Modi’s Swachh Bharat Campaign - Need for Common Man’s Participation
In his Independence Day speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made an earnest call for a clean India and urged the corporate sector to include sanitation and toilet construction for girls and women, as part of their corporate social responsibility.
Obviously, the prime minister’s call has grabbed attention of the people towards the basic problems of sanitation and accumulating garbage all around us. The corporate sector has responded positively and there are projections of a Rs 1.62-2.2 lakh crore stimulus to the economy over five years as a result of the PM’s call to build toilets.
Sanitation Stressed Time and Again
Yet this is not the first time that our political leadership has exhorted us to be a swachh society. Mahatma Gandhi had gone to the extent of saying that ‘Sanitation is more important than independence’. Jawaharlal Nehru had said that “the day every one of us gets a toilet to use, I shall know that our country has reached the pinnacle of progress”. Even our previous prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh had declared that “Good Sanitation should be birthright of all citizens”.
It is also equally true that we did initiate plans for better sanitation earlier too. Remember the Nirmal Gram project of the Central government? The project had set targets of providing toilet facilities to all schools and anganwadi centres by 2009 and access to toilets to all individual households by 2012. What happened to this project?
Sanitation Facilities Still a Dream
The Census 2011 report shows that about 113 million households in the country still do not have access to toilets. Last year, a Planning Commission’s evaluation study on ‘Total Sanitation Campaign’ pointed out that “out of 73 households per 100 rural households where at least one member of the family practices open defecation, 66 households are forced to do so due to unavailability of toilets, 1 household is forced to do so due to inadequacy of number of toilets and 6 households are doing so in spite of having toilets”. The study found that 36 per cent of households having toilets were still forced to resort to “open defecation due to lack of adequate number of household latrine, and only about 46 per cent Households had adequate water for flushing”. The study further showed that tap water was available in the latrines in only 3.61 per cent households!
Insensitivity towards Cleanliness
Isn’t it strange that we as society have largely remained insensitive towards the basic issues of sanitation and cleanliness? Aren’t we equally responsible for this garbage-filled society where we live in? Can we blame the government alone? Hasn’t throwing garbage in the streets, and parks become a common practice in our society? Don’t we show open disregard to the dustbins and litter around and urinate in public places (It is another fact that in public places dustbins are seldom found!). Don’t we spit openly? Don’t we pollute our rivers with toxic waste?
We ourselves have to be blamed for developing an insensitive culture regarding cleanliness and hygiene. This applies to all of us including the law enforcing agencies. Remember the policemen of our national capital region, who about two years back were on an overdrive to remove dark films from the window panes of cars? And then they just dumped the removed films on the road without even realising their contribution to the garbage piles!
The Planning Commission (which now the present government seeks to replace) attributes this insensitivity towards cleanliness to “Lack of awareness” and “established age old practice” for open defecation. Yet, this is only half truth. The truth is that sanitation is not a new concept in our country and the Indus Valley Civilisation, that flourished in the western and northern parts of India about 5,000 years ago, is a case in point. The early Bronze Age city of Mohenjo-Daro had hundreds of ancient wells, water pipes and toilets. Covered drains ran beneath the streets of the ruins of both Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa – two prominent towns of the Indus Valley Civilisation proving that we did have one of the most sophisticated urban water supply and sewage systems in ancient times too.
In ancient India our ancestors did accord importance to cleanliness and evolve systems of sanitation and drainage.
“Shoucha santoshatapaha swadhyaya eshwarapran idhanani niyamaha” (II Sutra 32) (“Cleanliness, happiness, penance, self-study and devotion to God are the five rules or niyamas”)
Chanakya went to the extent of offering details on maintaining hygiene and cleanliness in a chapter on Administration in his acclaimed book “Arthashastra” (4th Century BC).
Maintaining Hygiene: A Citizen’s Duty
Isn’t it amazing that there is a synthesis between science and faith on the matter of cleanliness? Science calls for cleanliness to avoid disease and to feel good. Religion seeks cleanliness to gain good karma and avoid bad karma. But, studies have shown that even religion-based cleanliness is increasingly marginalised in India. (Remember how the worshippers had to wade through overflowing drain because of a defunct civic body at Jagannath Puri – one of our four dhams – some time back?)
Yet a furore is created when someone (read Modi, as the Gujarat chief minister), made ‘toilets before temples’ remark!
We do keep our homes clean. So, why is it that we shirk our responsibility of keeping our neighbourhood clean? It is high time we ourselves start asking such questions instead of a Prime Minister telling this to us from the Red Fort, in front of the whole world.
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