Series - Letter to Common Man of India -I

Swacch Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India)

It is exciting to see the Government of India’s intiative on “swacch bharat abhiyan” or Clean India. Observing the news reports, the digital promotions, the “swacch bharat cess”, it seems like this mission is full of gusto and fervor.  Trust me, it does look like that when I talk about it while sitting miles away from India. But something bothers me. Infact, it makes me sad to know that we need to have a dedicated mission to clean our own country, motherland – Karam bhoomi (work place) and Janam Bhoomi (Birth place).

The issue of cleanliness is not new. In fact, this issue was raised by Gandhi ji and various other prominent leaders of that time, as early as, early twentieth century. It is a pity that we despite being an independent republic, a country that boasts of high cultural, economic and moral growth, need to have such a mission after all these years. It is a pity, that we insist of cleaning our houses every day, we feel outraged when our “kaam wali bai” or servant is on holiday. But we are not bothered about our surroundings. It questions our integrity. We have limited ourselves to four walls of houses, not just physically but mentally. We, the people of India, who belong to the oldest and most developed civilization of its own times, have de-evolved rather than evolving such that we need to be reminded of ‘cleaniness'.

Mistake not my friend, it is not the people from lower economic strata of the society who are doing this. The habit of living in an unclean environment is rampant across all sections of the society. In fact, it is amusing to read the autobiography of Gandhi ji where he mentioned his observation that toilets of higher caste people were dirtier than those of the lower caste people. It is prevalent even today and is not limited to education, economic or any other background.

In fact, we are so filthy, that we have a very interesting group called “The Ugly Indian”. A small group of people, though anonymous, are trying to make our surroundings clean. We teach our kids to keep surroundings clean. But as adults, we don’t respect the public property. What do you expect our kids to learn?

Also, think about this – how come this issue has been amplified to such an extent that everyone (from politicians to film stars) is trying to cash-in on it? Isn’t it a fallacy on our part – as a common man of India? Should our manifestos and development goals be limited to such issues in the 21st century? 

My aim is not to demean our society but to wake us all up from a deep slumber. This is one of many series of my articles to follow from now on. The aim of such talks to bring into open, the duty that we have as a citizen of India and of the world.