Engaging India is an online column analysing the issues, trends and forces behind the business and politics shaping India and its impact on the world. Engaging India appears on Thursday mornings exclusively on FT.com India, a dedicated online section on India, and is written by Jo Johnson, the Financial Times’ South Asia bureau chief; Amy Yee, New Delhi correspondent; and Joe Leahy, Mumbai correspondent.

Bindeshwar Pathak has devoted his life to an unusual cause. In 1970 he founded Sulabh a non-governmental organisation based in Delhi that builds clean toilets for the masses. So far Sulabh has built 1.2m private toilets and 6,000 public ones across India that are used by 10m people each day.