The Clean India Campaign launched by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi symbolically on Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday though extremely laudable and possibly ambitious will approach a cropper. This is not a cynical or pessimistic outlook to a noble intention but a reflection of the stark ground reality that exists in India. The biggest stumbling block presently for a clean India are unfortunately Indians themselves who number a staggering 1237 million plus and growing literally by the moment with a meaningful section mired in poverty or hovering thereabouts. The reasons for a dirty and filthy India besides this has many facets and layers to it,besides the rural/semi-urban/urban complexities throwing up a conundrum of a vicious cycle of WHERE DOES IT START and WHAT IS TO BE FIXED FIRST and at which point of this vicious cycle do we launch to remedy this Gordian knot. When the Prime Minister of the country makes these announcements and picks up the broom himself, even if it tokenism, and it sends out a loud message to millions that the broom after all is not such a dirty tool and definitely not an untouchable. However,while he can exhort his fellow citizens to keep their surroundings external their homes clean besides AND MORE IMPORTANTLY littering less or not at all but administrative apathy for rapid/fast removal of rubbish and effective waste management is generally external the realms of the ordinary citizen. Even efforts by some municipalities and civic corporations to keep waste bins at strategic places in the public space has met with limited or no success because often the bins are stolen for gains by possibly the unemployed or professional crooks rendering a noble cause to waste. In the absence of such arrangements littering is not a choice but a necessity. Even those well intentioned citizens cutting across the spectrum are forced to throw up their hands when they see their city or town as one huge rubbish dump with a lackadaisical (bereft of energy or enthusiasm) administration to boot. Of course as is par for course for any large country there are huge regional disparities in either the cleanliness or filth quotient and again the reasons for that cannot be pinned down to any one factor, it is always a combination of factors. However, or what commonly cuts across all regions is the way we treat those who clean up our towns and cities and that OUGHT TO CHANGE,respect should be accorded because they do the most difficult jobs in very trying and challenging circumstances with accompanying derision and sometimes malevolence. Involving citizens Gandhi style is definitely a gleaming spark but it should also be remembered that on matters of cleanliness even the Mahatma was not very successful vis-a-vis the country possibly because he had a larger battle on his hands. For the poor for whom the next meal is an uncertainty and without a proper or no roof over their heads personal hygiene takes a backseat and cleanliness of their surroundings is definitely not an overriding priority, in fact the poor lord over their instant surroundings just as those fortunate ones with homes lord over their homes. The poor in India make up by some estimates 40 % of the population. For them a orbiter on Mars just does not resonate, or they peep at it as discrimination and possibly improper priorities even though the middle class pump their chests in nationalistic pride and why not when it is a home grown version heralding India’s complementary march. There are also obviously differences in the urban and rural milieu but the urban with its sheer numbers and fixed pressure of migration of humans is often more challenging for any administration. The CLEAN INDIA campaign is PREMATURE though WELL INTENTIONED and India and Indians are definitely not alert for this,however, as a concerned citizen one would like to be PROVED improper comprehensively and the Prime Minister’s efforts bear fruit for the whole country. The only assurance citizens can do is promise not to litter public spaces and that responsibility starts with every citizen but the rest of the act of cleaning up India is with the state which has to work through sections of the bureaucracy, or not the whole of it,that can stymie the best of intentions and the best of plans, often dragging it into a cesspool of stagnation or even regression. 2019 is the 150th birth anniversary of the Mahatma but one can wager a bet that Bapu may still feel let down though this is one WAGER that one would like to be on the losing side.
Source: cnn.com