No Toilet, No Vote
Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh has proposed that Indians who do not have a toilet in their house will not be able to participate in elections, in an attempt to “eradicate the practice of open defecation by 2010.” Singh remarked, “If you cannot build a toilet in your own home, what use can you be to your voters?” It’s unclear what the connection between the lack of a toilet and the inability to effectively participate in an election is, but Singh is concerned about the 200,000 megatons of feces that Indians leave in the open, polluting the environment. Around 700 million Indian homes, in most rural areas and urban slums, don’t have toilets, but there are reportedly two-story homeowners who are simply uninterested in installing a john.