What stinks — a statement by a minister that wasn't as politically nuanced as it should have been? Or all that drying faeces in the fields, across railway tracks, teeming with pathogens?

Union minister Jairam Ramesh is being pilloried for saying, "Toilets are more important than temples." VHP and Bajrang Dal have condemned him for using the word 'temple'. Some young men with saffron headbands even went and peed at his gate.

The first things we often pray for (in temples, mosques, churches and elsewhere) is good health. So, when elementary science tells us that sanitary toilet practices can bring down incidence of diseases, should everybody compulsorily have  covered toilets or should they wait in queues in front of the aforementioned places of worship?

Open defecation is a reality of our villages, of our railways and of the urban spaces for the poor we condescendingly call 'slums'. Think cholera, diarrhoea, gastroenteritis, salmonellosis, food poisoning — these are just some of the diseases of which all that waste is the richest reservoir. And then, there are pathogens we may not even know of at the moment!

A focus on toilets could mean better public health — a precursor to better productivity of the population. A focus on the union minister Jairam Ramesh's statement will mean a few votes added or lost. 

So, the next time you need to go, will you pray or pay (to use a public convenience)? Does religion take precedence for you over public health?