, what the world thought is impossible is being done in my time. (01)

As the results of their work became more visible, district officials related their pride at their achievements:

So now when I travel with my family they say: ‘see what is happening to your Swachh Bharat…’…I am ‘Swachh Bharat Champ’ they call me. (03)

Staff described their motivation for working in SBM using emotive terms:

There is a lot of passion for the first time in my sanitation business for many years. This is the first time that I have seen such a powerful country being mobilised in such a genuine and realistic way. (14)

…it is glamorous (07)

…disgust with the kind of situation people have lived in in our villages for such a long time… (06)

I think this whole country has been amazingly galvanised [by this] compelling creation, amazing euphoria…, …the sanitation programme is a very adventurous, courageous and romantic venture. (01)

However, the motive that was most often mentioned by staff working in districts was the opportunity that working in the SBM had given them to ‘make a difference’:

It gives you satisfaction when you see that we are heading a programme that is being implemented and that is being successful and people are owning it. (03)

Because here I think I can give my best output and can contribute in assisting my bosses so that they can do it well too. (02)

The new technological environment also changed the habitual responses of officials—for example, by making it easy for them to monitor progress closely:

So now when you are in a village you log into the app [and] all the Swachh Bharat mission toilets are mapped there with the beneficiary name, with the photographs, everything is there. (06)

Further, the new norms of behaviour set by national officials led to new working habits such as abandoning air-conditioned offices and spending more time in the field.

Changes in behaviour in districts

The cascade of changes in the operating environment and in the psychology of actors in SBM led to new behaviour in districts—the level at which staff have the mandate, operational staff and budgetary autonomy to organise development activities. Interviewees reported that the most important determinant of progress in latrine construction was the level of involvement of the district collector (DC). A DC who had taken on the challenge of SBM would typically move into ‘campaign mode’, making building toilets her/his priority, sometimes neglecting other activities to do so. The work comprised reviewing the sanitation status of blocks (administrative units) and villages, setting targets for toilet construction, organising payments to self-help groups and contractors, training masons and huge numbers of social mobilisers (swachhagrahis), organising mobilisation events, monitoring results and verifying the ODF status of villages.

DCs used a range of strategies to galvanise these activities: setting targets for blocks and villages to become ODF, arranging disbursement of funds, having weekly problem-solving meetings with block staff and sometimes, following up progress daily using social media.

The commitment of some of these collectors is quite extraordinary. Some use WhatsApp to call people at 4 in the morning to make sure they are up for the nigrani samiti [morning visit to open defaecation grounds]. Quite amazing! (17)

So they [block coordinators] feel happy and motivated as there is regular follow-up. And as I call them almost every day, so they also hold meetings almost every 2 to 3 days. (03)

Perhaps the biggest change in the behaviour of district level staff was the move from ‘business-as-usual’ to a personal engagement with the cause:

If you are not out in the field, you are not present and people don’t see you, then people will not get excited. (11)

Everybody was more excited about the mission, because the collector himself was sitting with us. (08)

So you try to inspire people, motivate people, appeal to them, persuade them to do it fast, quickly and so on, in the mode of pulse polio [national eradication campaign], where in matter of a week or 10 days you can simultaneously start the work of construction and of triggering people. (15)

Change in the state of the world (impact)

What, finally, was the overall impact of these changes in the administrative system under the SBM(G)? The government of India has made repeated efforts to improve the sanitation conditions of its rural population; figure 3 shows the results. After the national census of 1981 put national sanitation coverage at only 1%, the Central Rural Sanitation Program was launched in 1986. This increased coverage to 9% and evolved into the Total Sanitation Campaign, which began in 1991. In the following 20 years, coverage improved by some 1% a year, reaching 31% by 2011.²⁵ Despite a relaunch of the campaign, as the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan, India failed to meet its millennium development goal to halve the rate of those with no access to sanitation by 2015.26

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Figure 3

Household toilet coverage in India 1981–2018 according to surveys and the national monitoring system.

By contrast, 4 years after the 2014 launch of Swachh Bharat, official figures suggested that over 80 million toilets had been built; 500 districts and almost half a million villages had been declared free of open defaecation.27 Figure 3 suggests that the rate of toilet building in rural areas was around 10 times that of previous campaigns. In tandem with accelerating increases in sanitation coverage, government figures suggest that open defaecation has also decreased, dropping by 3% a year between 2000 and 2014 and by 12% a year from 2015 to 2019.11

A number of unpublished surveys suggest that the government monitoring system overestimates the true levels of toilet coverage.28 29 Interviewees gave reasons for discrepancies between individual surveys and government figures that included inaccuracies in the original government baseline against which progress is reported, the omission from the SBM programme of households with old toilets which had fallen out of use, and systemic incentives to over-report results. Nevertheless, interviewees described exceptional progress in improving toilet coverage over the past 4 years, transforming India from a country where the majority defaecated in the open, to one where the majority of people have, and use, toilets.

I don’t think there is any historic parallel of any country anywhere in the world, shifting numbers on such a scale. That will change the global indicators. I think that the story is not whether it is 85%, right, or 90%, right, the story is the fact that there is a tremendous shift. (16)

While interviewees were positive about the gains made by the SBM, there were also worries about the sustainability of these gains over the long term:

we brought India from A to B which is an outstanding achievement but there is recognition that behaviour change is complex, there is unfinished business and there is necessity to invest beyond the campaign so that we have a real impact by the end of the SDG era. (14)

As the final deadline for SBM looms, political attention to the unfinished last mile on sanitation will inevitably shift to other pressing social problems, such as rural water supply. In the face of this the MDWS is trying to embed sanitation in national policy, and plans to continue to make funds available to complete and sustain the gains of SBM.

On sustainability, of course the ministry is also aware; they have started focusing on something called ODF Plus, which looks at the sustainability issue. (13)

Context

Drawing transferable lessons from a programme’s theory of change requires understanding its particular context.30 The SBM(G) programme took advantage of opportunities presented by the prevailing national political situation, of improvements in living conditions in rural India and of the proliferation of communications technology. It also drew on the experience of previous sanitation programmes, and on the global push to meet the sustainable development goals. Contextual factors that hindered progress, on the other hand, included a general scepticism of government-sponsored programmes, political division, where some states were not supporters of the current government, and the many other competing demands for social investment in India.

Interviewees pointed out how the political context was key in the launch of SBM, where a swing towards a nationalist and pro-Hindu party provided an opportunity to capitalise on the symbolism of purity, cleanliness of the mother country and the example of Gandhi. This was expected to translate into electoral support:

Sanitation is something each family needs every day. And through his programme, Modi is able to reach out to almost all the households in the country. And a toilet becomes synonymous with Modi. So, Modi is equal to Swachh Bharat and Swachh Bharat is equal to a toilet. So, this has given him immense visibility, immense publicity and immense connection with crores of households in India. (01)

Indeed, observers have suggested that the prime minister’s evident commitment to rural sanitation was a factor in the success of the ruling party at the 2019 general elections.31 32

You see, good sanitation is good politics. (01)

The new SBM goals were set for a nation in the midst of modernisation, where millions have emerged from poverty, and most people have improved their housing and gained access to electricity, water, mass communications and education.33 India was therefore ready for modern toilets, and had the communications networks necessary to spread the idea rapidly.

The SBM(G) programme did not emerge anew but was set up in the context of a long line of previous national sanitation campaigns. These had had limited success, but provided experience concerning what worked and what did not.

The Swachh Bharat Mission is preceded by several other missions; the Total Sanitation Mission, Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan and other campaigns. When the Swachh Bharat mission started we were very much aware of this. We can't say that those programme were a total failure, these contributed to building momentum and creating awareness, and some of these toilets are still in use. …definitely they left imprints. (05)

Both the national and international situation was favourable to SBM. International agreement to meet the sustainable development goals reminded Indian leaders that, though their country had made progress in many ways, sanitation conditions still lagged far behind those of countries with comparable levels of development.