Histories of sanitation in South Asia are typically spun as tales of modernisation that work, at least implicitly, to legitimise the development regimes of former colonial and current national states. Beginning with colonial rule, the story goes, governments invested in the provision of sanitary works and services to remedy the problems associated with disease-causing ‘waste’ and, thereby, to raise living standards and improve life expectancies. Postcolonial nation-states, in turn, worked individually and collaboratively to further these goals, as reflected in programmes such as India’s campaign for ‘Sanitation for All by 2012’ and the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals. To explain the persistent failure of state programmes to meet their target goals, ostensibly traditional and timeless ‘un-hygienic’ cultural beliefs and practices and a range of technical, logistical and financial obstacles are routinely invoked.1

• 1. See, for instance, the narrative underpinning a study of Unicef’s collaboration with the Government of India to improve rural water supplies: M. Black and R. Talbot (2005) Water: A Matter of Life and Health: Water Supply and Sanitation in Village India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press). See also the Asian Development Bank’s (2009) India’s Sanitation for All: How to Make It Happen (Manila: Asian Development Bank). See also the Asian Development Bank’s (2009) India’s Sanitation for All: How to Make It Happen (Manila: Asian Development Bank)