Ridam Arsh writes about the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan scheme.
“Cleanliness is Godliness”
At the individual level, this is a quotation that everyone is made to learn and follow since the Primary Educational level. Cleanliness is not a matter of Instinct, it is a matter of education and that is why every kid is made to inculcate a habit of keeping things clean and tidy and cultivate a taste for clean surroundings. At the General Public Level, every person likes to walk on a dust-free road, drive on a garbage- free road and breathe in a pollution-free environment.
Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan is a scheme started by Modi Government with the following statistics[1]:
19,598 PLEDGES TAKEN
962 CHALLENGES TAKEN
13,066 ACTIVITIES DONE
14,028 PARTICIPANTS
1,174,345 CONTRIBUTED HOURS
389 ACTIVITIES
Indian is a nation with an Inspiring youth that forms the future. Many Students, Teachers, Lecturers, Professors, Deans of various institutions; Employees, Directors of various Companies; Actors, Actresses, Comedians, Singers, Musicians from Bollywood and political leaders have shown their interest and contributed to the cause. Every person counts; every effort counts.
It was Mahatma Gandhi’s dream for a place to be called as Clean India. PMO India started the nationwide campaigning on 25th September, 2014. Every Office and Institution became part of this program and devoted their best of the efforts. This Abhiyaan is a means to fulfill the dream of the Father of the Nation by his 150th Birthday in 2019.
This campaign is a scheme that encourages people to clean their surroundings which shall otherwise have been a part of Human behaviour to keep the nation clean.
Figure 1[2]
Some of the intellectuals interpret it in a way that- “one needs to clean all the impurities of his mind and heart so as to achieve cleanliness”. Only when a person becomes free from impurities coupled with good thoughts, could he achieve other things in his life.
Had this scheme been implemented years ago, we would have been the Cleanest country in the world. Burma being at the bottom of the list of the world’s dirtiest countries, Sweden has the EPI score of 86 and Iceland has a score of 93.5 being the cleanest country in the world. India still falls in the Dark Red portions as per the Figure 1.
This campaign is free from any political motive and is an inspiration for every patriot to work towards the progress of his nation. It is a motivation to every patriot to take up a social responsibility like this and work upon the same. People moved out of their homes with the brooms and dusters in their hands to clean away the dirt and the garbage on the roads. This also bridges the gap of the backward and narrow minded thinking where it shall give a lesson to all that clean society is a collective responsibility and not of the sweepers. It is not a duty of a single person but all the people coming and uniting together to work for the common cause.
Untouchability which was a practice followed by a large number of people was also an impurity. In the olden times, the people involved in the profession of cleaning of latrines, manual scavenging and doing all such impure tasks were considered to be most impure of all. Now, in 21st century, not only we have disowned the practices of untouchability and caste- system, we have focussed on disowning the dirt in the minds of people around. There was a time when cleaning dirty stuffs was a menial job but now it is a matter of national concern and no one above, no one below, every person starting from the Prime Minister himself are involved in the drive of Clean Nation.
One of the major concerns has been solved with this campaign that is the problem related to the sanitation facilities. The Scheme has focused on the waste management techniques for improving and enhancing the sanitation of the country.
UNICEF reports that close to 600 million people in India defecate in the open.”India leads the world in open defecation. This crisis contributes to disease, childhood malnutrition, loss of economic output and, as highlighted recently, violence against women,” said Mr VinothRayar, founder and president, Fresh rooms Lifesciences.[3]
Sanitation in Indian cities is a neglected issue and with this movement, it has led to the construction of 1000s of toilets in the rural areas where people earlier used to defecate in the open areas.
Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan has not only led the nation to a step closer to the list of cleanest countries in the world but also a step towards a disease-free nation. A Healthy nation with Healthy citizens would improve the Human Development Index (HDI) [4]and ultimately lead to the progress of the nation globally.
Every citizen shall inculcate in himself a habit of clean surroundings. It requires nothing but just an omission to throw garbage in open and commission of picking up the same(if, any) and throwing it in the dust bins. Every bit counts.
[1] https://swachhbharat.mygov.in/
[2] ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-1202168
[3] http://www.biospectrumindia.com/biospecindia/features/220909/toilet-revolution-solving-india-s-sanitation
[4] The Human Development Index (HDI) is a composite statistic of life expectancy, education, and per capita income indicators, which are used to rank countries into four tiers of human development.
