"Sacred nudging" and sanitation decisions in India. Issue 3 (27th May 2018) - Tagat, Anirudh
ABSTRACT: Sanitation policies in India have primarily focused on infrastructure development, through building latrines and toilets. Given the persistence of open defecation in India despite such efforts, emphases on behavioral change interventions are crucial. We explore why and how the dual nature of purity and degradation in public and private spaces is relevant to such problems. In the context of sanitation and health policies in India, we propose an intervention that exploits social norms associated with purity via the use of religious imagery in public spaces as a deterrent for unhygienic sanitation behaviors. This intervention falls within the framework of nudging, which has received great emphasis in recent policy discussions. In the absence of empirical data on the intervention, this paper takes into account considerations of ethics, implications, cost, and scalability; suggestions on implementing the intervention at various levels of government are provided keeping in mind India's socio-cultural context.