An Iranian hermit nicknamed the “world’s dirtiest man” for not taking a shower for more than half a century has died at the healthy old age of 94, state media has reported. The report, however, did not provide the parameters that were used to adjudge Amou Haji the world’s dirtiest man.

Irna news agency reported that “Amou Haji”, an endearing nickname for an elderly person, died on Sunday in the village of Dejgah in the southern province of Fars. Haji slept in a hole he had dug for himself, ate porcupine meat and drank water from puddles

Dejgah villagers, from whom he did not accept food and water, had recently persuaded him to wash for the first time since back in 1954. After his death, the tag may go to an Indian man who claims not to have showered for more than 30 years.

The tag of “dirty man” is likely to evolve into a racism debate as the parameters used to determine “the world’s dirtiest man” are merely sentimental. More significantly, this tag has not been ascribed to an African or a Black person of African origin who lives in diaspora as is usually the case of the ranking intelligence, poverty, disease or civilisation with the Whites race occupying the summit and Blacks are at the base of the ambiguous pyramid.

What is not lost in this ‘dirtiest’ ranking is that Amou Haji belongs to the class of “people of colour” that Whites resort to in the discrimination of non-Whites. With Haji’s death, the pendulum is already swinging in ‘favour’ of India, where Kailash “Kalau” Singh from a village outside the holy city of Varanasi, is said not to have showered for more than 30 years.

In history, whites have used culture and religion to demonise and vilify Blacks and other people of colour who include Haji’s Arabs, Singh’s Asians and mixed ace and mixed-race communities. The same cultural and religious lenses are used to deify whites as the intelligent, clean and God’s chosen race, a classification that is underlain with racism and primordial discrimination.

Back to Hani’s death, it is claimed that he decided to become a hermit who was anything but accustomed to “beauty routine” because of a disappointment in love, but there were also those who said that the old man did not want to wash himself for fear of falling ill.

Haji slept in a hole he had dug for himself, ate porcupine meat and drank water from puddles. Iranian News Agency, which broke news of Haji’s death pointed out how the elderly hermit had not bathed since he was just over 20 years old, basically since as far back as 1954. He was 94 years old.

Haji, covered in soot and living in a cinder-block shack, was reported by local media not to have bathed with water or soap in more than 60 years. Villagers said he had experienced “emotional setbacks in his youth” that led him to refuse to wash.

In 2014, the Tehran Times reported that Haji would eat roadkill, smoke a pipe filled with animal excrement, and believed that cleanliness would make him ill. Photos showed him smoking multiple cigarettes at once. But a few months ago, villagers had persuaded him to wash for the first time, Irna reported.

After Haji’s death, the unofficial record could go to an Indian man who also had not bathed for much of his life. In 2009 the Hindustan Times reported that Kailash “Kalau” Singh, from a village outside the holy city of Varanasi, had not washed for more than 30 years in an attempt to help end “all the problems confronting the nation”.

He would reject water in favour of what he called a “fire bath”. “Every evening as villagers gather, Kalau … lights a bonfire, smokes marijuana and stands on a leg praying to Lord Shiva,” the paper said.

Singh was reported to have said: “It’s just like using water to take a bath. Fire bath helps kill all the germs and infections in the body.”

• A Tell report / Additional reporting from The Guardian