Kunwar Bai Yadav (died 23 February 2018, aged 106) was a woman who lived in a village in

Dhamtari district Dhamtari is a district of the Indian state of Chhattisgarh. This district is situated at 20°42' N latitude and 81°33' E longitude. Dhamtari district was officially formed on 6 July 1998 by trifurcating Raipur district into Raipur, Dhamtari and ...

in the central

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

n state of

Chhattisgarh Chhattisgarh (; ) is a landlocked States and union territories of India, state in Central India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, ninth largest state by area, and with a population of roughly 30 million, the List ...

. In her old age, inspired by the

Swachh Bharat Abhiyan Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM), Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, or Clean India Mission is a country-wide campaign initiated by the Government of India on 2 October 2014 to eliminate open defecation and improve solid waste management and to create Open Defec ...

(Clean India Campaign), she sold seven of her goats to raise the money to build a toilet at her house. In 2016, the district was declared the first in the state to be free of

open defecation Open defecation is the human practice of defecating outside ("in the open") rather than into a toilet. People may choose fields, bushes, forests, ditches, streets, canals, or other open spaces for defecation. They do so either because they do ...

, and she was declared a mascot of the campaign and visited by

Prime Minister A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...

Narendra Modi Narendra Damodardas Modi (born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician who has served as the Prime Minister of India, prime minister of India since 2014. Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Par ...

Life

Yadav lived in Kotabharri, a village in Dhamtari district, Chhattisgarh. The villagers had always defecated in the open, in the forest. In 2015, she heard about toilets for the first time in a presentation at the local school as part of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, a campaign to end open defecation by 2 October 2019, the 150th anniversary of the birth of

Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2October 186930January 1948) was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalism, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethics, political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful Indian ...

. She sold seven of her two dozen goats, her only available assets, and with the help of a daughter-in-law who works as a day labourer, raised the 22,000 to build a toilet at the house she shared with her family. Others in the village followed suit, and, in late 2016, the district became officially free of open defecation, the first district in the State to achieve this. Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Kotabharri and bowed and touched Yadav's feet. She has been declared a mascot of the Clean India Campaign. Yadav was admitted to Ambedkar Hospital in

Raipur Raipur ( ) is the capital city of the Indian state of Chhattisgarh. Raipur is also the administrative headquarters of Raipur district and Raipur division, and the largest city of the state. It was a part of Madhya Pradesh before the state of Chh ...

after becoming ill. She died there on 23 February 2018, aged 106.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yadav, Kunwar Bai People from Dhamtari district Indian activists 1910s births Year of birth uncertain 2018 deaths Indian women centenarians